THOMAS SHERWOOD

• Death Notes
  • Thomas Sherwood of Fairfield was born in 1585 at England. 

• General Notes
  •   Thomas Sherwood of Fairfield was born in 1585 at England. He was the son of Possible Common Ancestor Sherwood. Thomas Sherwood of Fairfield married Alice (?). Thomas Sherwood of Fairfield married Mary (?) circa 1638.1 His estate was inventoried in October 1655 at Fairfield, Fairfield Co., CT.
         Thomas Sherwood of Fairfield left a will on 21 July 1655.
    
    Thomas came to Boston in the Frances, April 1634, ae. 48, with wife alice, ae.47, and children Anna (14), Rose (11), Thomas (10), and Rebecca (9). He came to Wethersfield with the first settlers, 1635, was a carpenter, and sold his lands to George Wyllys, 25 Mar. 1640. He removed to Stamford, where he lived until 1648, when he sold to John Holly, and settled in Fairfield. 2
    
    
    The maiden names of Thomas' two wives are in dispute. While some (Loomis) give their names as Alice Seabrook and Mary Fitch, Jacobus debunk's these surnames.
    
    
    THE TWO WIFES OF JOSEPH LOOMIS
    
    
    From NEHGR 92:203 (April 1938)
    
    THE SECOND WIFE OF JOSEPH LOOMIS OF WINDSOR, CONN.--For many years it has been stated that the second wife of Joseph Loomis (son of Joseph and Mary (White) Loomis) was Mary Chauncey, but the contributor never found any documentary proof of this statement.
    
    Careful search, however, shows that Joseph Loomis married 28 June 1659 Mary Sherwood, daughter of Thomas and Mary (Fitch) Sherwood. ("Some Early Records and Documents of and Relative to the Town of Windsor, Conn., 1639-1703," 1903, p. 39.)
    
    Thomas1 Sherwood married secondly, about 1638, Mary Fitch, daughter of Thomas and Ann (Reeve) Fitch, by whom he had six children, Mary, Ruth, Stephen, Matthew, Abigail, and Isaac. ("Daniel L. Sherwood and His Paternal Ancestors," 1929; also "History of the Fitch Family," 1930, vol. 1.)
    
    Mary Sherwood, the oldest of this group of six children, was born about 1639 and so was twenty years of age at the time of her marriage to Joseph Loomis. The names of her three brothers, Stephen Matthew, and Isaac were given to three of her sons.
    
    Mary (Fitch) Sherwood married secondly, in 1658, John Banks. In her will she mentions her children, Mathew, Mary, Ruth and Isaac Sherwood, and "daughter" Hannah Lumis.
    
    As Mary (Fitch) (Sherwood) Banks had no daughter Hannah Loomis through marriage, it is safe to say that "granddaughter" was meant for "daughter," thereby proving the identity of the second wife of Joseph Loomis.
    
    Cleveland, Ohio      Elisha S. Loomis.
    
    
    However, in the same volume, July 1938, page 303, Donald Lines Jacobus adds:
    
    THE SECOND WIFE OF JOSEPH LOOMIS OF WINDSOR, CONN.-The conclusion of Mr. Elisha S. Loomis (ante p.203) that the second wife of Joseph Loomis, Jr., was Mary Sherwood, daughter of Thomas and Mary, is Amply justified. But in quoting the will of her mother, Mrs. Mary Sherwood-Banks, he states that it mentions her "daughter" Hannah Lumis.
    
    In April 1938 the contributor of this note examined the will and made the following abstract of that portion under discussion: "I giue to my son steuen sharwods daughtour Ruth sharwod . . .to my son Mathew sharwods daughtour mary sharwod . . . I giue to hanah Lomis my Red Pluch peticot and ye best of my tow gren aporons and my Cearsy peticot and one pair of sheats . . . to my daughtour Ruth . . . to my sone steuen . . . to my sone Jsack . . . to my son mathew . . ."
    
