XIII. Stark – Laycock – Lamb

Both Abraham and Sarah Stark having been traced back to common grandparents, the father and mother of both Daniel and Christopher Stark, it is time to look at those grandparents. They were JONATHAN STARK and SARAH {LAYCOCK} STARK. Jonathan was born on December 10, 1712, in Groton, Connecticut. (Groton was part of New London until 1705, and the two locations will be cited jointly unless the applicable section is known for sure.) Sarah was probably born about 1720,¹ but we know little for certain about her and her family. She is mentioned in the 1760 will of her father, JOSEPH LAYCOCK, but the name of her mother does not appear in the records.² In view of the fragmentary information we have about the Laycock family, we will examine it before returning to the Starks.

Joseph Laycock may have been part of a sizable Quaker family from Lancashire, England, that came to America around the time Sarah was born. There is no indication who among them were Joseph's parents. Numerous members of these Laycocks who came to America lived along the Delaware River, perhaps first in Delaware County and Bucks County, Pennsylvania (where they are first seen in 1734), and then in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. On the other hand, some evidence suggests that Joseph Laycock was in various locations in New Jersey as early as 1711 to 1720 or perhaps even 1708: Burlington County by 1708 or 1711; Woodbridge Township, Middlesex County, by 1714, and Newtown by 1720. ³

New Jersey is presumably where the Laycocks and the Starks became acquainted. Members of both families belonged to the Bethlehem Church in Kingwood, Hunterdon County, and the Knollton Church, founded in 1763 in what was then Sussex County, and it seems clear that Joseph Laycock lived (and died about 1760) in Hardwick Township of that same county – the same township where Jonathan Stark lived, as we shall see. His date of death fell between August 27, 1760, when he wrote his will, and October 8 of that year, when it was probated.⁴ The Laycocks evidently were the first of this extended family of Starks, Vineyards, and Laycocks to move on to Virginia, where they seem to have gone sometime during the 1760s – and by 1765 at the latest. They would continue on to southwestern Pennsylvania in company with the Starks and others, as we have seen, though they would live in Amwell Township rather than in Fallowfield Township there.

Jonathan Stark, a wheelwright by trade, probably moved during the early 1730s from Connecticut to New Jersey, where he appears as a witness for a deed in Woodbridge, Middlesex County, in 1734. Several members of his family migrated to New Jersey from Connecticut about this time, and Jonathan may have accompanied them or a Baptist or Rogerene group making the same move. A 1736 deed in Connecticut identifies him as a resident of that colony, and it may be that after 1734 he returned to Connecticut to wind up his affairs there. On March 6, 1750, Jonathan Stark placed an advertisement in Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette, offering for sale or rental 55 acres of land (half of it cleared), including a gristmill and tavern, in the town of Bethlehem, Hunterdon County, New Jersey – about a mile from the Delaware River. Here Jonathan evidently was a member of Bethlehem Church in Kingwood along with Joseph Laycock. Since we know that the Starks, like the Laycocks, were members of this church, we can place Jonathan's property somewhere near the present town of Baptistown, New Jersey, where the Bethlehem Church was located.⁵

About 1754 Jonathan and his family moved further north to Knollton in Hardwick Township of Sussex (now Warren) County, where on June 13, 1763 they were among the fourteen souls who formed a new Baptist church. Jonathan Stark's estate was settled in Sussex County on January 29, 1765, so he must have died either very early that year or during the preceding year. Some researchers speculate that he and other Starks had moved to western Maryland by the mid-1750s and that Jonathan went back to New Jersey in order to die there, but I am skeptical that he did so. There is no doubt, though, that the Starks and their associated families did not remain long after Jonathan's death, trading their hardscrabble existence in Sussex, beset by frequent Indian raids, for life in the more fertile and seemingly safe life in Loudoun County, Virginia.

In 1769 and perhaps thereafter, Jonathan Stark's widow Sarah is thought to be living with their youngest daughter (also named Sarah, the wife of a Baptist minister named William Wood), probably in Loudoun County, Virginia. We do not know for certain when and where Sarah {Laycock} Stark died. It is possible she died in Virginia before the remainder of her family moved on to southwestern Pennsylvania during the 1770s, or she may have died in that part of Pennsylvania after the move. Some researchers believe, though, that she accompanied her daughter and son-in-law when they set off for Louisville, Kentucky, in December of 1784.

Reverend Wood and the others departed in three boats from DeVore's Ferry, located on the Monongahela River about halfway between Redstone and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Freezing weather and heavy icing during their trip down the river forced the Wood party to put in at Limestone (Maysville), Kentucky, on December 31, 1784, where they took shelter in the single cabin just below the mouth of Limestone Creek. Since the area had no minister, William Wood was persuaded (in part by an offer of free land) to remain and organize a church. A Sarah Stark, presumably the Sarah {Laycock} Stark we have been studying, is listed among the charter members of the Limestone Baptist Church. The Wood family went on to Ohio sometime after 1798, but once again it is not known whether Sarah accompanied them or had died while they remained in Limestone. She could have died, therefore, in Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, or Virginia at any time during a period spanning the last quarter of the 18th century. ⁶

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Jonathan Stark's father was WILLIAM STARK, JR., and his mother was EXPERIENCE {LAMB} STARK. William was born in New London/Groton, Connecticut, about 1687 or 1688 and was baptized at the First Congregational Church(or Road Church) in Stonington, Connecticut, on June 19, 1698. He seems to have died between May 22, 1731 (when he is last mentioned in a document) and May 5, 1736 (when his son Jonathan sold property he could inherit only after his father's death) – and perhaps by December 1733, depending on how we interpret another document. Experience's life span is uncertain but may have been between 1690 and sometime after October 15, 1723, as she signed a document on that date.⁷ Information in Groton town records shows a marriage date for William, Jr., and Experience of April 13, 1710, in New London/Groton, Connecticut. He became a freeman⁸ in Groton on May 22, 1712.

