TWELFTH GENERATION

3844. The Reverend Zechariah Symmes was born on Apr 5 1599 in Canterbury, Kent, England. He died on Feb 14 1670/71 in Charlestown, Massachusetts. The Reverend Zechariah Symmes was one of the most important clergymen in the early Massachusetts Bay Colony, his virtues and those of his wife being lengthily extolled by Cotton Mather in his Magnalia. Symmes was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge--that hotbed of Puritanism--and graduated in 1620. He was a lecturer at St. Anthony's in London, but he moved to Dunstable in Bedfordshire to escape persecution.

He arrived in Boston on Sep 18, 1634, on board the Griffin, with two hundred other passengers including William and Anne Hutchinson, at whose trial he would testify, and the Reverend John Lothrop (No. 7576.).

He was admitted to the Church in Charlestown on Dec 6 1634, and on the 22nd of that month was elected its preacher. He would hold that post for more than thirty years. In 1648 he received a salary of ninety pounds, the largest salary in the colony. (One begins to get an inkling of the Puritan world when one thinks about the largest salary in the colony going to a clergyman.) In addition to his salary the town settled on him 300 acres of farmland extending north from Mystic Pond to the borders of Woburn.

At his death, his estate amounted to 681 pounds, including 85 pounds, 10 shillings and 3 pence worth of books, a very large library for that time and place. He was buried at town expense and the gravestone, now obliterated, read in part

A prophet lies beneath this stone:
His words shall live, though he be gone.

He was married to Sarah Baker about Jul 1621 in Probably London, England.

3845. Sarah Baker. Children were:

i. Unnamed Symmes was born about 1623. He died at birth.
ii. Sarah Symmes was born about 1625.
1922 iii. Captain William Symmes.
iv. Mary Symmes was born before Apr 16 1628. She died on Feb 20 1650/51.
v. Elizabeh Symmes was born before Jan 1 1629/30.
vi. Huldah Symmes was born before Mar 18 1630/31.
vii. Hannah Symmes was born before Aug 22 1732. She died young.
viii. Rebecca Symmes was born before Feb 12 1633/34.
ix. Ruth Symmes was born on Oct 10 1635.
x. Zechariah Symmes was born on Jan 9 1637/38. He died on Mar 22 1707/8.
xi. Timothy Symmes was born on May 7 1640. He died on Sep 23 1641.
xii. Deborah Symmes was born on Aug 28 1642.
xiii. Timothy Symmes was born in 1643. He died on Jul 4 1678.

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