John Blackleach

John Blackleach was born by about 1605, based on estimated time of marriage. Merchant & innkeeper from London, who came to Massachusetts Bay in 1634 & first settled in Winnisemmett. Moved to Salem MA by 1635, Boston MA by 1645, New Haven CT by 1658, Hartford CT by 1660, & Wethersfield CT by 1665. Died in Wethersfield, 23 Aug 1683.

Married by 1630, Elizabeth Bacon, baptized at Stepney, Middlesex, 6 Aug 1609, daughter of Robert & Christian (Locksonne) Bacon. She was admitted to the Salem church on 17 May 1638 (with later annotation "removed"). She died at Wethersfield, 20 Jul 1683. 

They had 12 children: Elizabeth, John, Mary, Desire, Exercise Raser Hodges, Joseph, Eliza[beth], Benoni, Elizabeth Stedman Dunk, Solomon, Solomon again, & Mary Jeffries.

biography

From Research Project by Bryson Cook

LONDON:

• John was a merchant, and as such was in many places his whole life. One of the first records about him was at London's Court of High Commission on 12 June 1634 when he did not appear in court. Two days later on 14 June 1634 it was testified that the defendants Nicholas and Mary Carew were in no way schismatically (religeously) affected at the house of John Blackleech in Angel Alley, Bishopsgate Street. After several other court records, including an order for his release from prison on 19 June 1634 for unorthodox religious practices, In February 1635 he again was not there for his court date, and was ordered "to be attached, and his bond to be certified." When he failed to appear his property was seized and his bond forfeited. (John Bruce, ed, "Acts of the Court of High Commission," Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Charles I, 1634-1635. Preserved in Her Majesty's Record Office 1864, 7:113,116, 119, 123, 259, 277, 328, 549.)

SALEM and BOSTON:

• That very month he appeared as a seller on a piece of property at "Winesemet" near Boston.He also appeared in Salem in 1634 as a resident (Chamberlain, History of Chelsea (supra, note 3), 1:11.)
• He was in many towns in New England
• Took the Massachusetts freeman's oath on 6 May 1635. (Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, Ed., Records of the Governor and Council of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1: 371.)
• February 1636 granted a 300 acre farm at Long Marsh (Beverly) (Salem Town Records)
• Deputy from Salem to the General Court (History of Salem 1:352, by Perley)
• Various records show they were in Salem until 1645
• In Boston 1646 land record, vital records until 1649 as mentioned in Elizabeth's father's probate.
• Did Business in Wethersfield and Hartford in 1848. In 1658 he was at New Haven and moved to Harford before March 1661when he purchased 28 acres plus a homestead at Hartford.
• In 1662 he bought land at Wethersfield where they probably lived until their deaths. (NEHGR Vol 184, pp. 7-21) Research Project by Bryson Cook, 193 Campbell Rd, Bedford, N.H. 03110, Oct. 2004.

HARTFORD, CT:

• "Mr. Blackleach and wife being removed to live at Hartford desired their dismission unto that church, which was consented to by the Church here and sent them by the Elders." Dated Oct. 1660, (Records of the First Church in Salem, Mass, FHL 974.45/S1 K2r, p. 92.)

DEATH:

• He died at Wethersfield, Conn. Aug. 23, 1683. Will, dated at Boston 16 Aug. 1671 (Mass. Not. Rec. Book IV, 91.) Beq. to wife Elizabeth, sons Johm, Benony, and Solomon, daus. Elizabeth and Marie. (Reg. XXXVI, 189.) His history in America and death found in The Pioneers of Mass, by Charles H. Pope, FHL 974.4 D2p, p. 52.

notes

John was an active worker for the improvement of the Indians.

• Occupation: Deputy, representative and merchant
• Property: Had a grant of 300 acres of land in 1636.
• Residence: Boston and Salem, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut

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On 27 February 1634/5, Samuel Maverick, John Blackleach, and their wives sold "a massuage called winesemet," [this is modent day Chelsea, Massachusetts.] but the first mention of John's presence in New England seems to be as a merchant in Salem in 1634.

See NEHGS Register, Vol. 148, pp. 7ff (1994) for sources for John Blackleach.

John Blackleach was baptized in the Wapping area of London.

From "The Copartnership Herald", Vol. II, no. 22 (December 1932)

St. John's Church, Wapping. Demolished in 1790. The name of Wapping was at one time borne by two hamlets, and the one situated away from the river was distinguished as Wapping-Stepney from being in that parish, and which afterwards, in 1727, was formed into the parish of St. George-in-the-East. The other hamlet, which was constituted a parish in 1694 by an Act of Parliament, had been previously a hamlet of Whiteehapel, and was reckoned to be in size one-eighth of the area of its mother parish. A chapel dedicated to St. John the Baptist and con secrated 7 July 1617, had been erected at the expense of the inhabitants and several citizens of London, then became the parish church. It was rebuilt in 1756, and demolished in 1790 when the present church, dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, was erected. The illustration [above right] shows the old church, the architecture of which is somewhat peculiar, its general aspect being somehow suggestive of Dutch or Scandinavian taste. It will be observed, too, that the burial mounds in the churchyard are decked by a kind of pall of a network of flowers, which is not a familiar custom.

"Friday, 24 July 1629. King Charles having hunted a stag or hart from Wanstead in Essex, killed him in Nightingale Lane in the hamlet of Wapping in a garden belonging to one who had some damage among his herbs by reason of the multitude of people there assembled suddenly."

After the chase, which may reasonably be supposed to have been through Leyton, Old Ford and across Stepney Fields - only six or seven miles - tradition has it that the King, in his saddle, took a refreshing draught of ale at the Red Lion Inn at Wapping.

• Family Group Sheet for John Blackleach and Elizabeth Bacon
• http://www.genealogy.com/ftm/m/i/l/Margaret-R-Miller/GENE3-0016.html
• http://johnlisle.us/genealogy/getperson.php?personID=I80673&tree=st...
• Find A Grave Memorial# 38451499
• page 509-510 of Entertaining Satan : Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England ... By John Putnam Demos Samuel Knight Professor of History Yale University
• page 569 of The American Historical Register, Volume 1
• page 242-243 of "Genealogy of the Puritans" in A Catalogue of the Names of the Early Puritan Settlers of the Colony of ... By Royal Ralph Hinman
• page 103 of Families of Ancient Wethersfield, Connecticut By Henry R. Stiles.  "Children (of John and Elizabeth Blackleach, as given by Savage, I, 189)"
• page 189 of A GENEALOGICAL DICTIONARY OF THE FIRST SETTLERS OF NEW ENGLAND, SHOWING ...By JAMES SAVAGE