The records for New London/Groton show that William Stark, Jr., was involved, as principal and as witness, in numerous land transactions between 1714 and 1726. He also was a member of the Baptist church that his father helped to found. Because William Stark, Jr., is not mentioned in these records later than 1726, he may have moved to another Connecticut town after that date. If so, the town was probably either Colchester or Lebanon, where a group of Starks moved at about this time. Other evidence, though, suggests that William Stark, Jr., moved instead to Suffolk County, New York, across Long Island Sound from Connecticut. Here he may have lived for several years before dying sometime during the first half of the 1730s.

Most Lamb family researchers seem to agree that Experience (a name that indicates her parents probably were Puritans) was the daughter of ISAAC LAMB. Her mother's name is not known for certain but very likely was Elizabeth, since both Isaac Lamb and Elizabeth Lamb were among the members of the church to which the Starks belonged.⁹ The couple probably married just before 1690, when Experience, apparently their first child, was born. Experience's father Isaac Lamb bought land near the Mystic River in New London, Connecticut, on January 15, 1696/97; that portion of New London became Groton in 1704. Isaac thus was born sometime prior to January of 1675/76, and recent research enables us to estimate that he was born between 1655 and then.

In 1714 Isaac sold his property along the Mystic River and built a solid and prominent house – still standing and in family hands as late as 1987 – on a commanding hill on Lambtown Road in a section commonly called Lambtown in what is now Ledyard, Connecticut.¹⁰ Isaac Lamb was active in the first Baptist church in Ledyard, founded in 1705 (to be described later), and he also served as a deacon of this church. He died in Old Mystic, New London County, Connecticut, between May 12, 1723 (when he wrote his will, leaving half of the family property to his wife Elizabeth) and June 29, 1723 (when his estate was inventoried). Some researchers believe that Isaac Lamb was buried in the Wightman Cemetery (also described below), but if so his grave marker is probably either impossible to read or lost altogether. He might also be buried in the Lamb family cemetery near his home.¹¹

Not surprisingly there are a number of Lamb families in early New England, and there is no clear consensus among Lamb researchers about the particular family to which Isaac belongs. Recent research efforts have failed to find any evidence that he was related to any of these families but has found good reasons he cannot be linked to some of them. Given all the Lamb families in New England it seems likely that information about several of them has been conflated, and we may never be able to identify Isaac's parents with any confidence.

The best remaining candidate for Isaac's father is a John Lamb who resided in New London well before Isaac first appears in records there in 1695 (when Experience was baptized). John was probably born about 1625 and died sometime during the early 1680s – almost certainly by 1683 when his wife by signing a document signified that she was unmarried and so able to represent herself in court. This woman was named Ann, a woman traditionally thought to have come from the Powell family or the Skelton family. One recent hypothesis is that Ann's name was Plaisted, a woman born about 1627 in Durneford Mill, Wiltshire, England, to Roger Plaisted and his wife, Siceile, of Mildenhall, North Wiltshire. Ann married William Clift of Preshute, Wiltshire, England, on July 5, 1647, but Clift evidently died and she journeyed to America with her brother, Roger Plaisted, at least by 1654 and perhaps earlier during the 1650s. The Plaisted siblings lived on Salmon Falls Brook in Berwick, Maine (part of Massachusetts until 1820), and here sometime during the 1650s Ann married the John Lamb we are studying.¹² We know only that she lived beyond 1683.

The Plaisted connection links the John Lamb of New London to a man of that name who also lived in Maine (then a part of Massachusetts). This John Lamb first comes to our notice in March of 1651, and again in June of 1653, when court records in Kittery, Maine, show that he was accused of being a thief and a liar. He received grants of land, seventy acres in all, from the town of Kittery in 1655 and 1656. Lamb then lived in York County (the only organized township in Maine), where he burned (manufactured) charcoal at a landing place on the Great Works River.¹³ As early as December 1663 but no later than the next year, he was a resident of New London, Connecticut. The key piece of evidence is a deed showing that in July of 1666 John sold his Maine property (to a man the records call "Start" – possibly a Stark in fact). In 1674 he leased for seven years a mill where the Paucatuck path crossed the Mystic River.¹⁴ John Lamb is said to have written his will on August 14, 1673, but no copy of it evidently exists today.

All this generally accords with Lamb family tradition, which says that John settled before 1654 in the Kittery area but subsequently departed for Connecticut because of continuing harassment from Indian attacks and bought land in New London in 1663 and 1664. This land was said to be where a stream known as Lamb's Brook joins the Mystic River; I have been unable to locate this place, but John's land seems to be near that of Experience's father, Isaac Lamb. John Lamb became a freeman in New London on October 14, 1669.

