Jane Sewall

Jane Dummer Immigrated on the Bevis, arriving June 1638 with her parents Alice Archer and Stephen Dummer. She and her husband returned to England with her parents in 1647. They returned to England with several children including daughter and son-in-law Jane? dummer because they did not like the climate in New England.

Immigrated on the Prudent(?) and Mary, arriving 6 July in Boston, Massachusetts Bay colony, children Hannah, Samuel, John Stephen and Jane.

Biography

Jane Dumer and Henry Sewall married on 25 March 1646 in Newbury.[1]

Henry died on 18 May 1700 in Newbury, in his 87th year. Jane Sewall, the widow of Henry Sewall, died on 07 January 1700/1.[2]

Jane Drummer/ Dummer was born in Bishopstoke, Hampshire on March 17, 1626, a daughter of Alice Archer and Stephen Dummer. In 1638, when Jane was about eleven, her family came under the scrutiny of the royalist authorities, who suspected that they were planning to embark on a crossing to America. Their home was searched for contraband to no avail (although apparently lots of provisions for their journey were noted), and they duly sailed from Southhampton on the ship Bevis of Hampton, which belonged to Jane’s uncle Richard Dummer. They were accompanied by Richard, his own family, servants, and wards. So it appears we are looking at someone with a relatively privileged background; but even with servants on hand the crossing from England to America was not an easy one, particularly for children.

The Dummers settled in Newbury, Massachusetts, where Jane married Henry Sewall shortly after her 20th birthday in 1646. The young couple were apparently given 500 acres of land back in Coventry as a wedding gift from the Sewall family. The following year, for reasons I am struggling a bit to pin down (the excuse was that the climate didn’t agree with them, but it seems that nobody really believes that), Jane and Henry returned to England along with Jane’s parents and settled back in Bishopstoke, where they started a family.

Henry went again to Massachusetts in 1659 to settle his father’s estate, but political changes – specifically, Charles II’s imminent return to the throne – led to his deciding to remain there. In 1661 he sent word to Jane to summon her back across the Atlantic again, this time with five small children and two servants in tow. Samuel, who was nine at the time, later recalled their journey on the Prudent Mary in a letter to his own son:

"My Father sent for my Mother to come to him to New-England. I remember being at Bishop Stoke and Badesly, April 23, 1661, the day of the Coronation of K. Charles the 2d, the Thunder and Lightening of it. Quickly after my Mother went to Winchester with small Children, Hannah, Samuel, John, Stephen and Jane; and John Nash and Mary Hobs her Servants; there to be in a readiness for the Pool Waggons. At this place her near Relations, especially my very worthy and pious Uncle Mr. Stephen Dummer took Leave with Tears. Capt. Dummer of Swathling treated us with Raisins and Almonds. My Mother lodged in Pump-yard, London, waiting for the going of the Ship, the Prudent Mary, Capt. Isaac Woodgreen, Commander, went by water to Graves-End where the Ship lay. Took in Sheep at Dover. Passengers in the Ship at the same time were Major Brown, a young brisk Merchant and a considerable Freighter; Mr. Gilbert and his wife, He was Minister at Topsfield; Madam Bradstreet (then Gardener); Mrs. Martha, Mr. Pitkins Sister, who died lately at Windsor, and many others. We were about Eight Weeks at Sea, where we had nothing to see but Water and the Sky; so that I began to fear I should never get to Shoar again; only I thought the Capt. and Mariners would not have ventured themselves if they had not hopes of getting to Land again. Capt. Woodgreen arrived here on Satterday. I was overjoyed to see Land again, especially being so near it as in the Narrows. ‘Twas so late by that time we got to the Castle, that our men held a discourse with them whether they should Fire or no, and reckoned ‘t was agreed not to doe it. But presently after the Castle Fired; which much displeased the Ship’s Company; and then they Fired. On the Lord’s day my Mother kept aboard; but I went ashoar, the Boat grounded, and I was carried out in arms July 6, 1661. My Mother lodg’d at Mr. Richard Collucott’s. This Week there was a publick Thanksgiving. My Father hastened to Boston and carried his Family to Newbury by Water in Mr. Lewis. Brother Tappan has told me our arrival there was upon Lecture-day which was Wednesday. Mr. Ordway carryed me ashore in his Canoe."[3]

