David Towers Family Tree Home Page:Information about Anthony Thatcher
Anthony Thatcher (b. 1589, d. August 22, 1668)
Notes for Anthony Thatcher:****************************************************
Three articles follow relating to Anthony Thacher, and his arrival in the new world.
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From: "History of Old Yarmouth:"
HISTORY OF OLD YARMOUTH
By Charles F. Swift 1884
Mattacheese signified old lands, or planting lands, and the terminal "t" was applied to places by the water, making
Mattacheeset mean old lands by the borders of the water.The town was fortunate in the character of the men who were in a controlling position at the period of the settlement, and, in an especial manner, in that of the three Grantees, ANTHONY THACHER, JOHN CROW andTHOMAS HOWES.
Mr. Anthony Thacher, it is believed, was born in Somersetshire County, England, about the year 1589. In 1610 he was in Leyden, with the English congregation, where he remained about 20 years. In 1633 and 1634 he served as a curate, to his brother, Peter, who was rector of the church of the parish of St. Edmunds, at Salisbury, County of Wiltz. Though an ardent Separatist, he, for this short period,
found it consistent to act in this capacity, for a congregation of strong Puritan tendencies.
April 6, 1635, he sailed in the ship James, William Cooper, master, from Southampton, for New England, with Thomas, son of his brother Peter, (who was afterwards the pastor of Old South Church, in Boston) then a youth of fifteen, arriving in Newbury, inMassachusetts, in June of that year.In the list of passengers of this vessel, as it appears in the admiralty office, he is entered as "Anthony Thacher of Sarum, tailor."This was done to elude the vigilance of the authorities, which would beset the embarkation of one having ecclesiastical orders.
In August 1635, Mr. Thacher, with his family, his cousin, Rev. John Avery and family, and other connections, sailed from Ipswich in a bark bound to Marble head. A great storm arose, the tide rising twenty feet. Their vessel was driven upon a rock on an island which now
bears the name of Thacher, and his four children were drowned, he and his wife being the only ones saved of a company of twenty-three.
For a short time after the disaster he resided at Marble head, and "the court, in consideration of his losses, granted him twenty-six pounds, thirteen shillings and four pence.""Divers good people also ministered to his necessities."(See story Below this for more detail on the Wreck)
A curious record of the Essex County court, in connection with Mr. Thacher, has recently come to light. (Hist. Col. Of Essex Institute, Salem, vol.7, p.191.)The court was held the 4th month, 13th, 1639, John Winthrop, Senior, Governor; John Endicott, Colonel; John Winthrop, Junior, Lieutenant Colonel, and other magistrates being present."A complaint was brought in by Mr. Anthony
Thacher, against Jane James, for things taken forth of his house which she had received." She was bound to good behavior for twelve months, her husband being her surety, in the sum of three shillings, the boys (who committed the theft) "to be whipped by the
governor of the family where they had offended." This shows that Mr. Thacher, though nominally of Yarmouth, had nor removed his family to his new home. He came to Yarmouth, early in 1639, establishing his dwelling by the borders of the meadows in the northwest part of the town, as one of the founders of the new settlement. He was honored and trusted by his generation, for his piety and wisdom, and died in 1667, aged nearly of fourscore years.
His descendants, some of whom dwell on the ancestral acres, are numerous and respected, and have for seven or eight generations exercised a wide influence in the affairs of the town and State.His first wife died in 1634, and for a second wife he married
Elizabeth Jones, six weeks previous to sailing for New England. His children who survived him were, John, born in Marble head, March 7, 1639; Judah, born in Yarmouth, who died Nov. 4, 1676; Bethia, who married Jabez Howland, and removed to Rhode Island.
Mr. Thacher was for many years one of the Deputies to the Colony Court, Land Committee, granted him a lot of meadow, containing some twenty acres, located to the southeast of the present wharves, which was known by the name of "The Reward."The liberality of the gift is not to be measured by the present value of such property. A descendant in Yarmouth still retains a scarlet broadcloth
cradle coverlet, said to havebeen wrapped around one of the children who perished in the shipwreck of 1635.
Mr. Thacher was buried near a pear-tree a short distance from his house, a tradition says, was planted with his own hands, and which is still standing, but the precise spot of the sepulture cannot now be identified.
FRANCIS BAKER was born in England in 1611. In 1635, he embarked in ship Planter, for New England, bringing a certificate signed by the minister in Great St. Albans, Hertfordshire County, his last place of residence, that he had taken the oath of allegiance and supremacy. He was described as a "tailor," but he afterwards exercised the calling of cooper and blacksmith. In 1641, he married Isabel Twining, of this town, with whom he lived fifty-five years.