But is John Lamb in fact the father of Isaac? Beyond proximity, is there any link between Isaac Lamb and any of the other Lambs living in the New London area? Some researchers point out reasons for doubting a connection. The documentary evidence shows evident relationships among several Lamb males who reside in this area but does not mention Isaac among them. In addition, there are hints that Isaac is better educated than these other Lamb males (he can read and write but they cannot), is more active in the ferment surrounding the emergence of the Baptist church in Connecticut, and seems to be of a higher class as well. So although the John Lamb who had lived in Maine is our best candidate for Isaac's father, we must allow for other possibilities.

One is that Isaac arrived in New London as an adult (perhaps about the time Experience was born), one of the several Isaac Lambs who left traces in various records in New England but whose ultimate fates are not known. Isaac may even have come to America from England during the 1690s, which would mean that he and Experience were born there and not in Connecticut. We just cannot say for sure until more evidence emerges, which means we leave Isaac Lamb's line with numerous questions unanswered and return to the Stark line.

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The father of William Stark, Jr. was also a man named WILLIAM STARK. He was born in Stonington, Connecticut, probably in 1664, since his grave marker states that he was in his sixty-sixth year when he died in September 1730. His wife was a woman named ELIZABETH, whose family name we do not know – although there is no shortage of speculation about it. Judging from the age of William, Jr., (their oldest child), who had to have been born by 1689 in order to witness a document in 1710, William and Elizabeth were evidently married during the second half of the 1680s. One guess about her identity is that she was the daughter of Daniel and Elizabeth Pierce. Daniel Pierce was the first minister of the Baptist church founded in Groton in 1704. Another guess is that William married Elizabeth Hadsell, daughter of Joseph Hadsell and Mary {Graves} Hadsell. This Hadsell couple was married in Gloucester, Massachusetts, affiliated with the Baptists in Rhode Island, and seem to have been closely connected to the Stark family in Connecticut later on. ¹⁵

Elizabeth Hadsell was born in 1679, however, too late to have a child in 1689. Along with what seems to be a gap of about five years between the birth of William, Jr., by 1689 and that of the next child, Elizabeth's rather young age has led to speculation among Stark researchers that William Stark may have been married before he wed the Elizabeth we know was his wife from the 1690s until his death in 1730, and that his son William, Jr., might have been the product of this first marriage. The fact that William and Elizabeth were evidently a decade or so apart in their ages reinforces this idea. (Conversely, some researchers think that Elizabeth had first married William's older brother, John, subsequently marrying William after John died, but the evidence suggests otherwise.) In any case, William's wife Elizabeth must have been born before 1673 at the latest. The fact is that we have nothing more than guesswork when it comes to all of these possible marriages, and we can only hope the future brings more information for us to work with.¹⁶

William Stark was a farmer. Having inherited a part of his father's property in Groton in 1685, he then added a large adjoining tract to it and continued to buy and sell land throughout his life until his last years. From about 1712 onward, William also ran a sawmill in Groton where he produced planks for shipbuilding, and in addition he held a license to operate a public house. Land records show that among his various other properties were tracts on Cow Hill and Fort Hill in Stonington, near Musoe Rock on the Mystic River, and south of Contary Road. ¹⁷ Stark was evidently in the militia, for some documents refer to him as "Sergeant Stark" and others refer to him as a yeoman.

It may be that William Stark, seemingly having disposed of much if not all of his property before 1726, when he wrote his will, was the victim of an illness or some other problem that led to his death a few years later. His problem may actually have surfaced even earlier. In March of 1718 William deeded his homestead to his son Christopher with the proviso that the parents would have the use of the house so long as they lived. After William removed this condition in 1729, he moved to a four-acre site in the town of Stonington, perhaps because he could be better cared for there than in the countryside.

The most interesting aspect of William Stark is his religious life. Probably because his father was so late in affiliating with the Puritan Church, William was not baptized until he was an adult, on June 19, 1698. On that date he became a member of the First Congregational ("Road") Church in Stonington, Connecticut. Sometime after mid-1701, though, he abandoned the Puritan faith and became a Baptist, joining a dissenting sect that had found sanctuary in neighboring Rhode Island. In 1704, William Stark helped to organize the first Baptist congregation in Connecticut; indeed, this congregation met in William Stark's home.¹⁸

Such an unadorned statement hardly does justice to William Stark's contributions. The fact is that he played a significant role in the establishment of the Baptist denomination in Connecticut, and so in North America, and in that colony's acceptance of the principles of religious toleration as well. When the Baptists organized in 1704, they were the first dissenting church in Connecticut, a colony that, like Massachusetts, actively discouraged worship outside the Congregational faith that it recognized and supported. A book written on this topic, from which the following account is drawn, concludes that Baptist preachers in Newport and Westerly, Rhode Island, evangelized a number of longtime residents of Groton, just across the border in Connecticut.

Five of these Baptists, including both Isaac and Elizabeth Lamb – and probably including William Stark as well – were arrested in Groton about September of 1704 for failing to attend Congregational worship services. In New London's County Court, they evidently described themselves as dissenters and asked the court to license their worship meetings. (Connecticut law required that new churches receive authorization from the General Court, the colony's legislature.) On October 5, 1704, Isaac Lamb, Elizabeth Lamb, William Stark, and Elizabeth Stark were among twelve persons who petitioned the General Court of Connecticut to be recognized as a dissenting church that would receive toleration. No action was taken, the Baptists continued to worship, and on at least one occasion some of them – including Daniel Pierce, now an elder – were fined for doing so.

