Abraham Robinson (abt. 1585 - 1645)

Born about 1585 in England [uncertain]

Husband of Mary (Unknown) Walker — married before 1630 in England [uncertain]

Descendants

Died 23 Feb 1645 at about age 60 in Gloucester, Essex, Massachusetts

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Abraham Robinson migrated to New England during the Puritan Great Migration (1621-1640). (See The Directory, by R. C. Anderson, p. 285) Join: Puritan Great Migration Project Discuss: pgm

Biography

Abraham Robinson's origins are unknown, but he was NOT the son of the Rev. John Robinson of Leyden.^[1]

Despite claims to the contrary,^[2][3][4] there is no evidence that Abraham arrived in New England in the 1630s nor aboard the "Lyon". Anderson indicates that his arrival was in 1640.^[5]

Abraham married Mary ---, their date and place of marriage are unknown. They had one child, Abraham Jr., who was born about 1644 in Cape Ann/Gloucester.^[1][2][6]

Abraham Sr. died on 18 Feb 1646,^[1] or, more likely, on 23 Feb 1645/46 in Gloucester, Massachusetts.^[2][6][7]

In Feb 1648/49, William Brown, Mary's second husband, was appointed executor of the small estate left by Abraham.^[6]

Cutter supplies details:^[2]

"Whatever his parentage, ancestry or place of birth. Abraham Robinson, who led that party of colonists from Plymouth to Cape Ann in the year 1631 and there planted a settlement, must have been a man of strong character and great determination, worthy of the distinguished parentage ascribed to him and worthy of the admiration of his descendants in all generations since his time. The year of his birth being unknown there appears to be no means by which to determine the span of his life, but he died February 23, 1645. after having lived on the cape about fourteen years. The name of his wife was Mary, but little else is known of her except that she died April 17, 1690, having borne her husband one son, Abraham, who was a year old at the time of his father's death; and that after the death of her first husband Mary married, July 15, 1646. William Brown, who died in 1662, and later she became the wife of Henry Walker, who survived her and died August 20, 1693. (II) Abraham Robinson, son of Abraham and Mary Robinson, who was born in 1644, is said to have been the first child of English parents born on Cape Ann; and according to family tradition he lived to attain the remarkable age of one hundred and two years. He was living in 1730, eighty-five years after the death of his father. In making mention of him Babson's "Gloucester" says that on coming to maturity he "received several lots of land bequeathed to him by his stepfather Brown, and in 1668 grants at Eastern Point, where he fixed his residence and lived to a great age." * * * "From the mention made of him in his stepfather's will, the date of his land grants and the time of his marriage, it may be reasonably inferred that he was in early childhood at the time of that event; and that, if he lived to be a centenarian, his death must have occurred about 1740. Family tradition has preserved the memory of an ancient silver vessel once in his possession, which is said to have beep used by his celebrated ancestor on baptismal occasions." Abraham Robinson married, July 7, 1668, Mary Harrandaine, born in 1649, died September 28, 1725, aged seventy-six years. She was a daughter of Edward and Sarah Harrandaine. Edward Harrandaine (Babson's "Gloucester" gives the name as Haraden) came from Ipswich, and in 1657 bought of Robert Dutch a house, barn and land in Gloucester. Part of this property was on Planter's Neck, where Dutch had a fishing stage. Harrandaine added to his possessions at this place by subsequent purchases and appears to have been the first permanent settler in that part of the town. The place of his residence and business was undoubtedly at Squam Point. He died May 17, 1683, leaving an estate of two hundred and eighty-five pounds. His wife Sarah died March 4, 1691. Abraham and Mary (Harrandaine) Robinson had children: 1. Mary, born August 20, 1669, married John Elwell. 2. Sarah, September 17, 1671, married, June 30, 1690, John Butman. 3. Elizabeth, September 12, 1673, married. December, 1695, Timothy Somes Jr. 4. Abigail. January 4. 1675, died July 13, 1720; married, Janary 10, 1700, Joseph York. 5. Abraham."...