The same year he was admitted to dwell in Yarmouth, but "not to have any of the lands assigned to others without their consent."For that reason, probably, he had to take up his residence on the eastern side of Bass River, near Follen's Pond, which was not then occupied, where he died in 1696 aged 85 years - the last of the first comers. He was not in full accord with the Puritan notions of the time.
He had, for sons, Nathaniel, John, Samuel, Daniel, William and Thomas, from whom are derived a numerous posterity, of valuable citizens. It need not, however, be inferred from the fact that the first dwelling-houses of the settlers were small and
unpretentious, that they were necessarily an indigent and humble class of people in point of worldly fortune. In respect to some of them we know this would not be a correct estimate.
Anthony Thacher, Edmund Hawes and RichardSears were certainly men of education and social standing in England, and Thomas Howes, John Crow, Edward Sturges, Andrew Hallet, Nicholas Simpkins and others appeared to have belonged to the
substantial middling class, either staunch yeomen or educated gentlemen.
Lawyers were not tolerated in the colony, but conveyances, wills and other legal writingswere executed by Anthony
Thacher, Edmund Hawes and John Hiller, according to the formulas of English practice. The common law of England, modified by their situation here, and illuminated by scripture teachings, was the sufficient guide in their civil concerns.
In 1635, Mr. Anthony Thacher, Mr. Edmund Hawes, James Matthews, John Miller and Joseph Howes were approved by the
court as Selectmen of Yarmouth. This is the first mention of these officers in this town, although the law providing for their
appointment was passed in 1662. They were required to be chosen by the townsmen from the freemen; were to hear cases of not ver
forty shillings; to observe those who reside in the colony without leave; those who do not attend public worship; to provide for the poor; to encourage education; to hear and determine all differences between the English and the Indians, in their respective townships, about damage done to cornfields, by cows, swine or other beasts. By a subsequent statute, they were empowered to summon witnesses, and to determine controversies, according to legal evidence. They were, also, in a restricted sense, a court of justice. Their appointment
was subject to the approval of the court.
May 8, 1713, the town sustained a severe loss in the death of Col. John Thacher, at the age of 75 years. He was the eldest son of Anthony, and born in Marble head, marrying for his first wife, Rebecca Winslow of Marshfield, for his second, Lydia, daughter of Col. John Gorham of Barnstable. He was early in life an influential man in the colony, commencing as a Lieutenant in the militia, was for twenty years a Selectman, Deputy and Representative to the colonial courts eleven years, a member of the Council of War in 1681 and some time thereafter, and a member of the Provincial Council soon after the union of the colonies, for about twenty years, holding that
position at the time of his death.
He was buried under arms, and his gravestone was the first with any inscription put up in Yarmouth, it being brought here from England. The many who died previous to this time, lie unrecognized and unknown. The grave of his father was unmarked by a monument, and the precise spot of his interment cannot be pointed out. Others who were his contemporaries, have their last resting places marked by
rude characters, or crumbling monuments, fast fading before time's effacing finger. "Their names, their years, spelt by the unlettered muse, The place of fame and elegy supply."
The history of the life of Col. Thacher is enlivened by one of the few romantic episodes which the period has furnished.
On his first wedding trip, when bringing his bride, Rebecca, from Marshfield, the couple made a call at the house of Capt. Gorham of Barnstable. An infant girl was brought into the room, that was born on the night of their marriage, and Col. Thacher playfully remarked, handing the infant to his bride "Let me introduce you to my second wife."Mrs. Thacher took the child and kissed it, saying that she "hoped
it would be a good many years hence."Some twenty-two years afterwards, Rebecca Thacher died, and "many lamentable verses"the Colonel wrote on the sad event. But his grief was soon consumed by its own intensity, and he began to feel the need of female consolation. Passing by the house of the widow Gorham, soon after, he saw the horse of his son hitched at the door. Mistrusting the object of his son's
visit, Col. Thacher, on the morrow, privately consulted him on the subject, and asked him if he had matrimonial designs upon Miss Lydia. The young man frankly admitted that he had. "Now, if you will give up your visits, I will give you L5, old tenor, in money, and my yoke of black oxen." The young man consented, and the Colonel pressed his own suit with such ardor, that in less than six months after the death of his first wife, his grief was assuaged by marrying Lydia Gorham.
Colonel Thacher's descendants still preserve a cradle made by his father or himself, more than two centuries ago, and a
blanket, brought, as before stated, from England, by Anthony Thacher, in which was wrapped his youngest child, that was drowned in
the great shipwreck at Thacher's Island, when its parents were so remarkably preserved, and in which several generations of Thatchers were baptized.The blanket is of embroidered scarlet broadcloth. The cradle was made of rifted oak, in most ingenious style, and must have been in great request, Col. Thacher being the father, by his two marriages, of twenty-one children, and some of his descendants having been almost equally blessed with progeny. Amos Otis, Edward Thacher and Oliver Hallet were authorized, by a vote of the town, to set trees along the highways of Yarmouth Port, provided the road be left thirty feet wide within the trees.The trees were procured in Middlebrook, and set from the Barnstable line to the Second District school-house, greatly adding to the beauty and comfort of the street.
