Chris & Julie Petersen's Genealogy

Nathaniel White

Male 1587 - 1623  (~ 36 years)


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  • Name Nathaniel White 
    Christened 30 Apr 1587  Shalford, Essex, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    Died From 9 Jun 1623 to 31 Jul 1623  Fering, Essex, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Person ID I349  Petersen-de Lanskoy
    Last Modified 27 May 2021 

    Father Robert White,   b. Abt 1558, of Messing or Shalford, Essex, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   bur. 17 Jun 1617, Messing, Essex, England Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age ~ 59 years) 
    Mother Bridget Allgar,   c. 11 Mar 1562, Shalford, Essex, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. Aft 31 Jul 1623, of Messing Essex, England Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age ~ 61 years) 
    Married 24 Jun 1585  Shalford, Essex, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F235  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Notes 
    • RESEARCH_NOTES;
      1. Mentioned in father's will of 17 Jun 1617:
      Daniel, co-administrator of will with Robert's wife Bridget.
      Sarah, eldest dau. and wife of James Bowtell of "little Salinge."
      "Marie, wife of Joseph Lummis of Branetree."
      Elizabeth, wife of "Willm Goodinge or Goodings of Bockinge."
      Bridgett, unmarried.
      Anna, unmarried.
      Nathaniel
      John, minor under age 20.
      Also mentions a kinsman: Ralph Bett, the younger.

      2. NEHGS Register, Vol. 55, pages 22-31, 1901, see notes of Robert White for full transcript of article from which the following partial excerpt is taken:
      "The children of Robert White of Messing, Co. Essex, England, Who Settled in Hartford and Windsor. By a Descendant.
      Robert White of Messing, yeoman, died in 1617. He was a rich man. He seems to have lived in Shalford in Essex most of the time from June 24th, 1585, the date of his marriage to Bridget Allgar, until a few months before his death. The baptisms of nearly all his children are there recorded, and also the marriage of his daughters - Mary in 1614 and Elizabeth in 1616. It was the home of his wife, where she was baptized March 11, 1562, and where her father, William Allgar the elder, was buried Aug. 2, 1575. Shalford is about two miles south of Wethersfield...
      According to his will, hereinafter given, he left surviving a wife Bridget; three sons - Daniel, Nathaniel and John who was his youngest Child; three married daughters - Sarah, Mary and Elizabeth; and two unmarried daughters-Bridget and Anna. As he makes his son Daniel joint executor with his wife, it may be inferred he was his eldest son, and possibly by a former wife. His wife Bridget was the mother of his other children, of whom Sarah, wife of James Bowtell of Little Sailinge in Essex, was the first born...
      The will of Nathaniel White of Fering, dated 9 June, 1623, proved 31 July, 1623, mentions his mother Bridget White, and gives her an annuity of ten pounds. Fering is four or five miles from Messing..."

