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Susanna (Unknown) Phillips (abt. 1604 - 1655)

Susanna Phillips formerly [surname unknown] aka Stanley
Born about in Englandmap
Daughter of [father unknown] and [mother unknown]
[sibling(s) unknown]
Wife of — married before 1635 in Englandmap
Wife of — married before 27 Mar 1648 in Charlestown, Middlesex, Massachusettsmap
Died at about age 51 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts Bay Colonymap
Profile last modified | Created 20 Mar 2016
This page has been accessed 985 times.
The Puritan Great Migration.
Susanna (Unknown) Phillips migrated to New England during the Puritan Great Migration (1621-1640).
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Contents

Cautionary Note

NOTE: Numerous sources have listed some of the children of William Phillips, Susanna's second husband, as Susanna's children. These were, in fact, children from William Phillips' first marriage, as proven in careful research published in 2012.[1][2] Please do not attach any of William Phillips' children to Susanna as their mother. Susanna created this confusion in her will by referring to step-children as if they were her natural children.

Biography

The first certain record of Susanna is of her 1635 immigration on the Elizabeth and Anne with her husband Christopher Stanley.[3] That record lists her age as 31, establishing her approximate year of birth as 1604. Authoritative sources, such as Anderson,[4] show Susanna's parents' names, her place of birth, and her last name at birth as unknown. Those vitals remain unknown, but there is a 1623 marriage record from London that may document the marriage of Susanna and Christoper.[5]

Susanna's first husband Christopher Stanley was a tailor,[6] who prospered in Boston. Susanna was admitted to church in Boston 23 June 1639 and her husband 16 May 1641.[7] His name appears in numerous land transaction records,[8][9] and Susanna inherited real estate upon Christopher's death 27 March 1646.[4] Christopher's will also gave land for maintenance of the free school in Boston, and gave gloves (doubtless from his trade as a tailor) to the teaching and ruling elders of Boston and their wives.[10]

Susanna remarried by 27 March 1648 to William Phillips. There appears to have been a strong friendship and trust between Susanna's two husbands, as they co-owned land during Christopher Stanley's life and, after Christopher's passing and Susanna's remarriage, William Phillips treated Susanna's inherited land as her own, despite strong English traditions for male control of wealth. Her ownership and Phillips' acceptance of it are expressly stated in her will (written 10 September 1650, proven 2 August 1655).[4]

Susanna's will caused great confusion about the parentage of William Phillips' children. In it, she called Phillips' children her own, when in fact they were her step-children. Early genealogists believed, based on other evidence of the ages of the children, that some of these were natural children of Susanna and Christopher Stanley. The correct parentage has been sorted out by recent research;[1] There is no record of Susanna having children by either marriage.

Susanna died 16 June 1655 in Boston.[11]

Research Notes

  1. An obscure reference in Pope[12] mentioned a letter from Tring, England, whose sender asked its recipient to greet Susannah's second husband, William Phillips, in Boston. Hal Bradley, working from that obscure hint, discovered parish baptism records in the vicinity of Tring and laboriously documented the origins of the family of William Phillips.[1] None of William's children were born to Susanna; they were all children from his first marriage, to Mary Bishop.
  2. One Susan Weste married one Christofer Stanley 24 Jun 1623 in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster (London), England.[13] In Christopher Stanley's will, he referred to his wife as "Susan," rather than Susanna, so she may have used both names. The deduced years of birth of Christopher and Susanna from their emigration record[3], roughly 1603-4, would have made the ages of the emigrant couple appropriate for marriage in 1623.
  3. Savage wrote, "He is called tailor, which in my opinion means a member of the great company of Merchant Taylors of London."[14] This deduction is bolstered by Christopher Stanley's admission to the Merchant Taylors' School in January 1607/8.[15] His admission record further gives Christopher's date of birth as November 1599 or 1600, and this record is probably more reliable than Chrisopher's age stated on the 1635 manifest of the Elizabeth and Anne.[3] The original location of the Merchant Taylors' School was London, so this record establishes a connection of Christopher to London prior to his emigration. Following schooling, his presence in London may well have persisted until 1623, the year of the marriage noted above in Research Note 2. Christopher would have been 22 or 23 years old at the time of that marriage, and 34 or 35 years old at the time of the 1635 emigration.
  4. Husband Christopher's bequeaths of land to the free school of Boston, and gloves to the teaching elders, comports with the school-founding and school-supporting traditions of the Merchant Taylors of London, adding to the weight of evidence that the boy admitted to the Merchant Taylors' School in 1608 was the same as Susanna's husband.

