~ Deacon John Browne ~

Birth: Circia 1631 - Hawkedon, Suffolk, England

Death 20 November 1697 - Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts USA

Spouse:

~ Hester (Makepeace) Brown ~

Born: 21 July 1634 - Bristol, Somerset, England

Died: 24 April 1685 - Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America

MARRIED: John Browne - 24 April 1655 Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America.

~*

Children:

Joseph Browne ( 1655-1671 )

Elizabeth ( Makepeace ) Browne ( 1657-1727 )

Sarah Browne ( 1661-1691)

Mary Marcy Browne ( 1662-1727 )

John Browne ( 1664 - 1727 )

Hester Browne ( 1667-1667 ) died at birth

Ruth Browne ( 1668-1668 ) died at birth

Thomas E Browne ( 1669-1693 )

Daniel Browne ( 1672-? ) Deborah Browne ( 1673- 1731 )

Abigail Browne ( 1674-1695 ))

Joseph Browne 1677-1764 )

~

1. The Great Migration Begins Immigrants to NE 1620-1633, Vol I-III, p 244-46 and 255-57.

From p 245: "Bond published a pedigree which stated that Abraham, Richard, and John Brown of Watertown were all from Hawkedon in Suffolk, that Abraham and Richard were brothers, and that John was their nephew (Bond 116). ....."The claimed identification rests on only two records: the 1590 will of Thomas Brown of Hawkedon....and the 11 October 1601 baptism at Hawkedon of John Brown, son of John. The latter connects tenuously with John Brown of Watertown, who was 36 at his death in 1636 (WaVR4). "

From p 257: "Some secondary sources have assigned to John Brown of Watertown a son John, born about 1631, who married in 1655 Esther Makepeace (Bassett-Preston 49-50; Brown-Parker 1). Bond had disproved this by citing a deed in which the husband of Esther Makepeace was called "a Scotchman" and by pointing out that the land records quite clearly show that John Brown had only the two daughters (Bond731); the grant of two acres directly to these two daughters especially disproves the possibility of a son John (WaBOP77)."

WaVR4 is the Vital Records of Watertown. The two family genealogies on page 257 do mention Hawkedon, but they are disproved by Bond in "Genealogies of the Families and Descendants of the Early Settlers of Watertown".... page 731; and WaBOP77, which is "Watertown Records Comprising the First and Second Books of Town Proceedings, ....", page 77.

Contributor: Kim Brown (47254940)

The first sourced record of this John Brown was his marriage to Ester Makepeace in Boston. She is Hester in some records. The date was recorded as 24: 2: 55 in the Old Style. March 25th was the first day of the year and when the year turned over dates between January and March sometimes received both year dates. The Boston record translates to 24 April 1655. John is also called a "Scotchman" in a record related to where he lived; we know his ancestry was English by DNA.

John and Hester had children in Cambridge, Marlborough, and possibly Watertown. The family lived a short time in Falmouth, which is now Portland ME but left there due to Indian attacks. There are no records for that time due to the destruction of the town. There is a record of John selling a farm to Thomas Rice of Marlborough in 1678. There are not many records of John and H/Ester for the later years of their lives.

John wrote a will date 20 Nov 1697 in Watertown. The estate Inventory was done on 7 Dec 1696. Ester was named as Executrix and the living children and sons-in-law are named in the Will in John's own handwriting. John and H/Ester are buried in the Old Burying Ground in Watertown.

John and H/Ester had many descendants through their son Joseph (the second of that name) and his wife Ruhamah Wellington. That couple married in 1699. The most well-known offspring that were involved with the start of the Revolutionary War were the great-grandsons John Brown who died at Lexington Green (line of John, Joseph, Daniel, John); Francis Brown, who fought all day with Parker and the Minute Men with a bullet in his neck (John, Joseph, James, Francis); Solomon Brown who notified Sam Adams and John Hancock that the British were massing near Lexington and who is said to have fired the first shot at the British, and his brother Oliver who was at the Tea Party, Bunker Hill and melted down the King's statue for bullets (John, Joseph, Benjamin, brothers Solomon and Oliver). Crispus Attucks (who was killed at the Boston Massacre) is said to have escaped from William Brown. William was a son of Joseph and uncle to all of the others named here.

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Contributor: Kim Brown (47254940)