Isaac Stearns (c1600-1671) (52 Ancestors 2020 Week 15) Theme: "Fire"

So many family researchers hit brick walls when records they seek were burned in some long-ago fire. Irish records in the Dublin courthouse and the 1890 American census are among the best known losses, but any time only one copy of a record is in existence, it is in peril of this fate. Fortunately for our family, there was a solution for the court records lost to a fire in the matter of the estate of my 10X great grandfather Isaac Stearns (sometimes spelled Sterns or Stearnes).

Isaac was born between 1597 and 1600 at either Nayland or nearby Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk, England to William and Emma (Ramsford) Stearnes. No birth or baptism records have yet been located (not because there was a fire, at least not so far as we know).

Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk, England
Photo by Elinor Bardahl 1998

St. Mary's Church, Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk 1998

Isaac was a tailor. Clothing in the 17th century was much more elaborate than a simple suit might be today. (For examples of the styles that Isaac might have been expected to make, check out this link.) However, Puritan dress tended to be much less elaborate and perhaps Isaac's clientele were mainly Puritan sympathizers.

Isaac married Mary Barker 20 May 1622 in St. Mary's Church at Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk. Four children were born to them in Suffolk during the 1620s. The family were Puritans who took part in the Great Migration from England to the Massachuetts Bay Colony in the summer of 1630. Eleven ships, including the Arabella, made up the Winthrop Fleet carrying between 700 - 1000 passengers to America.

Included in the list of the passengers on the Arabella, embarking from Yarmouth on 8 April 1630 and arriving Salem 12 June 1630 were the following:
Stearns, Isaac of Stoke Nayland, Suffolk to Watertown
Stearns, Mrs. Mary Barker
Stearns, John, son
Stearns, Abigail, daughter
Stearns, Elizabeth, daughter
Stearns, Hannah, daughter

Replica of the Arabella Produced in 1930 for the 300th anniversary of Salem

Public Domain Image

Isaac was in Watertown (Boston area) in 1630 and was admitted as a freeman there on 18 May 1631.  He served as Selectman for several years and was on the first jury trial for a civil case in New England; this pertained to an assault by a man named Endicott on Thomas Dexter in May 1631. Isaac was a surveyor of highways, but on 4 December 1638, he and John Page were fined 5 shillings at the Boston Court for "turning the way about" (changing the highway). No further information could be found but one might assume they had changed it in such a way as to perhaps benefit themselves at the expense of some neighbours!

In 1647, he and Mr. Biscoe were appointed  to determine how a bridge over the Charles River should be built and to arrange workmen for its construction. This was probably the first bridge over the Charles at Watertown.

Isaac and Mary may have been Puritans, but it seems Mary, at least, did not always toe the line when it came to compulsory church attendance. On 23 May 1665 "Goodwife Stearns Senior" was one of several Watertown residents who were called to answer at a town meeting for not "attending their seats in the meetinghouse appointed them by the town." (It is not clear whether they did not attend church  at all or simply chose to sit in seats other than those assigned to them.)

One might gather from his public service that Isaac was a reasonably well-educated man for his times; he signed his own will dated 14 June 1671. He must have known his days were numbered: he died just 5 days later at the age of 71.

In his will proved in October 1671 he bequeathed to his wife Mary his entire rather large estate during her widowhood.  Prior to his death he had already made fairly generous gifts to each of his seven children but provided that, after Mary died or remarried, additional gifts would go to his children and grandchildren as more particularly set out in his will.

The inventory of his large estate was first taken on 28 June 1671 and filed with the court in Cambridge. It was valued at 524 pounds, 4 shillings, and was a lengthy list that included 14 parcels of land, livestock, farming equipment, provisions and household goods.

Unfortunate timing! The first county courthouse in Cambridge was burned in a fire in 1671 (presumably some time between the end of June and October) with all the court records from 1663-1671, including Isaac's estate inventory. Fortunately, all was not lost. A copy had been kept by the sons Samuel and Isaac (my 9th great grandfather) who were their father's executors. They were able to use their retained copy to complete the probate of their father's estate as indicated in the following excerpt from the court records (taken from p.20 Van Wagenen - see below in Some Resources).

 That this is a true coppie of ye orriginall attested in Oct., 1671, and yn put upon Record, and burned in ye fireing of ye court house, is sworn by Isaac Sternes and Samuel Sternes, I, 8, 72, in open court, at Cambridge.

If only duplicate copies could be located for other genealogical records lost to fire over the years!

Some Resources:

• Samuel Adams Drake, History of Middlesex County, Massachuesetts: Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City & Town in the County, Vol. II. Boston: Estes and Laurit Publishers, 1880, p.556 located online at books.google.ca
• Wikipedia Article for Isaac Stearns located at this website.
• James Savage, A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, Volume IV Boston: Little, Brown and Company 1862 accessed online at Internet Archive
• Genealogy of Isaac Sterns and his Descendants accessed online 10 Sept 2016 at https://archive.org/stream/genealogymemoirs00vanw/genealogymemoirs00vanw_djvu.txt:
• New England, The Great Migration and The Great Migration Begins, 1620-1635. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.
• Robert Charles Anderson, The Winthrop Fleet: Massachusetts Bay Company Immigrants to New England 1629-1630, Boston: The New England Historic Genealogical Society 2012.
• Avis Stearns Van Wagenen, Genealogy and Memoirs of Isaac Sterns and His Descendants, Syracuse, N.Y.: Courier Printing Co., 1901.