The Higleys and their Ancestry, an Old Colonial Family, by Mary Coffin Johnson 1896
THE HIGLEYS AND THEIR ANCESTRY.
CHAPTER I.
BOYHOOD OF CAPTAIN JOHN HIGLEY, THE FIRST AMERICAN ANCESTOR.
If it be pleasant
to behold a fair, round timber tree, sound and perfect, or a fine old mansion,
not in decay,
how much more an old
family that has stood the weather and the winds.
—LORD BACON.
In the old church records at Frimley, Surrey, England, is found the following entry:
“Jonathan Higley and Katherine Brewster Married January Ye 3 Anno Dom, 1647.”
At a later date, among the birth records appears the announcement:
“John, Ye sonne of Jonathan Higley, borne Ye 22 of July Baptized August Ye 12th, 1649.”
No other children of Jonathan and Katherine Higley are recorded upon these ancient parchments, though tradition says that John Higley had two sisters, whom he left behind with his mother when he emigrated to America.
Concerning Jonathan Higley’s origin in England,1-1 we have not made research beyond the Frimley parish register, and all that is known of him may be briefly stated.
His wife, Katherine Brewster, was clearly of the ancient Brewster family of England, to which belonged “Elder” William Brewster of the Mayflower fame. A branch of the family settled in Kent in the time of Elizabeth, where they owned lands in several parishes in 1560.
The death of her father, the Rev. John Brewster, is entered upon the parish records of Frimley as taking place August 14, 1656, and that of her mother, February 23, 1657. This branch of the Brewster family were residents in this parish from a very early date of that century.
Originally Frimley was a very small hamlet, surrounded with woods and heath lands, and is said to have been once connected with Windsor Forest as a hunting ground. It lies in the valley, with slight rising lands on the side, about thirty miles from London. The district has the name of having been, in years gone by, a wild, rough country, with few inhabitants. The old form of the word Frimley was Frymley. The railroad from London to Southampton now passes through the village, though Frimley Green and its old church are a mile away. The village is seven miles from the well-known Aldershot military camp.
The church in which John Higley was baptized, when he was an infant three weeks old, and in which the ancient records are found that give us the earliest history we have searched, was built in 1602, and the first entries in the register were in 1594.
It was amid these surroundings that John Higley, the first ancestor of the Higleys of America, was born and nursed. To him the lineage of all by the name is traced.
From Church, Colonial, State, and other public records, together with old papers, old account books, MSS. yellow and seared by age, from which copious extracts are taken, some of which furnish statements supported only by traditionary evidence, but all fully sustained and confirmed by facts in history, and considered unquestionable, the story of his life is gathered.
His father died about the year 1664 at the age of forty, which left the care of the family devolving upon the mother. By this bereavement the practical energy and force of character with which it is said she was particularly gifted, were called out and put into exercise.
Soon after the death of his father, and according to a common custom of those times, she apprenticed John to a trade, that of manufacturing gloves. The boy was then fifteen years of age. His master proved severe and overbearing, and John Higley formed no attachment for him. The weekly tasks were hard and heavy, and the lad was overworked. One Saturday night, on failure of performance of a certain amount of work that had been allotted him, he was promised a sound flogging to be administered on the following Monday morning. His independent nature revolted at such treatment. It was not that he lacked industrious habits and close application, as will be seen in his future, but possessing a strong sense of justice and a courageous spirit, he could not consent to be beaten for the nonfulfillment of an unreasonable task.
He had been apprenticed for a term of not less than seven years.3-1 The law provided that should the apprentice depart from his service before the expiration of his time, “he should be legally apprehended on warrant,” taken “before one of His Majesty’s justices of the peace,” and returned to his master with a severity of punishment far greater than that which he might have received for unfulfilled tasks. John Higley conceived the idea of running away. Keeping his intentions profoundly a secret, not even taking his mother into his confidence, it was easy for him to find a way of escape; and on the evening of the next day, a Sunday, he was aboard a trading vessel, setting sail for America. His first night at sea found him in severe isolation, amid the solitudes of the great ocean, a stranger to all about him, supported by no friendly boy comrade, and without money, with an uncertain voyage of many weeks before him, his destination an unknown land, with no familiar roof upon its shores “save the sky.” It was certainly a period of unquestionable trial to his courageous heart, and well might his spirits have relented, had not the independence and the excitement of a boundless life on the wild new shore toward which his face was turned buoyed him up. He could not decipher the hieroglyphics in which his future was enwrapped. However, despair and gloominess had no place in his natural temperament, and full of the sensibilities of youth and hope, he sought his bunk and did not dream. John Higley had found a secure retreat from his harsh taskmaster, the glove-maker, as well as an outlet for his eagle spirit.
The captain of the vessel arranged to give him his passage with the understanding that he was to be sold upon the arrival of the ship in port, for at least a sufficient amount to pay for his passage across the ocean.3-2 It was a period in the history of the colonies when inducements were offered to emigrants of every description to come to this country. “There was need, and great demand for workmen and artisans of all kinds, and tillers of the soil found ready employment awaiting them.”3-3
On the arrival of the ship off the American coast, she sailed up the Connecticut River to Windsor, the oldest settlement in the Colony of Connecticut, situated fifty-seven miles from its mouth. Here John Higley, with his own consent, was sold for a term of service.
We are fully justified in the conclusion that his purchaser was John Drake, though this name is not given in the old MS., but subsequent events point strongly to the fact that he was taken immediately into the home of this worthy family. The fact is recorded that the young man worked faithfully for his employer, cleared the entire debt of his passage across the ocean, and, having his employer’s full confidence, continued in his service for some time after he had attained his majority.
God’s smiling providence had followed the boy across the sea.
Footnotes
1-1. The task of searching out the lineage of Jonathan Higley in England, or Germany, is left for some descendant of another generation.
3-1. It is authoritatively stated that “No apprenticeship to a trade might expire until the apprentice was twenty-four years of age.”
3-2. Since the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and under James and his successors, minors had been granted to court favorites, or sold in open market to the highest bidder.”—Extract.
3-3. “At the outset of American colonization one finds persons bound for long terms before leaving England, and treated as recognized species of property. English laborers bound themselves to serve a term of years, fairly hoping to better their condition in America; and men in domestic or other trouble would sell themselves for a term of service; trusting to luck to come up in better plight in a new world. Runaway apprentices were greedily welcomed by crimps or decoy agents concerned in shipping recruits to the new colonies. In those days of slow communication, men of every sort were as utterly lost in America to their old lives as they could have been had they migrated to the moon.”—Edward Eggleston, Century Magazine, 1884.