John Firman (1588-c1642) (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2025 Week 42 theme: "Fire")

Having already written about a relative who died in one of America's worst fire disasters -- Chicago's Iroquois Theater Tragedy of 1903 -- I wanted to find a less horrific fire story to feature this week.

While searching my database for any ancestors with surnames including "Fire" or "Burn", the closest name was missing an "e": my 11th  great  grandfather John Firman (Firmin, Fyrmin or Furman). Fortunately for my purposes (but unfortunately for his!), there was indeed a fire (with an "e") in John's story. Thankfully, no one died in this fire. 

John Firman was born in Nayland, Suffolk in 1588. He married his first wife Judith Bridge at St. Nicholas Church, Ipswich, Suffolk on 23 June 1614. 

St. Nicholas Church, Ipswich - The copyright on this image is owned by Geographer  and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

Their first child was a daughter Elizabeth (my 10th great grandmother) born at Nayland 27 April 1615.  Twins were born to the couple on 10 February 1617/18 but Judith died as a result and was buried at Nayland 24 February. After the death of his first wife, John married a widow named Susan Bush Warren and had more children with her. 

In 1630, John, Susan and 7 children were part of the Winthrop Fleet of mass migration to New England. A vast number of the emigrants were, like the Firmans, from Suffolk. Most were religious dissidents; John Firman was among a group of men who had been censured in Suffolk for not kneeling during prayer as required. 

The Firmans settled at Watertown where John is listed as among its founders. His name is included in the list at the Watertown Memorial erected in 1930 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of its founding. 

Watertown Memorial photo by J Furman on 15 March 2015 from Findagrave.com

Just months after their June arrival, on 10 November 1630,  it was reported that "Firmin of Watertown had his wigwam burnt." No additional information has been located, but it does sound as if this was a temporary shelter that burned. No doubt he soon built a permanent structure to house his growing family.

We often forget that the first immigrants to America did not move into existing houses. They eventually built their own, but that would have taken time. As a quick temporary solution, they did the obvious: built simple dwellings using whatever materials were at hand. This often meant digging a cellar or making tent-like structures by piling up branches or logs and covering that with cloth or branches woven into mats and covered with mud or sod. They may well have taken a lead from the local indigenous people who knew how to build with local materials for the local circumstances. This probably explains the reference to his "wigwam" having been burned.

John was made a Freeman of Watertown on 18 May 1631 and was chosen a Selectman in 1637.  He made a return visit to England in late 1633 but boarded the ship Elizabeth at Ipswich, Suffolk for return to America on 30 April 1634. 

We know John died before 10 May 1642 when his heirs were granted significant amounts of land at Watertown; no burial location has been located.

Some Resources: 

• Anderson, Robert Charles, Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, Volume 1, New England Historic Genealogical Society 2012, pages 675-678, accessed online 9 October 2022 at https://archive.org/details/greatmigrationbe0001robe
• Banks, Charles Edward, The Winthrop Fleet of 1630, an account of the vessels, the voyage, the passengers and their English homes from original authorities, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company 1930 accessed on Internet Archive 10 Sept 2025 at https://archive.org/details/winthropfleetof100bank/page/n9/mode/2up
• Polino, Valerie Ann, "The Architecture of New England and the Southern Colonies as it Reflects Changes in Colonial Life", part of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute Curriculum Resources, accessed online 21 September at https://teachersinstitute.yale.edu/curriculum/units/1978/4/78.04.03.x.html

Samuel Hartwell of Bridgewater (1693-1760), 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2025 Week 41 Theme: "Water"

With so many possibilities to write about water, the obvious choice would be the Atlantic Ocean crossed by my ancestors to get our family to North America from Europe. Certainly there were many ocean adventures that could be shared. Also dozens of rivers, streams and lakes feature in the lives of family members. I have chosen instead to write about a place with "water" as part of its name: Bridgewater, Massachusetts. 

Bridgewater, Massachusetts, is situated within a triangle formed by Boston, Providence and Plymouth.

Location of Bridgewater, MA
Google Earth image

Like so many other New England settlements, Bridgewater may have been named for the English ancestral home of some of its early residents -- in this case Bridgwater, Somerset. Although no record has been located to link the name of the town of Bridgewater to the significance of its bridges, it does not seem an inapt name for the new settlement. Nahum Mitchel's history of the town includes a listing of some of the local waterways: Nuncketest River (formerly Mill River, Town River), Cowesit and West Meadow Brook, South Brook, Salisbury River, Beaver Brook, Matfield River, Byram's Brook, Spring Brook, John's River, Poor Meadow River, Middle River, Great River, Satcuket River, Black Brook, Titicut River, Taunton Great River and Hullet's Brook. So much water to get across!

Perhaps not surprisingly, earliest records for the town of Bridgewater, Massachusetts (established in the middle of the seventeenth century) indicate the significance of bridges to deal with all that water in the construction of the original roads connecting local residents to each other and to the broader world beyond. 

Bridge construction and maintenance was included in the town records over the years. Sometimes the bridges were described as horse bridges. In 1680, John Washburn Jr. (my 8th great granduncle) was one of those tasked with maintaining a bridge and causey (presumably a short form of "causeway") toward Thomas Snell's house. The specification was that it be fit for cart, horse and foot traffic.

Included in the list of surnames of original and early settlers in Bridgewater are a whole slew of ancestors: Alden, Carver, Hartwell, Johnson, Latham, Mitchell, Perkins, Pratt, Simmons, Snow and Washburn. These families often intermarried over the years.

At the time of our genealogical journey to New England in 1999, we knew of just one Bridgewater family, that of my 7th great grandfather Samuel Hartwell. Samuel was born 12 November 1693 in Concord, MA to Samuel Hartwell Sr. and his wife Abigail Stearns.

He married Hannah Billings in about 1717 and had a family of 8 children with her before her death in 1736. The couple had moved about 45 miles from Concord to Bridgewater shortly after their marriage. 

Samuel outlived Hannah by many years before succumbing to smallpox in 1760. 

In May of 1999, we visited Samuel's gravesite at the Jerusalem Graveyard in West Bridgewater.  He is buried in plot 34 and his inscription (very difficult to see) reads: "Here lies buried Mr. Samuel Hartwell, who dec'd December y 25, 1760, in the 67th year of his age."  Buried with him were son and granddaughter: "Here lies buried Mr. Jonathan Hartwell, who died Feb. 8, 1761, in the 40th year of his age.  And Hannah, his daughter, dec'd Jan'y 30th, 1761 in y 3d year of her age."  In the book detailing the graveyards of Bridgewater found in the Bridgewater library, on page 48, it indicates parenthetically that these persons died with small-pox

Jerusalem Graveyard from Google Earth

Some Sources:

• Hartwell, John F., The Hartwells of America A Genealogy, Higginson Book Company 1956/58, based largely on Handbook of Hartwell Genealogy 1887 by Lyman Willard Densmore, Accessed 21 September 2024 on Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/hartwellsofameri00dens/page/n7/mode/2up
• Mitchell, Nahum, 1769-1853. History of the Early Settlement of Bridgewater, In Plymouth County, Massachusetts: Including an Extensive Family Register. Facsimile ed. with a new name index. Bowie, Md.: Heritage Books, 1983.  Also accessed online at Internet Archive on 22 September 2025 at https://archive.org/details/historyofearlyset00mitcch/page/124/mode/2up?view=theater