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View Tree for Elizabeth WoodhouseElizabeth Woodhouse (b. 1575, d. Dec 03, 1599)

Elizabeth Woodhouse was born 1575 in Stepney, London Co, England576, and died Dec 03, 1599 in St. Dunstens Parish, Stepney, Middlesex Co, England577. She married Lionel Gardiner on Dec 03, 1593 in St. Dunsten's, Stepney, London Co, England577, son of George Gardiner, Jr. and Dorothy Constable.

 Includes NotesNotes for Elizabeth Woodhouse:
Transcript of Lecture Delivered by

Sherrill Foster, 4 Fireplace Road, East Hampton, NY 11937

on Thursday, September 27, 2001 at The East Hampton Library [continued]

John Mulford decided after three years in Southampton to move closer by 12 miles to the wide open plain of the Montauk Peninsula where the benign native American population lived. Mulford seems to have been the guiding force in the move of the 9 property owners east near the appealing grazing lands in 1648. However, Captain Howe had already had a house built on what would become the Town Street where the ‘J.Harper Poor’ house stands.[52] As there seem to be no documented carpenters, joiners or similar woodworking personnel among these early residents, these houses were undoubtedly knock-down houses made in such large workshops as that of Thomas Joy (d.1678) of Hingham, MA who was constantly sueing people for their unpaid balance on their house frames.[53] Such goods could have been brought by Captain Howe (and other mariners) into the newly established and larger port of North West Harbor. Perhaps it was Captain Howe who pointed out the advantages of this closer harbor. An old road, now unopened, from Southampton to Northwest Harbor is called ‘Merchant’s Path’. The first documented wharf was built there by the Mulfords in 1652. This harbor was a day’s sail closer to Gardiner’s Island and the trade routes than the small North Sea Harbor facing Peconic Bay. The North Sea port is where the infamous Capt John Scott had his house.[54]

Originally the East Fields was not contemplated as a separate village. Perhaps they had had Lion survey the street, organize the home lots and for payment, gave him a large lot. At first the residents thought to continue with the church in Southampton. But there was a change in plans. In April 1650, Lion Gardiner writes to John Winthrop, Jr saying “we are not to have above 12 families.” Continuing, Lion says, “concerning the young man you wrote of . . . we are willing to pay him 20 pounds a year, as well as provisions for the table”. Lion concludes the letter by listing the religious books he owns that the young man may borrow. Thomas James was the young ministerial student, living in New Haven. He was ordained in the church there, and came to East Hampton in 1652, having gotten a higher rate of pay - º45 per annum.

In the 1660's, William Osburne and his wife, Friedeswiede, had moved from Boston to New Haven, possibly because their Harvard alumni son was teaching school there. William died suddenly, legend says from a lightning bolt while eating at a family dinner, but more probably from a sudden stroke.[55] His New Haven inventory of 29 April 1662 was valued at º260.10.01. His Boston inventory taken 4 months later, was º836.07.05 which included “the inventory of house, land and 1/4 part &c of a ketch and goods”, as well as acreage in Dorchester and Wenham, MA.[56]

In 1656 in Southold, on the north fork, Capt Joseph Youngs records his ship, the Mary and Margaret, “now riding at anchor in Southold Bay, and by God’s grace bound for the Barbados” with barrels of Beef.[57]

Backed by English and Dutch capital, Barbados was growing sugar for the market by the 1640's and 50's. The need for provisions was apparent, as well as for live horses to turn the wheels in the sugar mills on the islands.[58] Long Islanders were raising cattle, sheep, horses in large numbers. As late as 1776, the herds of cattle on eastern Long Island numbered over 100,000 with an even larger number of sheep.[59] Live horses were shipped to Barbados in boats with specially constructed deck stalls.

All sizes of barrels or kegs were used to ship the many products developed in this area, as goose feathers for bedding, butter in small firkins, whale oil and baleen (bone), turpentine, shingles, cow hides (both tanned and dried), skins of raccoon, “cat” (muskrat), fox, otter, tallow candles, bay-berry wax. In exchange the merchants received such English products as nails, pewter, metal pots & kettles, glass, English ceramics, bolts of brightly patterned cloth, both woolen and linen cloth, rum and salt. As Barbados was an English “free”port, these items were not taxed, whereas if brought into Boston they were taxed.