In 1705, the Baptists called Valentine Wightman of Rhode Island to be their minister, replacing Daniel Pierce. Wightman did not live in Groton: he had not been legally admitted as a resident by majority vote of the existing residents.¹⁹ Accordingly, on October 17, 1707, the town selectmen visited Wightman in the home of William Stark (where he was presumably staying, or perhaps preaching) and warned Wightman to leave the town – not only because he had not been properly admitted but because he had no visible means of support and so might become a charge on the town, they said. When Wightman refused to leave, he was arrested and fined.

The subsequent legal proceedings revealed that William Stark at some point had presented Wightman with 20 acres and a house (previously Stark's own residence) near the former's sawmill, and also that the Baptists of Groton were respected and substantial citizens.²⁰ The town sought to have Wightman and Stark sign a bond absolving the town from supporting Wightman in the event he did not have his own resources. They refused, but after some negotiation a compromise was reached on April 4, 1708. Perhaps it was William Stark's standing in the community that enabled the Baptists to survive in Groton with such mild constraints.

Meanwhile, the Baptists had delayed applying for recognition under Connecticut's new (1708) toleration statute, which allowed them to exercise their "sober" dissent if they qualified.²¹ On April 20, 1709, therefore, a grand jury charged a number of the Baptists (Isaac Lamb, William Stark, and their wives among them) with holding unlawful religious meetings. Since no further action is recorded, this matter was evidently settled through negotiation as well. By 1718 the Baptists had erected their own place of worship, which was evidently located just east of Groton off Cold Spring Road.²² Wightman remained as minister. Curiously, though, William Stark seems to have become more and more "radical" (in 18th-century terms): he began to argue that worship services should be held on Saturdays rather than on Sundays, which got him into further trouble with the authorities and may have led to his expulsion from the congregation that Wightman led.²³

In addition to the 20 acres of land that William Stark donated for the new Baptist church and its minister in 1718, two years before that he had sold an adjacent acre and one-half to provide the Baptists with a cemetery that is now called the Wightman Burying Ground. William Stark wrote his will on February 7, 1726, and died in Groton on September 8, 1730; his will was proved on September 21 of that year. He is buried on the land that he sold for the cemetery. Some Stark researchers believe that Elizabeth Stark also died in 1730; we know only that she was still living at the time of her husband's death. Presumably she is buried in the same location as her husband William.²⁴

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And now we reach the earliest member of the Stark family we can identify by name, the father of the elder William Stark. He was AARON STARK, who was probably born in Scotland, evidently sometime in 1608. This date comes from a document dated June 11, 1673, which states that Aaron is "sixty-five" years of age. Some researchers have wondered if the document originally said "fifty-five" and was written over later. After looking at a copy of the document myself, I think that the clerk who penned it did intend to write "sixty-five" as Aaron's age. In any case, the year 1608 seems about right for his birth. Aaron married a woman named SARAH, family name not known to us but possibly Fish, since the Stark and Fish families seem to have been closely associated at this time.²⁵

Stark family lore holds that Aaron Stark came to America in 1627 or in 1629, landing in Salem, Massachusetts (where so many of those destined for Massachusetts arrived). Some Stark researchers have speculated that Aaron had gotten himself into some difficulty in England or Scotland, that he was a bonded or indentured servant, or that he was a crewman or cabin boy aboard a ship and decided to remain in America. More recently, Stark researchers have wondered if Aaron might have been a mercenary soldier who was hired to journey to New England and provide for its defense. There is no specific evidence to support any of these speculations, and we do not know when or why he came to these shores. There was a large surge of immigration in the years 1633 to 1636, and he may have come that late.²⁶

Between his arrival and the mid-1630s Aaron Stark may have lived in the towns of Cambridge, Watertown, or Dorchester, Massachusetts, and he may have been one of about one hundred persons from these towns who followed Reverend Thomas Hooker²⁷ in making the earliest settlements in Connecticut in June of 1636.²⁸ One authority has termed this movement, along the Old Bay Path, "the first mass migration in the history of the American frontier." Like many of the later migrations, it was caused by perceived overcrowding in the settled areas (around Boston, in this instance), dissatisfaction with those in control in the settled areas (the religious hierarchy in Boston), and a desire to leave settled areas altogether. Once in Connecticut, Aaron Stark lived in Wethersfield, Windsor, Hartford, Stonington, and New London.

In 1637, Aaron Stark volunteered for action against the Indians in what became known as the Pequot War. This war, the first significant conflict between natives and European settlers in America, was a punitive expedition the settlers in Connecticut launched against the tribes who occupied much of what is now western Rhode Island, Long Island, and the Connecticut shore. The Pequots, feeling squeezed between settlers who were arriving in the rich Connecticut River Valley on one side and around the Narragansett Bay on the other, began to raid the isolated settlements. When they staged a particularly large raid on Wethersfield in April of 1637, Connecticut decided to act. In early May, the young colony collected a force of ninety men – Aaron Stark among them – and, with some Indian allies, attacked the Pequot stronghold in what is now Eastern Connecticut. A third of the volunteers came from Windsor, where Aaron Stark evidently lived at the time; the others came from Hartford and Wethersfield.

