Fruits of Albion's Seed Part I: Puritans

Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (America: a cultural history) by David Hackett Fischer

Book Description
This fascinating book is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time. In this sense, nearly all Americans are "Albion's Seed," no matter what their ethnicity may be. The concluding section of this remarkable book explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still help to shape attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.

Review From Library Journal
This cultural history explains the European settlement of the United States as voluntary migrations from four English cultural centers. Families of zealous, literate Puritan yeomen and artisans from urbanized East Anglia established a religious community in Massachusetts (1629-40); royalist cavaliers headed by Sir William Berkeley and young, male indentured servants from the south and west of England built a highly stratified agrarian way of life in Virginia (1640-70); egalitarian Quakers of modest social standing from the North Midlands resettled in the Delaware Valley and promoted a social pluralism (1675-1715); and, in by far the largest migration (1717-75), poor borderland families of English, Scots, and Irish fled a violent environment to seek a better life in a similarly uncertain American backcountry. These four cultures, reflected in regional patterns of language, architecture, literacy, dress, sport, social structure, religious beliefs, and familial ways, persisted in the American settlements. The final chapter shows the significance of these regional cultures for American history up to the present. - David Szatmary, Univ. of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Our family has representatives of each of the four prominent early folkways among our ancestors, plus a few extras for good measure. Daddy’s matrilineal great-grandmother, Estella Marie Hobbs, was descended from several long-established Puritan families of Massachusetts. Her Hobbs forebears came over in 1671.

From the Genealogy of the Hobbs Family of Massachusetts written byGeorge Hobbs, Esq. and published in 1855, the following information is ascertained:

Josiah was an emigrant who left England on the Arabella (Richard Sprague, Master) on May 27, 1671 and arrived in Boston in July 1671. He resided in Boston for the next 18 years. He moved his family to Lexington (then the west precinct of Cambridge) in 1690, where lived through the rest of his days, with the exception of a two-year residence in the westerly part of Woburn (now Burlington). In 1691, he contributed to the building of the First Meeting House in Lexington. In 1692 and 1693 he contributed to the support of the first minister of Lexington, Rev. Mr. Easterbrooks.In church records kept by Rev. Easterbrooks the following is noted: "August 1699 - Baptized Josiah Hobbs and his wife Tabitha, and received them into the church in full communion. Sept. 17th, 1699, baptized Josiah, Tabitha and Mary Hobbs. Oct., 1700, baptized Matthew and Susanna Hobbs. The elder Hobbs, according to the representations given, was of a slight figure and somewhat below the medium size. He died at age 92.

According to the Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, published in 1906, Josiah Hobbs was in Capt. Joseph Sill's Company in the King Phillip's War, 1675, and a Narragansett grantee.

Estella's Hastings ancestors arrived even sooner.

From the book, Hastings Family Record

DEACON THOMAS HASTINGS, OF WATERTOWN, MASS.
Thomas Hastings, aged 29, and his wife Susanna, aged 34, embarked at Ipswich, England, April 10, 1634, in the "Elizabeth," William Andrews, Master, for New England, and settled in Watertown, Mass, then known as the "Massachusetts Bay Colony." Here he was admitted freeman, May 6, 1635.

He "laid down" a lot in Dedham in 1635 or 1636, but never lived there.
He was Selectman of Watertown from 1638 to 1643, and again from 1650 to 1671; Town Clerk, 1671, 1677, 1680; Representative, 1673; and he long held the office of deacon. His wife, Susanna, died childless, February 2, 1650, and he married, April 2, 1651, Margaret Cheney, daughter of William and Martha Cheney, of Roxbury, Mass. She was the mother of all his children. He died in 1685, aged 80 years. According to an inventory, dated September 9, 1685, his real estate amounted to £421. He owned two farms, and as many as fifteen other lots. He was grantee for seven lots, the remainder he purchased.

