General Notes

"WALTER, Charlestown 1634, d. bef. 1640, leav. one ch. to wh. the town made a gr. Frothingham, 80. WALTER, Charlestown, had Mary, wh. m. Joseph Miller."

SOURCE: New England Settlers

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"Walter Pope settled Charlestown 1634; d. before 1640; m. Eleanor ( ). She m. 2nd. Richard Miller who d. 1648; 3rd. Harbare
d. 1677. Left one ch. to whom the town made a grant.
Ch: X 1. Mary Pope m. Joseph Miller; d. Nov. 7, 1697; Joseph
was no relation to Mary's step-father. (Mary was the
only surviving ch.; perhaps others died in the smallpox
epidemic in Charlestown in 1632). On Oct. 28,
1640 5 acres of land were granted to Mary Pope "only
surviving child of Walter Pope".

SOURCE: Richardson & Ellsworth
Fron NEHGS
WALTER POPE

ORIGIN:
MIGRATION: 1630
FIRST RESIDENCE: Charlestown
ESTATE: Walter Pope appears in the second section of the 1630 list of inhabitants of Charlestown, with the annotation that "he bought Jno: [sic] Wignall's house and land" [ ChTR 6].
   In the 6 December 1635 grant of hay lots Walter Pope was the thirty-first name in the list, and was assigned a proportionate share of zero [ ChTR 19].
   In a 7 November 1677 agreement between "Elizabeth Herbert widow & James Miller executor to the last will of Hen: Herbert deceased" and "Joseph Miller husband to Walter Pope's only daughter Mary," Joseph Miller was to have "present possession of the house the aforesaid Henry Herbert built, & lived in till his decease, with all the land thereunto belonging, that did formerly belong to the aforesaid Walter Pope, as also a hay lot bought by Richard Miller," and James Miller was to have "a piece of land about two acres lying next Charlestowne Common bought by the aforesaid Henry Herbert of William Kilcup & possession given by the said Herbert to James Miller since the making of his will" [ MLR 6:147].
BIRTH: Born by about 1609 based on purchase of land in 1630.
DEATH: By 1640.
MARRIAGE: By about 1640 Eleanor _____. She married (2) by about 1641 Richard Miller, and (3) by 1651 Henry Herbert (or Harberd) [ ChBOP 123] (see COMMENTS below).
CHILD:
    i   MARY, b. say 1640; m. by about 1660 Joseph Miller [ NYGBR 71:170].


COMMENTS: Walter Pope appeared in the lists of Charlestown inhabitants dated 9 January 1633/4 and January 1635/6 [ ChTR 10, 15]. On 10 February 1634/5 he was one of the signers of the petition establishing the Charlestown selectmen [ ChTR 13].
   Walter Pope did not participate in the various regular land grants made in Charlestown in the 1630s, although he had the wherewithal to purchase the lands of ALEXANDER WIGNALL upon his appearance in town, and this should have provided him with a proprietary share at that time. The reason for the exclusion of a man with a family and some estate is not obvious.
   "Elizabeth Herbert, widow," one of the parties to the agreement of 7 November 1677, was the second wife of Henry Herbert (or Harberd) of Charlestown; Herbert's first wife was Eleanor Miller, born about 1602, widow of Richard Miller, also of Charlestown [ Wyman 464, 668].
   Richard Miller had three children - Joseph, James and Hannah. According to Wyman, apparently citing from depositions, Joseph was 48 in 1668 and 64 in 1682, and so was born about 1619; James died on 10 June 1705, aged 64, and so born about 1641; Hannah married on 17 June 1663 as the first of three husbands Nathaniel Dady, son of WILLIAM DADY , and so she was likely born about 1643 [ Wyman 668]. These estimated ages suggest strongly that Richard Miller had two wives, and that only James and Hannah were the children of his wife Eleanor.
   Henry Herbert bequeathed to "all the children of Joseph Miller after my wife's decease all the land and ground that I had and did enjoy by my former wife their grandmother" [ MPR Case #11188]. Since Joseph Miller is not called son of Eleanor (the former wife), then his children must be her grandchildren through his wife, Mary Pope. This would explain the need for the agreement of 7 November 1677, for the land on which Herbert built must have passed from Walter Pope to Richard Miller and then to Henry Herbert, and must have done so because Eleanor was the wife of each. Joseph Miller and Mary Pope were, therefore, stepsiblings.
   In 1939 and 1940 Spencer Miller published a lengthy account of various Miller families of New England which arrives at conclusions which differ in one important respect from those given just above. He argued that Joseph Miller was not a son of Richard Miller by an earlier wife, but was a member of another Miller family which had close connections with a number of early Roxbury families [ NYGBR 70:139-50, 242-48, 345-52, 71:43-50, 167-71, 285-91]. His account of Walter Pope and his family agrees with that given above, and is the best account of the family in print.