Elizabeth White

Not the same as Elizabeth White

Biography

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Brewster-3317

Elizabeth was born to Francis and Lucretia Brewster in Bristol, England in 1630.[1]

Elizabeth came over to New England with her parents and siblings. They were in New Haven by 1640. Her father died in 1646, when the ship on which he was sailing back to England was lost at sea. Her mother Lucretia married Dr. Thomas Pell in 1647, and removed to Fairfield with him by 1650; Elizabeth and her sister Mary moved with them.[1]

In 1654 Lucretia and her daughters Elizabeth and Mary testified by affidavit in the bizarre trial of the lawsuit of Thomas Staples suing Roger Ludlow, for the slander of saying that Mrs. Staples was a witch. Witchery was big news in the New Haven Colony that year, and Mrs. Knapp had just been convicted of it and executed. The court found for Mr. Staples; perhaps the best that can be said is that no one else was tried for witchery as a result of this episode. A full account of this trial can be read in Schenck's History of Fairfield.[2]

Elizabeth, soon after 1654, married _______ White (some say Nathaniel, but provide no evidence.) Their children included Elizabeth, Mary, and Nathaniel White, all three are mentioned and receive bequests in the 1669 will of their mother Elizabeth's stepfather Thomas Pell. Their mother Elizabeth is not mentioned in Pell's will, strongly suggesting that she had died before then.[3] [4]

Children

Elizabeth White was likely born about 1656 in Fairfield, Connecticut Colony, where she was part of the household of Dr. Thomas Pell, the Fairfield man who purchased from the Indians Pelham Manor, Eastchester, and Westchester and who in his will set up his nephew as the First Lord of Pelham Manor. Her mother Elizabeth was the daughter of Lucretia and the late Francis Brewster and therefore became Thomas Pell's step-daughter when Lucretia married him. Elizabeth lived in Pell's Fairfield establishment with Mary and Nathaniel White, presumably her younger siblings.

Elizabeth and her siblings received legacies from Dr.Pell's will dated 21 Sep 1669.[2]

So what is their relationship to Dr. Pell? That section of his will is offers some insight. It reads:

Item - I give to my sonne (his wife's son) Francis French, all my tobacco, growing or not growing, in casks, or otherways made up in tools or twist. Item - I give to Nathaniel French two young cowes and one young bull. Item - To Elizabeth White I give the worst feather bed and boulster, one iron pott, six porringers, six spoons of alcamy, six pewter platters, one brass skellet, and fifteen poiunds more in goods or cattle, current pay, and two comely suits of apparel, one for working days, another for Sabbath dayes, with two paire of shoes. Item - to Mary White I give six pounds and one suite of aparell of serge, with two shifts, and wool for stockings. I give to Nathaniell White, an apprentice in some handicraft trade; and if it be for his advantage, to give tenne pounds with him out of my estate, not diminishing his twenty pounds, which is to be improved for his use. I give to Barbary my servant - I set her at liberty to be a free woman . . . and one flock bed and boulster, and two blancoats, a pair of sheets, and cotton rug, one iron pott, an iron skellett, six trays and chest . . . six porringers, two pewter platters, six pewter spoons or ye value of them, two cowes or the value of them.[3]

That wording suggests that Nathaniel, Mary, and Elizabeth White were in some way Dr. Pell's dependents. Subsequent activities in Eastchester support the explanation that the three were the children of Elizabeth Brewster, daughter of Dr. Pell's second wife Lucretia, and therefore his step-grandchildren.

The timing of the will, which refers to Elizabeth by her maiden name, establishes that she married after 1669. If she was born after 1654, as suggested by the testimony her mother gave under her maiden name in the slander trial in that year, that suggests she was married about 1672, when she might have been 17.

Origins

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Brewster-432

Francis Brewster[4] migrated to New England, settling at New Haven in 1640.[5] He was known as "Mr.," and his wife was "Mrs."[6] His wife's name was Lucy.[5] In the 1641 list, he is said to have had a family of 9.[8] [including servants]

Their children included:

3. Elizabeth Brewster b. 1630, Bristol , England , m. _____ White. She testified in the 1654 slander suit.

In his 1669 will, Dr. Thomas Pell left legacies to his late wife Lucy’s grandchildren from her first marriage to Doctor Francis Brewster, II (died 1646):

WILLS OF EARLY RESIDENTS OF WESTCHESTER CO., N. Y., 1664-1784. I, Thomas Pell, "In the Name of God, Amen." " Yt hath pleased ye all wise God, for many years to exercise me with much weakness of body, and having lately taken to himself my beloved wife Lucy " I make my nephew John Pell, living in Old England, the only son of my only brother John Pell, Doctor of Divinity, sole heir of all my lands and houses. Mentions "my brother's daughters." Leaves legacies to Abigail wife of Daniel Burr, Francis French, Nathaniel French, Elizabeth White, Nathaniel White, " my ancient maid Katharine Ryster." "I give these poor men their debts, viz. Joseph Patten, James Evens, Tho. Bassett, Roger Percey." Makes Daniel Burr and John Banks, executors. Witnesses. Nathan Gould John Cabell Dated Sept. 21, 1669. Liber i. P. 39. [2]

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References

1. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Brewster-3317
   1. Jacobus, Donald Lines, History and Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield.. 2 vols. (New Haven: The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Company, 1930-1932), Vol. 1, pp. 101-102
   2. Schenck, Elizabeth Hubbell Godfrey, History of Fairfield, Fairfield County, Connecticut from the Settlement of the Town in 1638 to 1818, (Fairfield, 1889), available free on GoogleBooks, Vol. 1, pp. 324-328
   3. Pelletreau, William S., Early Wills of Westchester County , New York, from 1664 to 1784 . . . a careful abstract . . ., (New York, 1898, Francis P Harper), pp. 1, 379-380, 390
   4. Bolton, Robert, History of the County of Westchester, from its first settlement to the present time, (New York, 1848, Alexander S. Gould), Vol. 1, pp. 523-524
   5. Find a Grave, database and images (www.findagrave.com/memorial/9011116/elisabeth-white : accessed 12 July 2021), memorial page for Elisabeth Bunce White (1625–1690), Find a Grave Memorial ID 9011116, citing Riverside Cemetery, Middletown, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA ; Maintained by Dale Sheldon (contributor 47251194) .