Phineas Pratt, I

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 19 January 2021), memorial page for Capt Phineas Pratt (1 Jan 1710–5 Sep 1779), Find a Grave Memorial no. 71869802, citing Main Road Cemetery, Granville, Hampden County, Massachusetts, USA ; Maintained by M Cooley (contributor 47154454) .

Notes for PHINEAS PRATT:

-- He was born and married in Cohasset.

-- After marriage, he moved to the western frontier near Worcester, MA. and then later, he or his descendants afterwards went to Connecticut and Ohio

-- A Tory royalist loyal to King George III before and after the Revolutionary War.

-- A founder of Granville MA.

-- He was a housewright. About 12 houses and cottages of early Granville still stand of fine architectural Georgian or Federalist architecture. By 1754, Granville had 75 families. By the American Revolution in 1776, the population of Granville had grown to 1126 persons.

-- Phineas held the first license for a tavern in Granville MA in 1755. The tavern was a place of central importance in the colonial era. It was where the people of Granville voted in elections, heard speeches, conducted business, and generally met, which is why they were called "publik houses". The townspeople were often royalists and did not support the revolution.

-- Phineas was elected as Selectman of Granville in 1754, 1755, 1757, 1758, 1759, 1765, 1766, 1767, 1768, 1769.

-- is Peter Pratt his nickname?

Father of Bernard Pratt, Constantine Pratt, Rhoda Pratt, Sarah Pratt, Gerard Pratt, Jared Pratt, Olive Pratt and Phineas Pratt.

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LOYALIST: Phineas Pratt, was a Tory who held a commission from King George III of England. Even after the American Revolution was over and won, he remained a loyal to England and refused to recognize the new government and tried to continue to collect his commission from England. (I do not know yet what he had been doing for the English crown.) It is said his revolutionary neighbours gave him a hard time for his loyalty to the King.

The Old Pratt house still stands in Granville MA between the Center and the Corners in Granville.

Phineas Pratt was one of the founders of Granville Massachusetts.

On Jan. 25, 1754, Granville MA was incorporated as a village. The area had been owned by an Indian name Toto, who sold the land to James Cornish of Westfield on June 10,1686 for 16 brass buttons and an old flint-lock gun. James Cornish then sold part of the land to Atherton Mathers of Sheffield, Massachusetts. Mathers later sold the land to 44 "proprietors" who purchased areas varying from 100 acres to 3500 acres in extent. (Note: The land was sold for good and loving considerations.)

The General Court of Massachusetts gave their approval with certain "zoning laws". "The settlers must within 3 years from the present session build so many dwelling houses thereon of 18 feet square and 7 feet stud at the least, as shall, with what are already built, make 70 in the whole; and have 70 families settled therein; and for each family have 6 acres of land brought to and plowed, or brought to English grass and fitted to mowing; and do also within said time build a meeting house for the public worship of God and settle a learned, orthodox minister." (From "Early History of Granville", a pamphlet given me to the library at Granville in 1966.)

By 1750 there were 76 settlers with families in the township. The meeting house had been built, but had burned down, and another was "a-building".

Nearby Springfield MA had been completely burned down and settlers massacred by Indians. Granville was a new settlement and survived the Indian massacres of the period of French and Indian Wars, probably due to its urged terrain, which kept the region from being used by natives.

The first settler to Granville MA was Samuel Bancroft who came from Springfield MA just before the massacre. Then came Daniel Cooley, Jonathan Rose, Samuel Gillet, Thomas Spelman, John Root, Ephraim Munson, Phineas Pratt and Thomas Brown. The next group was Jabez Dunham, Peter Gibbons, Johnathon Church and Asa Seymour.

From Durham, Connecticut came 24 men with wives and children to Granville MA. Among these were the Roses, Baldwins, Bates, Bartletts, Coes, Curtises, Robinsons, Parsons, Stewarts, Graves, Hitchcocks and John Tibbals.

GRANVILLE HAD THE FIRST BLACK PREACHER IN AMERICA: Elizabeth, wife of John Tibbals took a "bound-boy" Lemuel Haynes, whose father was a Negro and his mother a white girl. His parents abandoned him and as there were no children's homes in those times, the county "bound him out" as a sort of indentured servant. He was only 5 weeks old and told in later life how his mistress treated him as "one of her own". He was born in Hartford on July 18,1753 and lived with the Rose (Tibbals) family until the Revolutionary War days when Lemuel joined the army and fought along with his adoptive brothers John Tibbals Sr., John Jr. and David Tibbals at Ticonderoga. This Lemuel Haynes of Granville MA was the first colored Preacher ordained in America in the Granville Congregational Church. He married a white woman and died in1834. His life story is in a small volume called "Memoirs of Lemuel Haynes", by Timothy M. Cooley

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This Pratt line originated with Reverend Henry Pratt who was a Puritan imprisoned and persecuted in England. His son, Phineas Pratt sailed to America on the Sparrow with the Great Migration of Puritans to found the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Jared Pratt, a descendant of Reverend William Pratt, who was a first cousin of our Phineas through Reverend Henry Pratt, and also a Puritan. Jared Pratt became the father of four of the founders of the Mormon Church. Two of the Pratt sons became two of the first Twelve Apostles of the Mormon Church.

VIDEO of the Mormon Pratt Family: http://jared.pratt-family.org/general_histories/pratt-family-in-eng...

This is what was written to describe the Pratt men:

"They were men of sound hearts, firm and fixed resolution, and persevering effort. Their faith in God never wavered. They kept constantly in view the grand design of their coming to this wilderness. Their notions of religious liberty were far from being mere speculations. Their views were intelligent and rational. Their purposes were strong, their aims high. Their principles were not to be shaken by any temporal consideration; their consciences were not to be swayed by flatteries of frowns. They were determined to obey God rather than men."

Phineas was a builder and housewright; he moved toward Worcester, Mass., and he or his descendants afterwards went to Connecticut.