Longley William b. 1614 Frisbie, Lincoln county, England, U.K. d. 29 NOV 1680 Groton, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA

1614 - 1680

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Birth 1614 Frisbie, Lincoln county, England, U.K. [1, 2]

Gender Male

_UPD 15 AUG 2009 00:36:51 GMT-5

Died 29 Nov 1680 Groton, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA [3, 4]

Person ID I1707 Alan Donald Vibber

Last Modified 08 Dec 2009

Father Longley John, d. 08 Aug 1638

Family ID F780 Group Sheet

Family Goffe Joanna, d. 18 Apr 1698, Charlestown, Suffolk, Massachusetts

Married England, U.K. [1, 2, 5]

Children

1. Longley William, b. Abt 1640, Lynn, Essex, Massachusetts, USA

, d. 27 Jul 1694

Family ID F772 Group Sheet

Notes	(II) William Longley, son of John Longley (l), was born in Frisbie, Lincoln county, England, in 1614. He came to Lynn as early as 1638, and was admitted a freeman March 4, 1639. He resided in Lynn twenty-two years, and was a prominent citizen and office holder there. He removed to Groton about 1659. His name appears first on the Groton records in 1663, and in 1665 he was elected selectman. William Longley had to go to the courts to correct the title to his lands at Lynn which he drew in 1638, and on which he had lived over twenty years. It seems that through a clerical error William's name was entered as Richard Longley on the proprietors' book, and the court records give ample proof that no Richard Longley existed, so the title was cured and doubtless William was able to deed his land tothe purchaser when he went to Groton to live. He had to leave Groton, of course, in 1675, on account of King Philip's war, and he went to Charlestown to live during the hostilities. He served at one time as clerk of writs, indicating that he was well educated. He died November 29, 1680. His will, made November 3, 1680, was recorded April 10, 1681 ; bequeathing to wife Joanna, sons John and William, daughters, Mary Lemmond, Hannah Tarbell, Lydia Nutting, and Sarah Rand, and their children specified. He married, in England, Joanna Goffe, sister of Thomas Goffe, who was deputy governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company that received a grant from the Crown, March 19, 1628. Goffe was a member of bothPlymouth and Massachusetts Bay companies; was a merchant of London; lost money on the business of chartering ships for the colonists of Governor Winthrop and others. His widow married (second), Benjamin Crispe, and she died in 1698. The children of William and Joanna (Goffe) Longley were: I. John. 2. Mary, married, 1666, Samuel M. Lemont. 3. Sarah, born October 15, 1660; married June 17, 1679, Thomas Rand, father of Robert Rand, to whom a grant of a thousand acres of land was given by the general court in what is now New Hampshire, on account of the losses suffered by Governor Goffe, his great-uncle. 4. Lydia, married James Nutting. 5. William, Jr., mentioned below. 6. Hannah, married Thomas Tarbell, Jr. 7. Ann. 8. Elizabeth, married James Blood. William Longley. 1614-1680. Son of John Longley of Firsby, Lincolnshire, Eng. Born about 1614. He married Joanna Goffe. He was one of the grantees of Lynn, where he was admitted a freeman (under nameof Langley) March 14, 1639. Bought house and land at Lynn about 1638. He made a letter of attorney Aug. 8, 1639, as "son and heir of John Longley, late of Firsby in co. of Lincoln, clerk," to Thomas Meeke of Waynflete St. Mary,* gentleman, to sell lands etc. descended to him from his said father. William Longley held various offices at Lynn. He was a selectman, clerk of the writs, magistrate, etc. He appears to have been possessed of an excellently-developed bump of com- bativeness. The annalist of Lynn relates that the Longleys were often at odds with their neighbors on account of land claims. In the court records of March 30, 1641, there is a suit entered : "The Worshipful Emanuell Downing and Edmund Batter v. William Langley de Lynn." In 1662 William Longley prosecuted the town of Lynn for not laying out to him 40 acres of land, according to the division of 1638, when this grant had been erroneously put down to " Richard " Long- ley. This land appears to have been withheld from William Longley during the Cromwellian regime. The court decided, after hearing evidence, that he should have the 40 acres or £40 in money. In 1663 John Hathorne complained to the church at Lynn that Andrew Mansfield and William Longley had given false testimony in the recent land case, for which they were censured. They appealed to the county court, accusing Hathorne of slander, of which he was found guilty and sentenced to pay a fine of £10 and make a public acknowledgment in the meeting-house at Lynn, or else to pay £20 and costs. This directclash between the powers of Church and State appears to have caused considerable commotion at Lynn. In 