The Connecticut force decided on a surprise attack rather than a frontal attack on the fortified Indian camps. Led by Captain John Mason of Windsor, the little army departed from the mouth of the Connecticut River (Saybrook) aboard three ships on May 10, 1637, and sailed eastward past the perplexed Pequots. It landed to their rear on the shore of Narragansett Bay on May 30 and marched thirty or forty miles westward across what is now western Rhode Island in the direction of the Indian stronghold of the Pequot's chief sachem, Sassacus. This was located on the east side of the Mystic River near the present-day town of Mystic (somewhat to the east of what is now New London, Connecticut).

Attacking at night on June 5, Mason and his men surprised the Pequots, who had been celebrating what appeared to them like a great victory over the vanished soldiers. After some hand-to-hand combat, Mason's forces burned the stronghold, killing as many as 700 Pequots while losing only two members of their own force. The handful of survivors were hunted down and virtually exterminated.²⁹ This war settled the fate of the important Connecticut Valley, opening the interior of New England to large-scale settlement. (Perhaps not coincidentally, the New Englanders also thereby took control of the important seawan sources along Long Island Sound; seawan, made from shells found only here, was becoming legal tender throughout New England and New Netherland alike.)

Following his service in this little "war," Aaron Stark went to live in Hartford. We are pretty sure he was living there in April of 1639 because that city's records say that on the 11th day of that month he was among three men who were charged by the authorities with "unclean practices" with a servant girl named Mary Holt: they had been caught in "fornication" with her. Aaron, described in some accounts as "an unpromising youth,"³⁰ was sentenced to stand upon the pillory and be whipped (from "the ringing of the first bell to the end of the lecture"), then to be whipped again behind a cart – first in Hartford and again, within eight days, in Windsor. In addition, the letter R was to be branded onto his cheek, and he was told to pay Mary Holt's parents a considerable sum of money. Mary herself was to be punished for concealing the matter so long, and she and Aaron were instructed to get married.³¹ The record does not reveal whether Aaron and Mary actually became man and wife. Some Stark researchers believe that they did, but since other men were punished for their conduct with Mary and she was later banished (as Mary Holt) for repeated transgressions, it would appear that Aaron did not marry her.

The next year, 1640, saw Aaron Stark again in trouble. On July 2 of that year he was in court accused of "buggery with a heifer" – a very serious (indeed, capital) crime in Puritan New England. Perhaps because the specified witness did not agree to testify or perhaps in a kind of plea bargain arrangement, Aaron was permitted to confess to a somewhat modified offense. According to his statement, he only leaned across the heifer and then when aroused found the animal too small to penetrate. His punishment for this offense, if there was any, is not described in the record, but Aaron remained in custody at least until the court's next monthly meeting: the Windsor constable was directed to keep him under "lock and chain" and to subject him to "hard labor and a coarse diet" until then.

A couple of years later, on April 6, 1643, the court sentenced Aaron to be whipped in Windsor for yet another offense, which the record does not identify. As a repeat offender he was at risk of being banished from the colony, but it would appear that his former commander, Captain Mason (who was not a Puritan, incidentally), now stepped forward and agreed to take charge of Aaron: he was ordered to serve Mason for an indefinite period, until the authorities released him from this service. Some accounts state that Aaron was whipped for chopping wood on a Sunday, but I have seen no evidence to support this.

Much is known about Captain John Mason, a prominent figure in Connecticut's early history, and this man's whereabouts during the mid-17th century may give us some clues about where Aaron Stark was living then – and how he came to New England in the first place. Mason evidently resided in Windsor, Connecticut, from about 1636 to about 1646. Judging from the court records cited here, Aaron Stark too lived in Windsor during these years. Mason moved to Saybrook, Connecticut, around 1648 and lived there for the next dozen years or so. Meanwhile, Mason was rewarded with land in what would become Stonington, where he would eventually move.

We cannot be sure that Aaron followed Mason from Windsor to Saybrook, but if he was in service to Mason from 1643 onward it is likely that he did. Perhaps Stark even lived in his benefactor's household.³² He probably farmed Mason's land and was certainly an experienced soldier readily available when the Captain, Connecticut's chief military officer, was gathering forces for raids on the Indians. It was about this time, during the early 1650s, that Aaron married Sarah, so she and her family may have been living in Saybrook when they wed. Perhaps Sarah, much younger than Aaron (who was 45 years old in 1653), was also a resident within the Mason household, either a servant girl herself or the daughter of another of Mason's servants.

(Mason had come to New England by late 1632 and lived in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1634. Thus it is possible that he and Aaron had known one another at least that long, given the early size of the colony. In fact, some researchers wonder if Aaron Stark came to America on Mason's ship – possibly in pursuit of a pirate named Dixy Bull, one of them says. Massachusetts commissioned Mason to suppress Bull in 1632. Earlier, in 1629 and 1630, Mason had been among the English soldiers who fought – either out of conviction or as mercenaries – for the Dutch who were rebelling against their Spanish occupiers, and it may even be that Stark was a mercenary soldier there too. All this is what has led to the speculation that Mason and Stark might have come to the Massachusetts Bay Colony together as hired soldiers during the early 1630s.)

