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Family: John Sprague / Ruth Bassett (F465)
m. Bef 8 Jun 1655-
Father | Male
John Sprague
Born Abt 1630 Duxbury, , Massachusetts, United States 
Died 26 Mar 1676 Pawtucket, , Rhode Island, United States Buried Married Bef 8 Jun 1655 [1, 2, 3] Plymouth, , Massachusetts, United States [1, 2, 3] Father Francis Sprague | F468 Group Sheet Mother
Mother | Female
Ruth Bassett
Born Abt 1634 Plymouth, , Massachusetts, United States Died Between 1694 and 1700 Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States Buried Other Spouse John Thomas | F507 Married Abt 1685 , Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States Father William Bassett | F470 Group Sheet Mother Elizabeth | F470 Group Sheet
Child 1 | Male
+ John Sprague
Born Abt 1656 Duxbury, , Massachusetts, United States Died 6 Mar 1728 Lebanon, New London, Connecticut, United States Buried Spouse Lydia | F463 Married Abt 1684 Duxbury (of), , Massachusetts, United States Spouse Lois Standish | F554 Married 21 Mar 1727 Lebanon, New London, Connecticut, United States
Child 2 | Female
Elizabeth Sprague
Born Abt 1657 Duxbury, , Massachusetts, United States Died 27 May 1727 Plympton, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States Buried Spouse George Sampson | F550 Married Abt 1678 Plympton (of), , Massachusetts, United States
Child 3 | Female
Ruth Sprague
Born 12 Feb 1659 Marshfield, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States Died Aft 1700 Buried Spouse Eleazer Smith | F466 Married 12 Aug 1680 Dartmouth, , Massachusetts, United States
Child 4 | Male
Samuel Sprague, Lt.
Born Abt 1662 Duxbury, , Massachusetts, United States Died 25 Jul 1740 Rochester, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States Buried Spouse Ruth Alden | F551 Married 29 Nov 1694 Duxbury, , Massachusetts, United States
Child 5 | Male
William Sprague
Born Abt 1664 Duxbury, , Massachusetts, United States Died 25 Nov 1712 Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States Buried Spouse Grace Wadsworth | F553 Married Abt 1700 Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States
Child 6 | Female
Dorcas Sprague
Born Abt 1666 Duxbury, , Massachusetts, United States Died Yes, date unknown Buried Spouse Joseph Hatch | F552 Married 10 Jan 1711 Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States
Child 7 | Female
Desire Sprague
Born Abt 1668 Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States Died Aft 1705 Buried Spouse John Gifford | F467 Married 24 Nov 1696 Sandwich, Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States
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Sources - [S5] Great Migration Begins, Robert Charles Anderson, (http://www.newenglandancestors.org: 2002), REF F7/G74., William Bassett. accessed 20 Oct 2008. (Reliability: 3).
?tab?
WILLIAM BASSETT
ORIGIN: Unknown
MIGRATION: 1621 on Fortune
FIRST RESIDENCE: Plymouth
REMOVES: Duxbury by 1637 [ PCR 1:63], Bridgewater by 1656
OCCUPATION: Blacksmith (the first five lines of the inventory included blacksmith's tools, including a pair of bellows, an anvil, a vice, tongs and hammers and coal shovels, and "all the rest of the smith shop" items).
FREEMAN: In "1633" Plymouth list of freemen, among those admitted before 1 January 1632/3 [ PCR 1:3]; also in list of 7 March 1636/7 [ PCR 1:52]. In Duxbury portion of list of 1639 [ PCR 8:174]. In Bridgewater portion of list which has been dated in 1658 [ PCR 8:202].
EDUCATION: Inventory included more than twenty books listed by title, mostly theological, valued at ?9 18s.
OFFICES: Plymouth coroner's jury, 2 March 1635/6 [ PCR 1:39]; committee to admit newcomers to Duxbury, 7 May 1638 [ PCR 1:84]; Plymouth grand jury, 5 June 1638, 6 June 1654 [ PCR 1:87, 3:49]; Plymouth petit jury, 7 March 1636/7, 2 January 1637/8, 6 March 1637/8, 4 June 1639, 3 September 1639 [ PCR 7:5, 7, 8, 12, 13]; Duxbury deputy to Plymouth court, 2 June 1640, 6 June 1643, 29 August 1643, 5 March 1643/4, 7 June 1648 [ PCR 1:154, 2:57, 60, 68, 123]; committee to lay out land, 3 September 1638, 7 January 1638/9, 4 February 1638/9, 4 March 1638/9, 31 August 1640, 5 October 1640 [ PCR 1:95, 109, 112, 115, 161, 163]; committee on bounds between Duxbury and Marshfield, 2 March 1640/1 [ PCR 2:9, 42]; council of war for Duxbury, 27 September 1642 [ PCR 2:46]; Duxbury constable, 3 June 1652 [ PCR 3:8]; committee to lay out highways [ PCR 3:61, 62]. In Duxbury portion of 1643 list of men able to bear arms [ PCR 8:190].
