Family Tree Maker's Genealogy Site: Genealogy Report: February 2001 Descendants of George Byam

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February 2001 Descendants of George Byam

Generation No. 1

1. GEORGE¹ BYAM was born in ENGLAND or WALES, and died May 27, 1680 in Chelmsford, Middlesex Co., MASSACHUSETTS. He married SUSANNAH ?. She was born in ENGLAND or WALES, and died August 21, 1687 in Chelmsford, Middlesex Co., MASSACHUSETTS.

Notes for GEORGE BYAM:
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George's and Susannah's Early Lives and Immigration to New England

We know nothing about George Byam's early life except that he was undoubtedly born in Great Britain. As Edwin Byam points out in "Descendants of George Byam (? - 1680)" there were Byams in the counties of Monmouth and Somerset in England. Both are in the southwest of England, and Monmouth is on the Welsh border. Since the name Byam has Welsh roots, it is possible that George was born there. A fair supposition, then, is that he was born in southwest England or in southern Wales, with the former somewhat more likely given limited Welsh emigration to New England in the early years of colonization.

We know even less about Susannah Byam than we do about her husband. We don't know her maiden name, where she was born in England or when she immigrated to America.

We do not know what ship George took to New England, nor how old he was. We know he was fairly young when he arrived. He became a member of the Church in Salem in September 1640 and a freeman (voter) in May 1642. His first child of whom we have record was born in January 1643, so presumably he and Susannah married in 1642 or slightly earlier. It is unlikely that George was born later than about 1620 and probably not before 1610.

Edwin Byam makes a good case for George having arrived in Boston in August 1635 on the ship Blessing. He deduced this from family legend and supporting facts concerning George's connections with others, particularly with the parents of his son Abraham's first wife, Experience Adford. There is also recorded as a passenger on the Blessing a Nathaniel Byam, aged 14. We have no other record of him. Since the legend had it that George and Henry Adford and another came together as teenagers, it may well be that it was on this ship.

It appears that George came as a teenager, travelling to a new country either alone or with his sibling Nathaniel. Nathaniel, however, may well not have existed but actually be George -- the result of a recording error. Why did George come? There are two possibilities: 1) George was orphaned or simply left his family and decided to go to New England or 2) George's parents or his remaining parent had indentured him to another family who either brought him to New England or encouraged him to come.

The 17th Century was a time of large families, and decreasing infant mortality (though still extremely high by today's standards), and given hard times in the west of England, many families turned their children out at an early age, often by 13. Most of the early settlers in New England came either from what was then England's wealthiest area, East Anglia and surrounding counties, or the southwest, which at that time was one of the poorest areas.

It was not uncommon for 17th Century English children to be indentured with more wealthy families, or with poor families who merely had fewer children. Many Americans assume that indentured servants were only on this side of the Atlantic. George was almost certainly indentured in New England, probably in Salem, to pay for his passage (which is the common perception of indenture), but he may well have been indentured or "hired out" while he was still in England.

The religious ferment against the Established Church of England was largely, though certainly not exclusively, in the prosperous east. Relative wealth gave people the opportunity to learn to read and time to read the Bible. Cambridge University, on the western edge of East Anglia, was the hotbed of dissent and turned out leaders for the movement. But even in the west of England, George may have lived with a Puritan family. It is not impossible that he developed his own dissenting ideas while still in England.

On the other hand, George may have come to New England for purely economic reasons. Like the many immigrants who followed him, he may seen greater opportunity on this side of the Atlantic.

The Puritans

In any case, at least after arriving in Massachusetts, George Byam was a Puritan, and it is helpful to understand their beliefs and the distinction between Puritans and Pilgrims.

The Pilgrims first landed at Provincetown on November 21, 1620 after a 65-day voyage on the Mayflower and later at Plymouth on Christmas Day 1620. They established the Plymouth Colony, sometimes called "New Plymouth," consisting of Cape Cod and what is now the southeast corner of Massachusetts from the Rhode Island border to the Boston suburbs

The Puritans arrived in Boston in the summer of 1630, almost ten years later. They arrived in vastly greater numbers (11 ships versus 1) and the population of the new Massachusetts Bay Colony tripled that of Plymouth in less than a year. It ostensibly began as a commercial venture -- the Massachusetts Bay Company was a corporation.

