Ellen Stone

2nd wife of John Stone

Elinor's place and date of birth are not known. Her birth date is estimated based on the date of her marriage to William and the baptismal dates of their seven children that are recorded in the Charlton Musgrove Parish Registers. (REF: "Chronicles of the Haskell Family: The English Background and First Generation" compiled by Mrs. Marion S. Anderson and published as a preliminary extract of a larger work in preparation in "The Journal of the Haskell Family Association", v8, #4, 1992.)

William and Elinor [Foule] Haskell had seven known children (the children 's "birthdates" are baptismal dates). Some recent family trees in the W FT series show an eighth child, John, born 1 March 1628/29 (an apparent twin of Joan) but there is no record to support this.

Probably in the spring of 1635 or 1636, John Stone, Elinor, and three of her Haskell children (Roger, age 21, William 16, and Joan 6) sailed from En gland (most likely from Bristol) and settled in the "Basse River" secti on (Cape Ann side, now Beverly) of Salem, Massachusetts. John Stone engaged in farming and fishing, but also operated a ferry across the Basse River between the two settlements. It is not known with any certainty whether John Stone's sons of his earlier marriage accompanied their father to New England.

Only some of the Haskell children made the passage from England to Massachusetts with their mother and stepfather. Cecille, age 19, stayed with h er uncle Mark and his wife Melior, who removed, by September 1635, to Pens elwood, the next parish east of Charlton Musgrove. On 30 July 1637 Cecil le married Edward Cobe of Wincanton at the Penselwood parish church. Of Dorothy, who would have been 12 years old, or of Elizabeth, who would have been 7 in 1635, no record other than their baptism has been found eith er in England or in The New World.

The youngest son, Mark, on 26 April 1635 was apprenticed by the Overseers of the Poor for Charlton Musgrove to John Whiting, a broadweaver of Shepton Mallet, Somerset, for a period of nine years. The overseers were pro bably acting "in loco parentis" rather than alleviating a poverty case. There are no disbursements to any Haskell and no record that William's widow or his children ever became a burden to the parish. By custom all orphaned or fatherless children were the responsibility of the parish. At a ge 14 or older a child was allowed a say in the choice of a guardian (or master in an apprenticeship). Since he was less than 14 when his mother was planning to take the family to New England with John Stone, we do not k now if he or his mother was allowed any say in his future or if the overse ers, backed by the parish courts, arranged the apprenticeship. The cleri cs of the parish courts were not likely to be Puritans, or were they like ly to look kindly upon emigrants. By April 26th, the date of his apprenti ceship, the family may already have embarked for the New World. Someti me between the end of Mark's apprenticeship and 30 Sept 1652, when he w as fined by the Salem Court for "wearing broad-lace", he had arrived in Ma ssachusetts and settled in the Basse River section of Salem. (Ref: the ab ove two paragraphs taken, with slight revision, from Howard V. Willia ms in the "Haskell Journal: Journal of the Haskell Family Society" v9, # 2, pp 558-576, 1993.)

• Immigration: England, 1636-1637, Salem,Essex,Massachusetts,United States.

GEDCOM Note

From Ancestral File (TM), data as of 2 January 1996.