His Wife Mary

A careful reading of Essex county probate records available at American Ancestors will prove beyond any doubt that Abraham Robinson's wife Mary married three times to 1) Abraham Robinson Sr 2) William Brown and 3) Henry Walker and will also prove that her daughter Mary (Brown) Haskell was half-sister to her son Abraham Robinson, Jr.^[8]

Babson does a fairly good job at outlining the probate records but the information is scattered over many pages (See page numbers below).^[9] George F. Butterick actually has a more concise two page summary.^[10]

See Babson, History, p. 175:

• "Henry Walker is mentioned as an owner of land before 1650. He married, Sept. 26, 1662, Widow Mary Brown, who first appeared here as the wife of Abraham Robinson. He had his residence on the west side of Annisquam River, where a creek still perpetuates the name. He was selectman in 1667 and several subsequent years. He died Aug. 29, 1693: his wife died April 17, 1690. His estate, the largest that had then been accumulated in town, was appraised £922. 10s., consisting chiefly of land. Having no children, he left legacies to the descendants of his wife by her two previous husbands ..."^[9]

Also Babson, p. 135:

• Abraham Robinson "left a widow Mary, who married William Brown, July 15, 1646; and, again becoming a widow in 1662, married Henry Walker in the same year, and died April 17, 1690."^[9]

Again Babson, p. 65:

• "William Brown was among the earliest settlers ... He married Mary, widow of Abraham Robinson, in 1646; and died May 3, 1662, leaving a daughter Mary, born in 1649, who married William Haskell. His widow married, for her third husband, Henry Walker. His estate, which was considerable for the time and place (£223. 7s.) was mostly left to his son-in-law, Abraham Robinson."^[9]

Abraham Robinson II was raised by his stepfather William Brown - Babson, p. 135-6:

• [Abraham, son of Abraham Robinson] "on coming to maturity, received several lots of land bequeathed him by his step-father Brown ... " [, at the age of eleven years] "was living with his paternal grandmother, and her husband, Henry Walker, who left him, by will, a legacy of twenty pounds. In the vicinity of this early home, which was surrounded for many miles by a dense forest, he probably acquired the passion for hunting; which in manhood often led him several days at a time upon distant excursions, from which he always returned with abundant proof of his courage and skill"^[9]

Butterick, p.522:

• "Abraham Robinson II was born before 1646, his father's death; his mother married William Brown that year and upon his death, married, for the third time, Henry Walker, in 1662, when Abraham Robinson was at least sixteen-so Walker can hardly be said to have raised him. The marriage of Henry Walker's step-daughter to William Haskell, son of William Haskell."^[10]

Babson, p.100:

• "William married Mary Walker, July 3, 1667; who died Nov. 12, 1715, aged sixty-six. She was the daughter of William Brown; but she took the name of her step-father, Henry Walker."^[9]

Babson, p. 209:

• "thirty-one lots laid out on the west side of the Cut in 1688 to settlers, including five Haskells and Henry Walker."^[9]

There is a marriage record in St Gregory by St Paul, London, England for Mary Watson to Abraham Robinson on 15 Jul 1610 but we can't be certain it is the same couple.

Children

Abraham Robinson and Mary had one child:

1. Abraham Robinson born abt. 1644.^[2][9] He married Mary Harraden 7 July 1668 in Gloucester, Essex County Massachusetts,^[11] daughter of Edward Harraden. She was born 1648, and died 28 September 1725 in Gloucester, Essex County Massachusetts.^[2][9] Babson alleged that this Abraham was the first child of English parents born on the north side of Massachusetts Bay.^[9]

Some genealogies have named other children but there is absolutely no evidence of them in probate and town records. We only know that Abraham above was the half-brother of Mary (Brown) Haskell - see her profile for details.

Research Notes

Disputed Parents: Cutter and several previous genealogies floated the idea that Abraham Robinson of Gloucester, Essex, Massachusetts, was the son of Rev. John Robinson, the famous "Pastor to the Mayflower Pilgrims" of Leyden. However, as survey records of Leyden show Rev John Robinson had no son by this name.^[2] Robert Charles Anderson in his 2015 "Pilgrim Migration" makes no mention of a family relationship to Abraham Robinson and I'm not aware of any recent peer reviewed work that has taken this theory seriously.^[12][13]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} Savage, James. A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England (Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1862). Vol.3, page 549.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6} Cutter, William Richard, "Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of the State of Massachusetts." (New York: Lewis Historical Pub., 1910) Vol. 2, p.673.
3. ↑ "U.S. and Canada, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s," Ancestry.com, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010, Provo, UT, USA; citing Olket, Meredith B., Jr. Founders of Early American Families: Emigrants from Europe, 1607-1657.
4. ↑ Sumner, Edith Bartlett. "Descendants of Thomas Farr of Harpswell, Maine and Ninety Allied Families." Los Angeles, CA: Lithographed from compiler's typescript by American Offset Printers, 1989. Page 43.
5. ↑ Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Directory: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1640: a Concise Compendium (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2015) p. 285.
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1 6.2} Ferris, Mary Walton, “Dawes-Gates Ancestral Lines: A Memorial Volume Containing the American Ancestry of Rufus R. Dawes.” Accessed at HathiTrust, page 120-121.
7. ↑ Topsfield Historical Society, compiler, Vital Records of Gloucester, Massachusetts to The End Of The Year 1849 (Topsfield, MA: The Topsfield Historical Society, 1917) Vol. 3, p.261 "Robinson, Abraham, [d.] Feb. 23, 1645."
8. ↑ "The Probate Records of Essex County, Massachusetts, 1635-1681," 3 volumes (Salem 1916-1920; rpt. Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1988). Citations to the unpublished probate records are to case numbers, or to register volumes (which begin with volume 301).
9. ↑ ^{9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8 9.9} Babson, John J., "History of the Town of Gloucester, Cape Ann, Including the Town of Rockport," (Gloucester, Peter Smith Publisher, Inc. 1972 (reprinted from original, published in 1860)) p.35, p.65, p.100, p.134-6, p.175.
10. ↑ ^{10.0 10.1} Butterick, George F., "A Guide to The Maximus Poems of Charles Olson," (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1978) p.521-522 at GoogleBooks.
11. ↑ Gloucester, Essex County Massachusetts, City of, Vital Records of Gloucester, Essex County Massachusetts to the End of the Year 1849, (The Essex Institute, Salem MA, 1924), v.2, p. 461.
12. ↑ Anderson, Robert Charles. "The Pilgrim Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth Colony, 1620-1633." (Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic and Genealogical Society. 2015).
13. ↑ Note-Book Kept by Thomas Lechford, Esq., Lawyer, in Boston, Massachusetts Bay, from June 27, 1638, to July 29, 1641, Edward Everett Hale, Jr., ed. (Cambridge 1885; rpt. Camden, Maine, 1988). Cita­tions herein refer to the pagination as printed (and not to the manuscript pagination) and will therefore differ from the index entries of the 1885 edition. View online at Archive.org.

• Robinson, A.A., The Robinsons and Their Kin Folk. (New York: The Association, 1902) Series 3, p.94+ at GoogleBooks.
• New England Marriages to 1700. (Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2008.) Originally published as: New England Marriages Prior to 1700. Boston, Mass.: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2015. AmericanAncestors.org Volume 2 Page 1284

ROBINSON, Abraham (-1645±) & Mary ____ (-1690), m/2 William BROWNE 1646, m/3 Henry WALKER 1662; by 1644; Gloucester {Gloucester 65, 135; Crapo; Sv. 1:277; Robinson (,2) 55; Robinson (,9) 50, 93; Essex Ant. 6:110; Bullard Anc. 209; Reed (1956)}