Samuel Bickford

"Samuel Bickford. Before his residence in this town [West Tisbury] Samuel Bickford had lived in Salisbury and Nantucket. (1) He had married Mary, daughter of our Edward Cottle, and followed his father-in-law hitherward as already detailed. The last record of him in Nantucket is in 1679, and in 1680 he was a witness to a document recorded here. (1) In 1681 he was called "of Tisbury" as defendant in a suit. How long he remained on the Vineyard is not known, and nothing further has been found to throw light on his residence here." (Banks, 2("Annals of Tisbury"), 67-68).

Page 67, Note 1. "He may have been the son of John Bickford of Dover, N. H., and the father of Jeremiah Bickford of Eastham and Yarmouth, Cape Cod."

Page 68, Note 1. "Dukes Deeds, I, 266. In 1678 Tobias and Thomas Coleman of Nantucket sell to Bickford 'an accomodation [of land] by us received of the said Bickford in a parsell of land at Mathews Vinnlard as appears by our deed from him.' In 1679 Bickford conveys the same property back to the Colemans (Nantucket Deeds I, 75; II, 27). There is no record of what this property was in any of our town or county books and doubtless it has disappeared with other of the early Tisbury records."

"Samuel Bickford appeared as a resident of [Tisbury] in 1680, having previously lived in Nantucket for several years and probably before that in Salisbury. He may be a son of John of Dover, N. H. and the father of Jeremiah of Yarmouth and Eastham. He m. Mary Cottle (3) but no descendants of his name remained on the Vineyard." (Banks, 3:42).

• Charles Edward Banks, History of Martha's Vineyard" (1911, 1966).