John Aylett and Mary Pope

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Husband John Aylett

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           Born: 
     Christened: 
           Died: 1640 - Maldon, Essex, England
         Buried: 

       Marriage: 

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Wife Mary Pope

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           Born: Abt 1605
     Christened: 
           Died: 8 Feb 1693 - Chelmsford, Ma 1
         Buried:  - Forefathers Burial Ground, Chelmsford, Middlesex Co., Massachusetts

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   Other Spouse: John Poulter (      -1639)

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   Other Spouse: John Parker (1615-1667) - 23 Jun 1642 - Great Burstead, Essex

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   Other Spouse: Thomas Chamberlain (      -      ) - 16 Apr 1674 - Billerica, Middlesex Co., Ma 2

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Children

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General Notes: Husband - John Aylett

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See notes under his wife Mary Pope.

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General Notes: Wife - Mary Pope

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The following detailed discussion of Mary's probable marriage to John Aylett is on pages 83-86 of the article by Douglas Richardson in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (Vol 153 (1999), pgs 81-96).

The fact that Edward Converse's first wife, Sarah, was a Parker, explains Edward's having referred to John Parker of Billerica as "kinsman" in his will dated 1659. Research in the Essex Record Office in Chelmsford, Essex, was commissioned in 1976 and again in 1990 by Marian Parker Congdon (Mrs. Guilford) of Atherton, California, a Parker family historian.[12] Both searches located the baptisms of four of the five immigrant Parker brothers: John (1615), Abraham (1619), Joseph (1622), and Jacob (1626), all sons of John Parker of the parish of Great Burstead. Although the baptism of the fifth brother, James Parker, was not located, his estimated birth date of 1617, indicated by both a deposition and the will he made as an adult in New England, is consistent with the gap between the baptisms of his brothers John and Abraham.

While the discovery of the four baptisms was encouraging, conclusive proof that these were the baptisms of the Parker brothers appeared to be lacking, as no will could be found for John Parker, the putative father of the immigrants. It was known that the eldest brother, John Parker (the immigrant to New England), had married, at an unknown date after 1639, Mary, widow of John Poulter of Rayleigh, Essex. As Rayleigh and Great Burstead are in the same general vicinity, it is natural to suppose that this couple married in England prior to their emigration sometime before 1649, but no record of the marriage of John Parker and Mary Poulter has been found in English records.[13]

However, a close review of the Great Burstead parish records shows that a John Parker and Mary Aylett, widow, were married there in 1642. Although the bride's name was clearly Aylett, it suggested to this writer that the widow Poulter might have had a brief second marriage to a man named Aylett, after the death of her husband, John Poulter, in 1639, and before she married John Parker in 1642.

Searches failed to locate such a marriage about 1640, but the will of John Aylett of Rayleigh, Essex, yeoman, proved in 1640, was found and compared with the will of Mary Poulter's first husband, John Poulter of Rayleigh, proved in 1639.

In his will, dated and signed 18 March 1638[/9], John Poulter left to his son John Poulter £50 at age 21, and to daughters Mary and Elizabeth Poulter £100 each at age 21 or marriage. If any of the children died before inheriting, their portion[s] were to go to his loving wife Mary Poulter, who was to pay the children's legacies to his overseers within six weeks after his death, to be "put out by them unto the best advantage and sufficient bond to be taken for the childrens better assurance and the use to be for the mayntenance and bringing of my said children or so many of them as shall 1ive." He bequeathed "unto Marie Poulter my mother" 40s to buy her a ring for a remembrance. He made other bequests: 20s each to "Anne Hayward my Aunt", Anne Hudson, Richard Abrahams the son of Richard Abrahams, and William Brewster. Jane Broadwater and Elizabeth Broadwater were to have 5s each, and William Clements 10s. His wife Mary was to "have the keeping governance & bringing up of my said children during theire nonages." All the rest of his estate was to go to his wife Mary, who was appointed executrix, with Thomas Purchas, clerk, and John Sharpe, yeoman, as overseers, each to have 20s for a remembrance. He added a bequest "unto Marie Pope my mother in law," £5 to be paid unto her for years at 20s a year "if she shall so long live." Witnesses were John Horsnayle, William Brewster, and John Offen [his mark]. The will was proved at Great Baddow, Essex, 30 May 1639, before Richard Baylie on the oath of Mary Poulter, relict of the said deceased and the executrix named in the said testament, to whom was committed the administration of the said deceased's estate.[14]

