General Notes

[Sergent.ged]

Plymouth Colony: Its History and People 1620-1691
Part Two: Topical Narratives
Chapter 9: Law and Order

xxx Plymouth was not an especially litigious community for its times, and so John Williams, Jr. was not a small exception, but an exception on a grand scale. Through his legal adventures can be seen some of the various uses and abuses of the law available in Plymouth, and no one in the colony ever engaged in such activities to an extent even remotely approaching that of Williams. He was the son of John Williams, Sr., who was in Scituate as early as 1637, became a freeman in 1637, and was a deputy in 1640. John, Jr. was proposed as a freeman in 1651 and became one in 1653. In 1653 he joined his sister, Anna Barker, in posting security for her to administer the estate of her late husband, John Barker. Williams became an ensign of the Scituate military company in 1655. In 1657/58, when the court dismissed James Cudworth as captain of the Scituate company, Lt. James Torrey and Ens. John Williams were ordered to command the company in Cudworth's place. In 1658 Williams became one of the advisers to the Council of War.

xxx Thus far the career of John Williams is similar to that of a number of other relatively wealthy second-generation Plymouth men. The first notice of any difference was when he appeared at court in 1659 to answer the charge of Robert Barker and Deborah Barker, brother and daughter respectively to the late John Barker, that he had misused Deborah, who was his niece and had been put out to him. He produced considerable evidence in his behalf, and the court found him not guilty, but ordered that Deborah Barker need not return to live with him and she could pick her own guardian; she chose Thomas Bird of Scituate.
In 1660 he was summoned to court to answer charges of entertaining a foreign (that is, from outside the colony) [p.165] Quaker and permitting a Quaker meeting in his house. He refused to answer the accusation, saying that he had further evidence to clear himself, and he refused to acknowledge the legality of proceedings against him. A month later he was fined forty shillings, but the court did not take away his military rank because of his excuse that he had been hoping to reform some of the Quakers. In 1662/63 at Mr. Hatherly's request, the court appointed a jury to divide the lands which John Williams, Sr. and John Williams, Jr. had owned in partnershipóa rather unusual occurrence, for ordinarily a father and son would have been able to effect such a division among themselves. In 1663/64 Williams and John Bayley were fined three shillings, four pence each for striking each other. In 1664 Edward Jenkins complained against Williams, who had erected a fence prejudicial to Jenkins's land and the common highway.

xxx This completes a brief summary of the cases in which Williams appeared in Court Orders. In addition, in the volume of Judicial Acts, that is, civil cases, John Williams was a plaintiff or defendant in almost one hundred pages, including actions against Gowin White, John Bayley, John Sutton, Thomas Summers, Constant Southworth, James Cudworth, Nathaniel Turner, Ann Bird, Peter Worthylake, Joseph Turner, William Rogers, James Doughtey, Michael Peirse, Robert Standford, John Barker, Samuel Hiland, Edward Jenkins, John Barker, John Buck, Samuel Nash, Israel Hobart, Thomas Wade, Gershom Ewell, Thomas Man, William James, Edward Wanton, Timothy White, Henry Josselyn, John Briggs, Samuel Holbrooke, John Holbrooke, John Cushen, Thomas Turner, William Randall, Nathaniel Turner, Daniel Hicke, John Silvester, Ralph Chapman, John Hoare, and Joseph Tilden. That the court tolerated so many suits by one man indeed shows that Plymouth was governed by law, not individuals. [p.169]