[Lucy Folger.ged]
One of nine persons who purchased the Island of Nantucket in 1659.
He was one of the nine original purchasers of Nantucket.
[Judy Wypych.ged]
CHRISTOPHER HUSSEY
ORIGIN: Dorking, Surrey
MIGRATION: 1633
FIRST RESIDENCE: Lynn
REMOVES: Newbury by 1638, Hampton 1639
Church MEMBERSHIP: Admission to Lynn church prior to 14 May 1634 implied by freemanship. He certainly remained a member of Bachiler's church as it moved about, and in Hampton became deacon [ Hampton Hist 760].
FREEMAN: 14 May 1634 [ MBCR 1:369].
EDUCATION: He signed his deeds and his will. His inventory included "one Bible" valued at 5s. and "one book" valued at 5s.
OFFICES: Deputy for Hampton to MA Bay General Court, 19 May 1658, 11 May 1659, 30 May 1660, 19 December 1660, 15 May 1672 [ MBCR 4:1:321, 364, 416, 449, 4:2:507]. Empowered to marry at Hampton, 18 October 1659 [ MBCR 4:1:382-83]. Magistrate, 7 September 1680, 7 June 1681, 6 December 1681, 5 September 1682 [ NHPP 40:361, 374, 379, 389]. Empowered to end small causes for Hampton, 22 May 1639, 2 June 1641, 13 October 1663, 10 October 1665, 13 April 1669, 12 October 1669 [ MBCR 1:259, 329; EQC 3:100, 280, 4:131, 186]. Highway committee, April 1665 [ EQC 3:253]. As "Lt. Hussie," committee to lay out colony land, 12 November 1659, 16 October 1660 [ MBCR 4:1:403, 440].
He was lieutenant and then captain of the train band in Hampton.
ESTATE: A copy of the book of abatements for Hampton was brought to court in November 1679, indicating that Christopher Hussey of Hampton had been granted one hundred and fifty acres of upland, meadow and marsh, for a farm [ EQC 7:285].
On 2 April 1681 Christopher Hussey of Hampton granted to his son John Hussey of Hampton one half acre of land of "my farm in Hampton" in a place convenient for the setting up of a grist mill [ NHPLR A:65; EIHC 49:34-35]. On 8 April 1673, Edward Colcord, aged about fifty-six and William Fifield deposed that "when Mr. Steven Batcheller of Hampton was upon his voyage to England they heard him say to his son-in-law Mr. Christopher Hussey that as Hussey had no dowry with Batcheller's daughter when he married her, and that he had given to said Hussey all his estate" [ Essex Ant 5:173, citing Old Norfolk County Records].
He was one of the eight purchasers of Nantucket in 1659, and in 1671 sold his land to his sons John and Stephen [ Nantucket Land 53, 69]. On 6 December 1681 Christopher Hussey confirmed a deed of 23 October 1671 in which he had sold all his lands and rights on the island of Nantucket to his sons Stephen Hussey and John Hussey [ NHPLR 3:168a].
In his will, dated 28 February 1684/5 and proved 7 October 1686, "Christopher Husy ... in health of body ... & yet being stricken in years" bequeathed to "my two sons Steeven Husy & John Husy my farm ... the hundred & fifty acres of meadow & upland granted me by the town as also fifty acres more of marsh which I bought adjacent to it" in equal parts "only they paying to my daughter Mary" as follows: to "my daughter Mary Husy now WifeofThomas Page my seven acres of meadow ... & that piece of meadow through which the highway lieth, and also two shares in the ox common and also two shares of cows common ... also ... my son John Smith shall pay her £30 and my two sons John & Steeven shall pay her £40 apiece"; to "my daughter Hulda in the like manner all the rest of my lands and housing & common rights in the town of Hampton and all the household stuff ... remaining ... my house & all in it or with it with all the land adjacent and the planting lot & three acres meadow lot toward the spring, two shares in the ox common & two shares in the cow common & do order & appoint that he [John Smith] shall pay to my daughter Mary £30 toward her pension"; "my daughter Mary" to have her part of the land immediately after "my decease" and the £30 from "my son John Smith the husband of my daughter Hulda" to be paid two years after "my death" and the other two sons to pay her within the end of two years next; "in case of failure she my said daughter shall have in lieu thereof thirty acres of the farm"; "my said sons Steven and John" having paid Mary the said sum, to have the farm in equal portions, "only my son John shall not be ... hindered of what have built on nor his building accounted in the valuing of the farm"; "upon further consideration ... my said daughter Mary's choice whether she will have the land aforementioned in the farm or the £80 of my two sons Steeven & John Husy"; "my son John Husy & my son John Smith" joint executors, and if they die "my daughter Mary" and if she die, then "my son Steephen"; "my trusty friends Major Richard Waldron & Major Robt. Pike" overseers [ NHPP 31:287-89]. In a codicil dated 28 October 1685 (at Salisbury) "upon a considering of some dubiousness in the expression of some things in this my will" the common rights to go proportionally to the inheritors with the inherited land [ NHPP 31:289].