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Extract from Newspaper clipping found in Scrapbook of Olive Haskell
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Wreck of "Connie" at Cape Ann recalls how "Thacher's Woe" Got its name, by Great Tragedy.
By Roy l. Parsons.
When 31 young men and women missed by the smallest margin going to their deaths in the wreck of the motor boat Connie on the submerged section of Sandy Bay Breakwater on Cape Ann a few days ago, it recalled one of the most tragic and melancholy periods of early colonial history --- the shipwreck of Anthony Thacher and his associated and Rev. John Avery and his children within a short distance of the spot.
But while the site of this wreck of the Connie and miraculous escape of its occupants is a matter of common knowledge, history leaves us in doubt as to the exact location of the other catastrophe.And into the picture comes Thatcher's Island, which, with its two great arms of Uncle Sam twinkling twin bright lights to mariners, is the most looked for spot on the whole North Atlantic coast.Avery's rock, so named for the preacher who was lost in the Thacher party;and the Londoner, a name given to a rock in the same vicinity years after because the ship London was cast away there.
At Mercy of the Waves
On the 12th of August 1635, a small boat called a pinnace, having on board the Rev. John Avery and family, 11 persons in all, including his wife and six children;Anthony Thacher, his wife and four children, another person in the family, a passenger and four mariners set sail from Ipswich for Marble head where the Rev. Mr. Avery had engaged to settle in the ministry.
The wind was unfavorable and they had not passed the Cape on the night of the 14th.About 10 O'clock that night there came a fresh gale of wind, sails which were old were split, and the vessel was brought to and anchor.Before daylight the next morning, a furious storm came on, the vessel dragged and drifted about at the mercy of the wind and waves.Finally she was driven "upon a rock between two high rocks, yet all was one rock."
Mr. Avery and his eldest son, and Mr. Thacher and daughter were by a mighty wave washed out upon the rock.They called those left in the helpless wreck to come to them, but another dashed the vessel to pieces and swept away those who had gained a momentary foothold upon the rock.
After he had been washed about by the sea and beaten against the rock for a quarter of an hour, Mr.Thacher at last felt the bottom, and soon found himself standing on his feet, breast deep in the water, with his face towards the shore, which he soon reached in safety.
He looked about for his family and friends but The merciless ocean had swallowed them all, except one -- the one who, of all the ill-fated company, could most deeply sympathize with him in the loss of his children and most heartily united with Him in thanksgiving for the wonderful deliverance that had experienced---His wife.
Soon after getting ashore, he saw her "getting herself forth from amongst the timber of the broken bark":from which, before he could join her she cleared herself; and going to her husband, they sought together a resting place under a bank.
Some provisions and clothing came ashore: as also, fortunately;y, a "Snap sack" containing a steel, flint, and some gunpowders in a dry condition.With these they made themselves comfortable, till on the second day after the shipwreck the were taken off, and carried to Marble head.Mr. Thacher arrived in New England but a few weeks before the distressing event which deprived him of all his children.After his catastrophe, he resided at Marshfield.In 1639 he removed to Yarmouth on Cape Cod where he resided until his death in 1668.
Thatchers Woe
On his departure from the sorrowful scene of his shipwreck, he gave his own nave to the island upon which he was cast, calling it "Thacher's Woe"and the rock on which the vessel was wrecked was called "Avery his Fall."And so came the name to Thacher's twin lights, the best known beacon on the Atlantic.
The rock now called Avery's rock cannot be the one mentioned in Mr. Thachers narrative which has been reprinted in Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts.This rock is more than two miles from the island--much too great a distance for a man to be carried by the sea in Quarter of an hour.Resides the terrific gale which caught the boat off Cape Ann, was from the east, a direction contrary to that which points from Avery's Rock to Thachers Island.It is also a fact that the present Avery's rock never shows itself, even at low water, above the surface of the sea.
Many persons who have studied the matter and read the narrative thoroughly have given their opinion that the fatal Rock was a ledge on the south side of the island, about 200 yards from it, and sometimes called crackwood's ledge.This looks like two rocks at half tide but is one rock with a passage admitting a small boat through.This later became the Londoner so named in consequence of the ship London being wrecked there.