In England, those known now as Pilgrims were called Separatists or Independents (and later Dissenters), while those known in America as Puritans were called Puritans in England as well , but they were also called Non-Separatists.

Both Pilgrims and Puritans agreed that the Church of England was horribly corrupt. Although it was far less liturgical than the Anglican Church of today, they nevertheless rejected the Church of England as too "Romish." Their principal objection was that the role of tradition, as embodied by bishops, was given too much weight in counterbalance to Scripture. Both groups were Reformed, in that they were followers of the teachings of John Calvin, and embraced the concept of predestination, i.e., that only God's elect (a small number) will be saved.

Pilgrims/Separatists favored leaving the Church of England and forming a separate denomination. The old church was simply too corrupt to reform. They also believed that each individual congregation should establish its own rules and make its own decisions. They ultimately formed what came to be known as the Congregational Church.

The Puritans/Non-Separatists, on the other hand, initially strongly opposed leaving the Church of England. They insisted it should and could be reformed from within. They were Presbyterians and at this time included in their numbers a large percentage of the gentry and wealthy merchants of England. Not surprisingly, they were strongest in what was then the most prosperous and middle-class area of England, East Anglia.

Only a few years after the founding of Massachusetts Bay, the Puritans/Non-Separatists gained power in England through Parliament. Under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, they won the English Civil War and beheaded King Charles I on January 30, 1649. A Commonwealth was proclaimed with Cromwell as Lord Protector. Bishops were removed and the Church of England became Presbyterian, as was (and is) the Church of Scotland. After Cromwell's death on September 3, 1658, the Commonwealth fairly quickly fell apart and Charles I's son, Charles II assumed the throne in May 1660. Bishops were almost immediately reinstated. During the Restoration, the gentry and upper middle-class (who were frightened by the excesses of the Puritan revolution) became firmly Anglican and remained the backbone of the Church of England for the next two hundred years. Presbyterianism disappeared in England.

In America, the events in the Mother Country naturally had an impact. Several Puritans returned to England to participate in the Civil War and the government of the Commonwealth. Most in Massachusetts Bay unenthusiastically acknowledged Presbyterianism when it became the state church and a presbytery was proposed for New England in 1648. The vast majority of Puritans had ceased to be Presbyterians in anything but name by that time. The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony were even less enthusiastic. They were no more anxious to be under the control of a presbytery than they had been to be under control of a bishop and diocese -- and at least there were none of those in the colonies.

The Puritans' beliefs were similar to religious fundamentalists/Bible literalists of today, but they differed in many significant ways. For example, fundamentalists of today are split on both predestinarianism and infant baptism, benchmarks of Puritan theology. The Puritans completely rejected any observance of Christmas. They brewed and drank beer, and used wine in communion services.

The history of congregational organization and the failure of the English Commonwealth were major factors in the rejection of Presbyterianism by the people of Massachusetts Bay Colony and the rest of New England. Thus the Pilgrim's church, the Congregational Church, became the dominant church in the remainder of New England in a very short time. It became the Established Church in the New England states, and remained so until 1833.

Salem and Wenham

Perhaps the most "congregational" of the Massachusetts Bay (Puritan) towns was Salem. A minister from Plymouth had actually founded it in 1626. The church there had become so removed from the wider church that by 1634 they were denying communion to those fellow Puritans recently arrived from England. This is important to us since George and presumably Susannah began their sojourn in America in Salem. He probably lived in the Salem area for twenty years -- 1635-1655

George and Susannah moved out of Salem proper to the nearby town of Wenham some time before 1648. Wenham, north of Beverly Bay, was made a separate town from Salem in 1643.

Yes, George and Susannah did live in the Salem area at the outset of the witchcraft hysteria (1647), for which it will ever be famous, but the main trials occurred in the 1690s, long after their departure to Chelmsford and subsequent deaths . It is unlikely they played any role in the early hysteria.

