Thomas Meakins

Name Thomas Meakins Gender Male Birth? abt 1589 England Marriage 27 Jan 1607/8 Thorpe-Achurch, Northamptonshire to Katherine Greene Death[1] bet 1641 and 1651 Braintree, Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States Between move to Braintree and death of widow in 1651 "Thomas Mekins and Katherine his wife servants to our brother Edmund Quinsey" were admitted to the Boston church 2 February 1633/4 [2] They thus probably arrived with him on the Griffin in 1633.

Thomas was granted land in Boston in November 1635 along with his son Thomas. At a Boston town meeting on 21 March 1635/6, it is noted: "these former granted allotments were not built upon according to a former order made the 30th of the 9th month last [i.e., 30 November 1635], and therefore that they are free to be otherwise disposed of" with list of twenty-five names, including "Thomas Meakins the elder, and Thomas Meakins the younger"[3]

Thomas was admitted as a freeman on 9 Mar 1636/7. [4] On 6 June 1641 "Our brother Thomas Mekins the elder and our sister Katherine his wife were granted to be recommended to the church at Braintree." [5]

▼References ↑ Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995). ↑ Great Migration, citing Boston Church Records 17 ↑ Great Migration, citing Boston Town Records 1:9 ↑ Great Migration, citing Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1628-1686, 1:373 ↑ Great Migration, citing Boston Church Records at 34

Griffin (1633) The Griffin carried men of note including Rev. John Cotton and Rev. Thomas Hooker, whose company founded Hartford, Connecticut. Sailed: Jul? 1633 from Downs, England Arrived: 4 Sep 1633 at Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony

Passengers: ~200 (Full List) Rev. John Cotton - Theophilus Cushing - Bartholomew Greene - Gov. John Haynes - Rev. Thomas Hooker - Atherton Hough - Thomas Leverett - Edmund Quincy (servant Thomas Meakins) - Richard Risley - Rev. Samuel Stone - among others Resources: Primary Sources: Other information: Griffin (ship) Categories: Griffin (1633) Passengers | Great Migration Study Project _____________________________________________

Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England ...

By Massachusetts, p. 128-129 (free e-book).

Group of men around 20 petitioned and granted freeman status, with land granted not exceeding 10,000 acres to build and plant upon. Instructed to write Benedict Arnold. This granted provided that they build and get 10 families in 12 months.

p. 65 29th 3rd month 1644: p.66 deputy present Thomas Mekins (also Joseph Bachiler,William Perkins,Thomas Mayhew,Sam Dudley, Ste Winthrop. John Endecot, esq. was chosen govenor. John Winthrope was chosen deputy govenor. Thomas Dudley esq. was assistant and took oath. John Winthrope chosen assistant and took oath.

_________________________ A History of Old Braintree and Quincy, With a Sketch of Randolph and Holbrook by William S. Pattee, MD (1878) Thomas Meakins, petitioner of the Church of Braintree

Oct. 7, 1645. In answer to a petition of several inhabitants of the town of Braintree, the the approbation of this Court, to go and plant a town in the place where Mr. Gorton did live, it was granted, so as they take not up above 1000 acres and that much examination & serious consideration of yo'r writings w'th yo'r answer about them, wee do charge you to bee a blasphemos eneymy of the true religion of o'r Lord Jesus Christ & his holy ordinances, and also of all Civill authority among the people of God, & perticularly in this irusdiction. -- Mass. Rec. II., p. 51.

1645. This year twenty Families, (most of them of the church of Braintree), petitioned the Court for liberty to begin a plantation where Gorton and his company had erected two or more houses at Shawamet, some part of Punhom's land, but it was challenged by Mr. Brown of Plymouth as belonging to their jurisdiction. This he did without any order from their Court of Council, (as they declared afterwards, but out of some privite end of his own). It might have been of some advantage to the interest of the English on the frontiers of the Narrhagansit Country, but ofttimes regard to particular profit proved prejudicial to general good. For if there had been a plantation erected there by those of Braintree it might have been as a bulwark against the corruption in faith and manners prevailing in that part of New England about Providence, but it is to be feared that those parts of the country, like the miry places and marshes spoken of in Ezek. 47:11, are not as yet to be healed, but to be given to salt. -- Mass. Hist. Col., Second Series, Vol. 6, p. 414 These are the names of the above petitioners of the Church of Braintree: Stephen Kingsly, John Garing, Francis Eliot, Thom: Flatman, Henry Adams, Thomas Adams, John Sheopard, Henry Adams Junion, Samu: Adams, John Adams, Christopher Adams, William Vaysey, Richard Brackett, Christopher Webb, Edward Sparlden, Thomas Meakins, Nico: Woods, Robert Quelues, Thom: Barret, Daniell Shode, William Ellice, Deodatus Curtis, Thomas Waterman, Nathaniell Hermann, Humfry Grigs, John Hastings, George Aldridge, John Wheateley, Thomas Wilmet, Menry Madsley, John French, Arthus Waring. They being about twenty of the thirty-two subscribers free men. -- Mass. Rec. II, p. 128.

We shall here endeavor as far as we are able to give the names of the first settlers of the old town of Braintree, and the date their names appear on the town, parish and other records, that are now extinct. This enumeration is given for a few years over a century after the incorporation of the town. The date to some of the names we are unable to give for the reason that they are illegible. There are persons now residing in the territory that once comprised the town of Braintree, that bear the same name of those that are extinct, but descended from other families. It appears that some names were spelled in a number of different ways that referred to the same person. _______________________________________

http://genealogytrails.com/mass/norfolk/braintreehistory.html Thomas Meakins mentioned as a resident land owner at the time it was incorporated: BRAINTREE INCORPORATED Soon after this covenant was made a petition of the residents was presented to the General Court asking that they might be incorporated into a separate town, and on May 13, 1640, the Court enacted the following: "The petition of the inhabitants of Mount Wollaston was voted & granted them to bee a town according to the agreement with Boston: Provided, that if they fulfill not the covenant made with Boston & hearto affixed, it shabee in the power of Boston to recover their due by action against the said inhabitants, or any of them, and the town is to be called Braintree."

The town was named after Braintree, in the County of Essex, England. At the time it was incorporated in 1640 the resident land owners, most of whom signed the petition, were as follows: Henry Adams, George Aldrich, Samuel Allen, Benjamin Albye, John Arnold, Gregory Belcher, Peter Brackett, James Clark, John Clark, Thomas Clark, John Dassett, William Davis, Francis Eliot, John French, Richard Hayward, Thomas Jewell, Benjamin Keayne, Stephen Kingsley, Henry Maudsley, John Merchant, Thomas Meakins, John Miles, Henry Neale, William Needham, John Pafflyn, Alexander Plumley, George Puffer, Abel Porter, William Potter, Robert Scott, George Sheppard,, Thomas Thayer, Edward Tinge, Henry Webb, George Wright and Richard Wright.

Samuel A. Bates says: "Previous to its incorporation Quincy was called Mount Wollaston and Braintree, Monoticut. It took its name from the river which flows through it, and which is spelled in so many different ways in the ancient records that it is uncertain which is the correct one. It is now written 'Monatiquot.' Holbrook and a part of Randolph (perhaps the whole) were called Cochato, sometimes Cocheco. In one instance Cochato was called Beersheba. Tradition says that Randolph was at one time called 'Scadding,' but I have never seen the name on the records."

PETITION OF 1645