Robert Sanderson, of Hampton, Watertown & Boston

Robert Sanderson

• Born: 1608, traditionally said: Norwich Norfolkshire England. More likely: Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire
• Died: 7 Oct 1693, Boston MA
• Parents: unknown. Probably the brother of Edward Sanderson and perhaps of William Sanderson
• Married: 1) Lydia 2) Mary, widow of John Cross 3) Elizabeth, widow of William Kingsmill

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Robert was active in the church, becoming a deacon of the First Church of Boston. He together with the Rev. John Oxenbridge, John Hull, his partner, and others established the first (gun) powder mill in Massachusetts in about 1675. A pair of silver cups made by John Hull and Robert Sanderson were estimated by Sotheby's for 300,000 to 500,000 dollars.

family

Married

1. about 1632 in London to Lydia; 3 known children
2. about 1642 in Hampton New Hampshire or Watertown Massachusetts to Mary, widow of John Cross of Watertown; 6-7 children
3. about 1681 in Boston Massachusetts to Elizabeth, widow of William Kingsmill of Boston; no children

Children with Lydia:

1. Robert baptized 26 Feb 1633 in London, England. probably died young.
2. Lydia baptized 21 Jan 1635 in London, England. Married Thomas Jones.
3. Mary baptized 2 Sept 1639 in Hampton, New Hampshire. Perhaps died young.

Children with Mary:

1. John born about 1642 in Hampton, New Hampshire. Died 1658.
2. Joseph born 01 Jan 1645 in Hampton, New Hampshire. Wife? had children?
3. Benjamin born 1649 in Watertown, Massachusetts. Married Mercy Viall.
4. Sarah born & christened 29 July 1649 in Watertown. Marrie Robert Darbey.
5. Robert born & christened on 22 Oct 1652 in Watertown, Massachusetts. by wife Elisabeth, he had, 1. Joseph, b. in Camb., Oct. 10, 1684. He had a 2d wife Hester.
6. Anne born about 1654 in Watertown, Massachusetts. Married Richard West.

also an unrecorded child Abigail.

biography

from Bond's Founders of Watertown:

SANDERSON. There were two early settlers of Watertown, of the name of Sanderson, viz.. Robert and Edward. What affinity there was between them, has not been ascertained.

ROBERT SANDERSON, and wife LYDIA, were among the first settlers of Hampton, in 1638, where they had dr. Mary, bap. Oct. 29, 1639. Soon after this he moved to Watertown, of which he was a proprietor, 1642, and where he m., about 1642, MARY, wid. of John Cross. [See Cross.] He remained in Wat. until about 1653, when he moved to Boston, where he was a deacon, and d. there, Oct. 7, 1696. July 20, 1650, he (then of Wat.) sold to Richard Swaine, a house and 10 acres of land in Hampton. Oct. 17, 1653, he,a silversmith, then said to be of Wat., bought land in Wat., of William Godfrey.
Chil. (after he left Hampton, by his 2d wife), 1. Joseph, b. (birth recorded in Camb.) Jan. 1, 1642-3. 2. Benjamin, bap. in Wat., July 29, 1649; [by wife Mercy, had, 1. Mary, b. in Wat., Nov. 29, 1677.] 3. Sarah, bap. in Wat., Jan. 18, 1650-1. 4. Robert, bap. in Wat., Oct. 8, 1652; [by wife Elisabeth, he had, 1. Joseph, b. in Camb., Oct. 10, 1684. He had a 2d wife Hester.]
Perhaps William Sanderson [120], of Wat., was a son of Robert, but his lineage has not been ascertained.

will

LAST WILL & TESTAMENT OF ROBERT SANDERSON, SR. Dated 18 July, 1693, presented 20 Oct. 1693

"I, Robert Saunderson of Boston, Goldsmith, confirm to my wife Elizabeth the covenant made before our marriage, and give her one-half of all my Household goods. The other half, after my wife's decease, I give to my son Robert Sanderson and to my Daughter Anna West to be equally divided between them. To son Robert the house he lives in, &c. After decease of my wife I give to my daughter Anna West the westerly end of tenement near the Mill bridge, and the Slaughter house and yard, and a Leanto and yard, and a tenement and yard.My dwelling house to son Robert, but if he die without lawful issue, then to daughter Anna. A tenement on the road to Roxbury to be sold to pay legacies; £10 to grandson Robert Darby; £5 to great grand daughter Abiah Beard; £5 to Joseph, son of Wm. Saunderson; £5 to grandson Joseph Jones; £5 to children of James Penniman. All the remainder of produce of said tenement to my grandchildren, the children of my daughter Anna West, my wearing apparel to son Robert, my son-in-law Richard West, and Brother Edward."

will comments

From Boston Evening Transcript Nov. 20, 1912. Page 24 of 36.

