ROBERT ANDREWS
ORIGIN: Unknown
MIGRATION: 1634
FIRST RESIDENCE: Ipswich
OCCUPATION: Innkeeper, licensed to keep an ordinary by the General Court on 3 September 1635 [MBCR 1:159], and again, was allowed on 13 May 1640 to draw wine at Ipswich, according to town regulations [MBCR 1:292].
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP: Admission to Ipswich church prior to 6 May 1635 implied by freemanship.
FREEMAN: 6 May 1635 [MBCR 1:370].
EDUCATION: He signed his will, and was concerned enough with the higher education of his son, Thomas, to make provision therein for his continued schooling and possible university attendance.
ESTATE: On 13 January 16371/81, the town of Ipswich granted to "Goodman Andrewes and Goodman Haffield 2 acres of ground in the place where Mr. Tuttell[s] hayricks stand" [ITR]. About 1637 there was granted "to Robert Andrewes one hundred acres of land having Chebacco Creek on the northwest ..., likewise ten acres of meadow lying upon L.abour-in-vayne Creek ..., likewise twelve acres of land lying on the north ~ side of the town ..., likewise six acres on the hill lying on the north side of town ..., also an houselot in town near the river" [ITR].
In his will, dated 1 March 1643/4 and proved 26 March 1644, "Robert Andrewes of Ipswich" named "eldest son John Andrews" executor, and bequeathed "unto my wife Elizabeth Andrews" £40; to "John Griffin the son of Humfry Griffin" £16 to be paid to hun when he turns 21, "& if he shall die before he comes to that age it shall return to my two sons John & Thomas Andrews"; "concerning my son Thomas Andrews my will is that he shall live with his brother John Andrews three years two of which he shall be helpful to his brother John Andrews in his husbandry and the last of the three years he shall go to school to recover his learning and if he shall go to the university or shall set himself upon some other way of living his brother John shall allow him ten pounds by the year for four years & then fifteen pounds by the year for two years succeeding after"; ‘concerning the fourscore pounds which is to be paid unto my son-in-law Francklin s daughter Elizabeth Francklin my grandchild my will is that if she die before the debt is due it shall be thus disposed ten pounds of it shall go to my son Daniell Hovie's child Daniell Hovey my grandchild and the other seventy pounds shall be divided between my two sons John & Thomas Andrews and if those my two sons should die then thirty pounds should be divided between my kinsmen John, Thomas, & Robert Burnum by equal portions & twenty more should go to Humphry Gryffin s two other sons & the other twenty shall go to Daniell Hovey. And because my son John Andrews is yet under age I do commend him unto Thomas Howlet as his guardian until he shall come of age" [EPR 1:27-28].
BIRTH: By about 1593 based on estimated date of marriage.
DEATH: Between 1 March 1643/4 (date of will) and 26 March 1644
(probate of will).
MARRIAGE: By about 1618 Elizabeth _____ (probably a widow).
ASSOCIATIONS: Robert Andrews, in his will, speaks of his ‘kinsmen John, Thomas & Robert Burnum," without specifying the relationship. People have invented parents for the Burnhamn boys, making their father one Robert Burnhamn, and their mother one "Mary Andrews," an alleged sister of Robert Andrews, thereby making the boys nephews of Robert Andrews, all without any evidence whatsoever [Warner-Harrington 17].
COMMENTS: Robert Andrews has been placed by various writers as a passenger on the ill-fated Angel Gabriel in 1635 [e.g., Dommerich Anc 43], but this is a physical impossibility. Andrews was admitted to Massachusetts Bay freemanship on 6 May 1635, an event which implies his arrival in New England by 1634 and which required his presence in New England on 6 May 1635. The Angel Gabriel was riding at anchor near Bristol, England, on 26 May 1635, and did not sail for New England until 4 June [Young's First Planters 450-53].
Robert Andrews of Ipswich owed the late Rev. Joseph Avery £2 at the time of the latter's death on 15 August 1635 [MBCR 1:154]. Robert also. signed a petition of the inhabitants of Ipswich, dated 21 June 1637, in which the petitioners opposed the recall of John Winthrop Jr. [WP 3:432- 33].