The inventory of the estate of Capt. Christopher Hussey, taken 25 March 1686, totalled £651 13s., including £589 in real estate: "house, orchard & land adjoining," £42; "12 acres of pasture land," £20; "planting land," £28; "Spring Meadows," £30; "7 acres of meadow," £14; "meadow towards Boulter's," £6; "4 shares at the ox commons," £24; "4 shares cow pasture," £30; "land at the new plantation," £15; "land in the north division," £6; "the upland in the farm," £200; "50 acres of meadow belonging to the farm," £100; "a lot of marsh, 40 acres," £60; and "a lot of marsh, 15 acres," £24 [ NHPLR 1:318-19; NHPP 31:290].
BIRTH: Baptized Dorking, Surrey, 18 February 1598/9, son of John and Mary (Wood) Hussey [ GDMNH 365].
DEATH: Hampton [7?] March 1685/6 "being about 90 years of age" [ HampVR 9].
MARRIAGE: (1) By 1635 Theodate Bachiler, born say 1610, daughter of STEPHEN BACHILER ; "Theodata Husse the wife of Christopher Husse died in the 8th mo[nth] 1649" at Hampton [ HampVR 557].
(2) Hampton 9 December 1658 Ann (Capon) Mingay [ HampVR 74, 556]. She had married first Denton, Norfolk, 30 September 1630 Jeffrey Mingay [ NHGR 8:148]. She died at Hampton 24 June 1680 [ HampVR 117].
CHILDREN:
With first wife
i John, bp. Lynn 29 February 1635[/6?] [ HampVR 3; "the last day of the last month" - the day of the month depends on the interpretation of the double-date, since 1636 was a leap year; note that the year chosen here would result in a two-year gap before the birth of the next child]; m. Hampton 21 September 1659 Rebecca Perkins [ HampVR 74, 556].
ii MARY, bp. Newbury 2 April 1638 [ HampVR 3]; m. (1) Hampton 21 January 1664[/5] Thomas Page [ HampVR 75, 556]; m. (2) Hampton 10 March 1690/1 Henry Green [ HampVR 1:78]; m. (3) Hampton 10 November 1704 Henry Dow [ HampVR 1:58]. (On 23 April 1706 "Mary Dow of Hampton ... with the consent of my now husband Henry Dow of Hampton" sold to Hezekiah Jennings two shares of land in the north division, fifty acres, "given to me by my honored father Christopher Hussey of Hampton aforesaid late deceased" [ NHPLR 5:197].)
iii THEODATA, bp. Hampton 23 August 1640 [ HampVR 3]; d. Hampton 20 October 1649 "Theodata the daughter of Christopher Husse died the 20th of October 1649" [ HampVR 557].
iv STEPHEN, b. say 1643; m. Nantucket 8 October 1676 Martha Bunker.
v HULDA, b. say 1646; m. Hampton 26 February 1666[/7] John Smith [ HampVR 75, 556]. [ GDMNH absentmindedly calls this child "Hannah."]
ASSOCIATIONS: The widow Mary Hussey who appears in early Hampton records is almost certainly mother of Christopher [ GDMNH 364-65].
COMMENTS: In 1686 "Captain Henry Dow wrote in cipher in his diary for Monday, Mar. 8, that he was `at Captain Hussey's burial.' It is therefore certain that he died in Hampton and was not, as stated by Savage, cast away off the coast of Florida" [ Hampton Hist 760].
All sources give Stephen as the eldest child of Christopher and Theodate (Bachiler) Hussey, and claim that this couple had married in England prior to 1632 and came to New England with Reverend STEPHEN BACHILER . There is no evidence, however, for placing Stephen as the eldest child, and his marriage date of 1676, and other records, argue for a date of birth in the 1640s, and so he has been placed here as the fourth of five children. Thus John becomes the eldest child, which is consistent with the page of baptisms, apparently kept by Stephen Bachiler as he travelled from Lynn to Newbury to Hampton, where John is the first child baptized, at Lynn in 1636. (This also puts the lie to the myth that in the first week he was at Lynn Bachiler had baptized his own grandson Stephen Hussey before the child of another couple.)
If John was the eldest child, then his parents need not have married earlier than 1635, and Hussey may not have met his wife until both were in New England. This would remove any evidence that Bachiler and Hussey would have been associated in England, and so any evidence that they might have sailed together in 1632. Since the earliest record of Hussey in New England is his admission to freemanship on 14 May 1634, we need not assume that he had arrived any earlier than 1633.
If Theodate Bachiler did not marry until about 1635, then she need not have been born until about 1615, although her birth could have been earlier (but certainly not so early as 1588, as claimed by GDMNH and others). Her given name is a Greek construct meaning "gift of God," which would be appropriate for a child born to a woman at the end of her child-bearing period, long after all her other children had been born. Aside from Theodate, the youngest known Bachiler child was Ann, who was born about 1601. We argue here that Theodate was born several years after Ann, and have chosen somewhat arbitrarily 1610 as her year of birth.
Savage and Dow have included a son Joseph, but this derives from an error in Dow's list of representatives from Hampton to the General Court, which gives a Joseph Hussey in 1672, a misreading for Christopher Hussey [ Hampton Hist 566].
On 11 October 1664 "Mr." Christopher Hussey was bound to pay Jno. Mason, his apprentice, £4 at the end of his apprenticeship [ EQC 3:202].
Christopher Hussey came on the "William and Francis" 1630 and settled at Lynn, Mass, then went to Hampton as a Grantee of that town. He was a captain in the militia, a magistrate, town clerk, selectman and when NH was made a royal provence, he was named on the royal commission. He died Mar 6 1686 at 90 years and was buried Mar 8,
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