Part of the Massachusetts Biographies Project
Jonathan Brewster
Jonathan , son of Elder William Brewster, was born August 12, 1593 , in Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, England, and came over in the ship "Fortune," 1621. He married Lucretia Oldham, of Darby, April 10, 1624, doubtless a sister of John Oldham, who came to Plymouth about 1623. She died March 4, 1678-79. There is some reason to believe that he had married before at an early age, and buried his wife and child by this marriage in Leyden. He moved from Plymouth to Duxbury about 1630, and from there was deputy to the general court, Plymouth Colony, in 1639-41-43-44. From there he removed to New London, about 1649, and settled in that part later established as Norwich, his farm lying in both towns. He was admitted an inhabitant there, February 25, 1649-50, and was deputy to the general court of the Colony of Connecticut in 1650-55-56-57-58. He engaged in the coasting trade, and was master of a small vessel plying from Plymouth along the coast of Virginia. In this way he became acquainted with Pequot harbor, and entered the river to trade with the Indians. He was clerk of the town of Pequot, September, 1649, and received his first grant of land in that town in the same month, from Uncas, Sachem of the Mohegans, with whom he had established a trading-house. At this latter place, which is still called by his name, Brewster's Neck, he laid out for himself a large farm. The deed of this land was confirmed by the town, November 30, 1652, and its bounds determined. In 1637 he was a military commissioner in the Pequot war, in 1642, a member of the Duxbury committee to raise forces in the Narragansett alarm of that year, and a member of Captain Myles Standish's Dusbury company in the military enrollment of 1643. He was prominent in the formation of the settlement of Duxbury and in the establishment of its church; sometimes practiced as an attorney, and was also styled gentleman. He died August 7, 1659, and was buried in the Brewster cemetery at Brewster's Neck, Preston. A plain granite shaft about eight feet high was erected in 1855 to his memory and that of his wife. The original footstone is still in existence and leans against the modern monument. No probate papers relating to his estate have been found, but bills of sale are recorded, dated in 1658, which conveyed all his property in the town plot, and his house and land at Poquetannuck, with his movable property, to his son Benjamin, and son-in-law, John Picket. His widow was evidently a woman of note and respectability among her fellow-citizens. She had always the prefix of Mrs. or Mistress, and was usually recorded in some useful capacity, as nurse or doctor, as a witness to wills, etc. Children, the first three born in Plymouth, the fourth in Jones River, the others in Duxbury: William, March 9, 1625; Mary, April 16, 1627; Jonathan, July 17, 1629; Ruth, October 3, 1631; Benjamin, November 17, 1633; Elizabeth, May 1, 1637; Grace, November 1, 1639, married Captain Daniel Wetherell: child, Mary, married George Denison, and Boradel Denison, daughter of George and Mary (Wetherell) Denison, married Captain Jonathan Latimer, April 6, 1721 (see Latimer III); Hannah , November 3, 1641.
Source: Genealogical and Family History of the State of Connecticut: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Founding of a Nation. Volume IV