By late 1653 we can be fairly sure that Aaron Stark was living in Stonington, Connecticut – perhaps as caretaker for or tenant on Mason's newly obtained property there, since at least one contemporary source refers to him as "Captain Mason's man." That source, the diary of a neighbor, in fact mentions Aaron rather frequently – as a farmer, as someone who helped to collect taxes, and in one instance as a brawler. The diary also suggests that Aaron might have been known for being able to foretell the future, a somewhat dangerous gift in a culture that believed in witchcraft.³³

In March of 1664/65 Aaron Stark was granted 150 acres in Stonington. It does not appear that he actually resided on this land, however, for it had not yet been surveyed by May of 1670. Aaron was probably still working for and living with Captain Mason after March of 1664/65, therefore, and we can only guess when he was released from service to him. Land ownership must have qualified Aaron to take the freeman's oath, which he did in May 1666, and it seems most likely, too, that to qualify for this oath he must have completed his service to Mason. It is possible that the court released Aaron from his service to Mason sometime between 1664 and 1666 but that he continued working on Mason's land as a tenant or employee. The evidence also suggests that about now Aaron finally joined the Puritan Church, for both land ownership and church membership were required before one could be accepted as a freeman, but since King Charles II had been encouraging the admission of freemen who were not Puritans we cannot be certain Aaron was now a Puritan.³⁴

But Aaron would not remain in Stonington for long after 1666. In November 1664 Aaron had purchased a farm of approximately 500 acres in present-day Groton (then still part of New London) at the "head of Mystic." This farm – which we have already encountered in our discussion of Aaron's son William – was located on the west side of the Mystic River about two miles south of Old Mystic, at the top of what is now known as Stark's Hill and not very far from the decisive battle of the Pequot War.³⁵ Stark purchased this property from the Reverend William Thompson, a well-known missionary to the Indians. Aaron and his family probably moved to New London between May 1666 and December 1667, when he appears on a minister's list there. Aaron became a freeman In New London in October 1669, after which (on September 30, 1670) he sold his land in Stonington. A few days later, he also sold the 50 acres in Preston, Connecticut, that he had previously received for his service in the Pequot War but also probably never inhabited. Perhaps Aaron used the proceeds of these sales, along with income received from Mason between 1664 and 1666, to help pay for his purchase of Thompson's property in Groton.

The fact that in 1664 Stark had been selected in Stonington to warn Indians off the town's lands, reinforces the idea that Aaron had for years been an active participant in the raids Captain Mason led against the Indians and their settlements. References to Aaron in contemporary documents also hint that he helped to enforce the laws, collect taxes, and so forth, so perhaps he was something of an informal constable. Perhaps the 150 acres he received in March 1664/65 was the town's way of compensating him for such duties. In any case, we can second the observation of one Stark researcher that Aaron not only survived his early encounters with Connecticut law and Puritan mores but ultimately became a solid citizen.

A few years later, Aaron Stark may have volunteered again, this time for service in what is usually called King Philip's War (1675-1677). This war was the result of continuing friction between the ever-growing numbers of European colonists and the Indian tribes native to New England.³⁶ King Philip's War was another major conflict that involved Indian raids on numerous backcountry towns and settler retaliation against tribes from Maine to the Connecticut Valley. Many casualties and much destruction resulted until the surviving Indians were eventually subjugated and driven northward and westward. Most of the fighting was outside of Connecticut, but on March 13, 1676, much of Groton was burned in a surprise attack; we do not know whether Aaron Stark's property was affected.

Connecticut supplied about one-third of the total armed forces raised to deal with the Indian threat. We do not know whether it was Aaron Stark (then apparently in his sixties, if we trust the testimony dating his birth in 1608) or his son Aaron who is listed as a soldier in this war and subsequently received land for service in it. The evidence strongly suggests that the Aaron Stark who is listed among the volunteers for this war was the younger one, but we cannot be entirely sure. (In any case, the award for King Philip's War was in Voluntown, some distance from where the Starks lived, and there is no evidence any of them actually lived there.)

We do know that the Aaron Stark born in 1608 died in either Groton or Stonington (probably the former) sometime before June 3, 1685, the date his estate was inventoried. He was buried in Stonington.³⁷ His wife, Sarah, is known to have been alive in 1670, and some Stark researchers wonder if she, a woman still in her 40s with one or two daughters at home, might have remarried after Aaron's death in 1685. Some land transactions suggest that she did, and that Sarah's second husband was a man named Rogers. Unfortunately, there is too little evidence to make a determination of this matter.

Before we leave Aaron Stark, it seems fitting to note that his name lives on thanks to a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, a Maine poet who lived during the late 19th century and early 20th century. Included in his book Children of the Night is the following poem, which may have been inspired by something Robinson read about him in a sourcebook on New England history:

Although the Stark line traces to Scotland, through Aaron, it may in fact be German. One tradition in the Stark family recounts how the Starks were hired in 1495 when the Duchess of Burgundy decided to send a body of soldiers under General Martin Swart to support an invasion of England on behalf of a pretender to the throne of Henry VII, Perkin Warbeck.³⁸ The invaders were defeated on the Plain of Stoke near Newark (England) in 1487, and those who survived fled to Scotland, where the king protected them. Another family tradition traces the Starks back to the 6th century in Germany and says that its name, Stark, was awarded to one member in Scotland in 1480 for his conspicuous bravery in battle. Both Starks who trace their origins to Scotland and Starks who came to America from Germany in the 20th century have a strong oral tradition that their ancestors saw military service in Germany hundreds of years earlier, and this tradition probably is based on fact.

With this speculation we have exhausted our knowledge of the Stark line, which in America traces back from Rebecca {Stark} Chastain to Abraham and Sarah Stark, her parents, to the two sons of Jonathan Stark: Daniel and Christopher. From Jonathan the line runs through William and his father, also named William, to Aaron Stark the immigrant. It is worth remembering as we leave the Starks that some of them were fervent Baptists who made notable contributions to their church and beyond.

