Peter Pattee, son of Deric and Marie Dupree, was baptized in the French Church on Threadneedle Street in London, England on 22 February 1646.
The family is of Flemish origin and the first reference to their life in England is to be found in the Walloon Registers of Canterbury Cathedral on 13 May 1586. Sometime thereafter the family removed to London where they were among the founders of the French Church on Threadneedle Street. This church building has long since been destroyed, but the Church Records are preserved in the files of the Huguenot Society of London.
(There is a persistent tradition that Peter was the son of Sir William Petty (Patee), but this is not proved, and is probably incorrect. In any event, until such time as some additional proof is obtained, it should remain only a family tradition, and nothing more.)
In 1669, "on account of certain political opinions he entertained, he found it expedient to take a hasty departure from England." He settled first in Virginia where he married, and where his eldest son, Richard, was born, but the name of his wife, the date of her death, or the date of birth of their son, are not recorded.
He married (2) 8 November 1682, in Haverhill, Massachusetts, (Essex County Court Records say the date was 3 November 1682) Sarah Gill, born 27 June 1654 in Salisbury, Massachusetts and who died before 1720, daughter of John and Phebe (Buswell) Gill of Salisbury.
He married (3) 19 November 1720, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Susanna (Davis) Hadley, widow of John Hadley. She was born about 1652, and died in Gloucester on 10 March 1736.
He took the Oath of Citizenship and Allegiance there on November 28, 1677. (NEHG Society’s "Register", Vol. 6, page 203.)
He was a soldier in King Philip’s War. (Record and Files of Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Mass., Vol. II. 1678-1680, page 289)
We are told that he established the first ferry at Haverhill, and that the locality still bears his name. Somehow, and somewhere he had picked up the trade of "cordwainer", as a shoemaker was then designated, and at the annual meeting of the town in the Spring of 1677, a year after the application of one William Thompson "to be accepted townsman, to dwell here and follow his trade of shoemaking" had been refused, Peter Pattee made a similar application, and met with a similar refusal.
His proposal to become an inhabitant of the town seems to have been lightly esteemed. But he was not so easily shaken off, and, in spite of the cool reception, he continued to reside there until his death in 1724.
Chase’s "History of Haverhill, " page 130, records that "Petter Patie making a motion to the town to grant him a piece of land to settle upon, it not being ‘till then known to the town that he was a married man and a stranger, having hitherto accounted of him as a journey-man shoemaker, his motion according to law was rejected. And the Moderator declared to him before the public assembly that the town doth not own him, or allow of him for an inhabitant of Haverhill, and that it was the duty of the Grandjurymen to look after him."
It appears that he was the first shoemaker regularly to follow his trade in a place since famous for the manufacture of boots and shoes, for he made shoes, despite the formal vote of the town
But this was in line with a general custom in the towns of that period. The very best families, when removing from one town to another, were, according to this custom, "warned out," merely, as a precaution, in case of pauperism later, to relieve the town of responsibility, and preventing the acquiring of a legal residence. As a rule no attention was paid to warnings. Nor did this rude refusal of his polite request discourage Peter Pattee.
In 1676 he left Virginia, possibly because of domestic unhappiness, as we find him accused of leaving a wife in Virginia, after he had married in Massachusetts, where he sought a new home. Neither the merits of the case nor its disposition appear in the records, but he apparently was not disturbed, for he remained where he had made his home in Haverhill, Massachusetts and lived there the rest of his days.
In 1680 he was "presented" to the court in Haverhill for "being absent from his wife for several years." And the next year was presented for having another wife In Virginia. But this action seems to have had little effect on the esteem in which he was held because in 1694 he was elected to the then important office of town constable in Haverhill by a "plentiful, clear and legal paper vote." This position was one of great responsibility in the seventeenth century.
The records of the Quarterly Court of Essex County, Mass., Vol. VIII, 1680-1683, record, "Peeter Pate, presented for absense from his wife, told what means he had used to get her to come an live with him. The court ordered him to make arrangements with some master of a vessel that goes to Virginia to bring her and report to the Court under the master’s hand what had been done. He was to pay costs to Andrew Greeley and a Mr. Aries.
He seems to have made a friend In the Honorable Samuel Symonds, Deputy Governor of the Colony, because, on 9 April 1668, he rendered a judgment as follows:
"Peter Pattee, having lived
neare three yeares in the
Country, and bene in service
in the warr, and somewhat
wounded, and living without
offence in the town of Hav-
erhill for some space of
time, as I am informed, I
doe allow him to dwell in
the Country."
9 April 1678 (signed)
Samuel Symonds
Deputy Governor
James Pecker, Sr., of Boston, sometimes an inhabitant of Haverhill, certified on 17 January 1680 that upon request of Peter Patta of Haverhill in 1679 he took letters, which Patta had written to be delivered to his wife, if alive, at Varganah. The letters were not sealed and he asked said Pecker to read and direct them to the places where she might be.
Patta earnestly desired her to come to him in New England, said he would pay her passage and gave her other encouragement.
Pecker delivered the letters to men who would be careful of them, but he never heard anything from them, although he had inquired of men who came from the same town to which the letters were directed.
George Browne deposed, on 27 March 1681, that when the Deputy Governor gave an order for Pate to remain in the Country, deponent told the Court that he had left a wife in Virginia and that he was a wounded man. Ens. Pecker engaged to send the letters to Virginia.