A successful merchant develops credit connections and contacts, through kin or very close friends. Lion had connections with William Coddington in Newport, and those of the Winthrops, and possibly Captain Howe, the mariner. In 1656 David, at age 20, went to London to consolidate these contacts, to develop new ones. David was not as prudent as his father would have liked. In his will, Lion states, “My son David, after hee was at liberty to provide for himself, by his owne engagement hath forced me to part with a great part of my estate to save his credit . . .”[60] Capt. Daniel Howe had returned permanently to England by 1653, a connection for David to start with. Howe’s family lived in the London area.[61]

What would have cost so much? Perhaps lodging was comparatively cheap. But clothes! David had to be wearing top-of-the-line clothes, or no one would talk to him. The merchants his father had dealt with should have gifts. They should not be cheap knickknacks. David had to choose the right church. At the fashionable St. Margaret’s Westminster he met the young widow, Mary (Lingman) Herringham, a long time member. Perhaps she had merchant connections, through her late husband’s family or her own.

They were married June 7, 1657, at St. Margaret’s. They remained in London for another year, before they returned to live on the Island.

It is interesting to note that David’s possible uncle, Sir Thomas Gardiner, an ardent royalist and solicitor-general for King Charles I in 1643, had died in October 1652, four years previously. Whether David looked up his erstwhile family is not known.

David Gardiner, who became proprietor of the Island after his mother’s death in 1665, was engaged in a land deal about 1684. Thomas Symons of Albermarle Co., North Carolina, writes to David Gardiner: “understanding . . . that thou dost frequent Boston every yeere . . .” [sell my land for me]. The payment would be in “Linnen and Woolens but not of ye finest sort.”[62] In 1687, Thomas Symons again writes “c/o of Samuel Walker”, merchant in Boston, “where I was told thou didst used to lodge when in Towne . . .” Symons would take in payment, “Kersey, Peniston, bleue Linning, Dowlis, Seirge, Lockerum and Canvas.” Symons wants to be remembered to all of David’s family and “all my Cosins”. In the letter, Symons names men who come from Boston to Charlestown every year.[63] Symons is undoubtedly a son of the Simons who was manager of the Island when Lion died. Symons appears to be another merchant, possibly a purchaser of barrels of salted beef that David has to sell from his warehouse, as did the other merchants.

When her husband, William Osburne died in 1662, Friedeswiede, as a wealthy widow, remained in New Haven with her children; Recompense, the Harvard graduate and teacher; Hannah, Bezaleel, Joseph, and Jonathan. The next year, May 1663, she and the widower, John Mulford, were married in New Haven, moving into his presumably elegant house on East Hampton’s Main Street.[64]

In the ‘rate list’ or (tax list) of 1675, John Mulford’s rate is º318-0-0, and in 1683, º283-16-8, the wealthiest man in East Hampton. Totals from this list are - cattle 998, sheep 906. John Mulford had 36 cattle, 11 horses and 58 sheep on that list. A 1727 document itemizing the cattle owners shows 3,424 cattle grazing on Montauk.[65] The estimate of 1776, American Revolutionary times, gives 2000 cattle and 3000 sheep grazing, the reason for the demand for armed protection along the Montauk coastline from the British forces.

With five Osburn teenage children and five Mulford teenagers now living in the same house there were no intermarriages among the step siblings. Each made a prestigious marriage.

John Mulford’s eldest son, Samuel, had married an heiress, Hester/Esther Conkling. Elected to the Assembly of the Province of New York, by 1703, Samuel countered the Royal governors about “the rights of natural born Englishmen.” He always appended the word ‘merchant’ after his signature.[66]

Keeping his eye on the main chance, Samuel purchased the house “in Boston where the merchants live” that Jonathan Osburne inherited after his mother died in 1692.[67] Adjacent to the Collicott’s residence, Friedeswide, in her second widowhood, had moved to Boston to be near her sister, Thomasine, now also a widow.[68]

Samuel enlarged his business, building in 1702 a large warehouse at Northwest Harbor. Using his whaling dory, Samuel’s crew of Indians harpooned many whales swimming in the ocean- another lucrative business- with many uses for the oil and the bone or baleen.