      3. FHL book "Various Ancestral Lines … Goodwin and … Morgan …," by Frank Farnsworth Starr (1915; Hartford), pp. 395-399: "The Family of Robert White.
      Shalford, a small parish of Essex County, England, is located in the north middle section of the county, four and a half miles northwest of Braintree, the nearest railroad town, and has a population of about 700.
      The writer visited this parish in August 1891, made an examination of the Church Register which begins in 1558, and found many interesting items. In the record of baptisms are found:
      1560 Sept. 9, Mary Allgar daughter of William Allgar
      1562 Mar. 11, Brydgette Allgar daughter of William Allgar
      1565 Apr. 6, Jdhn Allgar son of William Allgar
      1567 Oct. 5, John Allgar son of William Allgar
      1583 May 5, Elizabeth Allgar daughter of William Allgar
      In the record of burials:
      1565 Aug. 1, John Allgar son of William Allgar
      1575 Aug. 2, William Allgar the elder
      The following entries were found in the record of marriages:
      1575 Oct 16, Henry Bette son of John the elder and Anne Allgar
      1582 Sept. 27, Ralfe Bette and Marye Allgar
      1585 June 24, Robert Whighte and Brydgett Allgar
      The last entry gives us the marriage of Robert White and Bridget Allgar; the daughter of William Allgar of Shalford. Of White's parentage and earlier history we have no knowledge. He seems to have resided at Shalford until after November 7, 1616, the date of the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth to William Goodwin then of Bocking, Essex County, later of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and other towns in New England.
      In May 1617, he was a resident of Messing in the same county when he made his will, and where he was buried on the 17th of June following.
      Thus far, there has not been discovered any record of the death of his wife Bridget, but she is supposed to be the person of that name, to whom one Nathaniel White of Faring, Essex County, in his will made June 9, 1623, left a life annuity of £ 10. (Commissary Court of London for Essex and Herts., vol. for 1623-4, 158.)
      The following is a copy of Robert White's will, as entered in the records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, volume Weldon, 40... [Article transcribes will; however, I do not copy it since I already have a transcript of it in a separate note.]
      It will be interesting to note that of the daughters mentioned in this will, three with their husbands, became residents of New England, as follows:
      Mary, wife of Joseph Loomis of Windsor, Connecticut Elizabeth, wife of William Goodwin of Cambridge, Massachusetts; Hartford, Connecticut; Hadley, Massachusetts, and Farmington, Connecticut
      Anne, wife of John Porter of Windsor, Connecticut. We have no knowledge of his son Daniel, except that he was made one of the executors of the will; possibly, he was the child of a previous marriage.
      Child of Robert and ___ White:
      -Daniel bap. ___ legatee and executor of the will of his father; nothing further known about him.
      Children of Robert and Bridget (Allgar) White (Church Register, Shalford, Essex County, England):
      -Sarah, bap. Mar 8, 1585, mar. James Bowtell of Little Sating, Essex County, England and was living in May, 1617 (Robert White's will, Prerogative Court of Canterbury, London).
      -Nathaniel, bap. "Laste day of April," 1587; he is supposed to have lived at Feering, Essex County, and to have died in 1623.
      -Mary, bap. Aug. 24, 1590; mar. June 30, 1614, Joseph Loomis, who emigrated to America and settled in Windsor, Conn.
      -Elizabeth, bap. "fyfte March", 1591; mar. Nov. 7, 1614 William "Godwyn of Bocking singleman." He emigrated to America in 1632 and became one of the settlers of Hartford, Conn.
      -Bridget, bap. Aug. 18, 1594; mar. Sept. 28, 1618, John Christmas.
      -John, bap. ___, mar. Dec. 26, 1622, Mary (Lev ?)it.
      -Anne, bap. July 13, 1600; mar. Oct. 18, 1620 John Porter of Felstead, Essex County, who emigrated to America and settled in Windsor, Conn."
      [Sources in footnotes;]
      -Will of Nathaniel White of Feering, Essex County, in Commissary Court of London for Essex and Herts, vol. for 1623-4, 158.
      -Parish Register, Messing, Essex County, England."

      4. The book, "Ancestors & Descendants of Clark Proctor Nichols and Sarah (Sally) Stoughton in England and America, 1620-2001, by Clara Pierce Olson Overbo (2002), p. 163:
      "ROBERT WHITE, born at Shalford, co. Essex in 1588; buried at Messing, co. Essex June 1617; married at Shalford 24 June 1585, BRIDGET ALGAR, born at Shalford, co. Essex, England 11 March 1562.
      Robert was a yeoman and lived most of his life in Shalford, but moved to Messing before his death. He left a long and complete will at Shalford.
      Children of Robert and Bridget (Algar) White:
      i. Sarah White, born at Shalford 8 March 1585/6.
      ii. Nathaniel White, baptized at Shalford 30 April 1587.
      iii. Mary White, born at Shalford, co Essex, England, 24 August 1590; died at Windsor, Connecticut 21 August 1652; married at Messing, co. Essex 30 June 1614, Joseph Loomis.
      iv. Bridget White, baptized at Shalford 18 August 1594.
      v Anna White, baptized at Shalford 13 July 1600.
      vi. ELIZABETH WHITE (Lineal Ancestor See #1a below)
      vii. JOHN WHITE (Lineal Ancestor See #1b below)
      ELIZABETH WHITE, baptized at Shalford 13 July 1600 [an apparent typo by the author]; died at Windsor Connecticut; married in England, WILLIAM GOODWIN (See Goodwin Family.)

