Richard Otis (abt. 1550 - 1611)

Born about 1550 in Glastonbury, Somerset, England

Descendants

Died 17 Nov 1611 at about age 61 in Glastonbury, Somerset, England

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Mark VanHaelst [send private message]

Biography

RICHARD OTIS

b.c.1550

will 17 Nov 1611 Glastonbury, Somerset

In his will Richard Otis of Glastonbury gave his sons Stephen & John all his wearing apparel, also to his son Thomas and to two daughters some household goods with the remainder to his wife. ^[1]

William Otis in his genealogy of the family states that information on Richard and his family is in the Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island, however, the Otis family isn’t in the index, TOC, or supplements and the name doesn’t come up when the digital edition is searched… so if it’s in there it’s well hidden! ^[2]

Children

I. Stephen- m. Elizabeth ______, will 1637

II. John- b.c.1581 Glastonbury, Somerset, m.1. c.1604 Margaret ______ (d. 28 June 1653 Hingham), m.2. Elizabeth Whitman (m.1. John Stream, will 22 Sept. 1672- 17 July 1676), d. 31 May 1657 Weymouth, bur. 1st Parish Cem., Scituate

III. Thomas- Thomas supposedly remained in England and then went to Ireland, his descendant, Robert Otis, settling in Connecticut about 1720.

IV. Margaret- d. 1653

V. Mary-

Biography*1 He was born in 1550, in Glastonbury, England. His sons, Stephen and John, immigrated to New Hampshire early in the 17th century. Many of their descendants had serious problems with Indians, in the late 1600's and early 1700's, and were either attacked, captured or killed by them, as you will read in the following reports.

From Cochecho Massacre, on www.seacoastnh.com, "In one bloody afternoon, a quarter of the colonists in what is now downtown Dover, NH were gone -- 23 killed, and 29 captured in a revenge attack by native warriors. In one afternoon, 50 years of peaceful co-existence between the Penacook tribe and European colonists ended. The massacre of 1689 entered the history books along with similar accounts throughout the Seacoast. With three-quarters of the native population afflicted by white diseases, dead or driven out of their ancestral homeland, the next half century brought the final gasps of protest against the unending "white tide" of settlers."

On Thursday, the 27th of June, 1689, the dwelling-hous e of Richard Otis, was attacked by the Indians, and himself shot as he was rising up in bed, and his son Stephen and daughter Hannah were killed, the latter, then two years old, by bashing her head against the chamber stairs. The wife a nd infant child of three months, with others, twenty-nin e in all, were carried captive to Canada, and sold to the French. In this Abenaki Indian massacre in 1689 in Dover, New Hampshire, many of the Otis family were killed. One of his granddaughters, in the 4th generation, Mary Otis, was also taken in that Indian attack and sold to the French. How she returned to marry Ebenezer Varney is still a mystery.

The Otis family began to follow the Society of Friends (Quakers) during the 1700's, and their descendants followed them in this faith. They became a highly educated family, many of them graduating from Harvard University.

Sources

1. ↑ Genealogy of the Otis Family- Horatio Otis, NEHGR- Vol. IV, p. 163
2. ↑ William A. Otis, | A Memoir of the Otis Family, Winnetka, Ill, 1924; Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island- John Austin, Joel Munsell & Sons, Albany, 1887

• Ancestry Media
• Otis, William Augustus. A Genealogical And Historical Memoir of the Otis Family In America (Schulkins, Inc., Chicago, 1924). P.35
• Williams, Cornelia Bartow, 1854-. Ancestry of Lawrence Williams. Chicago, Ill.: [R.R. Donnelley and Sons Co.], 1915. Page 134.