1663 Thomas Newhall, the first white person born at Lynn, was prosecuted by William Longley for assault and battery committed on the wife of said William Longley while she was assisting in runninga land line. In 1663 William Longley removed from Lynn to Groton. Under date of June 17, 1663, Thomas Browne of Groton gave deed to " William Longley of Lin, in the county of Essex, yeoman," of his house, orchard, lands, etc. in Groton, for £80. sterling. Under same date William Longley of Lynn and Joanna, his wife, conveyed to Thomas Browne, of " Grawton," his house, orchard and lands in Lynn for £125. sterling. Richard Blood, Capt. James Parker and William Longley were the three largest original proprietors of the extensive territory which originally bore the name of Groton. Probably some of William Longley's lands took in a portion of what later formed the town of Shirley, where some of his descendants settled. His large tracts of native forest were eventually divided into farms and occupied by hisdescendants. His son, John, was also an original proprietor of Groton. William Longley first appears upon the records of Groton June 21, 1663, when with Capt. James Parker and others, he voted against the proposal to give Rev. Samuel Willard the use of the house and lands devoted by the town to the purposes of the ministry. There are numerous indications that the first William Longley was not in accord with the attempted ecclesiastical despotism of the day. He was selectman at Groton in 1665, and town clerk in 1666 and '67. Groton was destroyed by Indians in the spring of 1676 and its inhabitants dispersed. William Longley and his family went to Charlestown, where they remained for a year or two and where he had a grantof land. Some members of the family were also in Lynn during this period. He returned to Groton with a large proportion of the old inhabitants, and rebuilt his house there. At Groton this dauntless pioneer man died Nov. 29, 1680. His widow, Joanna, married, about 1683, Benjamin Crispe, survived him, and died at Charlestown, probably at the home of one of her children, April 18, 1698, ae. 79. Her gravestone is still standing in the old Phipps street burial ground, Charlestown, where the remains of many of her descendants also lie. In her will she remembered her three grandchildren who had beencarried captive by Indians in 1694. It contains the following clause : Item. I give and bequeath unto my three grandchildren y* are in captivity, if they return, Vizdt, three books, one of y"1 a bible, another a sermon book, treating of faith, and the other a psalm book. The government of Massachusetts granted, April 16, 1734, 1000 acres of land to Robert Hand, whose father married a daughter of William find Joanna (Goffe) Longley, on account of the services to the colony of his granduncle Thomas Goffe. That Thomas Joffe must have rendered great services to the Plymouth and Massachusetts colonies, their early days, is evident from this remarkable expression of gratitude, in the shape a large grant of land, morethan a century after the first settlements, to so remote a mnection as a grandson of his sister. The early emigrations to America, from England, were commercial ventures organized by English merchants. The religious element was made very prominent by some overzealous Puritans, who attempted to establish, and did establish for a time, an ecclesiastical despotism in New England. The village of Firsby is about 4 miles northwest of Wainfleet St. Mary (there is also a Wainfleet All Saints) in Lincolnshire. Not far away is Somersby, where the poet Tennyson was born, and try Firsby runs the little river Steeping—the original of Tennyson's " Brook." Upon 1'ts grassy banks the first American William Longley, as a lad, doubtless disported himself, nigh three centuries agone.

Sources

[S59] Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of, Ellery Bicknell Crane, (Name: 1907;), 536 (Reliability: 3).
[S253] Who Begot Thee? Some Genealogical and Historical Notes Made in an Effort to Trace the American Progenitors of One Individual Living in America in 1903, Gilbert Oliver Bent, Gilbert Oscar Bent, (Name: Printed for private distribution, 1903;), 29 (Reliability: 3).
[S253] Who Begot Thee? Some Genealogical and Historical Notes Made in an Effort to Trace the American Progenitors of One Individual Living in America in 1903, Gilbert Oliver Bent, Gilbert Oscar Bent, (Name: Printed for private distribution, 1903;), 31 (Reliability: 3).
[S59] Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of, Ellery Bicknell Crane, (Name: 1907;), 356 (Reliability: 3).
[S253] Who Begot Thee? Some Genealogical and Historical Notes Made in an Effort to Trace the American Progenitors of One Individual Living in America in 1903, Gilbert Oliver Bent, Gilbert Oscar Bent, (Name: Printed for private distribution, 1903;), 41 (Reliability: 3).