Patience Chadbourne, Warwickshire to Maine

September 23, 2013

resting place

My 9th great grandmother was born in England and died in Maine.

Patience Chadbourne (1612 – 1683)

PATIENCE CHADBOURNE (1. William1), baptized Tamworth, Warwickshire, England 8 Nov 1612; died York Co ME (probably Berwick) 7 Nov 1683 (MPC III: 188-189, YD 5/1/23-4); married, perhaps in England, before 1629 (Torrey’s New England Marriages Prior to 1700 states that a child was born 1630) THOMAS1 SPENCER, born England about 1596, died Berwick 15 Dec 1681 (MW, 66-68; YD 5/1/12; inv YD 5/1/3). A Thomas Spencer was baptized 28 Mar 1597, son of William at Eastwick, Herefordshire, England (LND, 651-2). The baptism in 1603 of a Thomas Spencer, son of Thomas Spencer, has been noted in the parish registers of Winchcombe, Gloucestershire. Further research is required to determine whether this could be the Maine settler. No marriage record has been found.
Thomas arrived at Piscataqua in July 1630 on the barque Warwick (TMS), returned to England in 1633, and returned to the colonies on the Pied Cow in 1634. In his 1904 work, Emery was probably mistaken when he said Spencer was from Winchcombe, Gloucester, England. Emery went on to say erroneously that this was also the English home of the Chadbournes. By the 1950s, it was known that this was untrue and that the Chadbournes came from Tamworth (Parish records). More may be learned about Thomas Spencer’s arrival in Maine in MPC IV:172-4 and under #8 Humphrey Spencer.
Thomas was a planter, lumberman, and tavernkeeper. Pope’s Pioneers of Maine & New Hampshire says that Thomas was a proprietor of Cambridge MA in 1633, a freeman in 1634 who removed to Kittery. Patience and Thomas lived first at Strawbery Bank (Portsmouth), then on 6 Mar 1636/7 were called residents of “Piscataqua” (Kittery Point), and finally of Newichawannock (S Berwick). Dispute over Thomas’ title to land in S Berwick (where William Chadbourne gave them a house) is described under their son Humphrey #8. They were of Saco in 1654 (Holmes, Dictionary of New England Families) and Patience was (erroneously) called a widow of Saco in 1662 (Savage, Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England). In 1682 Patience was probably of Berwick as Thomas died there in 1681 and she in 1683.
Thomas was disenfranchised for entertaining Quakers in 1659 (LND, 652). Evidence that Thomas and Patience may have been Quakers is seen in the courts 7 July 1663 when they were presented for “neglecting to come to the publique meeteing on the Lords day to heare the word preached for about the space of 3 Moenths” (MPC II:139). They were presented again for the same offense on 6 July 1675 (ibid, II:306). In a long list of “those persons yt entertayned the Quakers, with the answers given in by them respectively” we find: “That Thomas Spencer pay as a fine to ye country for his entertayning the Quakers the somme of five pounds, & be disfranchised” (The Records of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, Vol 4, part 1, p 407). Edward Wharton piloted a vessel that carried a group of Quakers up the coast, and seven people were fined varying sums and/or disenfranchised (lost the right to vote) by the Massachusetts Bay government, the only entity which could disenfranchise a freeman. Thomas Spencer obviously answered their questions in sympathy with the Quakers, defied the government, and was cast out as a result. Because we don’t have copies of his answers to the Court’s questions, we don’t know how steadfastly he supported the Quakers, but he clearly satisfied the Court that he was in sympathy with them or they would not have taken action against him. They did not take action against James Rawlings, for instance, whom they found to be “more innocent and ingenious then the rest.”
Brother Humphrey Chadbourne expressed concern for his sister Patience Spencer when he wrote his will in 1662. Humphrey directed his wife to assist “sister Spencer” if she should fall into “decay” (qv).
After Thomas’ death in Dec 1681, Patience may have continued to operate the tavern. After her death her children and relatives, William, Humphrey and Moses Spencer, Ephraim Joy, and Thomas Chick, chose William Spencer and Thomas Chick to help them divide the estate 15 Nov 1683 (MPC III:186), and then finally settled on Edward Rishworth, Richard Nason and James Emery to make the division (ibid, III:188), probably because William and Thomas were heirs.

The inventory of her estate was as follows: