Genealogies of the Raymond Families of New England
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IN 1622 Sir Fernando Gorges and Capt. John Mason, a London merchant, were the joint grantees of all the land lying between the Merrimac and Sagadahoc rivers. In the following year an attempt was made by them to establish a colony and fishery at Pascataqua river. In 1629 the grant was divided. Gorges took all that part lying east of the middle of the river Pascataqua, and named it Maine, and Mason all that between the Pascataqua and Merrimac rivers, and called it New Hampshire. Mason now formed a company or association which was called "The Company of Laconia." In 1630-1 this company sent out to Little Harbor (now Portsmouth, N. H.) Ambrose Gibbons, William Raymond, with other stewards and forty servants. In May, 1631, Thomas Eyre, one of the company, writing from London to Gibbons, their factor, says: "By the barke Warwicke we send you a factor to take charge of the trade goods."
Dec. 15, 1632, Mason and others of the company wrote to Gibbons from London: "Wee thank you for assisting John Raymond. Wee pray you still to be helpful to him so that he may dispatch and come to us with such retourne as he hath and if he hath any of his trade goods remayning unsold wee have willed him to leave them with you and we doe hereby pray you to receive them into your custody and to put them off with what convenience you may and to send us the retournes by the first shipp that comes."
June 24, 1633, Gibbons wrote from Newichwanick (a settlement about eight miles up the river) to the company at London: "I have delivered unto Mr. John Raymond 76 lb 4 ounses of bever, 6 musquashes and on martain. Mr. Raymon's present departing and the intermixing of all the trade goods in my care until Mr. Vaughan com I cannot give you any Satisfaction for the account of trade. I did advise Mr. Raymond [page 2] to retourne with all speed unto you." The last letter of which any record is found, is from Gibbons to the company at London, dated at Newichwanick, July 13, 1633, in which he says, "I have taken into my handes all the trade goods that remains of John Raymon's and Mr. Vaughan and will with what convenience I may put them of. * * George Vaughan hath a note of all the trade goods in my custody of the old store John Raymonds and George Vaughns accomtes, but the bever being disposed of before I could make a devident."
Mason died. His will was dated Nov. 26, 1635, and was proved Dec. 22d following by Ann Mason, his wife, who was appointed administratrix. She made Francis Norton her attorney at Little Harbor. In 1639, finding the income from the settlement would not justify the expense, she refused to furnish further supplies, which was followed by the disruption of the colony. Many of the people left, and those who remained kept possession of the buildings and land and claimed them as their own. It appears the planters had, in 1629, purchased of the Indians (as they conscientiously thought necessary to give them a just title) all that part of the main land bounded by the Piscataqua and Merrimac rivers, beginning at Newichwanick Falls on the Piscataqua, down said river to the sea.
This is all the information discovered of our ancestors until we find Richard, John and (Captain) William at Salem and Beverly, Mass. As early as 1636 Richard received a grant of land for fishing purposes, at Winter Island, Salem. He styled himself a mariner, was probably master, and certainly part owner of the ketch Hopewell of 30 tons. These facts warrant the belief that his business was that of a fisherman. It is said that he made voyages to Barbadoes, which is doubtless true, for the West Indies were then, as now, an important market for the product of his industry. While there is no evidence that he was ever at Mason's colony, yet it seems probable that he was among those whom Mason and his associates sent over from London from time to time between 1623 and 1630-1, in unsuccessful attempts to establish the fishing business at their colony.
A very exhaustive search has been made, without success, to find the original record of that "William Raymond mentioned of this place 1648," in Felt's annals of Salem. If such a record exists, which is probable, it must have referred to William the steward, and not to Captain William, who was at that time only about eleven years of age. That John and Capt. William were brothers is proved by a deed on record in [3] Salem Registry, Book 17, page 24, in which John of Middleboro, who was a son of John the emigrant, conveys an estate to his brother Jonathan, describing a boundary thereof, "until it comes to the land which I sold to my uncle Capt. William Rayment and to his son George Rayment." Of the relationship that existed between Richard and the others there is nothing decisive, but there remains the fact that those who emigrated to this country came from Essex County, England. All those bearing our surname lived side by side for several years at Salem and Beverly, and none other has been found for at least an hundred years from that time who could not trace his ancestry to those named. In compiling this genealogy, the records have been kept in two distinct branches, that of Richard, under his single head, and that of John and William, being brothers, under a double head, so to speak. These two branches were kept as distinct as possible, assigning to each their undoubted descendants, and such as seemed after careful research to belong to it. The removal of Richard to Connecticut about 1662 very much facilitated the separation of the two branches, and now, though those of the name are very numerous in that State, it may be doubted that there can be found there as many as ten families who are not his descendants. The prospective increase of our surname was, from the outstart, decidedly in favor of that branch headed by John and William, the total number of whose grandsons more than doubled those of Richard; yet from the commencement of these investigations, these two branches have progressed substantially equal in number of recorded families and their children, and at this moment the rather curious result appears that Richard's branch numbers 554 families, with 2,742 named children, and that of John and William 558 families with 2,718 children, a difference of but four in families and 22 in children. With these facts before us, the inevitable conclusion appears to be, that Richard was of the next preceding generation to that of John and William, and that to equalize and perfect the two branches, it needs to find the father of John and Capt. William. What other can be found than William the steward? Moreover it appears probable that Richard and the elder William were brothers; that the latter was not only the father of John and Capt. William, but also of Lieut. Edward, who held his commission in Capt. Hawthorn's Co., under Major Sedgwick at the capture of St. John and Port Royal, Nova Scotia, in 1654, and that Capt. William, after naming his eldest son after himself, possibly named his second after his brother Edward.
Genealogies of the Raymond Families of New England
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