David Thomas, Ninth Great-Grandfather

August 15, 2016 — Colonial America, David Thomas, family tree, genealogy, history

Thomas Coat of Arms

David Thomas is thought to have been born in Wales about 1620, David probably arrived in America about 1640-1 on the ship “Sampson”. It certainly is a fact that a session of the Quarterly Courts at Salem on 8th July 1645 “David Thomas” is a witness in a suit for defamation of character brought by John Bartoll against Alice, wife of John Peach, Jr, for having said that the plaintiffs wife, Parnell Bartoll, had “committed adultery with the Boatswain of the ship “Sampson” in the cabin of Parnell about four years ago.” This is the first record that we know of for David Thomas in America.

David lived in that part of Salem which is about to become the town of Marblehead. David left Marblehead probably early 1661, and removed to the part of Salem which later became Beverly. Two known maps showed the location of the Salem property of David Thomas agree that David owns Lot 16, which seems to have had no dwellings on it while David owned it.

It is significant that his wife Joanna executed her consent to the sale of the Beverly property by an instrument dated at Plymouth 14th July 1669. (Essex County Deeds book 3, pages 57 and 189). It seems this must have been the year David and Joanna Thomas moved to Middleborough. The birth of his son Edward Thomas on 6th February 1669 is the first entry in the Town Records of Middleborough, even though that entry may have been made at a later date, since the Town Records are said to have been destroyed by the Indians during King Philip’s War of 1675.

David is a Farmer at “Middlebury” and his family is one of the 16 families that constituted this Town in 1675. During this year when Indians attacked “Middlebury’s” new white inhabitants, forcing these settlers back into the Old Plymouth Colony Village. After this war ended these early settlers returned and 28th June 1677 those who had owned lands there, numbering 68 persons, met and agreed to re-settle “Middlebury” presently what is now called Middleborough.

David Thomas’s house at Middleborough (not standing anymore) is a little distance southeast of the town proper at the end of what is now Thomas Street at the area that became well known as “Thomastown”.

David Thomas (1620 – 1689)
9th great-grandfather
Mary Thomas (1664 – 1754)
daughter of David Thomas
Ann Northup (1696 – 1772)
daughter of Mary Thomas
Ann Gifford (1715 – 1795)
daughter of Ann Northup
Frances Congdon (1738 – 1755)
daughter of Ann Gifford
Samuel Thomas Sweet (1765 – 1844)
son of Frances Congdon
Valentine Sweet (1791 – 1858)
son of Samuel Thomas Sweet
Sarah LaVina Sweet (1840 – 1923)
daughter of Valentine Sweet
Jason A Morse (1862 – 1932)
son of Sarah LaVina Sweet
Ernest Abner Morse (1890 – 1965)
son of Jason A Morse
Richard Arden Morse (1920 – 2004)
son of Ernest Abner Morse
Pamela Morse
I am the daughter of Richard Arden Morse

David Thomas and his wife came from Salem to Middleboro soon after 1668, the of he selling his land in Salem. They settled in Thomastown, where their descedants are still living. He bought into the Twenty-six Men’s purchase.
He had sveral children, David, Joanna, William, Jeremiah, and Edward, the last born February 6 1669, the first birth in the early records of the town.

Source: History of the Town of Middleboro.