Sources

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Bradley, Hal. "The English Origins of William1 Phillips of Charlestown and Boston, Massachusetts, and Saco, Maine." in The American Genealogist, vol. 86 (2012): pages 296-301. AmericanAncestors.org link (subscription)
  2. See Research Note 1.
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 Hotten, John Camden, The Original Lists of Persons of Quality: Emigrants, Religious Exiles, Political Rebels, Serving Men Sold for a Term of Years, Apprentices, Children Stolen, Maidens Pressed, and Others, who Went from Great Britain to the American Plantations, 1600-1700 (London : Chatto and Windus, 1874). p. 72; digital images, Hathi Trust. Note: see attached photo.
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration, Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, Volume VI, R-S. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2009. p 454. Ancestry.com link (subscription);  AmericanAncestors.org link (subscription)
  5. See Research Note 2.
  6. See Research Note 3.
  7. Great Migration Newsletter v 17. Boston: New England Historical Genealogical Society, 2008. p 22 American Ancestors.org link (subscription)
  8. Thwing, Annie Haven. The Crooked & Narrow Streets of the Town of Boston. Boston: Marshall Jones, 1920. Archive.org link
  9. Boston, MA: Inhabitants and Estates of the Town of Boston, 1630-1822 (Thwing Collection). Inhabitants and Estates of the Town of Boston, 1630–1800 and The Crooked and Narrow Streets of Boston, 1630–1822. CD-ROM. Boston, Mass.: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001. (Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014.) AmericanAncestors.org link (subscription)
  10. See Research Note 4.
  11. Record Commissioners of Boston. Boston births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths 1630-1699. Boston: Municipal Printing Office, 1908. p 51. Archive.org link
  12. Pope, Charles Henry. The Pioneers of Massachusetts. Boston: private publication, 1900. p 358. Archive.org link
  13. Burke, Arthur M. Memorials of St. Margaret's Church Westminster. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1914. p 331. Archive.org link
  14. Savage, James. A genealogical dictionary of the first settlers of New England. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1969 (originally printed Boston, 1862). v 4 p 164. Archive.org link
  15. Robinson, Charles John. A register of the scholars admitted into Merchant Taylors' School from A. D. 1562 to 1874. Lewes, England: Farncombe & Co, 1882. v 1 p 77. Archive.org link

Acknowledgments

Hal Bradley, cited in the Sources list,[1] collaborated in revisions of this profile and found the record of Christopher Stanley's admission to the Merchant Taylors' School.





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Comments: 20

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I have a "final draft" bio of https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Unknown-566176, Susanna (Unknown) (Stanley) Phillips. There are two new sources in the bio that bolster evidence that Susanna's LNAB was Weste or West (from a marriage record) and connecting 1st husband Christopher Stanley to the Society of Merchant Taylors of London (that connection was found by Hal Bradley). Firming up Christopher's ties to London adds credence to the cited marriage record. These threads of evidence are written up in Research Notes. I am particularly interested to know whether PGM leaders consider evidence sufficient to change Susanna's LNAB to West or Weste. If PGM believes these connections, then Christopher Stanley's profile will need a few changes, too. BTW, I have looked in parish records and other places for a record of Susan West's birth or baptism, and have not yet found one.
posted by Raymond Watts PhD
I will need help from someone more skilled with English records. I found this: Susan Weste married Christofer Stanley 24 Jun 1623 at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, Middlesex, England link to Archive.org. Both of them would have been about 20 if the ages given on the Elizabeth and Anne manifest in 1635 were approximately right. According to Pope, Christopher Stanley's will refers to "wife Susan," not "wife Susanna," so those names may have been somewhat interchangeable. It seems so unlikely that this record was merely overlooked, that I suspect other evidence must disprove this as the marriage of our PGM couple. Any ideas or evidence? And there is this unsourced profile: Susanna West.
posted by Raymond Watts PhD
edited by Raymond Watts PhD
Have seen the same prospective reference; suspect others have as well, As you suggest, not likely it was overlooked,

Suggest that it be added to the research notes section of this profile--this highlights the hint for the kind of research that might prove or disprove the association.

