John Stone (1635 - 1691)

Born Mar 1635 in England

Ancestors

Husband of Sarah (Bass) Penniman — married 1662 in Massachusetts Bay

Descendants

Died 26 Mar 1691 at about age 56 in Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts Bay Colony

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Biography

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

This profile is part of the Stone Name Study.

JOHN STONE, son of Simon Stone and Joane Clarke, was born in England in Mar 1634/5.^[1] He may have been baptized on June 7, 1663 in Watertown, Massachusetts Bay Colony.^{[citation needed]}

He was listed as five weeks old on the passenger list of the ship Increase^[2][3] when his family signed on as passengers on 15 April 1635 in London, England, the ship's port of departure.^[1]

He married about 1662 to Sarah Bass and they had 10 children, the first born in Braintree and the rest born in Watertown:^[1]

1. Sarah b. 1 Oct 1665 m. Munning Sawin 1681, 11 ch.;
2. Joanna, b. 11 Jan 1664/5, m. Simon Taintor 1693, 6 ch.;
3. John, b. 15 Dec 1666;
4. Anne, b. 8 Aug 1668 m. Samuel Capen 1693, 4 ch.;
5. Mary b. 14 Sep 1670, d. 25 Jun 1691 unm.;
6. Elizabeth, b. 13 Nov 1672, d. 6 May 1694, m. John Barnard 1692, 2 ch.;
7. Samuel, b. 14 Feb 1674/5, d. aft. Mar 1704, unm.;
8. Hepzibah, b. 5 May 1677, m. John Morse 1701/2, 8 ch.;
9. Deborah, b. 25 Feb 1679/80, m. Ephraim Cutter 1603, 7 ch.;
10. Rebecca, b. 29 Aug 1682, m. John Maddock.

Sarah later married Joseph Penniman, and died after 16 Sep 1739.

John was a deacon and a selectman^[3] 1674, 1681-87, 1690, and was town clerk 1687 and 1690. He was released from training 9 Jan 1687, then aged 52.^[4]

He died on 26 March 1691 in Watertown, Middlesex Co., Massachusetts.[1/4:206]^[1] He is buried in Plot 18 at Old Burying Place in Watertown, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. Headstone inscription:

HERE LYES THE BODY OF

DEACON JOHN STONE WHOSe

LIFE WAS MUCH DESIRED &

WHOSE DEATH IS MUCH

LAMENTED AGED ABOUT 55

YEARS HE WENT REIOYCING

OUT OF THIS WORLD IN-

TO THE OTHER THE 26 DAY

OF MARCH 1691^[5]

Research Notes

Alternate Birthplace
Born August 15, 1635 in Watertown, Middlesex County, Massachusetts "Watertown births: John Stone sonn of Simon and Jone Stone borne the 15d — 6m 1635".^[6]

Savage noted that Bond indicated the Watertown Records gave John's birthdate as 15 Aug 1635. Another source, David Pulsifer, copied from the Boston Records the following, "John ye son of Symon & Jone (Joan) Stone borne l5 (6) l635", that is, 15 August by the dating practices of the time.[1/4:206][4][5] This is a puzzle. It was not an unknown practice for the birth dates of all children to be entered into the records of of a New England town when a family settled there, even though the children had been born previously in another location.

Simon Stone and his family might have stayed in Boston long enough for this to have happened prior to their settling in Watertown. Savage seemed to attribute this date of 15 Aug 1635 to a "blunder" on the part of the clerk who entered the information in the Watertown records. He doesn't seem to have been aware of the identical entry in the Boston records. It seems to strain the bounds of coincidence that two clerks, in two different towns would have made the same "blunder".

Yet, the passenger list of the Increase^[2] states unequivocably that John was 5 weeks old on 15 Apr. 1635. Even if this infant John had died and another son John was born in on 15 Aug of the same year, assuming that the age of 5 weeks was correct, there have been insufficient time for Joan Stone to have carried a child to full term between early March and the 15th of August.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3} Bartlett, Joseph Gardner. Simon Stone genealogy: ancestry and descendants of Deacon Simon Stone Watertown, Mass., 1320-1926. (Boston: Stone Family Association, 1926) at HathiTrust.org, pages 52, 56-59.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Hotten, John Camden, The Original lists of persons of quality...;(London : Chatto and Windus, 1874) pp. 64-66, at p. 66, passenger list of the Increase, taking oath of allegiance 15 Apr 1635. Archive.org.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} Framingham Mass. Genealogies, by J.H. Temple; published by the town of Framingham, 1887
4. ↑ Bond, Henry. Genealogies of the Families and Descendants of the Early Settlers of Watertown, Massachusetts (Boston: Little, Brown & Company 1860) at Archive.org, p. 584-586.
5. ↑ Watertown Graves: John Stone
6. ↑ Watertown MA. Births

See also:

• A genealogical dictionary of the first settlers of New England, v.4, p.206,
• Ancestral File, Family History Center, Salt Lake City, UT. Dorothea (Spear) Powers, Waltham, MA. NEHGR, 1899, Vol. LIII, pp. 345-46.
• "Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633" Vol 1-3, Robert Charles Anderson. Boston, MA: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995. Accessed on Ancestry.com.
• Harris' Epitaphs: Deacon John Stone, b. Aug. 15, 1635, was the youngest son of settler Simon. He married Sarah Bass, and had ten children.
• Stone, William F., Ancient Wills in Middlesex, The New England Historical & Genealogical Register (NEHGS, Boston, Mass., 1849) Vol. 3, Page 182-3. "Indian Deed to John Stone"