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George Byam 1620 - 1680 The founder of the family in America.
He may have arrived in Boston in August 1635 on the ship "Blessing". Since we don't yet know where George came from, ties to the English Byams are impossible. GEORGE BYAM was born in ENGLAND or WALES, July 13, 1620, and died May 27, 1680 in Chelmsford, Middlesex Co., Massachusetts. He married SUSANNAH SHAW. She was born in Chelmsford, Middlesex, Massachusetts, September 07, 1622 and died August 21, 1687 in Chelmsford, Middlesex Co., Massachusetts. They had only two natural children: Abigail, born January 7, 1643, probably died young, and Abraham, Direct Descendant baptized on April 14, 1644 in Salem, progenitor of the Byam/Byham line. By 1655, George and Susannah had moved from the Salem area to Chelmsford, Massachusetts, near Lowell. Their descendents continued to live in the Chelmsford area for three hundred years. We know nothing about George Byam's early life except that he was undoubtedly born in Great Britain. As Edwin Byam points out in Descendants of George Byam there were Byams in the counties of Monmouth and Somerset in England. Both are in the southwest of England, and Monmouth is on the Welsh border. Since the name Byam has Welsh roots, it is possible that George was born there. A fair supposition, then, is that he was born in southwest England or in southern Wales, with the former somewhat more likely given limited Welsh emigration to New England in the early years of colonization. We know even less about Susannah Byam than we do about her husband. We don't know when she immigrated to America. We do not know what ship George took to New England, nor how old he was. We know he was fairly young when he arrived. He became a member of the Church in Salem in September 1640 and a freeman (voter) in May 1642. His first child of whom we have record was born in January 1643, so presumably he and Susannah married in 1642 or slightly earlier. It is unlikely that George was born later than about 1620 and probably not before 1610. Edwin Byam makes a good case for George having arrived in Boston in August 1635 on the ship Blessing. He deduced this from family legend and supporting facts concerning George's connections with others, particularly with the parents of his son Abraham's first wife, Experience Adford. There is also recorded as a passenger on the Blessing a Nathaniel Byam, aged 14. We have no other record of him. Since the legend had it that George and Henry Adford and another came together as teenagers, it may well be that it was on this ship. It appears that George came as a teenager, travelling to a new country either alone or with his sibling Nathaniel. Nathaniel, however, may well not have existed but actually be George -- the result of a recording error. Why did George come? There are two possibilities: 1) George was orphaned or simply left his family and decided to go to New England or 2) George's parents or his remaining parent had indentured him to another family who either brought him to New England or encouraged him to come. The 17th Century was a time of large families, and decreasing infant mortality (though still extremely high by today's standards), and given hard times in the west of England, many families turned their children out at an early age, often by 13. Most of the early settlers in New England came either from what was then England's wealthiest area, East Anglia and surrounding counties, or the southwest, which at that time was one of the poorest areas. It was not uncommon for 17th Century English children to be indentured with more wealthy families, or with poor families who merely had fewer children. Many Americans assume that indentured servants were only on this side of the Atlantic. George was almost certainly indentured in New England, probably in Salem, to pay for his passage (which is the common perception of indenture), but he may well have been indentured or "hired out" while he was still in England. The religious ferment against the Established Church of England was largely, though certainly not exclusively, in the prosperous east. Relative wealth gave people the opportunity to learn to read and time to read the Bible. Cambridge University, on the western edge of East Anglia, was the hotbed of dissent and turned out leaders for the movement. But even in the west of England, George may have lived with a Puritan family. It is not impossible that he developed his own dissenting ideas while still in England. On the other hand, George may have come to New England for purely economic reasons. Like the many immigrants who followed him, he may seen greater opportunity on this side of the Atlantic. 
geraldmccune@earthlink.net 
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