Elishua
Crowell
formerly [surname unknown]
Born about in England
Daughter of [father unknown] and [mother unknown]
[sibling(s) unknown]
Wife of
John Crowell
— married
about 1633 in England
Descendants 
Mother of
Yelverton Crowell, Elizabeth (Crowell) Wardwell, Moses Crowell, John (Crowell) Crow and Thomas Crowell Sr.
Died
at about age 93
in Yarmouth, Barnstable, Province of Massachusetts Bay
Profile last modified
| Created 20 Aug 2015
This page has been accessed 4,202 times.
| Elishua (UNKNOWN) Crowell migrated to New England during the Puritan Great Migration (1621-1640). Join: Puritan Great Migration Project Discuss: pgm |
Biography
Elishua was the wife of John Crow (Crowell is also used), who emigrated to Charleston, Massachusetts in 1635, and then moved to Yarmouth in Plymouth Colony[1] [2] [3] [1] [4] [5] [3] [6]
There is a theory that she was the daughter of Edward Yelverton and Nazareth (Bedingfield) Yelverton, born circa 1590 in Grimston, Norfolk, England, but this was not confirmed in the sources noted here. Do you have more information? Please discuss on G2G.
Their children included:
- Moses was baptized in Charleston, Massachusetts on June 26, 1637, and died young[1] [5] [2] [3] [6]
- John, born about 1639, who married Mehitable Miller, daughter of Reverend John Miller[1] [2] [7] [3] [6]
- Thomas, born about 1645, who married Agnes[1] [2] [3] [6]
- Elizabeth, who married Arthur Perry, Sr. of Boston (a member of the Ancient and Honourable Artillery Company)[1] [6]
- Possibly others.
- Elishua, who married John Gifford[1] [6], is noted as the daughter of John and Elishua in many of the references, however there is evidence Yelverton's daughter[8]
- Yelverton himself is noted as John's brother in many of the references, however it also appears likely that he was John and Elishua's son, as noted here[8]
John died January 14, 1672-3. His wife Elishua died in 1688[1] [6]
The Genealogies And Estates Of Charlestown, by Thomas Bellows Wyman, says that John Crowe was an "inhabitant of Charlestown in 1635; married Elishua ________, who came to town 1634, and was admitted to the Church, 4 (11) 1634/5."
Elishua Crowe was admitted to Charlestown church on 4 Jan 1634/5 [ChChR8] In the list of those admitted inhabitants of Charlestown in 1634 was "Mrs. Crowe who bought Mr. William Jennings [Jennison] his house at her arrival whose husband Mr. John Crowe arrived here the year following" [ChTR 11, 15].[9]
Sources
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 / John Crowe and His Descendants (New York: Thomas Crowell, 1903) See person #1, page 21
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 The Hamlin Family (1639 to 1902): A Genealogy of James Hamlin of Barnstable, Mass., Eldest Son of James Hamlin, the Immigrant, Who Came from London, England, and Settled in Barnstable, 1639, 2 vols. by Andrews, Henry Franklin (Exira, Iowa: privately printed, 1902). see footnote on page 79
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England by Savage, James A., (Boston: Little, Brown, 1860–62). Volume 1, page 479, 480
- ↑ Torrey's New England Marriages, Volume 1, page 401 found in the 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. This reference provides the following sources: Charleston 252; Crowell 25; Hamelin 79; Tobey 22; Sv (Savage) 1:479, 480; Bassett-Preston 73; Cape Cod Library 72:1, 103:101-6
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 The Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, 2 vols; by Wyman, Thomas Bellows; (Boston: D. Clapp and Son, 1879) see page 252
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 Genealogical notes of Cape Cod families by Brownson, Lydia B.; Norton, Doris V.; Held, Grace V.; Publication date 1967; Publisher Lydia B. Brownson; Digitizing sponsor Federally funded with LSTA funds through the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. Vol. 15 (Crowell to Curtiss). This open source shows the informaton in the Cape Cod Library (look for CCL notation in the right-hand column) See page 106 for John and Elishua and their children
- ↑ Tobey (Tobie, Toby) Genealogy: Thomas of Sandwich, and James of Kittery and Their Descendants by Tobey, Rufus Babcock, (Boston: C. H. Pope, 1905). The will of John Crow Jr is reproduced on pages 23-4
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Yelverton Crowell of Yarmouth Mass by Stephen W. Gifford Jr, published in Vol 125 (1971) page 231-236, of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register;;. Boston, MA: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1847-. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001-2013.)
- ↑ Great Migration 1634-1635, C-F. (Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2008.) Originally published as: The Great Migration, Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, Volume II, C-F, pp. 245-6, by Robert Charles Anderson, George F. Sanborn, Jr., and Melinde Lutz Sanborn. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001.
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- Elishua (Unknown ? Yelverton) Crowell. Feb 4, 2018.
Rejected matches › Mehitable (Miller) Crow (1638-1715)
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[Do you know Elishua's family name?] | C > Crowell > Elishua (UNKNOWN) Crowell
Categories: Puritan Great Migration
Thank you.
First and foremost, as Anderson notes in The Great Migration, the gap between the births of John's eldest children (including Yelverton and Elizabeth (Crow) Perry) and his youngest children (including Moses, John, and Thomas) is very large. It's pretty unlikely that the same woman was having kids in both 1615 and 1645. If John had two different wives, the first of whom died prior to his immigration (perhaps in 1626 as the notes section of his profile suggests), then the timeline on all of this would make a lot more sense. For one thing, it would clear up discrepancies about his wife's birthdate. If the Elishua who was having children in the 1630s and 1640s was a second wife, then it would be perfectly conceivable for John's first wife, presumably the wife of John Crow buried in Norfolk in 1626, to have been born in 1590.