ESTATE: In the 1623 Plymouth land division "William Bassite" received two acres as a passenger on the Fortune in 1621 [ PCR 12:5]. In the 1627 Plymouth division of cattle, the sixth company included William Basset, Elizabeth Basset, William Basset Jr. and Elizabeth Basset Jr. [ PCR 12:11].
Assessed ?1 7s. in the Plymouth tax lists of 25 March 1633 and 27 March 1634 [ PCR 1:10, 27].
On 1 July 1633, 14 March 1635/6 and 20 March 1636/7 William Bassett was ordered to "mow at the end of his own ground" [ PCR 1:14, 40, 56].
On 23 June 1637 William Bassett of Duxbury released to Mr. Ralph Partridge "so much of the lot of his lands lying in Ducksborrow aforesaid as is now enclosed by the said Mr. Partridg" [ PCR 12:18-19], and again on 7 November 1637 a similar agreement was reached regarding land released to William Leverich and Ralph Partridge [ PCR 12:25].
On 6 April 1640 Plymouth Colony granted to "William Basset of Duxburrow" one hundred acres of upland with "meadow convenient" [ PCR 1:144, 146].
On 3 June 1652 William Bassett of Duxbury gave to "his son-in-law Leiftenant Perigrine White" forty acres of upland with the meadow adjoining [ MD 1:96, citing PCLR 2:1:5]. On 16 June 1656 "William Bassett Senior of Duxburrow now living at Bridgewater" made a deed of gift of his Marshfield lands to his "two sons there living viz: Perigrine White and Nathaniell Bassett" [ MD 10:25-27, citing PCLR 2:1:177-78].
William Bassett and Mr. [John] Howland jointly held one share as Dartmouth purchasers, 7 March 1652 [ MD 4:187, citing PCLR 2:1:107].
On 8 November 1666 William Bassett, blacksmith, of Bridgewater sold to John Sprague of Duxbury, husbandman, for ?40 four lots of upland containing fourscore acres and five acres of meadow, with dwelling house, cowhouse, stable, barn, outhouse, orchard and garden; William Bassett acknowledged the deed on 7 November 1666, and on 5 November 1666 "Mary Bassett the wife of William Bassett Sr. ... of Bridgewater" consented to the sale [ PCLR 3:66, with dates in the unlikely order as given].
On 3 April 1667 William Bassett Senior made a nuncupative will, bequeathing the movables to his wife, and the house and land to her during her life, after which it was to go to his son William's son, and bequeath~ing his tools to his son Joseph, and "being demanded about his books which he formerly took care about, answered he could not now do it" [ MD 16:162, citing PCPR 2:2:37]. His inventory was taken 12 May 1667 and totalled ?123 2s. 6d. (which included no land, but did include his blacksmith's tools and more than twenty books) [ PCPR 2:2:37-38]. On 5 June 1667 letters of administration were granted to William Bassett Jr. on the estate of William Bassett Sr. deceased [ PCR 4:155].
On 2 June 1669 "William Bassett of Sandwich ... the eldest son and heir of William Bassett sometimes inhabitant of ... Bridgewater ... now deceased" confirmed to "Joseph Bassett of Bridgewater my youngest brother" land in Bridgewater granted him by his father in his lifetime but not legally confirmed [ PCLR 3:140].
BIRTH: By about 1600, assuming that Elizabeth was his first wife.
DEATH: Bridgewater between 3 April 1667 (date of will) and 12 May 1667 (date of inventory). (The claim that William Bassett died on 4 April 1667 derives from a peculiar misreading of the probate documents, in which the date of probate is taken as 5 April rather than 5 June, and the assumption is made that the death must have occurred between the third and the fifth.)
MARRIAGE: (1) By 1623 (and probably by 1621) Elizabeth _____, probably also a passenger on the Fortune in 1621; she appears in no record after 1627, and may have died soon after the birth of the last child about 1634, or she may have lived until just before William Bassett married his second wife.
(2) After 1651 and before 12 December 1664 Mary (Tilden) Lapham, daughter of Nathaniel Tilden, widow of Thomas Lapham [see TIMOTHY HATHERLEY]; she was living at Bridgewater as late as 28 March 1690 [ Bassett Gen 6, citing BridTR 1:320].