Samuel and Hester had six children, four boys and two girls. One of the daughters, Elizabeth, married in 1696 John Christophers of the famous New London, CT merchant family. In February 1702/3, who is in Barbados? John Christophers and his brother-in-law, Timothy Mulford. Were they on the same vessel? Or was Timothy on his own boat or a super cargo on an investment boat?[69]

Poor John, he is deathly sick. He tells Timothy his last wishes - that Timothy is to sell the boat and the cargo that is at the dock in Barbados.

Keeping the merchant connection, the widow, Elizabeth (Mulford) Christophers, then marries John Pickett, son of another major merchant family in New London.

In conclusion: from these tidbits of evidence, we find that activity among the merchants around Block Island Sound dealt in many products. In using their kin and their friends of the same social strata constantly and in letter writing, bargaining, investing and tracking the vessels, buying and selling, these men were busy making money. Making money was the impetus for the settlement of the ‘eastern fields’ or East Hampton.


[1]Awakening the Past, 350th Anniversary Lecture Series, ed. Tom Twomey. T.H. Breen essay, p. 268, passim and Richard S. Dunn, essay on p. 89,
[2]Isabel M. Calder, “Sterling and Long Island” in Essays in Colonial History Presented to Charles McLean Andrews by his Students, New Haven
[3]3 May 1639, deed between Montauk Indians and Lion Gardiner, Lechford Manuscript Note-Book, (Cambridge, 1885), p. 207-8. 15 printed lines. 10 March 1639/40 Deed from James Farrett for Earl of Sterling to the Island ‘called by the English Isle of Wight’ East Hampton Town Records,
[4]Ibid p. 92.
[5]Calder, “Sterling and Long Island”, p. 95.
[6]“Manors in New York”, Henry B. Hoff, NYG&B Newsletter, Fall 1999, p. 58.
[7]Ibid, p. 58.
[8]David Johnson Gardiner, “Chronicles of the Town of Easthampton, County of Suffolk, New York”, reprinted in Exploring the Past, ed. Tom Twomey, NY 2000, p. 124.
[9]Photo of the clock in Dean Failey, Long Island is my Nation, 2nd edition 1998, p. 157, ill. p. 184.
[10]These facts researched by Curtiss C. Gardiner, and published by him in 1890 in
[11]The Second Book of Records of the Town of Southampton, Long Island, N.Y. Sag Harbor, 1877, pp. 42-49.
[12]Samuel Maverick “A Briefe Diescription of New England and Severall Townes Therein, Together with the Present Government Thereof,” published in Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, ser. 2, vol. 1 (1884-1885), pp. 148-9.
[13]Daniel How/Howe, Robert Charles Anderson, ed. The Great Migration Begins (1995) Vol. II, pp. 1011-1013.
[14]Investors in Saybrook were Henry Darley, M.P. (c.1596-c.1671); William Fiennes, Lord Saye & Sele, M.P. (1582-1662) ; Robert Greville, Lord Brook, M.P. (1608-1643) ; Richard Knightley, M.P. (d. 1639) ; John Pym (1584-1643) ; Sir Nathaniel Rich, Earl of Warwick, M.P. (1585-1636) and William Woodcock (d. 1638). [Karen Kupperman, Providence Island 1630-1642 (1933) passim.]
[15]Richard P. Gildrie, Salem, Massachusetts 1626-1683, Charlottesville, 1975, p. 6.
[16]This has been suggested by George Sanborn of the New England Historical Genealogical Society, 101 Newbury St, Boston, who also pointed out the biography of Lion’s possible brother or uncle, Sir Thomas Gardiner (1591-1662), a Royalist lawyer: Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. VII (1908), ed. Stephen and Lee, pub. Finch Gloucester, p.865.
[17]Albert Blankert, review of Ger Luijten and Ariane Van Scuhtelen, eds. Dawn of the Golden Age: Northern Netherlandish Art, 1580-1620, Art Bulletin, (March 1995) Vol. LXXVII, No. 1, p. 146.