Secondly, there is a transcription of an early New England marriage record that lists a 1635 marriage between a John Crow and an Elishua (Unknown), both of Yarmouth. If the date given in this transcription is correct, and if the record is referring to this same couple, then it indicates that John Crow may have married his wife, the "Elishua" of this profile, in 1635 rather than 1615. If John had only one wife, then a 1635 marriage date would be impossible given the estimated birthdates of John's older children, including the birthdate of his son Yelverton. However, if Elishua was John's second wife then a 1635 marriage would not only make sense, it would actually perfectly explain the age gap between John's children.
Overall, I think that the age gap between John's children is enough to warrant serious consideration of the idea that he had two wives and that this profile mistakenly conflates two people. Which of course raises the question of who his first wife is, and of whether she's the daughter of Edward and Nazareth Yelverton as some people have theorized. I don't think it's possible to definitively answer that question at this point, but if I'm correct about John having two wives then I do think that gives more credence to the theory that his first wife was a daughter of Edward and Nazareth.
Yelverton is an incredibly unusual name and while the evidence for John's wife (or in this case first wife) being a Yelverton is circumstantial, I don't think it should be ignored. It honestly seems like more of a stretch to assume she wasn't related than to assume that she was. And if John did indeed have two wives (with the first potentially being the woman who died in Norfolk in 1626) this would clear up some of the reasons to doubt that the first wife was the daughter of Edward and Nazareth Yelverton.
The main objection I've seen to the idea that John Crow's wife was Edward's daughter is that she did not inherit from Edward's son (who would have been her brother) when he died in 1633. And, since everyone was presuming that John Crow's first wife was still alive at that point, this seemed to imply that she wasn't a member of that family. But if she had actually died several years earlier (either in 1626 or, if she's not the woman from Norfolk, at some other time) this would explain why she didn't inherit anything from her brother.
Additionally, if John's first wife in indeed the woman buried in Norfolk in 1626, then this could potentially strengthen the contention that she was a daughter of Edward and Nazareth Yelverton. The notes section of John Crow's profile states the following: "John and Yelverton Crowe, alias Crowel, who both were in Yarmouth, Mass., about 1640, are said, in the Banks MMS, to have come from the vicinity of Carlton Rode, next Old and New Buckenham, South Norfolk. The wife of John Crowe was burried at New Buckenham, Norfolk, 21st day, 3rd month, 1626 (parish register). The daughter of John Crowe was baptized there 21st day, 6 month, 1626 (ibid). She was named 'Nasare' or something close to it; George Gilleland, Vicar at New Buckenham, could not fully decipher this name, he stated in a letter to the contributor dated 27 Feb. 1958. See Edward YELVERTON's wife's name 'Nazareth'"
Whoever compiled the notes on that profile provided the following source: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHK-N3YS-9V1?cat=319844%7C which basically gives the same information that the notes section of the profile is summarizing.
Now, I should preface this next bit by saying that we don't know for sure whether John Crow/Crowell came from Norfolk, and thus we don't know whether the John Crow whose wife was buried there was the same person as the immigrant John Crow/Crowell. I also haven't been able to find a birth record for Yelverton Crow (and to my knowledge, nobody else has found one either), so there is no definitive evidence that he was born in Norfolk. But the idea that John Crow and his son, Yelverton Crow, are from Norfolk seems fairly likely, especially since (in a search of records that are available online) I could only find a few records of people living in England in that time period (i.e. about 1580 to 1620) with the surname "Yelverton," and all of the ones I could find are from Norfolk (where Edward Yelverton and the other Yelverton's of the same family lived).
If the source listed in the notes section on John's page is accurate (and if it does indeed refer to the John Crow/Crowell who later immigrated to New England) then John Crow and his potential first wife (the woman who was buried in Norfolk in 1626) had a daughter who was baptized in 1626 in the same Parish who was named "Nasare" or something similar. "Nasare" is closer to "Nazareth," than to any other possible name I can think of. And, like Yelverton, Nazareth is a very unusual name. So if "Nasare" was indeed a child of the immigrant John Crow and his first wife, that provides some strong circumstantial evidence in favor of his wife's parents being Edward and Nazareth.
Ultimately, however, the question here isn't whether John's first wife was a Yelverton. The question is whether he had two wives. And I think there's definitely enough evidence to justify the belief that he did.
If you look at the sources on this profile, and on John's, it appears that the conundrum has been researched by some very knowledgeable people, without certainty. But that doesn't mean that it isn't worthy of further research...
Personally, I'm entirely persuaded that John had two wives, because honestly in my opinion that's proven simply by the age gaps between his older children and his younger children. But, while I do find the circumstantial evidence to be fairly strong, the question of whether his first wife was a Yelverton (and perhaps the woman buried in Norfolk) still definitely needs further research.
Based on your response, it sounds like a better and effective way to do that would be to ask a question on the G2G forum, so I will plan to post this there! Thanks again for letting me know!
Check the data. A mother's birth date should not be more than 67 years before the birth date of one of her children. A mother's death date should not be before one of her children's birth dates.