I like this evocative account very much; it gives a real sense of the combined excitement and anxiety that must have preceded the embarkation. The little detail about the treat of raisins and almonds – just the kind of tiny thing that children remember – and the rushing around to shepherd everyone into “Pool Waggons”, followed by a spell in unfamiliar lodgings and then eight slow weeks at sea with sundry animals; it’s so vivid. For Jane, this journey would have meant guiding her children through an experience she herself must have recalled from her own childhood, as well as anticipating her reunion with the husband she had not seen for so long. Their youngest child, also called Jane, was only eighteen months old, so it appears likely (although I don’t know the exact date of Henry’s 1659 crossing) that Henry had never seen her.

Jane and Henry went on to have three more children after settling in Newbury once more. I haven’t got a copy of Samuel Sewall’s diaries or any other biographical material, so I really don’t know much about Jane’s life in the years that followed. Henry died in 1700 at the age of 86, and Jane the following year at 74. The epitaph on the stone marking their grave concentrates on Henry, referring to Jane as “his fruitfull vine”:

Mr. Henry Sewall, sent by Mr. Henry Sewall his father in ye ship Elsabeth & Dorcas (Capt. Watts Commander) arrived at Boston 1634, winter’d at Ipswich, help’d begin this plantation 1635, furnishing English servants, neat cattel, & provisions. Married Mrs. Jane Dummer, March ye 25, 1646. Died May ye 16, 1700, Etat 86. His fruitfull vine, being thus disjoin’d, fell to the ground January ye 13 following, Etat 74. Psal. 27, 10.

Jane had outlived her eldest child Hannah, my direct ancestor. But Samuel was alive to mourn his mother, and once again we have a record of his thoughts, this time in the form of his elegy at her burial.

"Jany. 4th, 1700-1…. Nathan Brick­et tak­ing in hand to fill the grave, I said, For­bear a lit­tle, and suf­fer me to say that amidst our be­reav­ing sor­rows we have the com­fort of be­hold­ing this saint put in­to the right­ful pos­ses­sion of that hap­pi­ness of liv­ing de­sir’d and dy­ing lament­ed. She liv’d com­mend­ably four and fifty years with her dear hus­band, and my dear fa­ther: and she could not well brook the be­ing di­vid­ed from him at her death; which is the cause of our tak­ing leave of her in this place. She was a true and con­stant lover of God’s Word, wor­ship and saints: and she al­ways with a pa­tient cheer­ful­ness, sub­mit­ted to the di­vine de­cree of pro­vid­ing bread for her self and oth­ers in the sweat of her brows. And now … my hon­ored and beloved Friends and Neigh­bors! My dear moth­er nev­er thought much of do­ing the most fre­quent and home­ly of­fices of love for me: and lav­ished away many thou­sands of words up­on me, be­fore I could re­turn one word in an­swer. And there­fore I ask and hope that none will be of­fend­ed that I have now ven­tured to speak one word in her be­half; when she her­self has now be­come speech­less."[4] Laurel Ulrich in Good Wives[5] cites the penultimate sentence of this speech, which I’ve underlined above, in her chapter on the childbearing years of colonial women. Her point is that, whatever Jane’s other virtues, Sewall’s emotion at the loss of his mother seems to have been focused primarily on her care of him in infancy. (Sewall himself had by this time become, as discussed in Judith Graham’s book Puritan Family Life,[6] a far from stereotypical Puritan father; he and his wife Hannah were by all accounts affectionate, understanding parents to their many children.)

Jane Dummer therefore goes down in history not as an anonymous early New England settler, but as a devoted mother – one whose love for her children apparently stayed with them and, in Samuel’s case anyway, influenced their own family lives. She must have played many other roles throughout her long and eventful life, and I wish I could learn more about her character, her opinions on the years of political turmoil she witnessed, her three ocean crossings, and her part in the founding of a colony. For now, though, I can’t.