CHILDREN:
?tab? i WILLIAM, b. Plymouth about 1624; m. by about 1652 Mary Rainsford, daughter of EDWARD RAINSFORD [ NEHGR 139:299].
?tab? ii ELIZABETH, b. Plymouth about 1626; m. Sandwich 8 November 1648 Thomas Burgess [ PCR 8:6], from whom she was divorced on 10 June 1661 [ PCR 3:221].
?tab? iii SARAH, b. Plymouth say 1628; m. by 6 March 1648/9 Peregrine White, son of WILLIAM WHITE [ PCR 2:183; MF 1:101-03].
?tab? iv NATHANIEL, b. say 1630; m. about 1661 Dorcas Joyce, daughter of John Joyce [ TAG 43:3-5].
?tab? v JOSEPH, b. say 1632; m. (1) by about 1660 Mary _____ (said to be his stepsister Mary Lapham, daughter of Thomas Lapham [see NEHGR 115:85]); m. (2) Hingham 16 October 1677 Martha Hobart [ NEHGR 121:200].
?tab? vi RUTH, b. say 1634; m. (1) by 1655 John Sprague, son of FRANCIS SPRAGUE [ TAG 41:178-81, citing PCR 6:109 for evidence of marriage]; she m. (2) _____ Thomas [ TAG 41:179; Robert S. Wakefield suggests that this was John Thomas of Marshfield, who died before 12 January 1691/2, and whose first wife had died 2 January 1682/3].
?tab?
COMMENTS: In 1611 a William Bassett, formerly of Sandwich in England, widower of Cecily Light, was twice betrothed at Leiden in Holland. His first bride-to-be died, but he succeeded the second time. Some have held that this was the man who came to Plymouth, but this seems unlikely given the ten-year gap before the arrival in Plymouth in 1621, and the lack of evidence for children of the Plymouth man born before that date, assuming that he had been married at least twice before. It is also possible that the William Bassett of Leiden in 1611 was the father of the immigrant to Plymouth in 1621, but there is no evidence directly favoring this hypothesis. (See discussion in Stratton 242-43.)
If the two-acre grant to William Bassett in 1623 was for William and his wife Elizabeth, then the first child would not have been born until 1624, three years after William's arrival in Plymouth. It is possible (though not likely) that the marriage took place in Plymouth, and Elizabeth came on the Fortune as a single woman.
Savage has misread the 1627 Plymouth cattle division, somehow including daughter Sarah Bassett in this list, when in fact only two children, William and Elizabeth, were included. Sarah must have been born soon after 1627, however, to have married by the end of 1648.
Pope claims that William Bassett resided at Sandwich in 1650, but this would be the son of the same name.
Munsey-Hopkins (p. 67) lists a "probable" seventh child, a daughter Jane who married a Thomas Gilbert. This must be a simple error in which "Rossiter" was misread for "Bassett," as there was a Thomas Gilbert of Taunton who married Jane Rossiter.
Various secondary sources claim that William Bassett volunteered for service in the Pequot War, and in the index to the first volume of published Plymouth Colony records he is listed for the page on which such volunteers appear, but he does not actually appear in the list [ PCR 1:61]; a number of the index entries for William Bassett actually seem to be for William Paddy.
On 6 March 1648/9 William Bassett was fined 5s. "for not mending of guns in seasonable time," and on 9 June 1653 he was fined 10s. "for neglecting to publish and make known an order directed to him from the council of war, prohibiting provisions for being transported out of the colony" [ PCR 2:137, 3:36]. On 9 August 1655 and 10 June 1661 the colony treasurer received payment of fines by William Bassett [ PCR 3:93, 8:104]. - [S105] Sprague Families of America, Warren Vincent Sprague, (The Tuttle Company, Printers,Rutland, Vermont, 1913), p. 11 (Reliability: 3).
- [S77] American Genealogist, Maclean W McLean of Pittsburg, PA, "John Sprague (c. 1635-1676) of Duxbury, Mass.," vol. 41 (January 1965); digital images, New England Historic Genealogical Society, \i americanancestors.org\i0 (http://www.americanancestors.org/PageDetail.aspx?recordId=134868448) p. 178. (Reliability: 3).
Article by Maclean W McLean
- [S5] Great Migration Begins, Robert Charles Anderson, (http://www.newenglandancestors.org: 2002), REF F7/G74., William Bassett. accessed 20 Oct 2008. (Reliability: 3).