596327

[phelps.FTW]

[Brøderbund WFT Vol. 1, Ed. 1, Tree #0988, Date of Import: Oct 22, 1998]

Nicholas A. Street II
"Our record of Timothy Street's ancestry begins in Elizabethan times,
with Richard Street, a clothier or cloth merchant in the village of
Stogumber near the Quantock Hills in Somersetshire. He died in 1592,
leaving a son Nicholas who, with his wife Mary, lived in the ancient port
of Bridgwater from which ships laden with cloth sailed down the Parrett
River into the Bristol Channel. Nicholas died in 1610, only seven years
before the death of his son Nicholas Junior who was described as a gentle-
man. He and his wife Susanna Gilberd also lived in Bridgwater, and their
son, the third Nicholas, was baptized there. This was the beginning of the
reign of King James I of England (James VI of Scotland), during which
Shakespeare wrote his later plays, the Authorized Version of the Bible was
prepared, the colony of Virginia was settled, and the Pilgrim Fathers
landed in New England. Young Nicholas Street was a scholar, and his family
was prosperous enough to send him to Oxford University at the age of
eighteen, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Pembroke College
in 1625. It is not known whether Nicholas became a non-conformist during
his Oxford period, or whether the Streets had been part of the sect since
the time of Queen Elizabeth, when a group within the Protestant Church set
up their own form of pure, simple worship, rejecting the outward show of
surplices, crosses, and wedding rings. They came to be known as Puritans,
a term derived from their theological doctrine rather than from any marked
austerity in their manner of living. The Puritans were tolerated though
not secure during King James's reign, but they were hated by his successor
Charles I who was obsessed by his belief in the Divine Right of Kings.
There were many Puritans leaving England for America, and Nicholas Street
joined the exodus in 1635. He and his wife Ann Pole Waldron, with their
baby son Samuel, left their home in Taunton, Somersetshire, took passage on
the SUSAN AND ELLEN, and sailed to the young settlement of Massachusetts.
They were not going among strangers, for Ann Street's maiden sister,
Elizabeth Pole, had gone out to Massachusetts in 1633 and established the
plantation of Cohannet on land which she bought from the Wampanoag Indians.
In 1640 the little Settlement was named Taunton in honour of her birthplace
in England. The motto on the city seal is 'Duz Femina Facti' - 'A Woman was
the Leader of That Which Was Done.' Nicholas Street became a teacher, was
ordained into the ministry and then became pastor of the church in Taunton.
On 26 November 1659, he was inducted as pastor of the First Church in New
Haven, Connecticut, as successor to William Hooke who returned to England
to be honoured by Oliver Cromwell. Street was described as 'pious, judi-
cious, and modest, and no inferior preacher.' Nicholas's wife Ann died in
1660, and the following year he married her sister Mary Pole, widow of
Governor Francis Newman. Nicholas died in New Haven on 22 April 1674,
secure in his position in the New England community and happy in the
knowledge that his son Samuel was following in his footsteps in the
ministry.
Source:
Street by H.A. Street, FHL 929.271 St83m.
See also the Street Genealogy on F#1011852 item # 3.
For other sources see the Church Record Archive sheet in the FHL in
S.L.C.,UT.