Chelmsford

Perhaps in 1653, and certainly by 1655, George (around 35), Susanna and Abraham (about ten) began a westward trek from the Atlantic coast that some of their descendants would ultimately follow to the other ocean. Chelmsford, in Middlesex County, is about twenty miles west of Salem and perhaps 25 miles northwest of Boston. Today the town is bisected by Interstate 495 and is a beautiful bedroom suburb of Boston. But in the 1650s, it was the frontier and the brave farmers who came there faced numerous hardships.

The Rev. John Fiske had come from England in 1637, preached in Salem for about three years, and then moved to Wenham where a church was "gathered" in 1644. He served in Wenham for eleven years and was the minister there during the entire five to seven years that the Byams lived there. Fiske was remarkable, even for that amazing period. He was both a medical doctor and a minister, so he ministered to his flock in both the temporal and spiritual senses.

Settlement of Chelmsford began soon after 1650. By 1654, there was a small community and they wanted to form a church. In the fall of that year, a deputation from Chelmsford went to Wenham and invited the Rev. Dr. Fiske to come minister with them, and invited all of his congregation to join him. Almost a year later, on November 13, 1655, Dr. Fiske and others joined to form the Chelmsford Church. George Byam was one, being among the five church founders who had come from Wenham with Fiske.

The church that George helped found is still very much in existence, but not in a form George would recognize today. Fiske was probably sufficiently Separatist/Pilgrim in his orientation that the congregation he led undoubtedly welcomed the transformation from Presbyterianism/Puritanism to Congregationalism. What Fiske, and perhaps George, might have been less enthusiastic about was the transfer of the church to Unitarianism in the early 19th Century . The current church, the 4th on the site, was built in 1842.

George and Susanna settled in the Beaver Brook meadows, west of the village, an area known as the West End. The original Byam homestead, at 50 Hunt Road (at the corner of Hunt and Littleton Roads) was built in 1656 and is still standing today. It remained in the Byam family for nine generations, being sold in 1907.

The Byam farm was never a big one by today's standards, about 35 acres. Of course, at today's prices in Chelmsford, it would probably be worth more than a million dollars.

In 1668, George served as constable. He was then at least 48. On at least two occasions he was selected as custodian of the meetinghouse, for which he was paid. He also served at least two terms as a highway surveyor.

George died on May 27th or 28th, 1680, age at least 60. Susannah died August 21, 1687.

George and Susannah had two children and adopted another. Their daughter, Abigail, was born January 7, 1643 and died young. Abraham was baptized in Salem on April 14, 1644. Mary Horsey/Harsey/Hersey was adopted on September 16, 1646. She was the daughter of Mary Horsey/Harsey/ Hersey, who had died. We know little more of Mary except that she may have been referenced as being "in the hands of William King" in Salem records of 1660, after George, Susannah and Abraham had departed for Chelmsford.

More About GEORGE BYAM:
Denomination: Congregational
Immigrated: August 1635, Probably to Boston on the "Blessing"

More About SUSANNAH ?:
Immigrated: Bef. 1641

Children of GEORGE BYAM and SUSANNAH ? are:

ABIGAIL² BYAM, b. January 07, 1642/43, MASSACHUSETTS; d. Unknown; m. THOMAS WHITMAN (Source: Hansen, Trevor John, 1515 S. Extension #1125, Meas, AZ 85210. From Family Search Pedigree Resource File, Disc 1, #98107), November 12, 1656, Weymouth, Suffolk Co., MASSACHUSETTS; b. 1629, Of Berkley, Bristol Co., MASSACHUSETTS; d. November 17, 1712, Bridgewater, Plymouth Co., MASSACHUSETTS.

Notes for THOMAS WHITMAN:
I think it extremely unlikely that Thomas Whitman was married to Abigail Byam, as she was 14 at the time of the marriage, she is reported to have died young, and she and Thomas did not live anywhere near each other by the standards of the times.

2.	ii.		ABRAHAM BYAM, b. Bef. April 14, 1644, Salem, Essex Co., MASSACHUSETTS; d. December 19, 1732, Chelmsford, Middlesex Co., MASSACHUSETTS.
	iii.		MARY HORSEY/HARSEY/HERSEY, b. Bef. September 16, 1646, MASSACHUSETTS; d. Unknown; Adopted child.

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