    From this abstract it is noted that Mrs. Banks gave legacies to her son Stephen Sherwood's daughter Ruth, to her son Matthew Sherwood's daughter Mary, and then to "Hannah Lumis" without specifying relationship. Hannah Loomis was the eldest surviving child of Joseph Loomis by his second wife, Mary Sherwood, and Mary (Sherwood) Loomis had been dead over a decade before Mrs. Banks wrote her will. The granddaughter was undoubtedly intended in this legacy, as Mr. Loomis concluded, but there is no reason to correct a supposed error in the will.
    
    What, may one inquire, is the record evidence for the statement that Mary, second wife of Thomas Sherwood and mother of the above Mary (Sherwood) Loomis, was born a Fitch? In 1886 an account of the Sherwood family appeared in Orcutt's "History of Stratford," which carefully distinguishes between the Fairfield and Stratford Sherwoods, and states the name of the second wife of Thomas Sherwood of Fairfield as Mary, without any indication as to her name at birth. Three years later, Mrs. Elizabeth Hubbell Schenck published the first volume of her "History of Fairfield," and in the account of the Sherwood family, on page 408, states the second marriage of Thomas Sherwood to Mary (without any mention of the name Fitch) and also the second marriage of this Mary to John Banks; yet on page 351, in her account of the Banks family, she states of Mr. John Banks: "His second wife was Mary Fitch wid. of Thomas Sherwood 1 of Fairfield."
    
    This seems to be the origin of all subsequent statements that this Mary was born a Fitch. It cannot fail to strike the careful genealogist as odd that Mary was identified as a Fitch in the account of her second husband's family, but was not identified at all in the account of the family of her Sherwood husband, who was the father of all her children. It is also to be noted that Mrs. Schenck's account of the Sherwood family was supplied by W. L. Sherwood of Newark, N. J., who was engaged in compiling a Sherwood Genealogy (never published), who had worked on the family many years, and who had a knowledge of the family never equaled by any subsequent historian.
    
    The account of the Banks family, on the other hand, appears to have been the work of the late Mrs. Schenck herself; and with all due respect to the memory of this estimable historian, her work as a genealogist was at times very erratic. It will be seen (page 351) that she presents a detailed abstract of the will of John Banks, including a legacy to his step-son Matthew Sherwood; and on turning to the Sherwood family, it will be seen that this Matthew Sherwood, the son of Thomas and Mary did marry a Mary Fitch. In fiew of the many demonstrable lapses of this character which may be found in the genealogical section of Mrs. Schenck's book, it is perhaps fair to suggest that her eye was caught by this marriage of Matthew Sherwood to Mary Fitch and that in a moment of abstraction she wrote the name Fitch after the name of Matthew's mother, Mrs. Mary Sherwood-Banks.
    
    However that may be, neither the present writer, in research in the original records covering several years while he was engaged in compiling "Families of Old Fairfield," nor the late Orrando Perry Dexter, who worked on the Fairfield records for seventeen years, and whose manuscripts are accessible at the Fairfield Historical Society, found the slightest evidence for identifying Mrs. Mary Sherwood-Banks as a Fitch. The two books referred to by Mr. Elisha S. Loomis are both based, so far as early American records are concerned, very largely on previous publications, hence the statements in them can hardly be accepted in lieu of contemporary record evidence except where the record evidence is directly cited.
    New Haven, Conn.      Donald Lines Jacobus.
    
    
    And Jacobus again in TAG 27, #3, 1951:
    
    SHERWOOD OF FAIRFIELD AND STRATFORD, CONN.
    
    The duplication of the same name, Thomas Sherwood, in the neighboring towns of Fairfield and Stratford, seems still to be troubling those who have to use secondary sources instead of gong to the contemporary records, though in this case with little excuse, since the best secondary sources are correct and in agreement.
    
    A copy of a typed manuscript called "Fitch, Sherwood, Seabrook and Beach," by Miss Helen M. Wright, and dated 1943, has been given to the Connecticut State Library in Hartford, and thus "published" in the sense of being made publicly accessible to seekers after genealogical knowledge.
    
    On page 13 she writes: "Jacobus names Sarah Seabrook as the wife of Thomas Sherwood, but that is certainly a mistake. The will of Thomas Wheeler in 1654 shows that his daughter Sarah was the wife of Thomas Sherwood (junior), and the will of Thoams Sherwood Jr. names his wife as Sarah, in 1658. Thomas Sherwood, senior, had no wife Sarah; his wives were Alice and Mary."
    
