Enoch Greenleaf (abt. 1617 - 1683)

Born about 1617 in St. Margaret's Parish, Ipswich, Suffolk, England

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 1683 at about age 66 in Malden, Middlesex, Massachusetts Bay Colony

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Biography

Enoch Greenleaf immigrated to New England as a child during the Puritan Great Migration (1621-1640).

Enoch Greenleaf, son of Edmund, was born about 1617 in Ipswich, England, and afterwards lived in the city of York, England. He was a silk dyer, and was a lieutenant under Oliver Cromwell. It appears by the Town Records that "Among the original settlers of Salisbury, Connecticut (sic)^[1] No. 58 was Enoch Greenleaf. The whole number of settlers was 68, 3d day 13 mo. 1650 (Signed) Thomas Bradbury Recorder;" by which it would appear that he may have left the army of Cromwell after the battle of Dunbar (Sept. 4, 1650), going first to Salisbury, Massachusetts, and afterwards to Boston, Massachusetts, where his father and family were settled.

Enoch was in Mass. before 1640 but later lived in York England where he may have married and had several children before returning to America. He received land in Salisbury MA in 1640 and was considered one of the original settlers there. Records from the time period show him one of 68 inhabitants. He apparently returned to England to fight with Cromwell leaving the army after the battle of Dunbar Scotland on 09-04-1650 with the rank of Lieutenant. He became a silk dyer by trade. Quoted from the Greenleaf genealogy, "An interesting incident connected with the name of a daughter of Enoch Greenleaf may be mentioned. A particular friend and companion in arms with Lt. Greenleaf was a Major Rooksby. At the battle of Dunbar, Scotland...Cromwell routed the Royalists, and in his letter to parliamentsays: 'Not one commissioned officer was slain save one Cornet and Major Rooksby, since dead of his wounds.'

His father gave him a farm in Malden, in 1663, and he probably resided there many years, at least until the death of his father, in Boston, in 1671, when he probably succeeded him in business as hosier and dyer in that town.

Baptism: March 20, 1617/18, St. Margaret's Parish, Ipswich, Suffolk, England.

Sources

1. ↑ Note, error in original source; should be Massachusetts

• Hoyt, David W. The Old Families of Salisbury and Amesbury Massachusetts (Providence, Rhode Island, 1897) Vol 1 Page 15, page 197.

• Boynton, Mrs. Dorothy Greenleaf. "Sara, First Wife of Edmund Greenleaf." New England Historical and Genealogical Register. (New England Historic Genealogical Society, Jan 1968), 122:30. With NEHGS Subscription

• Greenleaf, James Edward. Genealogy of the Greenleaf Family (F. Wood, Boston, 1896) page 75.