Constance Crosby

Constance Brigham and her sister Ann, eight years her junior, were raised in Holme upon Spaulding Moor, Yorkshire, England, situated about 10 miles from the River Homden and 25 miles from the North Sea, about halfway between York and Kingston upon Hull. At the age of 20 in 1622, Constance married our ancestor, 26-year-old Robert Crosby. After a few years (no more than a dozen) had elapsed, Ann married a distant cousin of Robert: Symon Crosby. All these events occurred in Holme upon Spaulding Moor and involved hometown people.

Meanwhile, England was relentlessly descending into the chaos of a civil war that mirrored the Thirty Years War on the continent of Europe.(1) The source for the following emigration story is The Fay Family Homepage Genealogies, created by Ken and Susan Jean Fay Barbi, 1809 View Top Court, Annapolis, MD 21401-5873, phone (410) 757-5044 [Copyright 2001], citing source "WFT Pedigree number 893." The information about the Reverend Ezekiel Rogers, who would later join the emigration and become minister in Rowley, Massachusetts, where Constance settled, comes from Cotton Mather (in his Magnalia Christi Americana [1702, rpt. 1852, New York, 1967], I, 409, quoted in Fischer, David Hackett, Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 56).

To close this footnote, click the number again or click (Close) At the same time, the agents of Established Church of England were making life very difficult for "Puritans," those who wished to "purify" the Church of its "papalist" trimmings. Most of the Puritan agitation was in the East Anglia region around Cambridge, but in the early 1600s, the Reverend Ezekiel Rogers, from Wethersfield in East Anglia and educated at Cambridge, moved to Yorkshire as a Puritan missionary "in the hope that his lively ministry might be particularly successful in the awakening of those drowsy corners of the north." Soon there were other Puritan ministers converting the young of Yorkshire.

In the spring of 1635 a small party of Yorkshire adherents of Rev. Thomas Shepherd, who had been preaching in Buttercombe, a few miles north of Holme upon Spalding Moor, decided to migrate with him to New England, and went to London to embark. This group included Constance's sister, Ann Brigham Crosby, aged 25; Ann's husband, Symon Crosby, 26; their 8-week-old baby, Thomas Crosby; their first cousin, Thomas Brigham VI (son of John and Constance Watson Brigham, uncle and aunt of Constance and Ann), 32. On 18 April 1635, they sailed on the Susan and Ellen for a new life in Governor John Winthrop's Massachusetts Bay Colony. To board the ship they needed to be included in the following certification:

"VIII April 1635. Theis under written are to be transported to New England imbarqued in the Susan and Ellen, Edward Payne Mr (Master). The p'ties have brought certificates from y Ministers and Justices of the peace y they are no subsidy men; and are conformable to y orders and discipline of the Church of England. "

The perilous voyage took about two months. Though Constance was not listed on this voyage, she and her husband, with their three surviving children, must have emigrated soon afterward: not before 1634, since the youngest of the children, Hannah, was born in that year in Holme upon Spaulding Moor; and not after 1642, since Constance's husband, Robert, probably died in Rowley, Essex County, Massachusetts, in that year or earlier. Actually their leaving England was probably not after 1637, since the government severely restricted emigration in that year.

(Handwritten notes on a pedigree chart by Mary Caroline Findley Edmands, 1887-1970, or her daughter, Ethel Jean Edmands Weeks, 1909-2005, state: "Constance Brigham Crosby came over from England as a widow with Mary and two other young children." This contradicts Lander's research and indicates that Robert Crosby had already died (the handwritten notes indicate that he died in 1640, not 1642) in England, and that widow Constance must have immigrated no earlier than 1640. The other children would be Jane and Hannah, since the boys John and Robert junior had already died. )

"Thomas Brigham and Isabel Watson of Holme on Spaulding Moor, Yorkshire, England" (http://members.tripod.com/~Troutwind/brigham.html), also constructed by William Lander (copyright 1998 by William C. Lander), has different dates for Constance: "b. abt. 1604 Holme-on-Spaulding Moor, Yorkshire, Eng., and died on 25 Jan. 1683/84 Rowley, Essex Co., MA." from a citation of "The Watson Ancestry of Constance (Brigham) Crosby of Holme-upon-Spaulding-Moor, Yorkshire, and Rowley, Mass., and Notes on the Southeron and Millington Families," Walter Lee Sheppard, The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, v. 120, 1966, pp. 21-25; Essex County Quarterly Court Files, v. 21, leaf 45.