    It is almost unique for the present writer to answer publicly a charge of this sort. However, the incessant, continuing, and utterly inexcusable confusion between the Thomas Sherwoods of Fairfield and Stratford has become a thorn in the flesh. The reference is undoubtedly to the first volume of "Families of Old Fairfield" (1930), so let us see what "Jacobus" actually says.
    
    On page 548 Thomas Sherwood of Fairfield appears, with his wives Alice and Mary, precisely as Miss Wright has it;; an don the next page his son Thomas, Jr., is carried forward, with a statement of his (first) marriage to Sarah Wheeler, with citation of the 1654 will of her father Thomas Wheeler, precisely as Miss Wright has it. But on page 523, under Robert Seabrook, is stated the marriage of his daughter Sarah, by 1642, to "Thomas Sherwood, of Stratford." And on page 560, under the heading "Sherwood Family (Stratford)," is found the record of this Thomas Sherwood, no known connection of the Fairfield family, who represented Stratford several times in the General Court between 1645 and 1654; who married Sarah Seabrook; who was mentioned 1 Jan. 1657 [1657/8] in Stratford records as "having departed this life:; whose will was dated 4 Jun 1657; and the inventory of whose estate was taken 4 June 1658. There are deeds from his children in Stratford, some of which are cited, mentioning their grandfather Seabrook and thus proving that their mother was daughter of Robert Seabrook, a Stratford settler who had died early.
    
    Just where is the mistake? Except of too great haste on the part of this writer in consulting printed sources and consequent confusion between the two Sherwood families; and of impulsiveness in charging a mistake against one who at least had the advantage of personally consulting the contemporary records in Fairfield and Stratford. She errs in referring g to the "will of Thomas Sherwood Jr. . . . in 1658," whom evidently she mistakes for Thomas Jr. of Fairfield. The will of 1657, proved in 1658, is that of Thomas Sherwood "of Stratford," so described in the will and in the records of his estate, and nowhere called "Jr." Actually, Thomas Jr. of Fairfield who married Sarah Wheeler had four wives in all and his estate was administered in 1698/9.
    
    A more recent account of the Fairfield family, and a badly garble one, appeared in Your Ancestors [3:338 ff; March 1949]. In this it is stated that Thomas Sherwood, Sr., was born in Nottinghamshire, England, and his two wives are partly identified as Alice Seabrook, daughter of Robert Seabrook and Alice Goodspeed, and Mary Fitch. A County Nottingham origin for Sherwood seems to be based on nothing more substantial than the fact that Sherwood Forest is located there. The only reason for concluding that any Thomas Sherwood married a daughter of Robert Seabrook is that deeds of children of Thomas Sherwood of Stratford refer to their grandfather Seabrook. Hence any statement that Alice wife of Thomas Sr. of Fairfield was a Seabrook is based on a confusion between the two families. Alice was called 47 in the shipping list in 1634, hence born not far from 1587. One Robert Seabrook married Alice Goodspeed at Wingrave, Bucks, 12 Sept. 1596, some nine years after their alleged daughter was born. For a detailed explanation of the origin of the error, which has often been repeated, that Mary, second wife of Thomas Sherwood Sr., was a Fitch, see my note in The New England Hist. and Gen. Register [92:303: July 1938].
    
    The account under consideration says, "the truth of this statement [that Mary was a Fitch] is borne out in published records. The 'Powers Banks' Genealogy calls Thomas Sherwood's wife, at the trial of Good Dame Knapp, 'Mary Fitch Sherwood.'" The records relating to "Goody Kanpp" are in the printed New Haven Colony Records, and may readily be consulted. Regardless of what the cited genealogy may call Goody Sherwood in referring to the case, these contemporary records do not state the maiden name of Thomas Sherwood's wife Mary. She may have been a Fitch - or a Smith or anything else. One can never make a positive negative statement. But I will assert that no contemporary record has ever been seen or produced or cited, which proves or even remotely suggests that Mary was a Fitch; and until some kind of documentation is forthcoming, the conscientious genealogist can only enter her as Mary ----.
    