"These wills of Robert Sanderson and his widow, Elizabeth (--) Kingsmill Sanderson are a very interesting genealogical problem, so puzzling that Savage says of the former, "No blood relation of his, except brother Edward and son Robert, can with confidence be found in his own will.""

origins

From http://www.ksanderson.com/edward_sanderson_of_watertown_ma.html

Why do I think Edward and Robert Sanderson are most likely originally from Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire? Robert Sanderson said he was the son "of Saundersonne of Higham" when he registered as Robert Sanderson at the Goldsmith's Guild in London October 17, 1623. Higham Ferrers to this day is referred to by the locals as just Higham and it's the location of one of the few men in England at the time, with a family, using the rare old spelling of Saundersonne for a short time. It is the only Higham with a large,  concentrated Sanderson/Saunderson population in England in that time period (Northamptonshire had the most people using the Saundersonne spelling if you research the name on findmypast.co.uk, followed distantly by Yorkshire) that I have been able to find. Northamptonshire with Little Addington, Higham Ferrers, Rushden and Wadenhoe had Sanderson families living there for hundreds of years. One of the buildings of old Sanderson Manor in Little Addington exists to this day - the Manor Farmhouse - someone put a swimming pool behind it! (Read The Saunderson Family of Little Addington.) Yorkshire, well to the north, was the only other region to then have a large, concentrated population of Sanderson family members.

... According to Dr. Roger Thompson, who has studied the migration for many years and wrote about it in his highly regarded book on Watertown then, Divided We Stand, later emigrants left other parts of England for Watertown, compared to the first settlers through 1635 who mainly came from East Anglia. Thompson says on page 16 of Divided We Stand, "Watertown was not an exclusively eastern counties' plantation, however." Naming some of the early settlers Thompson continues saying "...families each year from other parts of England including the West Country, London, and Yorkshire." Thompson on page 12 says that most of the residents from East Anglia had already arrived by the time of the third and final "wavelet" from there in 1637. ...

No passenger lists with Edward and Robert's names have been turned up yet, and they did not come over on the ship Increase in 1635 as you will often see on the Internet - they are not on its passenger list. But due to records of Robert Sanderson arriving in New Hampshire and a supposed Robert Sanderson descendant's family records given to Rev. Longden for a pedigree search, Robert came over in 1638, and it is assumed to be as correct as can be determined at this time. It's doubtful the brothers came to North America any sooner as Robert Sanderson is recorded paying rent in London in 1638 and was working under George Dixon after William Rawlins passed in 1637. Robert was married to his first wife Lydia while still in England possibly as early as 1632.

... If Edward and Robert are who I believe they are, they were descended from a prominent man a couple generations before them named Edward Sanderson of Higham Ferrers (who left a will written in Latin in 1610 and a good estate when it was probated in 1610) who was also the brother of wealthy farmer George Sanderson of Rushden & Higham Ferrers. Edward Saundersonne was born the year after his grandfather's will was probated.

notes

From http://hausegenealogy.com/sanderson.html

   Before 1652, the Colonies had no currency. Only the king held the power to issue coins in the British colonies. But in 1649 rebels in England beheaded Charles I, leaving Massachusetts struggling to maintain its economy with little hard currency. So in 1652, the General Court approved establishing America's first mint, and John Hull was made mintmaster by the General Court of Massachusetts. When Hull was named master of the Mint, he took Robert, a more accomplished silversmith and whom he called "another godly goldsmith," into partnership. Despite this godly nature, Hull cut an outrageous deal with the British—his share in the profits of the mint was fifteen pence out of every twenty shillings—and soon he became the wealthiest man in America. His daughter Hannah married Samuel Sewall, who went on to become one of the judges at the Salem Witch trials (killing off one of our Wenk ancestors, JOHN PROCTOR). On the day of Hannah's marriage, Hull placed his daughter, as tradition says, in one of the scales and heaped silver New England shillings in the other. When the scales finally balanced, the wedding present amounted to £3,000! Robert did pretty well, too (rumor has it that later in life, he kept minting coins even after their contract with the British was up).

   Hull & Sanderson produced the willow-tree, oak tree, and pine-tree shilling used in the New England Colonies until 1683. A mint committee document dated 11 June 1652 recorded the oath of office created for the deposition of the mintmasters: "Itt is Ordered that the Oath here vnder written shall be the oath that John Hull and Robt Saunderson shall take as aequall officers In the minting of mony &c." The oath then began as follows: "Whereas yow : John Hull and Robert Saunderson are Appointed by the order of the Gennerall Courte bearing date the 10th of June 1652. to be officers for the massachusetts Jurisdiction in New England, for the melting, Refyning, and Coining of silver..."

   Customers brought in silver buttons, tankards, goblets, knives, old sword hilts, spoons and European coins which were melted down and converted into the coinage. Hull and Sanderson's fee was handsome—they kept one out of every twenty shillings minted—plus "wastage" (leftover scraps)—but their risk was great as well, because they were defying a restriction imposed by the English government which forbade private coinage in the colonies. But the Pine Tree Shilling was so useful in the colonies that the English government chose to ignore its existence rather than attempt to suppress its circulation—which was an important early step toward American independence.

• http://www.ksanderson.com/edward_sanderson_of_watertown_ma.html
• http://www.jeaniesgenealogy.com/2012/12/robert-sanderson-of-hampton...
• page 416 of Genealogies of the Families and Descendants of the Early Settlers of ...By Henry Bond, Horatio Gates Jones
• http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~silversmiths/make...
• http://miller-aanderson.blogspot.com/2011/07/robert-sanderson-1608-...
• http://hausegenealogy.com/sanderson.html
• page 1597 of New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial: A Record of the ..., Volume 3 edited by William Richard Cutter