posted by GeneJ X
Thanks, Gene. I'll add that research note and continue investigating as well. I wrote to Hal Bradley, who studied this family extensively, to see if he had any info.
posted by Raymond Watts PhD
I don’t know that the newly found record of Christopher Stanley’s enrollment in the Merchant Taylors School in 1609 adds much validation to the marriage record of CS to Susan Weste. It closes a lot of time gap, though, because he was 9 at the time of enrollment (1609) and may have been in school, and therefore in London, until 1618-ish (I don’t know how long a boy’s education lasted in those days). That brings him fairly close to the 1623 marriage record. The Metro Archives of London have extensive non-digital records of the Merchant Taylors, and I suspect that they would contain records of apprenticeship or other activities that would shed further light, but those records are inaccessible (at least to us) at this point. I have had no luck finding birth or baptism records of Susan/Susanna.
posted by Raymond Watts PhD
Did she have children with Stanley? All of his children are shown with a mother Mary (Bishop) Phillips Something seems wrong
posted by S (Hill) Willson
edited by S (Hill) Willson
All Wm Phillips' children were by his first wife. Hal Bradley found English records to prove this. See TAG 86:296+. Jen (Stevens) Hutton fixed the parentage properly, but this family has a long history of mistaken parentage; I'll continue to monitor that and will place a note in the bio.
posted by Raymond Watts PhD
Citing Hotten, p. 72, "She sailed aboard the “Elizabeth and Ann,” with Roger Cooper as Master, from London to New England in 1635."

Shouldn't Susanna be PGM?

posted by GeneJ X
edited by GeneJ X
PGM has been added as a manager. Continue to manage as usual.
posted by Jen (Stevens) Hutton
A great deal of effort has gone into discovery of Susanna Stanley's maiden name, and no convincing evidence has emerged. Hal Bradley laboriously documented William Phillips' family, and discovered numerous records in England (see refs to his work in https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Phillips-1073 ). In my opinion it is time to change Susanna's LNAB to Unknown and to remove her parent links. Furthermore, Bradley's work demonstrates that no children issued from the marriage of Susanna and William; the children of William previously attributed to this union were, in fact, from William's first marriage, to Mary Bishop, as demonstrated by church records in Tring and Great Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England. Because Susanna's and first husband Christopher Stanley's voyage to America is well documented with no mention of accompanying children, and all children of William Phillips are otherwise accounted for, the children of Susanna should also be removed from this profile and connected to their proper mothers.

Do others concur?

posted on Aspinwall-190 (merged) by Raymond Watts PhD
edited by Raymond Watts PhD
Raymond, I have changed Susanna's LNAB and given the girls their correct mother. I appreciate you adding maintenance categories for LNAB change and ppp, although we don't actually have such categories. LNAB change is worth considering making a category for, I think. PPP is usually a more urgent matter though, so letting us know via discord or on comments is probably the best way to get that done quickly. Very nice work on this, by the way.

Jen

posted by Jen (Stevens) Hutton
Is there a quality source for Susannah’s last name and parents? All the sources I’ve seen indicate that the last name of Christopher Stanley’s wife is not known. Thanks!
posted on Aspinwall-190 (merged) by M Cole
The connection to the Aspinwall name is not well documented. I have not been able to find any mention of Susannah's maiden name in the Warne genealogy, the primary source for this profile. The Warne genealogy extensively references the earlier Dusenbury genealogy of Carharts; I will re-examine that in search of Aspinwall documentation. There is also the Lord genealogy here: https://archive.org/details/genealogyofdesce00lord , which I will similarly examine.

THERE IS ONE HINT of connection to Aspinwalls. Susannah's will (see https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t5q81ng7b&view=1up&seq=372 ) says this:

He [Wm Phillips] m. 3, Susanna, widow of Christopher Stanley. She d. 16 (4) 1655, leaving a will, dated same day as his, 10 (7) 1650; probated Aug. 2, 1655. To daughter-in-law Mary Field, daughter Martha Thurston, daughter Rebecca Lord, [step- ]sons William and Nathaniel Phillips, [step- ]daughters Elizabeth and Phebe Phillips, [step- ]daughter Sarah; to Elizabeth and William Aspinwall; to any of her brothers' or sisters' children that may come over; to Richard and George Bennitt who were her servants. Residue to her husband, Wm. Philips.