      5. The book "Colonial Ancestors. Four lineal genealogies of eastern Connecticut families…," by Bernice Andrews (Livingston) Rieg (Camden, Maine; Penobscot Press, 1991), pp. 183-87 [Note: I neglected to copy the source list.]:
      "Some productive inquiries into the English origins of John White were made by one of his descendants around the year 1900. John is understood to be the youngest child of ROBERTA WHITE, yeoman, well-to-do, born possibly in Messing, county Essex; he died there in 1617. Robert married in Shalford, county Essex, 24 Jun 1585, BRIDGET ALLGAR, where also she had been baptized on 11 Mch 1562, the daughter of William Allgar. Robert and Bridget seem to have lived in her native town or parish, Shalford, most of their married life.[1]
      Robert White was buried at Messing, 17 Jun 1617, less than three weeks after making his will, which provided for daughters Sarah (called the eldest; mar. James Bowtell), Mary (mar. Joseph Loomis), Elizabeth (mar. William Goodwin), Bridget White and Anna White, in that order; he then names sons Nathaniel and John, the latter being a minor and believed to be the youngest child; finally, he names his wife, Bridget, and his son, Daniel as joint executors.[2]
      Subsequently, Anna White married at Messing, 18 Oct 1620, John Porter; and John White married at the same place, 26 Dec 1622, Mary (Lev).[3]
      A sizeable portion of the White family moved from the Old World to New England in the Great Migration, and stayed near to one another in the new land.[4] Moreover, there clearly existed within the family, and with its in-laws, a sense of closeness, mutual support, and common interest. This is apparent from the respect and trust implied in assigned responsibilities, as illustrated in several legal instruments in which members of the family partook. For example, Robert White, wishing to assure sensible marriages for his children, Bridget, Anna and John, by his will conditioned receipt of their full inheritance upon approval of the intended spouse not only by his wife Bridget, but also by his "sonnes in law" Joseph Loomis and William Goodwin.[5] The father's high opinion of these two young men was well substantiated by their later careers as leaders in Windsor and Hartford in Connecticut.
      In the same vein, it is worth noting that the White children tried to stay together when they settled across the Altantic: when Joseph Loomis and John Porter occupied adjacent home lots in Windsor in 1639, their wives, Mary (White) Loomis and Anna (White) Porter, became next door neighbors.[6]
      The English shire of Essex was one of the prime centers for nonconformist preachers, and of course most of those who came to New England in the two decades after Robert White's death were following their inspiring preachers, often making the move as congregations. It's not surprising, then, to find in Robert White's will an early bequest for "...Mr. Richard Rogers preacher of gods word at Withersfield in Essex...,"[7] and study of the ecclesiastical jurisdictions of Essex discloses that the parish of Wethersfield adjoins that of Shalford, in the north central part of Essex. For Robert White to attend a lecture by Mr. Rogers, he may have had to travel no more than ten miles.
      Out of this moderately wealthy English family, comfortably settled in the shire of Essex, but imbued with nonconformist fervor, came the hard working, well liked and increasingly respected man who was to become an early, founding settler of no less than three new towns: Newtown (later Cambridge, Mass.), Hartford, and Hadley."

      CHRISTENING:
      1. NEHGS Register, Vol. 55, pages 22-31, 1901, see notes of Robert White for full transcript of article from which the following partial excerpt is taken:
      "The children of Robert White of Messing, Co. Essex, England, Who Settled in Hartford and Windsor. By a Descendant.
      Robert White of Messing, yeoman, died in 1617. He was a rich man. He seems to have lived in Shalford in Essex most of the time from June 24th, 1585, the date of his marriage to Bridget Allgar, until a few months before his death. The baptisms of nearly all his children are there recorded, and also the marriage of his daughters - Mary in 1614 and Elizabeth in 1616. It was the home of his wife, where she was baptized March 11, 1562, and where her father, William Allgar the elder, was buried Aug. 2, 1575. Shalford is about two miles south of Wethersfield...
      It deserves to be mentioned that family genealogies have been printed of all the members of Robert White's family who are known to have emigrated to New England, namely:
      Elder John White and his descendants, in 1860.
      The Loomis Genealogy, in 1875.
      Loomis Genealogy, female branches, in 1880.
      The Goodwin's of Hartford, Conn., in 1891.
      John Porter and his descendants, in 1893.
      Memorials of Roderick White and descendants, in 1892.
      From these books some of the preceding facts have been taken, and to these genealogies the reader is referred for full and interesting memorials of these families...
      Extracts from Parish Registers of Shalford and Messing, Co. Essex, transcribed by Mr. Frank Farnsworth Starr.
      From Parish Register of Shalford.
      Marriages.
      1570, Nov. 11, Richard Bette and Alice Smythe.
      1575, Oct. 16, Henry Bette son of John the elder and Anne Allgar.
      1582, Sept. 27, Ralfe Bette and Marye Allgar.
      1585, June 24, Robert Whighte and Brydgette Allgar.
      1614, June 30, Joseph Loomis and Mary White.
      1616, Nov. 7, William Goodwyn of Bocking singleman and Elizabeth White of this parish singlewoman.
      Baptisms...
      1585, Mar. 8, Sara Whighte dau. of Robert Whighte.
      1587, last day of April, Nathaniel Whighte son of Robert Whighte.
      1590, Aug. 24, Mary Whighte, dau. of Robert Whighte.
      1591, Mar. 5, Elizabeth Whighte dau. of Robert Whighte.
      1594, Aug. 18, Bridget Whight dau. of Robert Whighte.
      1600, July 13, Anne Whighte dau. of Robert Whighte..."