CCIF Research: Thomas Beecher-709

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: [unknown]

Commanders of the Castle Island Fort

Thomas Beecher

Time Line

• 1629 - Said to have been Master of the Talbot as part of the Higginson Fleet of 1629 (which established Salem under John Endicott). (So said by Pope: alternative opinions seem to be available.) This ship, or another of the same name, became the "Vice-Admiral" of the Winthrop Fleet in 1630 (Master on this voyage unknown).
• 28 May 1629 Master of the "Talbot."^[1]
• 27 August 1630 - Beecher's wife Christian, became the 17th member of the First Church of Boston.
• 1632 Thomas Beecher and Christian his wife ...dismission from the Congregation to enter into a new Church body at Charle Towne .^[2]
• 14 May 1634: Sea Fort to be built (Thomas Beecher part of committee to get the fort built.) (Shurtleff, v1., p. 120.)
• 6 May 1635: Thomas Beecher Mr. Beecher, Member of Committee for Military Affairs (Shurtleff, v1, p. 146.)
• 6 May 1635: - Chose Captain of fort at Castle Island.^{[3] [4]}
• 2 Sep 1635: Capt. Underhill and Mr. Beecher to deliver 2 Drakes to Connecticut. ^[5]

Research Notes

Sources

1. ↑ Page 96 Records of the Company of the Massachusetts Bay, to the Embarkation of ...By Massachusetts https://books.google.ca/books?id=QsASAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR137&lpg=PR137&dq=thomas+beecher+of+charleton+massachusetts&source=bl&ots=xm_W7uwo_x&sig=ACfU3U07noiMCl-UiwTZ-jvPI7bAyXBOtQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjH4vOuuuPtAhVLs54KHQRNBc84ChDoATAFegQIBhAC#v=onepage&q=thomas%20beecher%20of%20charleton%20massachusetts&f=false
2. ↑ Pages 13, 16 The Records of the First Church of Boston 1630- https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/1070
3. ↑ Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1628-1641, V1, p.147.
4. ↑ Frothingham, p.80.
5. ↑ (Shurtleff, v1. p. 160.)

• Savage, v. 1. A-C., p.153.
• Not a member of the Artillery Company of Massachusetts (Gone before company formed)
• GMD, p. 25.
• GM profile

GM Sources used by Anderson:

1. BChR - The Records of the First Church in Boston, 1630· 1868, Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volumes 39, 40 and 41, ed. Richard D. Pierce (Boston 1961)
2. ChChR - Records of the First Church in Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1632-1789, James Frothingham Hunnewell, ed. (Boston 1880)
3. Higginson - Francis Higginson, New-Englands Plantation with The Sea Journal and Other Writings (Salem 1908)
4. ChTR - Charlestown Town Records (see "Sources: Town Records: Charlestown")
5. MBCR - Records of the and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1628-1686, ed. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, 5 volumes in 6 (Boston 1853-1854)
6. PCC - Prerogative Court of Canterbury, England
7. SPR - Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Probate Records
8. WJ - John Winthrop, The History of New England from 1630 to 1649, ed. James Savage, 2 volumes (Boston 1853). Citations herein refer to the pagination of the 1853 and not the 1826 edition, even though the index to the 1853 edition continues to use the 1826 pagination.
9. WP - Winthrop Papers, 1498-1654, 6 volumes, various editors (Boston 1925-1992)
10. Rhode Island Colony Records, 1646-1669, (MSS) pp.210-11

• Mary Walton Ferris (Compiler), Dawes-Gates ancestral lines. A memorial volume ..., V1, p.453, see also Floating Fort