References

• "The Ancestry of Alice (Archer) Dummer, Wife of Stephen Dummer and Mother of Jane (Dummer) Sewall," published in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register Vol. 160, pp. 273-9 (October 2006), shows that Alice's parents were Christopher & Alice Archer of Micheldever and Wonston, in Hampshire, England. The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. Boston, MA: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1847-. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001-2018.) < AmericanAncestors >

1. "Massachusetts, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1626-2001," database with images, FamilySearch : 29 November 2018, Essex > Newbury > Births, marriages, deaths 1635-1701 vol 1 > https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L979-98X1?i=57&wc=... image 58 of 195; town clerk offices, Massachusetts. Newbury Records (1635-1736) of marriage, intention, and death; birth records (1635-1832) p. 109. Mr Henry Sewall & Mrs Jane Dumer was marryed march 25th 1646.
2. "Massachusetts, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1626-2001," database with images, FamilySearch : 29 November 2018), Essex > Newbury > Births, marriages, deaths 1635-1701 vol 1 > https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-9979-98JG?cc=2061550&w... image 153 of 195; town clerk offices, Massachusetts.
3. Newbury Records (1635-1736) of marriage, intention, and death; birth records (1635-1832) p. 293.
   1. Mr. Henry Sewall dyed May 18, 1700 & in the 87th year of his age
   2. Mrs. Jane Sewall ye widow of Mr. Henry Sewall dyed January 7th 1700 or 1701.
4. "Memoir of Hon. Samuel Sewall, Chief-Justice of the Province of Massachusetts Bay,"NEHGR,Vol. 1:112, Letter, dated 21 April 1720 at Boston, of the first Chief-Justice Sewall to his son, Samuel Sewall, Esq., of Brookline, giving an account of his family.. https://archive.org/details/newenglandhisto1847wate/page/n233/mode/2up
5. William Peterfield Trent, B.W. Wells, Colonial Prose and Poetry, (New York, T. Y. Crowell & co., 1901), Vol. 2:299-300. https://archive.org/details/colonialprosepoe00well/page/298
6. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Good wives : image and reality in the lives of women in northern New England, 1650-1750, (New York : Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 145. https://archive.org/details/goodwivesimagere0000ulri
7. Judith S. Graham, Puritan family life : the diary of Samuel Sewall, (Boston : Northeastern University Press, 2000) https://archive.org/details/puritanfamilylif00judi
8. Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 16 August 2019), memorial page for Jane Dummer Sewall (1627–13 Jan 1701), Find A Grave: Memorial #20628812, citing First Parish Burying Ground, Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts, USA ; Maintained by Jeffrey James (contributor 47902931) . https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/20628812
9. George Brainard Blodgette and Amos Everett Jewett. Early Settlers of Rowley, Massachusetts. 1933. Reprinted by the New England History Press, Somersworth, New Hampshire. 1981. Page 257. Available online at: FamilySearch.org https://dcms.lds.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE1051163 and Archive.org https://archive.org/details/earlysettlersofr00blod_1/page/256
10. Doliber, Donald A., It Happened in Essex County: Rehearsal for Hysteria - Newbury 1680, The Essex Genealogist https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:The_Essex_Genealogist (Essex Society of Genealogists, Mass., 1981) Vol. 1, Page 75. https://www.americanancestors.org/DB396/i/12119/75/0
11. Mrs. Jane Sewall charged that Thomas Wells' wife refused Elizabeth Morse Elizabeth Morse, Witch of Newbury as a midwife because she was a witch. per https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Dummer-171
12. Genealogical History of the Duncan Stuart Family in America by Joseph A Stuart 1894 has her death date as January 16, 1699.
13. http://www.robertsewell.ca/dummer.html
14. Info source: https://famouskin.com/family-group.php?name=11703+dick+cheney&ahnum...
15. http://ma-vitalrecords.org/MA/Essex/Newbury/aMarriagesD.shtml "(DUMER (Dummer)) Jane, Mrs., and Henry Sewall, Mar. 25, 1646."
16. http://ma-vitalrecords.org/MA/Essex/Newbury/aDeathsS.shtml "(Sewall) Jane, wid., Henry, Jan. 13, 1700-1."
17. from: http://www.gulbangi.com/5families-o/p89.htm
18. http://www.gulbangi.com/5families-o/p89.htm#i2218