    Other errors or unsupported statements in this account are too numerous to be examined in detail, and can be mentioned only briefly. The will of Thomas Sherwood Sr., names his seven daughters by his "former wife" [Alice], obviously in order of birth. Jane is the eldest. But in this account, Jane is made the youngest, born at the incredibly late date of 1639, and it is stated that the mother died that year at her birth. There is no record in existence of the death of Alice, nor of the birth of Jane, and if Jane's baptismal record is in existence, it will have to be sought in England. The second daughter, as written in the will, is "Tamsen," a variant form for Thomasine, the feminine of Thomas. I suspect, but cannot prove that she was wife of William Belden of Wethersfield. She is entirely omitted in this account, and in her place is substituted a non-existent Elizabeth, the wife successively of John Tomson and Daniel Finch. Margaret was the third daughter named in the will, and hence almost certainly born before 1620. She is here married to Elias Maverick of Charleston, Mass. Date of marriage not stated. Wyman's Charlestown shows that Elias Maverick did marry one Margaret Sherwood on 8 Dec. 1669, and that she had a child born as late as 1687. Husbands are provided for the daughters Rebecca and Jane but without citation of any evidence. There is, to my certain knowledge, no record in Fairfield which proves these marriages, hence, while they may be correct, the reader is entitled to ask for documentation.
    
    Of the children of Thomas Sr. by his second wife, Isaac is correctly married to Elizabeth Jackson, who is correctly made daughter of John Jackson by Elizabeth Smith, but the said Elizabeth Smith is then called the daughter of Henry and Ann (Pynchon) Smith. Mr. Henry Smith of Springfield, as is well known, returned to England, and is will, made in 1681, refers to his daughter "Elizabeth Smith, not yet disposed of in marriage" [Waters, Gen. Gleanings in England, 1:723]. But John Jackson had children born 1662 to 1677; and the chief evidence for identifying his wife Elizabeth as a Smith is the fact that the will of Giles smith of Fairfield in 1669 names his daughter Elizabeth Jackson, and no other Fairfield Jackson of that period is known to have had a wife Elizabeth!
    
    This much space has been accorded to Sherwood errors because of the strange and unusual status of the genealogy of that family. Orcutt's History of Stratford in 1886 distinguished correctly between the two Sherwood families, of Stratford and Fairfield, and gave some account of both, mainly correct in the early generations. Mr. W. L. Sherwood, of Newark, N.J., years ago did much research and compiled a manuscript genealogy of the family, which was used by Mrs. Schenck in her History of Fairfield (1889), with due acknowledgment to Mr. Sherwood. This account was limited to the Fairfield Sherwood family and did not include the Stratford family. Mr. Orrando P. Dexter of Fairfield labored seventeen years on the Fairfield families, working independently through the primary record sources regardless of what was in print, and his notes are preserved at the Fairfield Historical society. When I was compiling Families of Old Fairfield, I also went independently through the record sources, checking my conclusions with those of my predecessors.
    
    The amazing thing is that, although I was able to add some details, partly through use of the Dexter papers and partly through my own efforts, I found myself substantially in agreement, in distinguishing between the two families and through the early generations of each, with the previously published accounts. For the Sherwoods are, without question, a very difficult family. Unfortunately, during the past fifty years, there have been other investigators of the family, working at a distance from the records, unable to credit the existence in adjacent towns of two Thomas Sherwoods, and pursuing their own notions and guesses as to what ought to be so. Some of their lucubrations have been published and, as so often happens, their theories and guesses by mere repetition have found acceptance in some quarters in preference to the above-named printed sources which tell the story as the records reveal it to be.
    Children of Thomas Sherwood of Fairfield and Alice (?) HIS 1ST WIFE
    Tomasin Sherwood
    Margaret Sherwood
    Sarah Sherwood
    Hannah Sherwood b. c 1620
    Rose Sherwood b. c 1622
    Thomas Sherwood Jr. b. 1624
    Rebecca Sherwood b. c 1625
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    ?? ANOTHER SITE  Born:  Sherwood Forest 1548    Died:  1632
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

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