Henry “the shoemaker” Ewell

Biography

https://ewellfamily.org/american_ewells.shtml

Henry Ewell

At the time when the first Ewell set foot in America, in what is now Massachusetts, the first boatload of colonists had been there for approximately 14 years.

The earliest known Ewell to land in America was young Henry Ewell from the town of Sandwich, county of Kent, England.

From a search of the records of Old Church, Ewell, Surrey County, England, which are kept in the tower dating back to 1570, and a search made among the records of St. Peter's Church at Sandwich, England; it seems that Kent and Surrey Counties were the original home of the Ewell family in England. In the St. Peter's Registry are shown the children of John Ewell: Joshua, bp. 1611, Zecheus, 1614, John, 1617, and Sarah, 1617. Several leaves of the registry are missing -those which might have recorded the birth of Henry Ewell about 1615.

He reached the Plymouth Colony in 1634 aboard the "Hercules", captained by John Weatherby, Master. From the records, it seems that all of the colonists on board the ship were from the county of Kent. Henry was about 17 -19 years of age at the time, and was listed as an apprentice shoemaker or cordwainer as they were then called. Henry initially went to the town of Scituate, Mass., a town composed mostly of "Men from Kent." Later he was in Barnstable and then returned back to Scituate. Several years after landing, Henry married Sarah Annable, the eldest daughter of Anthony Annable and his wife Jane Monfort. Henry and Sarah had a family of eleven children. The records state that Henry was a serious church-going man.

From Richard’s History of Marshfield:61

Henry Ewell, the Colonial ancestor of the Ewells, was from Sandwich, in county Kent, England. He was a shoemaker, and came over in the ship Hercules, Capt. John Wetherby, in March 1634. he settled in Scituate, and was a member of Dr. Lothrop’s church. His name appears in an original manuscript, dated 1636, written by Rev. John Lothrop. In 1637 he volunteered and enlisted as a soldier in the Pequod war. He was a freeman in 1638. In 1639-40, he removed to Barnstable, Mass., with Dr. Lothrop, Anthony Anable, and others. IN Nov., 1638, he mar. at Green Harbor, Sarah Anable, dau. of Anthony Anable and his wife Jane, who came over from England in the ship Ann in 1623, bringing their daughter Sarah with them. henry Ewell, the above ancestor, returned to Scituate and died there in 1697. His farm was on the east side of Walnut Tree Hill, near the Amos Town and Shaw place, in Greenbush, Mass., back of Northey’s. His house was burned by the Indians in 1676. He sold to the Society of Friends land for a meeting house in 1678.

Check out James Hunter Ewell’s The Ewells in America and Some Allied Families, 1635–1990, published 1990.

The Ewell Family Historical & Genealogical Society392 has a web page at http://www.ewellfamily.org/
Their children include:

1. John Ewell (9 Mar 1639/40-31 Jul 1686)
2. Ebenezer Ewell (ca 1642/3-)
3. Sarah Ewell (ca 1645-)
4. Hannah Ewell (22 Jun 1649-)
5. Gershom Ewell (14 Nov 1650-ca 1717)
6. Bethia Ewell (Died young) (27 Sep 1653-8 May 1669)
7. Eunice Ewell (ca 1657-)
8. Ichabod Ewell (Jun 1659-26 Feb 1717)
9. Deborah Ewell (4 Jun 1663-)

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Henry Ewell family in “The Great Migration”

References

• https://mathcs.clarku.edu/~djoyce/gen/report/rr03/rr03_423.html
• http://trees.wmgs.org/familygroup.php?familyID=F989&tree=Schirado Cites
  • [S14] Plymouth Colony vital records, Transcribed by George Ernest Bowman.
• The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, Volumes I-III. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2010), (Originally Published as: New England Historic Genealogical Society. Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, Volumes I-III, 3 vols., 1995).
• Otis, Amos. Genealogical Notes of Barnstable Families (F.B. & F.P. Goss, Publishers and Printers, Barnstable, Mass., 1888) Vol. 1, Page 18 < Archive.Org >
• Reference: Ancestry Genealogy - SmartCopy: Sep 13 2018, 12:37:02 UTC
• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ewell-85