[18]William J. Hoffman, “Transcription of Record of Orphan Chamber of Woerden, No. 2, fol CCXII recto. margin notes, reprinted in Henry B. Hoff, ed. Genealogies of Long Island Families from the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, (Baltimore) 1987. Vol. 1, p. 365-6. (Originally published in 1935 and 1941.) Using the meagre facts from these records I have tentatively arranged the six children this way: [with possible birthdates] Lijsbeth [b.1585] d. bef Nov 1624; Willem [b.1588] d. bef Oct 1624; Cornelis [b. 1590] d. bef Nov 1624; Jannechjen [b. 1592] d. bef July 1626; Pieter [b. 1594] m. 1616; Marrichjen (1601-1665).
[19]Nico Plomp, Jaarboek van het Centraal Bureau Voor Genealogie, [Yearbook of the Central Bureau for Genealogy], Vol. 50, The Hague, 1996, pp. 141-142. My thanks to Evert Volkersz for translating this article from the Dutch language.
[20]John T. Fitch, Puritan in the Wilderness, Camden, Maine, (1993) p. 33.
[21]See Francis Higginson in The Great Migration Begins, Robert Charles Anderson (1995) Vol. II, pp. 933-937.
[22]Calculated from age given on ‘Certificate of Conformity’, signed in Rotterdam in 1635. Printed in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. 14, p. 322. The original form is in the Public Record Office in London.
[23]Cargo noted by Governor John Winthrop in his Journal upon arrival in Boston Harbor.
[24]Letter of 6 Nov 1636, reprinted in J.T. Gardiner, Lion Gardiner and His Desccendants, (privately printed) 1927, p. 10.
[25]Richard P. Gildrie, Salem, Massachusetts 1626-1683, Charlottesville, 1975, p. 6.
[26]Fitch, op cit. Drawing by Frank Tinsley, Old Saybrook Historical Society, (1965) p. 54, fig. 13.
[27]Lady Alice Boteler, daughter of Sir Edward Apsely of Sussex and wife of Col. George Fenwick died “in the Great Hall at Saybrook Fort . . . in 1645.” Donna Holt Siemiatkoski, paper on the “The English Roots of Saybrook Colony: The Warwick Patentees and Their Associates. (1989) p. 13.
[28]Letter of 6 Novembe 1636, reprinted by C.C. Gardiner, Lion Gardiner and his Descendants, (privately printed) 1883.
[29]Letters of John Winthrop, Jr. Massachusetts Historical Society Collections.
[30]This famous quote is from Lion’s “Relation of the Pequot War”. The ms found in the Trumbull papers in the 1820's. Now in Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Excellent discussion of the Pequot War and Lion’s connection with it in Frank Thistlewaite, Dorset Pilgrims, London 1989, ch. VI.
[31]Frank Thistlewaite, Dorset Pilgrims, London 1989, Ch. VI passim.
[32]J.T. Gardiner, Genealogy . . ., (1927) p. 12.
[33]Elizabeth Mills Brown, “John Brockett of New Haven: the Man and the Myth”, Journal of New Haven Colony Historical Society, Vol. 27, #2, Winter 1980, pp. 3-34.
[34]Christopher Hill, The Century of Revolution 1603-1714, Norton Library History of England, (1966) N.Y. passim.
[35]A special issue of the South Fork Natural History Society (SoFo) Newsletter, Vol. 6 No. 1, 1994, 52 pages of excerpts from naturalists’ writings on the habitat.
[36]The Second Book of Records of the Town of Southampton, Long Island, NY, pp 46-48, J.H. Hunt, printer, Sag Harbor, 1877.
[37]Harold Donaldson Eberlein, Manor Houses and Historic Homes of Long Island and Staten Island, 1928, rep. 1966, Port Washington, NY p. 68. Grant of Fishers Island from Massachusetts Bay Colony, 7 October 1640 [also granted from Connecticut].
[38]William Pyncheon in The Great Migration Begins, Robert Charles Anderson, ed. (1995) Vol III p. 1536-1538.
[39]Ibid, Richard Collicott, Vol I, pp. 439-446.
