Zachariah Symmes Sr. (1599 - 1671)

Born 5 Apr 1599 in St. George's, Canterbury, Kent, England

Ancestors

Husband of Sarah (Baker) Symmes — married 13 Aug 1622 in St Saviour, Southwark, Surrey, England

Descendants

Died 4 Feb 1671 at age 71 in Charlestown, Suffolk, Massachusetts Bay Colony

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Zachariah Symmes Sr. migrated to New England during the Puritan Great Migration (1621-1640). (See The Great Migration (Series 2), by R. C. Anderson, vol. 6, p. 634) Join: Puritan Great Migration Project Discuss: pgm

Biography

Zachariah Symmes Sr. is related to US President Benjamin Harrison. Here is the trail.

Rev. Zachariah Symmes was the 5th great grandfather of US President Benjamin Harrison.^[1]

For a PDF of Symmes's bio and sources as it appeared here through 11 September 2019, click here.

Zachariah Symmes was born on 5 April 1599 in St. George's, Canterbury, England, the youngest of three known children and the younger of two sons of William and Mary Ingleram Symmes.

In 1620, he graduated from Emanuel College, University of Cambridge.^[2]

On 13 August 1622, when he was twenty-three, he married Sarah Baker in St Saviour Parish Southwark, Surrey, England ^[3]

She bore him twelve children, four sons and eight daughters:

1. Sarah Symmes
2. William Symmes
3. Mary Symmes
4. Elizabeth Symmes
5. Huldah Symmes
6. Rebecca Symmes
7. Hannah Symmes
8. Ruth Symmes
9. Zechariah Symmes
10. Timothy Symmes
11. Deborah Symmes
12. Timothy Symmes.

In 1634, when he was thirty-five, he migrated to New England from Dunstable, Bedford, England, aboard the Griffin, arriving in Boston on the 18th of September.^[4]

On 4 February 1670[/1], when he was seventy, he died in Charlestown, Suffolk, Massachusetts.

Biographical sketch from Annals of the American Pulpit

Zechariah Symmes was born in Canterbury, England, April 5, 1599. His father, the Rev. William Symmes, who was ordained in 1588, has sufficiently indicated his own character by the following testimony in respect to his parents, and the following charge addressed to his children, which he inscribed on the flyleaf of a book, in the year 1602: "I note it as a special mercy of God that both my father and mother were favourers of the Gospel, and hated idolatry under Queen Mary's persecution. And I charge my sons, Zechariah and William, before Him that shall judge the quick and the dead, that you never defile yourselves with any idolatry or superstition whatsoever, but learn your religion out of God's Holy word, and worship God as He Himself hath prescribed, and not after the devices and traditions of men."

Zechariah Symmes gave indications not only of a serious turn of mind, but of hopeful piety, from very early life. He was educated at the University of Cambridge. After leaving the University, he was employed as tutor in several distinguished families; and in 1621 was appointed lecturer at Atholines in London. In September, 1625, he left London, and became the Rector of Dunstable]. But being subjected to serious embarrassment in his ministry, in consequence of being a nonconformist, he resolved to migrate to New England; and, accordingly, he arrived on these shores in August, 1634. He was a passenger in the same ship with the celebrated Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, who was afterwards the occasion of so much trouble to the churches. He was admitted to the fellowship of the church in Charlestown, on the 6th of December following; and on the 22d of the same month, which was observed as a day of humiliation and prayer, he was elected and ordained teacher of the same church, the Rev. Thomas James being already its pastor.

The relation between Mr. James and the church seems not to have been a happy one. After Mr. Symmes had been settled about a year, a difficulty which had for some time existed between Mr. James and the people, in which Mr. S. also had come to be involved, came to a crisis, and resulted in the dismission of the pastor, when Mr. S. succeeded to the vacant office. The office of teacher was then vacant about three years; though the Rev. John Harvard, during a part of this time, supplied the pulpit as Mr. Symmes' assistant. In 1640, the Rev. Thomas Allent was associated with Mr. Symmes, as teacher; but, after filling the place about ten years, he returned to England. Mr. Symmes was now left alone in the ministry till the year 1659, when he was again relieved by receiving Mr. Thomas Shepard as his colleague. As Mr. Symmes' faculties were found to be gradually waning, an attempt was made, in 1669, to associate with him another assistant, namely, the Rev. John Oxenbridge; but this proved unsuccessful, as he accepted, about this time, an invitation to settle in Boston. Mr. Symmes died on the 4th of February, 1671, within a month of completing his seventy-second year, and in the thirty-seventh year of his ministry at Charlestown. He preached the Annual Election Sermon in 1648.

Mr. Buddington, in his History of the First Church in Charlestown, (himself the pastor of the church,) says:

" Mr. Symmes appears to have been held in esteem by his contemporaries, and when we remember who they were, this is no small praise. In respect to ability and literary attainments, he appears to have been respectable; but if we are authorized to form an opinion from the slender information we possess respecting him, he was more distinguished for his practical talents and general usefulness. 'He knew his Bible well,' says Cotton Mather, 'and he was a preacher of what he knew, and a sufferer for what he preached.'"

Some idea may be formed of his remarkable gift of endurance, from the fact that, on the occasion of the organization of the church at Woburn, he is said to have "continued in preaching and prayer about four or five hours." His treatment of the Baptists seems to have been marked with some degree of severity.

Mr. Symmes lived with his wife Sarah almost fifty years. She is represented as having been eminent for faith, fortitude, cheerfulness and industry. They had thirteen children, five sons and eight daughters.^[5]

Sources

1. ↑ Gary Boyd Roberts, Ancestors of American Presidents, (Boston, MA: New England Historic Genealogical Society), p. 26.
2. ↑ Cambridge University Alumni, 1261-1900. Retrieved from Ancestry.com
3. ↑ Saint Saviour, Southwark, Southwark, England https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1624/images/48220_263021009500_3388-00097?treeid=&personid=&hintid=&queryId=29d47005cf5e9dc2901110e8df35c21a&usePUB=true&_phsrc=IzZ1010&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=250756227
4. ↑ Anderson, R. C. The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, Volume 6 (R-S). Boston: New England Historical and Genealogical Society, 1996-2011, p. 634. Retrieved 26 July 2015 from http://www.AmericanAncestors.org
5. ↑ William Buell Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit (Robert Carter & Brothers, New York, 1857) Vol. 1, Page 47-8.

See also:

• Saxbe, William B. "Sarah (Gerrish) King (1714-1798) of Salem, Massachusetts, and Her Descent from Nine Puritan Ministers." New England Historical and Genealogical Register. Vol. 175 (2012). p. 29. Link to issue at americanancestors.org.
• Venn, John Archibald. Alumni Cantabrigienses (Cambridge University Press, 1924) Vol. 4, Saal - Zuinglius, Page 76. Citing: "Symmes, Zechariah."
• Vinton, John Adams. The Symmes Memorial. A Biographical Sketch of Rev. Zechariah Symmes, Minister of Charlestown, 1631-1671, With a Genealogy and Brief Memoirs of Some of His Descendants. (David Clapp & Son, Boston, 1873). Pages 1-17.

• The Symmes Memorial Online.