Note 51 — HISTORICAL ADDRESS

This apportionment is derived from Governor Bradford’s Letter-Book. See I. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. (v. 3, p. 63). In his History (p. 241) he speaks of “Weesagascusett” as being one of the plantations concerned, but the apportionment is made as “From Mr. Jeffrey and Mr. Burslem.” These names have given the antiquarians a great deal of trouble, and they have generally assigned them to Cape Ann; Savage’s Winthrop (v. 1, p. 44, n.); Young’s Chron. of Mass. (p. 171, n.), or even to the Isle of Shoals; Drake’s Boston (p. 50). They all confound William Jeffries of Weymouth with Thomas Jeffrey of Ipswich. Dr. Young does this in a most extraordinary manner, confusing them even while giving the correct name of one in his text, and of the other in the running title of the same page. Chron. of Mass. (p. 171). When Savage prepared his notes to Winthrop the MS. of Bradford had not been recovered, and he had not examined the New English Canaan carefully in reference to Weymouth. He seems to have been satisfied that the second settlement at Weymouth had been wholly broken up in 1624, Notes to Winthrop (pp. 43, 93), and sought to place Jeffries and Burslem elsewhere. There cannot be the slightest doubt that they lived at Wessagusset from before 1628. Both names are now extinct at Weymouth, though I find in the Records of the town a Jeffery in 1651 (see p. 70), and also a mention of one John Jeffers (Aug. 18, 1777), as a soldier who enlisted in Arnold’s Canada campaign during the Revolution. Both were made freemen at early dates:—Burslem was a deputy from the town in 1636, and it was to Jeffries that Morton wrote as to his “good gossip,” in 1634. It was to him and to Blackstone that John Gorges wrote in 1629, in regard to putting Oldham in possession of the Gorges grant. Young’s Chron. of Mass. (pp. 51, 147, 169).