[40]Ibid, William Coddington, Vol I, pp. 395-401.
[41]Richard P. Gildrie, Salem, Massachusetts, 1626-1683. Charlottesville, 1975, p. 54.
[42]D.W. Meinig, The Shaping of America, Vol I, Atlantic America, 1492-1800, p.165.
[43]Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies 1624-1713, Chapel Hill, 1972, p 272, 91.
[44]Winthrop Papers, Vol VI, 1650-1654, ed. Malcolm Freiberg (1992) p.171-172.
[45] Myron O. Stachiw, “Wickford and the West Bay Region” in Laura B. Driemeyer and Myron O. Stachiw, The Early Architecture and Landscapes of the Narragansett Basin, Vol III, prepared for the Annual Meeting and Conference of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, Newport, R.I. April 25-29, 2001, p. 59.
[46] Joseph S. Wood, The New England Village, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997, p.35.
[47] J.S. Wood, Ibid, p.20 “ideal for cattle raising”.
[48] Lorena S. Walsh, “Provisioning Tidewater Towns”, in Explorations in Early American Culture, Vol 4, 2000, University Park, PA, p.77.
[49] Daniel How, Great Migration Begins, Vol II, p.1013.
[50] Richard Collicot, Great Migration Begins, Vol I, pp.439-446.
[51] Great Migration Begins, Vol I, p.397.
[52] Daniel How, Great Migration Begins, Vol II, p.1012, “May 1650, Daniel How sold to Thomas Backer (sic) (of New Haven) ‘all his accomodations at Easthampton with housings, orchards, gardens, fencing lands & meadows...’ quoting from the East Hampton Town Records.
[53]Private conversation with Abbott Lowell Cummings, Fall 2000 who said that all these documents are at Columbia Point and that it would take a lot of time to go through them. (J.F.Kennedy Library).
[54] Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves 1624-1713, (University of North Carolina Press, 1972) p. 75. “Capt.” John Scott is called a “trickster” in the 1660s. His house was at North Sea, where his wife remained when he flew to the West Indies to take up a new life.
[55]Susan (Mulford) Cory, Descendants in the Mulford Family, Vol III, part II, p. 202. “Osburne a wealthy merchant.”
[56]New England Historical Society Register, Vol II (Oct 1857) p. 345.
[57]Southold Town Records, Vol I, p. 187.
[58]Dunn, p. 272.
[59]Frederic Gregory Mather, The Refugees of 1776 from Long Island to Connecticut (1913) (reprint Clearfield Company 1995) p. 29.
[60]Southampton Town Records, Vol I, p. 42.
[61]Daniel Howe, Great Migration Begins, Vol II, p. 1013.
[62]E.H.T. Records, Vol II, p. 150.
[63]E.H.T. Records, Vol II, p. 172-3.
[64]Sherrill Foster, “Two Seventeenth Century Widows in East Hampton”, Suffolk County Historical Society Register, Vol XXIII, No 1, (Summer 1997) pp. 11-17.
[65]Jeannette Edwards Rattray, “Story of Second House” (1969), forthcoming book organized by the East Hampton Library Board of Managers. This new document was found in the 1950's.
[66]Todd Lee Savitt, “Samuel Mulford of East Hampton”, Master’s Thesis (U. of Virginia 1970).
[67]Original deed in Long Island Collection, East Hampton Library, donated by Rev David Mulford. Discussed in T.H. Breen, Imagining the Past, Addison-Wesley Publishing co, 1989, p. 214.
[68]Richard Collicot, Great Migration Begins, (Boston 1995) Vol I, p. 397 “Sister Moleford . . .”
[69]Information from published list of Barbados Records. Complete information not obtained.


More About Elizabeth Woodhouse and Lionel Gardiner:
Marriage: Dec 03, 1593, St. Dunsten's, Stepney, London Co, England.577

Children of Elizabeth Woodhouse and Lionel Gardiner are:
  1. +Lion Gardiner, b. 1599, England578, d. 1663, East Hampton, NY.
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