John ‘the Puritan’ Ellis

Not the father of Lt. John Ellis of Sandwich

A John Ellis married Blandyna Masterson, sister of Richard Masterson at Sandwich, Kent, England in 1594 and had the following children: Christopher (1595), Mary (1596), John (1598, buried 1603), Susana (1600) and Thomas (1608). Both Masterson and Ellis were radical separatists and known friends of Moses Fletcher, James Chilton and other Mayflower passengers from Kent. They were in Leiden, Holland. One Christopher Ellis (assumed to be the man baptized in 1595) was still alive and living in Leiden in 1649 when Bradford wrote him a letter. So we have puritans in Leiden with the name Ellis from a place in England called Sandwich. (Slovak Yankee)

There was at least one branch of the ELLIS family whose opposition to the Established Church was so decided that it was not satisfied with being merely Nonconformist inside that church. Its opposition was so great that it joined the group called Separatists (later Pilgrims) who built a new church outside of the Established Church. In that branch John ELLIS succeeded in leaving England, went to Holland and was a member of Rev. John ROBINSON’S Separatist Church at Leyden. His occupation was wool-comber. We do not know how long he remained in Holland, but we know that he was in Leyden as late as March 20, 1619 as on that date he stated in a deposition that he was a witness Nov. 8, 1619 to the betrothal of his brother-in-law, Richard MASTERSON. The City Records of Leyden show that he was a witness Nov. 26, 1619 to the marriage of his brother-in-law Richard MASTERSON, who went to Holland from Sandwich, Eng. At the time of his deposition, March 20, 1619 John ELLIS was about 50 years old. Richard MASTERSON was stated to be a “young man,” that is, not a widower, and that John ELLIS of Leyden married before Easter, 1606 Blandina, a sister of Richard MASTERSON. It is apparent that John ELLIS was 37 years old in 1606, and that his wife Blandina was younger than he.

Links

• http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=agatha_1&...
• http://mhollick.typepad.com/slovakyankee/2009/06/madness-monday-joh...
• http://www.rockcreekexperiment.com/b3665.htm
• http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/m/a/x/Larry-A-Maxwell/GE...
• Richard Masterson, John Ellis, Christopher Verrall and the Sandwich Separatists 1603-1620" by Michael R. Paulick, NEHGR 154 (2000):353-369.
• [1360] Susan Durso, Gedcom database durn6ca (GenServ 4 Jan 1997. Jdurso5019@aol.com 145 Pleasant Dr. Brewster, NY 10509).
• [1909] Alan W. Benson, Gedcom database benson (GenServ 27 Dec 1996. alanbenson@delphi.com 220 W Jersey St. Apt. 2L, Elizabeth NJ 07202-1345).
• [1910] Charles Roscoe Howland, A brief Genealogical and Biographical Record of Charles Roscoe Howland: Brothers and Forebears (Rutland, VT: The Tuttle Publishing Co., Inc., 1946), p.179f.
• [1911] James A. McKane, Gedcom database mckaja1 (GenServ 28 Dec 1996. jim@mckane.waterloo.on.ca 192 Baker Street Waterloo, Ontario N2T 2L4).