Peter Coombs (bef. 1691 - 1768)

Born before 18 Oct 1691 in Beverly, Essex, Massachusetts Bay

Ancestors

Husband of Joanna (Unknown) Coombs — married 1714 in Gloucester, Massachusetts

Descendants

Died 30 Mar 1768 after age 76 in New Meadows, Brunswick, Cumberland, Massachusetts Bay

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Biography

Peter was baptized at Beverly, MA, on 18 Oct 1691 in the First Parish Unitarian Church, recorded as the son of “Mihel & Dorcas Combs.”^[1] He was the eldest son of Antoine (Comeau) Coombs and Dorcas Woodin; he died at Brunswick, ME, on Jan (var.) or “30 Mar 1768 in the 77th year of his age,” as shown by the records of the First Church of Brunswick and his grave record at Marsh Cemetery, Brunswick, ME, respectively;^[2] and he married Joanna (unknown) sometime around 1714.^[3]

PLEASE NOTE -- no documented records have been found which identify who Peter's wife, Joanna _____ was, when she was born, who her parents were, where she lived, or when or where she married Peter.

Based on Joanna Coombs' grave record at the Marsh Cemetery, Brunswick, ME, she was born circa 1691 (calculated) and died “28 Dec 1767 in the 77th year of her age.”^[4] Family oral tradition suggests that Peter might have married a sister of Anthony Coombs’ wife, Mercy Hodgkins, of Gloucester, MA; however, no record has been found suggesting that Peter was ever in Gloucester. Further, the existing records of that Hodgkins family neither include a daughter named Joanna, nor is there a gap between children’s birth dates large enough to have allowed for the birth of a seventeenth child, particularly circa 1691.

There are no known birth or baptism records for any of Peter and Joanna's children. Therefore, the names, birth order, and dates of birth cannot be proven.

Peter grew up in Rochester and in 1717, at the age of 26 years, he began to buy and sell local real estate. In that year he made two acquisitions totaling fifty acres of land in Rochester, forty acres of which were a gift of “love and good will” from his father, dated 9 Oct. 1717. Two months later he sold both parcels for £67 and immediately reinvested a small portion of it to buy 10 acres in Rochester. In Jul 1721, thirty year-old Peter sold this land for the same price that he had paid for it, identifying himself as “Peter Coombs, of Cape Cod – blacksmith.” No records of Peter’s time at Cape Cod have been found. During the 1720s, Peter appears to have resided in the town of Middleboro, MA, and perhaps in Newbury, MA. By December 1727, Peter had returned to Rochester and sold his remaining lands: one-half of salt meadow Lot 12 and ten acres of adjacent upland.^[5]

In the late 1720s and early 1730s, Peter left Middleboro and Newbury, MA, first going to the Spurwink settlement at Cape Elizabeth (Falmouth, ME) by 1734, and then he went on to the New Meadows River in what is now Brunswick, ME, in late 1738. His progress north can be tracked by a series of York County Inferior Court of Common Pleas cases involving monies owed to and by Peter: .^{[6][7][8][9][10][11][12]}

Peter's wife, Joanna (_____) Coombs, joined the First Church of Rochester on 18 Apr 1725, along with her sister-in-law, Lydia (Woodin) Coombs.^[13] It is hypothesized that Joanna and her children may have lived with her in-laws, Anthony and Dorcas Coombs, in Rochester before relocating to Newbury, MA, while Peter went north to Falmouth (Spurwink) and New Meadows to acquire lands and build a home for his family.

The Day Book of Ezekiel Thompson notes that, “Old Lieutenant Peter Coombs was one of the earliest settlers at New Meadows, [ME] he was formerly of the Cape Cod country.”^[14] Peter Coombs first arrived in the Brunswick area about 1730.^[15] Once at Brunswick he settled on lands in the New Meadows section of town.

Sources

1. ↑ Beverly First Church Records, Vol. 37, page 200 and Beverly, MA, Vital Records, Vol. 1, page 83
2. ↑ Brunswick Cemeteries. -- NB - Peter Coombs is listed as being buried in the Marsh Cemetery, but no stone was found in the survey. His gravestone was transcribed by Mrs. Louis Stuart in 1938 and subsequently deposited with the ME Old Cemetery Association. Mrs. Stuart’s entry for Lt. Peter’s wife, Joanna, states: “Names & data from other lists.” Peter's gravestone date of death is also recorded in a letter from Greenleaf Cilley, dated 13 Dec 1881, found in the "Coombs" vertical file at the Maine Historical Society, Portland, ME
3. ↑ Anthony Coombs and Dorcas Woodin of Rochester, Massachusetts -- Their Origins and Descendants, pages 50-54.
4. ↑ Brunswick Cemeteries
5. ↑ Plymouth County, Massachusetts; Plymouth, MA; Registry of Deeds, Grantee Deeds, Book 13, pages 103, 104, 127, and Book 15, pages 133-4, 182, 183.
6. ↑ Plymouth Court Records 1684-1859, Common Pleas (5: 234), Volume 5, page 449, action 40
7. ↑ York County, Maine; Court of Common Pleas; Oct 1735, Book 10, page 253; Box 60, File 9.
8. ↑ York County, Maine; Court of Common Pleas; Apr 1736, Book 10, page 365; Box 62, File 70.
9. ↑ York County, Maine; Court of Common Pleas; Apr 1736, Book 10, page 348; Box 62, File 36.
10. ↑ York County, Maine; Court of Common Pleas; Apr 1741; Book 12, page 333; Box 87, File 43.
11. ↑ York County, Maine; Court of Common Pleas; Nov 1739; Book 12, page 47; Box 79, File 14.
12. ↑ York County, Maine; Court of Common Pleas; Apr 1741; Book 12, page 351; Box 88, File 39.
13. ↑ Ancient Records of Rochester Church, page 33.
14. ↑ Charles Nelson Sinnett. Ancestor Anthony Coombs and Descendants, page 12.
15. ↑ Collection 61, “Pejepscot Papers,” Box 3, Folder 8, Vol. 5, page 209.

• Coombs, Whitney John. Anthony Coombs and Dorcas Woodin of Rochester, Massachusetts -- Their Origins and Descendants. Baltimore, MD: Otter Bay Books, 2019.

• https://findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=134837302

• Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 10 November 2020), memorial page for Peter Coombs (18 Oct 1691–30 Mar 1768), Find a Grave Memorial no. Find A Grave: Memorial #20292173, citing Marsh Cemetery, Brunswick, Cumberland County, Maine, USA ; Maintained by 47117651 (contributor 47117651) .

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Andrew White for creating WikiTree profile Coombs-329 through the import of APW_2013-03-26.ged on Mar 26, 2013.

Click to the Changes page for the details of edits by Andrew and others.