• General Notes

  [phelps.FTW]
  
  [Brøderbund WFT Vol. 1, Ed. 1, Tree #0988, Date of Import: Oct 22, 1998]
  
  
  Henry Bennett (1629)
  
  John M. Bradbury, in an article recorded in the New England
  Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol.29 p.167, of Ipswich,
  explains his logic in establishing Lydia Perkins as the wife of Henry
  Bennett.  He also gives an account of a lawsuit which I found to give
  life to Henry and the times in which he lived.
  "Henry Bennett, born in England about, 1629, was in this country as
  early as 1650, he married Lydia, daughter of John and Judith Perkins,
  of Ipswich.  She died perhaps before 1672; and he married, second, Mary
  (Smith) Burr, the widow of John Burr, who was her second husband. Her
  first husband was Philip CAll.  She was a daughter of Richard Smith, of
  Shropham, co. Norfolk, England, and died perhaps before her husband,
  Jan. 12, 1707-8.  The date of his death is not known; he was living
  Oct. 3 1707.
  In 1654 he bought of Jonathan Wade a form of two hundred acres
  situated in what is now the south-eastern part of Ipswich, and having
  for its southern boundary Castle Neck Creek, part of the present
  dividing line between Ipswich and Essex. The other bounds were on lands
  of Mr. Symonds, Mr. Saltonstall and the Rev. Nalth'l Rogers.  This farm
  he occupied more than forty years, and sold it but little changed in
  bounds and area to John  Wainwright, in 1698.
  
  He was usually styled Farmer Bennet, and besides his homestead he
  held considerable land on Hog Island, Castle Neck and Plum Island.
  Although he made many conveyances of land, from 1672 to 1698, the name
  of his wife Lydia appears on none of his deeds; the first deed signed
  by his second wife is dated May 14, 1680.  His name is found in the
  list of the commoners of Ipswich in 1664; in 1666 he was one of the
  signers of the Ipswich petition to the general court, disapproving the
  action of the Massachusetts authorities in opposing the king's
  commissioner.  In 1672, his brother William Bennet, a vintner of
  Bishopsgate, London, died, and left him by will one hundred pounds
  sterling.
  The collection of this legacy, through the officiousness of one of
  his neighbors, caused him considerable trouble.  Harlakenden Symonds,
  who appears to have been seeking an occasion to go to England, offered
  to collect this one hundred pounds for the modest commission of fifty
  pounds, which offer was of course refused.  He then made a second
  proposal to collect the amount of the legacy for ten pounds, to which
  Bennet replied that if he employed him he would give ten pounds, and if
  he didn't he should "be at his liberty what to give him."
  On this slight encouragement Symonds went to England and began
  negotiations with the executor of Willliam Bennet's will, but although
  he brought his highly respectable friends in Essex up to London to
  endorse him, he made no progress in the business for lack of proper
  authority to give a full discharge on payment of the money. He
  therefore wrote to Bennet for a letter of attorney, which he would not
  send him unless his father would become bound for him; this the elder
  Symonds declined to do.  Symonds however remained in England, waiting
  for the letter of attorney and keeping up the show of agency for
  Bennet, until he learned that the executor had paid the legatee's bill
  of exchange in favor of a merchant in Boston. Soon after his return
  Symonds brought a suit against Bennet for damages as well as services
  in which he was not successful.  In his statement, sworn to in court,
  he says he was in England "better than fifteene months, and was absent
  from New-England and occations of his family above one yeare and nine
  months."  This was the visit of which Savage tells that he (Symonds)
  "was living at Wethersfiedl in England in 1672;" and adds, "nor is it
  known that he ever came back"!
   

Details of Henry's family with Lydia Perkins