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Unknown (Unknown) Anthony

Unknown [uncertain] Anthony formerly [surname unknown] aka Potter [uncertain]
Born [date unknown] [location unknown]
Daughter of [father unknown] and [mother unknown]
[sibling(s) unknown]
Wife of — married [date unknown] [location unknown]
Descendants descendants
Died before [location unknown]
Profile last modified | Created 12 Sep 2010
This page has been accessed 700 times.
The Puritan Great Migration.
Unknown (Unknown) Anthony migrated to New England during the Puritan Great Migration (1621-1640).
Join: Puritan Great Migration Project
Discuss: pgm

Contents

Biography

The wife of John Anthony and the mother of his children, is currently unknown.

Please read the full analysis concerning the unknown name of John Anthony's wife and why a Susanna or Susanna Potter is not being listed as her name, here: : Unknown Susanna Potter Anthony.

It has generally been thought that

  1. John Anthony's wife was named Susanna, and that
  2. she was the daughter of Robert Potter or George Potter (abt.1584-1630).

Currently there is not enough direct/primary evidence to make either claim. She therefore is Unknown (Unknown) Anthony.

Disputed Name and Marriage

Please read the full analysis concerning the unkown name of John Anthony's wife and why a Susanna or Susanna Potter is not being listed as her name, here: Unknown Susanna Potter Anthony.

The following three pieces of information seem to be the evidence on which many people make the claim that a Susanna Potter married John Anthony:

1) There existed a Susanah Anthony who lived in early Rhode Island, as found in a deed in which John Anthony of Portsmouth sold land to Richard Tew in 1642. One of the witnesses to the deed was "Susanah Anthony."[1] However, there is no indication as to what, if any, the relation between the said Susanah Anthony and John Anthony might have been: parent/child, siblings, spouses or no relation.

2) In Austin's Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island, under the entry for Robert Potter,[2] there are unsourced references concerning Robert Potter and his relationship to John Anthony on pp. 156-57 from which people may draw the conclusion that John Anthony's wife was a Potter. (Also see the entry for John Anthony.[3]

Concerning the above relationships, Anderson didn't believe there was enough evidence to draw any conclusion about a possible relationship among them.[4]

3) John Anthony's oldest son was apparently named after himself (as he was named John) and his oldest daughter was named Susannah (possibly after her mother?) and there are many descendants who carried the name Susanna. However, it seemed to be a popular name as others in the family had it, such as John Anthony's son, John, married a Susanna.

In NEHGR 31:416, the entry of John Anthony says that he sailed to America on the barque Hercules. "Tradition says he was accompanied by his wife; but we find her name nowhere mentioned."[5]

Torrey Lists a marriage between John Anthony and a "Susanna [Potter?]; by 1642; Portsmouth, RI."[6] (Please read the full analysis of Torrey's sources here that show none of the sources had evidence of any such claim: Unknown Susanna Potter Anthony.)

Death

The death of John Anthony's wife, whoever she was, most likely occurred before John wrote his will, 23 Jul 1675, as he mentions children, but no wife.[7]

Sources

  1. Dorothy Worthington, Rhode Island Land Evidences, Volume I, 1648-1696, Abstracts (Providence: Rhode Island Historical Society, 1921); image of p. 65 at InternetArchive.org
  2. John Osborne Austin, Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island: Comprising Three Generations of Settlers Who Came Before 1690 : With Many Families Carried to the Fourth Generation, (Albany: J. Munsell Sons, 1887), pp. 156-57; image of pp. 156-57 at InternetArchive.org.
  3. John Osborne Austin, Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island: Comprising Three Generations of Settlers Who Came Before 1690 : With Many Families Carried to the Fourth Generation, (Albany: J. Munsell Sons, 1887), pp. 4-5; images of pp. 4-5 at InternetArchive.org.
  4. Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration, Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, Volume V, M-P, (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2007), p. 503; image of p. 503, under entry for Robert Potter, by subscription AmericanAncestors.
  5. John Gould Anthony, "Geneaology of the Anthonys of New England." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 31 (1877):416 (Boston: The Society House, 1877); image of p. 416 at InternetArchive.org.
  6. Clarence Almon Torrey, New England Marriages Prior to 1700 1:41, (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2015); image of p. 41 by subscription AmericanAncestors.org.
  7. John Osborne Austin, Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island: Comprising Three Generations of Settlers Who Came Before 1690 : With Many Families Carried to the Fourth Generation, (Albany: J. Munsell Sons, 1887), pp. 4-5; image of p. 5 at InternetArchive.org.