Nathaniel Ayer deposed that he heard Peter Patye say a year and a half or two years ago that he had left a wife and child in Virginia about two years before. (Sworn 26 March 1681 before Nathaniel Saltonstall).
In the meantime, (on 11 November 1679) we find his name on the list of men impressed for military service by the Court at Salisbury, Mass. He continued to live in Haverhill, and, in 1686, was one of several persons accused of trespassing on the town "ways" and "common lands" by fencing in some parts of them.
Peter bought his 6-acre homestead of John and Cornelious Page on 8 March 1681/82. (Norfolk Registry of Deeds, Book III, leaf 274-275, Salem, Mass.)
At the annual meeting of the town of Haverhill on 1695, Peter applied for permission to build a gristmill at East Meadow River, but was denied. The reason given for this action was that the town waas under obligations to Currier & Greeley, millers. But, if tradition is correct, he built a mill just the ssame, some say the first in the town.
In 1696, perhaps incensed by the town’s refusal to allow him to build this mill, he entered a strange motion for keeping a tavern in his house, and offered conditions, which, if granted, would have greatly prejudiced the town. Being moved and fully agitated, the town declared "against his having any allowance for it." On 26 December 1696, Nathaniel Saltonstall wrote the Justices sitting at Salem, warning them against granting liquor licenses to men not personally known to them in remote places, and particularly to Peter Pattee of Haverhill, whom he said was so "cocksure" of getting one that he had already laid in "unaccountable store of cyder, rum, molasses and what not!"
As late as 1710 he was the regular ferryman at Pattee’s Ferry, which property he deeded to his son, Richard, on 19 January 1719/20.
He was long a stormy "petrel" in the town and only gradually fought his way to public favor. He was probably a man of considerable native ability and originality, but with a somewhat unconventional and un-diplomatic temperment for seventeenth century Haverhill. He was undoubtedly of different faith and standards of life from the stern old Puritan fathers of Haverhill at the time, as there are no records of his ever having joined the Haverhill Church, although his sons and daughters all did.
The salient facts of his life are revealed by the Haverhill records, quoted by the town historians, B.L. Mirick and George Wingate Chase, and the "Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Esse2x County, Mass."
Peter died in Haverhill, Massachusetts 19 October 1724. He is buried in the Old Pentucket Cemetery in Haverhill, Massachusetts where his gravestone reads ad follows:
"Here lyes buried ye body
of Mr. Peter Patee who
died October the 19 1724
aged 80 years."
His will, dated 11 September 1722, proved 2 November 1724, is recorded in the Probate Office of Essex County, Mass. Salem, Mass. in Book 315 of Wills on pages 146-147.
"The last will and Testomony of Peter Pattee of
Haverhill in the County of Essex. I being through
ye goodness of God in good health of body having ye
(full) use of my reason and memory and not knowing
ye time of my death, I having a desire to set my
house in order before my death and to settle my
outward estate, I desire to commit my spirit into
ye hand of ye Lord Jesus Christ and my body unto
decent burial.
IMPRIMIS: As for my outward estate I dispose of
(it) as followeth:
Item: I give to my son Samuel Pate ye sum of
Twenty pounds; as for my daughter Hannah Roberts, I
give ye sum of five pounds’ to my daughter Rolf I
give her ye sum of five schillings. Also I give
unto my grandson Peter Patte ye sum of twenty
pounds, and Seth Pattee five pounds, and John Pate
five pounds, and Humphrey Pate twenty pounds and
thirty pounds to be divided amongst ye rest of my
son Richard Pate’s Children to be disposed of
according as my son Richard Pate shall see cause.
Also wheras I have given to my beloved wife
Susanna two cows if I have them out of my own yt is
to be understood in my own possession at my death
and my wife survive as may appear by an instrument
I have given under my hand to my said wife bearing
date with this my will: my will is yt she shall
after my death, or if I be taken away in ye summer
months yt then she shall have them delivered
forthwith after my death. Also my will is yt all
contained in ye said instrument given to my wife
shall be fulfilled.
I also doe make an constitute my beloved son
Richard Patte to be ye executor of this my will.
All these legacys as above said to be paid when all
my just and due debts are pd: and funeral charges.
The money for ye payment of these legacys is
in my son Richard Patys hand which may appear by an
instrument or mortgage given under his hand for ye
payment of two hundred and fifty six pounds which
is put upon record in the County Records. For this
my will is yt ye rest of ye money contained in ye
instrument of two hundred and fifty-six pounds
above said this I give to my sd son Richard Patte.
For the confirmationln on this my will I have set
my hand and seale September 11 Anno 1722.
Signed & sealed in (Signed)
ye presence of
Peter Pate
Richard Palmer
Martha Gleason Her (X) mark
Samuel Penny
Children:
Richard born about 1677 Moses born 28 July 1683
Benjamin born 4 September 1684 Jeremiah born 3 November 1685
Samuel born 24 August 1687 Hannah born 13 June 1689
Mary born 29 October 1691 Jemima born 27 November 1693
Benjamin born 15 May 1696
Personal Correspondence, Linwood M. Pattee
Compiled by Linwood Melvin Pattee
Re-typed by Richard Mack Pattee - November, 2001.
