Alice Measure

Alice Homan Smith BIRTH 20 Nov 1629, England DEATH 20 Nov 1714 (aged 85), Lyme, New London County, Connecticut, USA BURIAL Meeting House Hill Cemetery, Old Lyme, New London County, Connecticut, USA Show Map, MEMORIAL ID 101817414 IMIGRATED to New England in 1635 on the Planter and later settled at Sudbury and Lancaster, Mass.

MARRIED John Tinker on December 09, 1649 in Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts and had seven children: Rebecca, Samuel, Mary, Amos, John, unnamed son and Rhoda Rookdey.

MARRIED William. Measure, an attorney of Boston in 1664. He died in 1688 in Lyme and was born about 1649.

On 31 May 1664, Alice was found guilty of fornication, being pregnant and fined 5 pounds. Her illegitimate daughter, Sarah, was born in 1664 at New London, died 9/11/1746 and was buried in S. Haven Presbyterian Cemetery, Brookhaven, Long Island. She married Jonathan Hudson 6/17/1686 at Lyme.

In 1663, much too long after the death of John Tinker, it became evident that the widow Tinker was "with child". Since this was not to be tolerated in a Puritan Community, Alice was forced to face the Court and be examined(29). It is not clear who made the complaint, but Alice admitted the circumstance and further shocked the community by stating that the father of her unborn child was the 21 year old son of the former minister, Jeremiah Blinman.

Alice paid a fine. In other Court cases there was frequently a choice of punishment, a woman could be forced to wear some sort of identification pinned to her bonnet proclaiming her sin, but for affluent sinners, the Court was satisfied to exact punishment in the form of money, the usual fine for "impurity" being £5. It is probable that the Court accepted Alice's statement about Jeremiah Blinman, as he too paid a fine of £5 in 1663.

But Jeremiah was not the father of the child, and we will never know why he was thus accused. The father was Lt. Samuel Smith, one of the commissioners of New London, and a married man. It was thought that a women in labor would be unable to lie about the paternity of her child. The Court so firmly believed this evidence, that it was sufficient to cause a man to become legally responsible for the financial support of a child when he was identified under these circumstances(30). Perhaps this was what led Samuel Smith to desert his wife and move to Virginia and finally the Carolinas, perhaps he feared the censure of his peers, but more likely he simply did not want to face up to such an unsettling circumstance.

Smith spent a great deal of time at the local Tavern and evidently talked freely as a result. When his wife, Rebecca, applied for a divorce on grounds of desertion, there were letters and depositions supplied that indicated that Samuel Smith had told numerous people that he must leave town before Mrs. Tinker's baby was born, as he was responsible(31). It would even seem that he took the daughter of the local Tavern owner with him when he left.

There were also documents saying Samuel Smith offered to pay a significant sum of money, a reward, to anyone who would take the child and deliver it to him, whether it was weaned or not. So it is the more surprising that several printed sources feign ignorance to the reason that Lt. Smith left town and even suggest that it was an act of self sacrifice on his part to allow his wife to marry another man. Rebecca Smith received her divorce in 1667, returned to her family in Wethersfield, and did indeed marry again.

Alice Tinker had a child in the spring of 1664. She then remarried before Jan. 27, 1664/5(32) to Attorney and Scrivener, William Measure. William Measure was born about 1636(33), died on Mar. 24, 1688(34) and his Inventory, registered in Boston, MA was dated July 27, 1688. Gov.E. Andros granted Administration to his relict, Alice, on Jun. 26, 1688. George Dennison, a magistrate of Stonington, CT, was ordered to appear at the Court at Hartford as a result of performing this marriage. Frances Caulkins speculated that it was because of the "scandalous behavior of Alice Tinker"(35) but in her book Miss Caulkins says it was because Capt. Dennison had received his commission from Massachusetts Colony and Connecticut probably did not consider that he had the authority to perform the marriage. What ever the case, George Dennison had a long history of refusing to submit to Connecticut authority, and it will be noted that he refused to appear before the Connecticut Court to answer these charges against him.