Estimating the years of birth of Robert Andrews's children is a challenge. It would appear that Elizabeth, the purported stepdaughter, was born by 1619; she was undoubtedly married by 1639, and likely before that, as she had three sons by the time Robert Andrews made his will. ELIZABETH, b. England by 1619; ma. (1) say 1639 Humphrey Griffin of Ipswich; m. (2) Hugh Sherratt of Haverhill. In his will, Robert Andrews left bequests to the three sons of Humphrey Griffin, but did not state any relationship to them, although the amounts were similar to that left to his stated grandson, Daniel Hovey. On 30 March 1647, Elizabeth, widow of Robert Andrews, was admonished by the court for cursing and reviling her son-in-law, Humphrey Griffin. Likewise, Humphrey Griffin of Ipswich was presented "for reviling his wife's mother" [EQC 1:113]. Referring to a stepmother as "mother" was commnon, and does not prove an umbilical connection. Later, when the estate of Thomas Andrews, unmarried son of Robert Andrews, was administered, Daniel Hovey, husband of Abigail Andrews, wrote to the court listing the nieces and nephews of the deceased, so as to show the names of the heirs. All were named but Elizabeth's five children, and they did not petition the court to be recognized as heirs, either. Moreover, the court ordered distribution of the estate of Thomas Andrews to the children of his "only brother," and to "the children now living who descended from the two sisters" [EQC 9:120]. It is, therefore, clear that Elizabeth was not a sibling of the whole _ blood to the rest. The question then is whether she was a daughter of Robert Andrews from a previous marriage, or a daughter of Elizabeth, wife of Robert Andrews, from a previous marriage. Because Robert Andrews did not name Elizabeth in his will, though she was still living, and because her mother and her husband were in court later for calling each other names, and because her children are not named as heirs to Thomas Andrews's estate, we conclude that Elizabeth was more likely a
56 The Great Migration
daughter of Elizabeth ( ___) Andrews from a previous marriage than she was a daughter of Robert Andrews himself, and in that we concur with Walter Goodwin Davis who also considered this problem [Annis Spear Anc 1521.
Alice, whose daughter Elizabeth Franklin was born in Boston on 3 October 1638, could not have been born herself much later than our suggested birth year for Elizabeth. And Abigail, who had a son by the tune her father made his will, was probably not born later than 1623. There is then a gap of approximately five years before John's birth. We know that Thomas was younger than John, since John was asked in his father's will to look out for Thomas, hence the estimated year of birth of 1630 for the son Thomas. All of these, with the possible exception of John, are estimated dates, and some tolerance in either direction must be allowed for in the absence of more substantial evidence.
Pope, in error, states that Capt. Andrews made his will on 2 April 1641, and that it was proved on "22 (8) 1647." Pope took the erroneous date from the agreement between Robert Andrews and William Franklin [Pope 18; Annis Spear Anc 152-53].
From Internet http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~legends/andrews.html:
Capt. Robert Andrews, came from England, and settled at Ipswich, Massachusetts, early in the year 1635. The Andrews Memorial states that Capt. Andrews, came from Norwich, Norfolk County, England, early in 1635, as owner and master of ship Angel Gabriel. Richard Mather, in his narrative of his voyage in the James says, they came in company part of the way, and that many Godly people were on board the ship.
This Capt. Andrews had a sister Mary, who was the wife of Robert Burnham. Their three boys, John, Thomas, and Robert Burnham, it is said, were put in charge of their uncle Andrews, master of the ship Angel Gabriel which was cast away at Pemaquid, in Maine, in a terrible storm, 15 August 1635, after which loss, Capt. Andrews settled with his nephews at Chebacco, in Massachusetts Bay.
In a book entitled "Ancient Pemaquid," by J. W. Thornton, 1857, it says:
"On the last wednesday of May in this year (1635), the Angel Gabriel, a strong ship of 240 tons, and carrying a heavy armament of 16 guns swung at her moorings in the King's Road, four or five miles distant from the city. Her destination was Pemaquid. On her deck was a company of many Godly Christians, some from other ships, bound for New England; one of them was Richard Mather, visited there by Sir Ferdinando Georges, but the chief personage in the company was John Cogswell, a London merchant of wealth who with the fragments of his freight, and accompanied by his servants, settled at Ipswich."
In the fury of an easterly storm the ship with her cargo were totally lost; some of the passengers not escaping death, most notably the Blaisdell family. This shipwreck is chronicled as one of the greatest disasters in the annals of Pemaquid.
Robert was "made free 6 May 1635."
The name of Robert Andrews does not appear among those who went to Aggawam in 1633; but it does appear frequently in the public records after that date. Hammatt says that he possessed a houselot on the south side of the river in 1635 and it is said that he lived near the South Church. His name appears several times in the records of grants of lands:
3 Sept 1635 -- Robte Andrews licensed to keep ordinarye (an inn) in the plantacon where he lyves during the pleasure of ye court." This is the earliest reference to a public house in the records of Ipswich.
Aprill 20, 1635. Thomas Firman was granted one hundred acres of land, beyond Chebacco Creeke having Robert Andrews land on the north west and a great bare hill on the south west.
John Perkins Junr was granted a house lott containing an acre lying by the river, hauing Thomas Hardyes & Robert Andrewes house lotts on the south west side.
Granted to John Cross likewise five and Twenty acres in the North Side the Towne haueing the land of Thomas Dudley Esqur on the North, and Robert Andrews toward the South.
1635 -- Robert Andrews is allowed to sell wine by retail, "if he do not wittingly sell to such as abuse it by drunkenness."
1636 -- Thomas Hardy had a house lot near the river adjoining Robert Andrews and Thomas Howlett.
1640 May 13 -- Robert Andros is granted to draw wine at Ipswitch, with the conditions of the towne.
18 Jan 1641 -- Robert Andrew wittnessed a deed from Daniel Denison to Humphrey Griffin of a dwelling house &c near the mill.
Richard Scofield conveys the same to Robert Roberts 2:5mo: 1643. in which it is bounded by Robert Andrews, Mr. Bartlemew, John Perkins the younger and Thomas Boreman.
