Elizabeth Danforth

Not the same as Elizabeth Symmes

RECORDS OF THE DANFORTH FAMILY: EXTRACTED FROM THE REGISTERS OF THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST. MICHAEL FRAMLINGHAM, SUFFOLK, ENGLAND. BY CANON MARTIN W. BULSTRODE, M. A. THE MARRIAGE OF NICHOLAS DANFORTH IS ENTERED IN THE PARISH REGISTER OF ASPALL. A SUFFOLK PARISH ABOUT TEN MILES FROM FRAMLINGHAM. HIS SURNAME APPEARS THERE AS "DAMFORD". THE BRIDE IS ELIZABETH BARBER. THEY WERE WED 11th FEB. 1617/18.

Nicholas Danforth married in Aspall, Suffolk, 11 February 1617/8 Elizabeth Barber (from microfilm of modern transcript of parish register). She died in England in 1629.

They had 7 children(baptized at Framlingham, Suffolk):

1. Elizabeth Belcher,
2. Mary Parish,
3. Anne Bridge,
4. Thomas,
5. Lydia BEAMON {1635, Salem} (her name published as "Lidia Sanford"),
6. Samuel, &
7. Jonathan.

Notes

• While living in Framlingham, Nicholas Danforth married at about age thirty and was the father of seven children, one named Mary died in infancy. He was a protestor of the bigotry and oppression of the English rulers, and though not of gentry or considered wealthy, was a respected and trusted man who had served as trustee of the town and land properties. His signature bore that of "yeoman" indicating therein that he was not gentry but a freeholder of land. In 1634 he escaped England and its persecutors, coming to what was then called "New Towne" and arrived in Boston on September 18th on the "Griffin" - a ship from London which weighed 300 tons and carried two hundred passengers including his brother-in-law Rev. Zechariah Symmes (who later became minister of Charlestown) and his six children, three sons and three daughters ranging in age from six to sixteen. His wife, Elizabeth Symmes had perished nearly five years earlier in Aspall, Suffolk, England in 1629. (2)
• [27] The Danforth Genealogy by John Joseph May (1902) mentions an Elizabeth Symmes who was believed by some to be the wife of the immigrant Nicholas Danforth, father of Billerica, MA settler Jonathan Danforth. On p. 5 he writes, "The writer has no means of knowing from whence the supposition sprang that she was Elizabeth, daughter of Rev. William Symmes, of Canterbury, England, and a sister of Rev. Zachariah Symmes, second minister of the church at Charlestown. The entire absence of allusions to relationship between men so prominent as the Danforths and Mr. Symmes in their own writings and the sketches of them written near their own time is strong ground for suspecting the error of the guess; and the distance of Kent from Suffolk also throws discredit upon the theory." (3)

References

1. New England, The Great Migration and The Great Migration Begins, 1620-1635. “Nicholas Danforth.” Page 283. AncestryImage
2. http://www.framlingham.co.uk/Danforth.htm
3. May, John J. Danforth Genealogy: Nicholas Danforth, of Framlingham, England, and Cambridge, N. E. (1589-1638) and William Danforth, of Newbury, Mass. (1640-1721) and Their Descendants. Boston: C. H. Pope, 1902. Page 3.
4. http://www.frenchfamilyassoc.com/FFA/CHARTSWEB/ChartEA.htm
5. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=36878295