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rev. 7/11/08

Notes

¹One source says 1731, but this is too late: Sarah had a son born in 1741.

²One source states that Sarah's mother was Sarah {Moore} Laycock, daughter of Alexander and Nancy Moore, and that she was born in Trenton, New Jersey, about 1698. I have seen no documentary evidence to support this statement. This source also states that Joseph Laycock was born in Trenton about 1696, but I think the evidence is stronger that Joseph was born in Lancashire, England, instead. The site of Trenton, at the falls of the Delaware River, was a settlement of Quaker immigrants from Yorkshire, England, referred to before 1679 as "the Yorkshire Tenth." Return to text

³Some of these places may be the result of guesswork rather than evidence. The location of Newtown is not clear but may have been somewhere in Burlington County. It is worth noting that the Wells family, which like the Laycock family intermarried with the Stark family, lived in Burlington, New Jersey, at about the same time. Information in New Jersey wills and elsewhere brings to our attention a Robert Lacock or Leacock who was well placed to be Joseph's father. This man, a merchant in New York City who apparently died in February 1695, owned property in Monmouth County, New Jersey. Return to text

⁴The spelling of Knollton is uncertain, as the present town is spelled Knowlton. One source states that the church was atop a knoll, however, and so the original spelling may have been Knollton. Return to text

⁵It is not clear on which tributary of the Delaware the mill was located. It would appear that the settlement around Bethlehem Church was known first by that church's name but sometime afterwards adopted its present name of Baptistown. (The church no longer exists.) Bethlehem is today the name of a township in Hunterdon County, Kingwood Township (where Baptistown is located) having been formed out of it. For the views (in 2004) of possible sites of the original Bethlehem Church, see slides 10874, 10884, and 10888. Just north of Baptistown on Route 519 is an ideal location for a mill (indeed, there is an old mill and mill pond at this place). Might Jonathan Stark's mill have been here? See slides 10877-83, also taken in 2004. Return to text

⁶See slide 12996 for a view of the mouth of Limestone Creek and slide 12995 for the present site of the cemetery of the Washington Baptist Church in Washington, Kentucky, presumable the site of the church itself. Both of these slides were taken in 2008. Return to text

⁷Some sources state that William Stark, Jr., married a second time, to a woman named Jane, in 1720 or 1721, but if he did remarry it could not have been before 1724. There is also evidence to suggest that Experience {Lamb} Stark married again, on December 13, 1738, to a man named John Larkin. This would be consistent with our speculation about the date of death of William Stark, Jr. – and would also rule out a second marriage for him. John Larkin had been married previously to a woman named Elizabeth Roos, who died in 1737. For the Road Church, see the USGS map for Stonington/Connecticut and slides 10837-39, taken in 2004.

⁸During these years, a freeman had to be at least 21 years of age, not bonded or indentured, a member of the established church, and a landowner. That qualified him to take an oath to the English crown and made him eligible to be a freeman if the existing freemen voted their approval. Each town had its own body of freemen. Return to text

⁹Some researchers believe Elizabeth's family name was Hempstead, but recent research casts doubt on this. Return to text

¹⁰See the USGS map for Uncasville/Connecticut and slides 10822-24 for views of Isaac Lamb's home. Slides 10825 and 10827 show some of Lamb's likely property. All these slides were taken in 2004.

¹¹Isaac Lamb's will was proved on July 2, 1723. Return to text

¹²After John Lamb's death, Ann may have married a man named Rowland Powell, but there is some doubt that she did. The Salmon Falls River is the name of the upper reaches of the Piscataqua River, which divides Maine and New Hampshire. See the USGS map for Dover East/New Hampshire. Return to text

¹³See the USGS map for Dover East/New Hampshire for Great Works River.

¹⁴This site may refer to where the Pequot Trail crosses the Mystic River, which is in what is today Old Mystic, Connecticut. See the USGS map for Old Mystic/Connecticut and slides 10834-35 (taken in 2004) for two possible locations of this rented mill site in Old Mystic. Return to text

¹⁵Another researcher's guess is that Elizabeth Stark was from the More family, but I have seen no evidence to indicate this is so. Return to text

¹⁶There are alternate dates and places for both William and Elizabeth. Some sources say he was born in Mystic, Connecticut, in 1664 or in Groton, Connecticut, about 1665. Some Stark researchers state that Elizabeth was born about 1660 or in 1674. Return to text

¹⁷Cow Hill, presumably the place better known as Stark's Hill, is found on the USGS map for Old Mystic/Connecticut. There are several places in Connecticut known as Fort Hill. The closest one to where we think Stark lived is the one (found on the USGS map for New London/Connecticut) that may have been the site of the Pequot War battle in 1637. I do not know where Musoe Rock or Contary Road are located, but the latter must be a misreading of "County" Road – which does exist in this area. For views of William Stark's property in 2004, see slides 10818-21 and 10828-33. Slides 10818-21 and 010831-32 focus on possible locations for Stark's sawmill. Slides 10828-30 and 10832 focus on possible locations of Stark's residence. Return to text

¹⁸For the location of the Road Church, see the USGS map for Stonington/Connecticut and slides 10837-39, taken in 2004. Return to text

¹⁹New England communities maintained tight control over who could and could not live in them, in part to ensure "right" thinking and in part to exclude those who were likely to require economic assistance from the community. Return to text

²⁰William Stark's original house was presumably the same one that his father Aaron had lived in. After its presentation to Wightman, it was used as the manse for the Baptist church. For views of its possible location, see slides 10846-48 (2004) and the USGS map for Uncasville/Connecticut. When it burned sometime during the 20th century, this structure was reputed to be the oldest extant manse in America. Return to text

²¹Qualification required applicants to swear an oath to the monarch and to deny the doctrine of transubstantiation but did not exempt them from paying taxes to support the established Congregational Church.