Constance was 80 when she died. William Lander has different dates for Constance: "b. abt. 1604 Holme-on-Spaulding Moor, Yorkshire, Eng., and died on 25 Jan. 1683/84 Rowley, Essex Co., MA." from a citation of "The Watson Ancestry of Constance (Brigham) Crosby of Holme-upon-Spaulding-Moor, Yorkshire, and Rowley, Mass., and Notes on the Southeron and Millington Families," Walter Lee Sheppard, The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, v. 120, 1966, pp. 21-25; Essex County Quarterly Court Files, v. 21, leaf 45.

See http://www.milkcanpapers.com/brigham5.html for more information.

Sources on Constance Brigham Crosby:

   * John Crosby of Styllingfleet, Yorkshire, England, b. about 1440, which was constructed by William Lander, 176 Gieger Rd., Cleveland, TN. 37312 (E-mail: WLander@aol.com), © 1998 by William C. Lander. Mr. Lander provided these sources:

1. Guardianship of Robert Crosby, and the last assignment of administration of the estate of John Crosby, were apparently from Perorogative and Exchequer of York Wills, v. 29, p. 453.
2. Essex County Quarterly Court Files, v. 21, leaf 45: Petition to the court, dated Ipswich, 4:3:1674, "Constance Crosbie Grandmother to this orphan Sarah Longhorne understanding that Daniel Wickham is like to be perswaded to accept of Guardianship for her: I thinking that the had need of one that hath more experience to oversee here and for other reasons I am very unwilling & doe desire that such a thing may not be proceeded in or granted till Thomas Longhorne of Cambridge, her uncle, knowes and gives his consent for he takes more care of the children than I expected he would have done; not more at present, your poor & humble servent & handmaide."
3. Walter Lee Sheppard, NEHGR, v. 20, 1966, pp. 21-25: "The Watson Ancestry of Constance (Brigham) Crosby of Holme-upon-Spalding Moor, Yorkshire, and Rowley, Mass., And Notes on the Southeron and Millington Families."
4. Paul W. Prindle, NEHGR, v. 119, 243, 248, Oct 1965, The Yorkshire Ancestry of the Three Crosby Sisters of Rowley, Mass.
5. New England Family History, Henry Cole Quimby, v. 1, p. 103: "Crosby, Mary, born 1628, married 16, 11 mo., 1647, Richard Longhorne."
6. Eleanor Davis Crosby, Simon Crosby the Emigrant, 1914.
7. G. B. Blodgette, Early Settlers of Rowley, Massachusetts, revised and edited by Amos E. Jewett: "... three of Robert Crosby's daughters married Rowley men and left descendants: Jane Crosby married 29 Oct. 1644 John Pickard and had eight children. All of whom married; Mary Crosby married 16 Jan 1647/8 Richard Longhorne and left four surviving married daughters, and Hannah Crosby married 6 Dec 1655 Capt. John Johnson and had three married children and many grandchildren" [this from Prindle, "Yorkshire Ancestry..." see above.
8. Note: Most American works in the 20th century concerning the Crosby/Brigham and allied families of Holme-upon-Spaulding-Moor, Yorkshire are founded upon the work of Dr. Joseph Gardner Bartlett and his wife Elizabeth French Bartlett, both professional genealogists, and both productive members of the NEHGS. Dr. Bartlett died in 1927 and his widow combined his mss. collection with her own. After her death in 1961, their combined collections were acquired by the NEHGS as the "Bartlett Collection, SG/BAR/86. Dr. Bartlett did the English research for Eleanor Davis Crosby's Simon Crosby the Emigrant, submitting to Mrs. Crosby a 237-page typewritten report. Both NEHGR articles quoted here made extensive use of the Bartlett Collection as their source. Carton 3 of the Bartlett Collection contains carbons of the report by Dr. Bartlett to Mrs. Crosby along with many charts outlining the collateral families associated with this Crosby line in Yorkshire.
9. Burke's American Families of English Ancestry [gives the line of Simeon Crosby of Cambridge, fourth cousin of Robert Crosby. This Simeon married Ann Brigham, the sister of Constance Brigham who m. Robert Crosby. Robert and Simeon Crosby were both g-g-g grandsons of John Crosbye 1440-1502, the earliest known progenitor of the Crosby line.].
10. Burial of Constance - v. 22, Essex Hist. Coll., pp. 220-231.
* Mary Caroline Findley Edmands, 1887-1970,.

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