William and Alice [Smith] Tinker Measure took the Tinker children and moved to Lyme, CT. soon after their marriage. William Measure's name appears frequently in Town records and it is clear that he was very active in civic affairs. At a Lyme Town meeting on Jan. 18, 1680/81 William Measure was granted the license to run "an ordinary" or an Inn. At the same meeting "Mr. Wm Measure was chosen and Agreed with to keep A Schoole and to teach Children to Read Wright and Cost Accounting According to theire Capasitys" (36).

Amos and Samuel Tinker as well as Alice and William Measure obtained land from the Town of Lyme "by grant". It was by right of John Tinker, who must have been a proprietor of Lyme, as in later divisions of the town property, descendants of John Tinker received headrights by virtue of being descendants of John Tinker. John Tinker Jr. never claimed the land in Stonington or Groton that was put in trust for him by his father, and that land was sold years later by Samuel Tinker with approval of the Court(37).

John Tinker Jr does not appear in any record after the death of his father. So on Jun. 18, 1688 when Amos Tinker presented a grievance at a Lyme Town Meeting because his brother John Tinker, deceased, had not received his portion of the land in the fourth division, the fact that the Town did grant land to John Tinker (Jr) indicates "head rights"(38). At a much later date land was laid out in the right of Mary as "daughter of John Tinker"(39). This was after Mary's death and the only reason for mentioning her father would be to establish her right to the land. It is something of a mystery that William Measure did not marry Alice before the birth of Sarah, but possibly as long as Alice remained the legal widow of John Tinker, the law looked upon all of her children as children of John. Sarah [Tinker] Hudson, claimed her "headright" in land of the fourth division of Lyme by virtue of being "daughter of John Tinker"(40). All of John Tinker's heirs received grants of land in Lyme, with the exception of Rhoda. The only knowledge of Rhoda is her birth and mention of her in her father's will. -From the NEGHS Register, vol 149.

Parents John Smith Mary NN Smith

Spouse John Tinker, 1613–1662

Sibling Richard Smith

Children Rebecca Tinker DeWolf, 1650–1722 Mary Tinker Stanclift, 1653–1712 Amos Tinker, 1657–1730 John Tinker Unnamed Tinker Samuel Tinker, 1659–1733 Rhoda Tinker

Sarah Tinker Hudson, 1664–1746

GEDCOM Note

Category: Lyme, Connecticut, Category: Meeting House Hill, Old Lyme, Connecticut
Diary of Joshua Hempstead of New London, Connecticut, covering a period of forty-seven years from September, 1711, to November, 1758. New London, Conn. : New London County Historical Society, 1901. https://archive.org/stream/diaryofjoshuahem00hemp#page/40/mode/2up Page 40.</ref>

Notes
That Alice, daughter of John Smith of Lancaster was she who married, first, John Tinker on 9 December 1649 in Boston, Massachusetts is from a 1981 article by Keith M. Seymour, which also cites Hempstead's Diary: she died on 20 November 1714 "a very aged woman of eighty-four years to the day", which indicates she died on her birthday.<ref>Keith M . Seymour,https://www.americanancestors.org/databases/american-genealogist-th...

The Four James Smiths in the Coventry-Bolton Area] in The American Genealogist, Vol 57Page 233 (subscription)</ref> Seymour did not explain how he identified Alice's parents. The complete passage from Joshua Hempstead's Diary reads as follows (dates in November 1714):<ref name=Hempstead/>

Saturd 20 fair pleasant. I workt at Capt Jno Prentts's al day & Joshua. Ms Measurs Amos Tinkers Mother died. little wind. Sund 21 Some Snow at night Cloudy. Mr adams Preached al day. In ye forenoon I was out at Amos Tinkers & Josh. We made ye Coffin for his Mothr. Very aged woman of 85 years to a day. She was buried between Meetings.

: If she died on her birthday, then why is her birth date and death date different above?

References

1. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/101817414/alice-homan-smith
2. See pages 421 and 422 of the same Oct 1995 NEHGR article Vol 149 that had the Appendix about Sarah (Tinker) Hudson that was uploaded to this profile's Source Tab 19 Dec 2023. (document attached)