²²For 2004 views of the site of the original Baptist church, see slides 10813 and 010816. A plain and simple (and unheated) structure, this church was razed in 1790 and a second one was erected on the same spot. This spot is now just east of the entrance to the Wightman Cemetery.

²³This point of view was espoused by a group called the Rogerenes, named for a New London family the Starks surely knew. This group, which predates and was not connected with the Seventh Day Adventists, rejected the concept of a special sabbath day and to make their point often brought their work to worship with them. Return to text

²⁴The language of William Stark's bequest implies that the land he gave for the cemetery was already being used as a burying ground. See the USGS map for Old Mystic/Connecticut and information (based on a 1911 visit to the area) in my files. As noted above, the original Baptist church adjoined the cemetery. For views of William Stark's grave markers, see slides 10814-15 and 10849-51, taken in 2004. The last of these shows a place next to Stark where his wife, Elizabeth, may have been buried. Return to text

²⁵Some Stark researchers believe that Aaron married a woman named Sarah in Mystic, Connecticut, on December 17, 1645, or in 1649. They also give Sarah's year of birth as 1620 and say it was in New London, Connecticut, but this date surely is too early for that location. Return to text

²⁶Broadly speaking, Aaron Stark came to New England as part of the "Great Migration," which saw more than 30,000 newcomers arrive between 1629 and 1640. Most of this migration was caused by religious and political conflicts in England, but there were other reasons why persons would choose to emigrate to America and Aaron very likely came for other than religious reasons. Return to text

²⁷A leading nonconformist minister, Hooker was repeatedly in hot water with the Puritan establishment and finally decided to strike out for the wilderness. He is considered the founder of Connecticut.

²⁸There is a neat irony here: the movement of English settlers into Connecticut caused alarm in Dutch New Netherland, which also eyed this area, and then friction between the two groups. Members of my family were on both sides of this issue during the 1630s. Return to text

²⁹Stark's later deposition says that he was landed in Narragansett country. The Pequots for all intents and purposes disappeared, or were absorbed into other tribes, but during the 1980s and 1990s the recognized remnants (many having only a small amount of Pequot blood) aggressively developed casinos and made this small tribe into the wealthiest one in the United States. Its museum on Pequot culture at the Foxwoods Casino is outstanding. Aaron Stark and his contemporaries doubtless would be astounded by the tribe's renaissance and current prosperity. The precise site of the Pequot camp and subsequent battle is not known. A historical marker commemorates the event, but how the location for it was chose is not known. Return to text

³⁰One source, often quoted, reports this early description of Aaron Stark as "uncompromising." Although this almost-identical word may well fit Aaron (and some of his descendants too), the original word used was "unpromising."

³¹Some researchers have inferred from the language found in the court records that Mary Holt had become pregnant and perhaps gave birth, but there is room for doubt about this. Some researchers also believe that the R stood for "ravisher," which would imply that Aaron Stark (and the others?) were regarded as having taken Mary Holt by force, but again the evidence is far from conclusive. Reading between the lines of the document in question, it would appear that Mary did not report her encounter or encounters with Aaron and the others until her pregnancy was evident, and by then she could not identify the actual father. Thus all three men were accused. The fact that Aaron was ordered to pay Mary's parents suggests that she was rather young, and some researchers believe that she was a servant girl of some sort. Return to text

³²It may be significant that Rev. Thomas Hooker came to the colony from the Netherlands at about the same time. Return to text

³³For the approximate location of the land of Mason on which Aaron Stark may have worked, see the USGS map for Mystic/Connecticut and slide 10843, taken in 2004. Return to text

³⁴To become a freeman Aaron Stark must have been at least nominally a Puritan, but the fact that his son William was not baptized until he was an adult suggests that Aaron was something less than a zealous Puritan – which in light of his early history should not surprise us. Nor did Aaron receive his reward (in land) for his service in the Pequot War until many years after other participants in that war got theirs, which also suggests that he remained apart from the church until the 1660s. Perhaps it is no surprise that his son William became a dissenter. Return to text

³⁵ See the USGS map for Mystic/Connecticut and Old Mystic/Connecticut, respectively, for Stonington and Stark's Hill. Aaron's property was near the juncture of Cold Spring Road and Route 184. Return to text

³⁶This conflict is also called Metacom's War. Return to text

³⁷Aaron's son did not donate land for a cemetery until many years later, but Aaron's remains may have been transferred to the Wightman Burying Ground when that happened. One source states that Aaron's father was also named Aaron, a man born about 1582. Another source contends, though, that he was a man named John Stark, born in Auchenstarie, Scotland, before 1591 and died before 1647. Neither of these assertions has any evidence to support it, unfortunately. Return to text

³⁸Warbeck claimed to be Richard, brother of King Edward V. He was captured by King Henry VII in 1497 and executed in 1499. Return to text

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