Mary Greenway

Our first family members in America were John and Mary Greenoway of Wiltshire, England1. They were members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony who settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1630. Little is known about John and Mary, however records indicate the following:

John requested freemanship on October 19, 1630, and he was admitted on May 18, 1631. Yes a "freeman" meant a voting citizen. Since the Puritan government was a theocracy, only members of the Church were eligible to become a freeman. One also had to be a landowner. John Greenaway's literacy & skills as a millwright place him solidly in the middle class so that he probably had the funds to pay for his own passage. If not, those skills would have been of such value to the colony that passage probably would have been paid for him.

John and Mary had 6 or 7 daughters. Some of their daughters were with them in the first years of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and at least two of their daughters stayed in England. Mary, who stayed in England, married Thomas Millett of Newbury2.

John and Mary survived their first few years in America and must have encouraged family members in England to join them because, within five years, two more of their daughters and their son-in-law Thomas Millett had landed in the colony.

John gave property to his daughter Ursula Greenoway because she had been an obedient, loving, dutiful, and faithful daughter and servant unto her aged father & mother. This seems interesting because it indicates how important family support was in these challenging times. It also shows that women became landowners early in America.

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Reference: 1) The American Genealogist, Whole Number 295 Vol. 74, No. 3, p. 193-195, July 1999,

ENGLISH BAPTISMS FOR THE GREEN(A)WAY FAMILY OF DORCHESTER, MASSACHUSETTS By Leslie Mahler

2) The American Genealogist , Whole Number 298 Vol. 75, No. 2, p. 81-93, April 2000, THE CORRECT ENGLISH ORIGIN OF THOMAS1 MILLETT OF DORCHESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, By Paul C. Reed, FASG, and Leslie Mahler