Typed by David Towers Aug 25, 2002
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The following article was found on the internet, resulting from a Google search for "Anthony Thacher".Inserted her by David K. Towers
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Anthony Thacher...Yarmouth's founding father
By Jack Sheedy
In the village of Yarmouthport, just north of Route 6A, there is a footpath that winds its way in a northwesterly fashion through a beautiful Cape Cod wilderness of meadows and woodlands. Northward, beyond the conifers that grow here and there, spread the marshes which even further north surrender to the waters of Cape Cod Bay.
The trail leads to an opening in the woods where a large boulder can be found, seemingly lost and forgotten by the decades and centuries. Upon the boulder is a plaque and upon the plaque are these words:
"Near this site lived and was buried Antony Thacher
He came to America in 1635 from Somersetshire, England
Shipwrecked on Thacher Island 1635
Settled in Yarmouth 1639"
Many times, a plaque on a boulder is the starting point for a historical journey, a fact-finding mission to transport a person or an event uncovered from the past to the present for us to study and marvel over. This Thacher must have been quite a local historical character to earn a plaque upon a large boulder such as this, never mind the fact that it is hidden away in the wilderness of Yarmouthport! So with pen and notepad in hand we set off to know this person called Ant(h)ony Thacher.
Anthony Thacher was, in fact, born in Somersetshire County, England around 1589. Like the Pilgrims, he was a Separatist and actually associated with a number of the Pilgrims at Leyden in Holland just 10 years before the Mayflower sailed for Plymouth. Thacher would not sail with the Pilgrims, remaining behind to build a life for himself, to marry and to father nine children. His Separatist views softened and he fell in with the established church, that being the Church of England. He meanwhile established himself, achieving a worthy social standing in his native England.
But Thatcher's life was about to suffer the first of two setbacks. Five of his nine children would die of illness, followed by the death of his wife. Yet the very next year Thacher was remarried, to Elizabeth Jones, and was making plans to begin anew in Plymouth Colony. In April 1635, at the age of 46, Thacher, his new bride of six weeks, and his four surviving children sailed for the new world, arriving at Newbury in June.
Just two short months later, further tragedy would strike the Thatchers. While sailing from Ipswich to Marblehead with his cousin's family, their vessel was wrecked in a storm off Cape Ann. Of the 23 people on board, only Thacher and his wife survived. All four Thacher children were lost. Today, the island upon which Thacher and his new bride crawled to safety is still called Thacher Island.
The court was so moved by the Thatchers' loss that they were granted 26 pounds, 13 shillings and "fore-pence." They would spend the next four years in Marblehead where their son John would be born in March, 1639.
Meanwhile, during the previous year, Thacher had been surveying land in the mid-Cape area. On January 7, 1639, Thacher, along with fellow first settlers John Crow and Thomas Howes, were granted land "to take up their freedom at Yarmouth." At that time, Yarmouth, named for the English port from whence the Pilgrims had sailed, also contained what is today the Town of Dennis.
One month after the birth of their son, the Thatchers arrived at their new home in Yarmouth in April 1639. Thacher was immediately appointed to the land committee along with Crow and Howes in order to fairly divide up the lands of Yarmouth amongst the newly arriving families. Thacher took 136 acres for himself, his land comprising most of the northwestern portion of the town.
Besides drawing up land deeds, Thacher also "executed conveyances, wills and other legal writings." He was town treasurer for 28 years, deputy to the Colony Court for 10 years and in 1655 was "appointed by the court to administer the ordinance of marriage at Yarmouth as occasion shall require."
He served on the council of war during Indian hostilities and, in May 1657, helped to draw up a land agreement known as the Yarmouth Acquittance with Indian sachem Mashantampaigne which essentially handed over the lands of the Nobscusset to Crow, Howe and Thacher.
Besides serving as a teacher to the children of Yarmouth, in 1662 he was "appointed inspector of anchors, lead, powder and shot, as well as liquors" and in 1666 he was elected Selectman. The very next year Thacher departed these earthly bounds at nearly 80 years of age. His son John would go on to father 21 children, thus providing the Town of Yarmouth with Thatchers enough for generations to come.
Every town on Cape Cod has its "Thacher," its first comer, its founding settler. Every town on Cape has its history, its stories both great and small which, when gathered up, represent the whole. From these founding fathers, and mothers, have grown twelve towns on this one peninsula from Bourne to Provincetown, each town in its unique way helping to weave its own part of the tapestry that we call Cape Cod.town.
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More About Anthony Thatcher and Mary Thatcher:
Marriage: 1619, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England.
More About Anthony Thatcher and Elizabeth Jones:
Marriage: 1635, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England.
Children of Anthony Thatcher and Elizabeth Jones are:
- +Colonel John Thatcher, b. March 1638/39, Marblehead, Ma, d. 1713, Yarmouth.