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Comments: 14

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Are there reliable sources placing her in New England by 1640?

Thank you

posted by S (Hill) Willson
Of course not, but that doesn't mean she wasn't here. 1st child's birth is estimated at 1642.
posted by Anne B
The only known Susanna Potter seems to have been a daughter of Robert Potter (see "Disputed Origins" section). The wife of John Anthony is unknown, with a lot of speculation but no direct/primary sources to support it (see "Disputed Marriage" section.). Therefore, should her currently attached parents be removed as well as the marriage to John Anthony severed?
posted on Potter-138 (merged) by Scott Carles
Torrey has a Ballou ref (I haven't followed it back to original. just noticed that it was there) and that may be the connection to the Ballou source in this profile. Torrey's question mark on Susanna's LNAB remains to cast overall suspicion on the asserted marriage. I concur with the weakness of parental and marital connections and think the best move is to sever them with preservation of the notes for further research. These changes would warrant removal from PGM, too.
posted on Potter-138 (merged) by Raymond Watts PhD
Thanks for the comments. I checked the Ballou ref and just can't find anything there. Maybe somebody else can see what Torrey was referring to.

I just finished up reviewing all of Torrey's sources, and there is nothing worthy of keeping Susanna as a daughter, spouse, or mother of this family. I'll go ahead and do some additional writing on this profile with a summary of findings. I'll also double check each of the possible Potter family members and add notes to those impacted by a severing of her profile with a link to this profile in preparation for unplugging her.

posted on Potter-138 (merged) by Scott Carles
Boyer also puts a (?) behind the name Susannah Potter. The name comes from a statement where John Tripp on 6 February 1660, calling himself about forty-nine years old, testified that he had heard his uncle Robert Potter say that the latter had sold a certain land and house to John Anthony.

The statement appears in both the TG article and in Boyer. It originally came from Austin's Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island. (1887): page 208.

posted on Potter-138 (merged) by Joe Cochoit
Excellent, thank you for looking up the Boyer ref!

Also, I appreciate the "uncle Robert Potter" quote as I was having a tough time tracking it down.

posted on Potter-138 (merged) by Scott Carles
needs-Research: Susanna wife of John Anthony is probably Susanna Unknown. John potter (son of Robert) called John Anthony his uncle leading to Susanna being (Potter) but also to Isabel wife of Robert Potter being called (Anthony) Neither has been proven but there's an article in The Genealogist 4:60 that supposedly explains this.
posted on Potter-138 (merged) by Anne B
Update: The Genealogist 4:60 is a long article on John Tripp and descendants. It does call John Anthony's wife Susanna Potter and references Carl Boyer. Ancestral Lines Revised. p. 33 I'll have to see where I can access that.
posted on Potter-138 (merged) by Anne B
I have reviewed all sources with the exception of the Boyer book as it is not online. Based on everything else I've seen, I highly doubt he sheds any new light on the subject. But if he does, that would be excellent and should be added to the profile.
posted on Potter-138 (merged) by Scott Carles
Boyer also puts a (?) behind the name Susannah Potter. The name comes from a statement where John Tripp on 6 February 1660, calling himself about forty-nine years old, testified that he had heard his uncle Robert Potter say that the latter had sold a certain land and house to John Anthony.

The statement appears in both the TG article and in Boyer. It originally came from Austin's Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island. (1887): page 208.

posted on Potter-138 (merged) by Joe Cochoit
There were numerous immigrants to colonial Rhode Island named Potter and there may (or may not) have been ties of kinship between some of them. Once upon a time, several Potter immigrants were erroneously identified as children of George and Martha ([-?-]) Potter of London in the research of Vernon and Nola (Steed) Valantine of La Crescenta, California, as submitted to the Ancestral File of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In 1999, another researcher, Paul Gifford, reviewed the relevant parish registers and discovered that most of the birth records thought to pertain to the immigrant Potter siblings actually had corresponding death records! The origins of the Potter immigrants and their kinship, if any, remain unknown.
posted on Potter-138 (merged) by Perry Streeter
Potter-138 and Potter-2594 appear to represent the same person because: similar sates, locations, spouse
posted on Potter-138 (merged) by Dawn Ellis

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Categories: Founders and Settlers of Rhode Island | Puritan Great Migration