The image of a manuscript copy of her will ( https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9YP-P2HQ?i=74&cat=120561) clarifies that Elizabeth was the wife (Latin uxor) of William Aspinwall, and the gift (five pounds) was to her and not to William. Because Elizabeth appears in a list of bequeaths to Susannah's relatives by birth or marriage, this suggests, but does not prove, that Elizabeth (unknown maiden name) was her sister and sheds no light on the maiden name of either Susannah or Elizabeth. Wm Aspinwall was witness to the will and it is stated that he was a notary public, which status must have overridden the conflict of interest of his being an heir.

Incidentally, this will likely contradicts the profile of daughter Rebecca (Stanley) Lord, which says she was born after 1735. Per this will, she was already married to Robert Lord in 1650; if we use age 17 as a likely youngest age of marriage, then she would have been born before 1733, two years before the Lord and Stanley families emigrated from England on the same ship. It is curious that Rebecca Stanley is not mentioned on the manifest of ship "Elizabeth and Ann" in 1735 ( https://archive.org/details/cihm_61960/page/n77/mode/1up) although one wonders whether she was an unmentioned infant. Perhaps the "after 1735" birth is right, and she married at age 14 or 15.

posted on Aspinwall-190 (merged) by Raymond Watts PhD
edited by Raymond Watts PhD
A link to Susanna's will is in the sources. Its a copy of the clerk's books, but most likely accurate.
posted on Aspinwall-190 (merged) by M Cole
The 2012 article by Hal Bradley in TAG (The English Origins of William1 Phillips of Charlestown and Boston, Massachusetts, and Saco, Maine. TAG 86 (2012) 296-301) concluded that Susanna had no children with William Phillips. In her will, she referred to several Phillips children as "children" rather than "step-children," but all were recorded as born during the years that William was married to his first wife, Mary.
posted on Aspinwall-190 (merged) by Ellen Smith
In an earlier comment, I postulated that Susanna (?) (Stanley) Phillips' bequeath to Elizabeth Aspinwall was a bequeath to her sister. If that were true, then we would know that Susanna's and Elizabeth's maiden name was not Aspinwall, and if we could find Elizabeth's maiden name then we would also know Susanna's.

I have investigated Elizabeth, whose longhand will (1679, Chester, Cheshire, England) is here: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-D4DQ-2P2 In it, she bequeaths to her brother Hugh Harvy and sister Martha Harvy. It is vaguely possible, but I consider it unlikely, that Hugh was Martha's husband and casually referred to as "brother" rather than "brother-in-law"; Elizabeth also bequeaths specifically to Samuel and Hannah Aspinwall, named as brother- and sister-in-law, indicating that she discriminated between in-law and birth relationships. Thus, I consider Hugh and Martha to be Elizabeth's brother and sister and Elizabeth's maiden name to be Harvy/Harvey.

Continuing with the assumption that Susanna and Elizabeth were sisters, I searched for records of Susanna Harvy/Harvey and found nothing that made temporal or geographic sense. This is a research thread that could be explored more.

The present bottom line is that Susanna's LNAB is highly unlikely to be Aspinwall and that no other plausible LNAB's have been found.

posted on Aspinwall-190 (merged) by Raymond Watts PhD
Aspinwall-265 and Aspinwall-190 appear to represent the same person because: consistent dates and (2nd) spouse
posted on Aspinwall-190 (merged) by Tim Prince
UNKNOWN-120660 and Aspinwall-265 appear to represent the same person because: Duplicate...please merge thank you
posted on Aspinwall-190 (merged) by Andrea (Stawski) Pack
Susannah was married to her first husband Christopher Stanley until his death in 1646. Therefore, none of these Phillips children's DOB's could possibly be correct. They all had to have been born between 1646 and her death in 1655 if they are children of Mjr William Phillips and Susannah (Stanley) Phillips.
posted on Aspinwall-190 (merged) by Phillip Rich
Stanley-1111 and UNKNOWN-120660 appear to represent the same person because: Still no known LNAB, but this Suzannah who came to America with her husband Capt Christopher Stanley is the same who married Major William Phillips. See attached sources. Please merge to "Unknown" AKA Stanley, AKA Phillips.
posted on Aspinwall-190 (merged) by Phillip Rich

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Categories: Puritan Great Migration