The west side of School Street, then called Hill Street, was always his residence. His homestead passed to his son Samuel. In his will, dated March 12, 1682-83, proved September 7, 1685, he gave to his oldest son Thomas, who received a professional education, only £5, saying: "I have been at great expense to bring him up a scholar, and I have given him above three-score pounds to begin the world with." To his sons John, Joseph, Benjamin, Nathaniel, Samuel,and to his daughter, Hepzibah Bond, he gave each £40. To his granddaughter Margaret (eldest daughter of his son Thomas) he gave £5, and to her sister Hannah £3, and the remainder to his wife Margaret. He had eight children.

Eliphalet Hastings, Estella’s great-great-grandfather and Thomas’s great-grandson, was a Revolutionary War veteran who participated as a private in the battle of Lexington and Concord and in 1778 was commissioned lieutenant.

Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the War of the Revolution, 17 Vols.

Hastings, Eliphalet, Waltham. Private, Capt. Abraham Peirce's (Waltham) co., which marched on the alarm of April 19, 1775, to Concord and Lexington; service, 3 days; company called out by Col. Thomas Gardner and served as guards until Saturday, the fourth day after the fight at Concord.

Hastings, Eliphalet, Waltham. Sergeant, Capt. Abijah Childs's co., Col. Thomas Gardner's regt.; muster roll dated Aug. 1, 1775; enlisted April 25, 1775; service, 98 days; also, Capt. Childs's co., Lieut. Col. William Bond's (late Col. Gardner's) regt.; order for bounty coat or its equivalent in money dated Prospect Hill, Dec. 20, 1775.

Hastings, Eliphalet. Private, Capt. Abraham Peirce's (Waltham) co., Col. Samuel Thatcher's regt.; rations allowed from March 4 to March 8, 1776; credited with 5 days allowance; company marched at request of Gen. Washington at the time of taking Dorchester Heights.

Hastings, Eliphalet, Waltham. Sergeant; order on Capt. Jonathan Brown, Commissary, dated Waltham, June 23, 1775, signed by Col. Jonathan Brewer, for provisions for 14 days due said Hastings; also, Capt. Blake's co., Col. Brewer's regt.; receipt for advance pay, given to Eben. Bridge, signed by said Hastings; said Hastings reported as having taken the oath in Middlesex Co. July 4, 1775, required by Congress to be taken by the Mass. army; also, Ensign, Capt. Edward Blake's co., Col. Jonathan Brewer's regt.; muster roll dated Aug. 1, 1775; engaged June 17, 1775; service, 1 mo. 15 days; also, Capt. Moses Harvey's co., Col. Brewer's regt.; company return [probably Oct., 1775]; also, 1st Lieutenant; list of officers of Middlesex Co. militia; commissioned June 5, 1778; company raised for service at Peekskill; also, Lieutenant, Capt. Caleb Moulton's co. commanded by said Hastings subsequent to Oct. 11, 1778, Col. Thomas Poor's regt.; entered service May 5, 1778; discharged Feb. 24, 1779; service, 10 mos., at North river, including 11 days (220 miles) travel home; also, Lieutenant, Capt. Moulton's co., Col. Poor's regt.; pay rolls for May-Aug., 1778; also, same co. and regt.; pay roll for Sept., 1778, dated Fort Clinton; also, Lieutenant, in command of a company, Col. Poor's regt.; pay roll for Nov., 1778; also, same co. and regt.; pay roll for Dec., 1778, dated King's Ferry; also, 1st Lieutenant; list of officers appointed to command men detached from militia to reinforce the Continental Army for 3 months, agreeable to resolve of June 22, 1780; commissioned Aug. 4, 1780; reported detached from Middlesex Co. militia; also, Lieutenant, Capt. Zaccheus Wright's co., Col. Cyprian Howe's regt.; appointed June 30, 1780; discharged Oct. 30, 1780; service, 4 mos. 4 days.

Estella Marie Hobbs herself earned a bachelor’s degree in music in 1877, then a most unusual accomplishment for a woman. Considering the Puritan emphasis on education for women as well as men, this becomes less surprising, even if by then the family was firmly Methodist.

Coming up eventually: Cavaliers (Bryan, Stubbs), Quakers & Germanic Pietists (Boone, Peffley), and Borderers (Young, who were actually Ulster weavers, and numerous others).