John Aylet of Rayleigh in the County of Essex draper, signed his will 9 March 1639[/40], noting that he was "sicke of body." Following the usual preamble, he stated:

And for my worldly estate I thus dispose. ...unto my brother Gyles Aylett of Sutton magna 40s to buy him a ring. ...unto my brother Richard Aylett of Leighe £5 to be paid unto him when he shall accomplishe his age of fowre & twentie yeares. ...unto my Cosen Edward Young of Thundersley 20s. ...unto my servant John Parker 20s. ...unto my servant Elizabeth Broadewater 20s. ...The rest of all my goods chatttells and moveables my debts and legacies being paid I give and bequeath unto Mary my beloved wife whom I make sole executrix of this my last will and testament. ...Witnesses Stephen Vassall, Thomas Gresby, John Parker.

The will was proved at Maldon, Essex, 17 April 1640, before Richard Baylie on the oath of Mary Aylett, relict of the said deceased and the executrix named in the said will, to whom was committed the administration of the said deceased's estate.[15]

Both John Poulter and John Aylett had a wife named Mary and both left bequests to a certain Elizabeth Broadwater, who in Aylett's will is called "my servant." This suggests that Elizabeth had been a servant in the household of John Poulter, and subsequently in the Aylett household when her mistress remarried. We can suppose that both men were fairly young when they died as John Poulter's three children are known to have been born between about 1631 and 1635, whereas John Aylett was born after 1606, and, in 1640 he had a brother, Richard, under 24 years of age.[16] Likewise, if John Aylett's wife, Mary, was the widow of John Poulter, it would necessarily have been a brief marriage, and probably childless, which is consistent with the fact that Aylett's will mentions no children. The will of John Aylett fits all the necessary criteria for him to have been the husband of Mary Poulter, barring a specific bequest in his will to her Poulter children.

Perhaps the singular most significant thing about John Aylett's will is a bequest of 20s to his servant, John Parker. It seems likely that John Parker is the immigrant to New England, and that he married Mary, the widow of his former master, John Aylett, and earlier the wife of John Poulter. John Parker, baptized at Great Burstead, Essex in 1615, was approximately ten years younger than his wife, Mary, who was born about 1605, if her age of 88 years at death in 1693 was correctly stated. At the time of their marriage in 1642, John Parker and the widow Mary Aylett (formerly Poulter) would have been 27 and 37 years old respectively.

In summary, combining previously known evidence with new discoveries, we find that the parish records of Great Burstead, Essex, include the baptisms of four of the five Parker brothers and the marriage of Sarah Parker to Edward Converse, as well as the previously undetected marriages of the immigrant, John Parker, to Mary Aylett, widow, in 1642, and of his brother, Joseph Parker, to Margaret Puttow (or Putton) in 1650.[17]

Additional research into the Parker family of Great Burstead has traced this family's ancestry to a certain John Parker, husbandman, who died leaving a will proved in 1581. Although the parish registers of Great Burstead appear to have been poorly kept over many years and very few Parker family wills are available, the following tentative reconstruction of the family has been made.[l8] While it is still unproven how closely related Sarah Parker, wife of Edward Converse, was to the five immigrant Parker brothers, for the purposes of this article it is assumed that she was their aunt, named for a Sarah Parker found in an earlier generation.[l9]

Footnotes:

12. This search was repeated in 1990, at Mrs. Congdon's request, by Debrett Ancestry Service, Limited, of Alresford, Hampshire.

13. Mary Walton Ferris suggested that the couple married in America after both parties had immigrated (Dawes-Gates Ancestral Lines [note 1], 1:499).

14. Court of the Archdeacon of Essex, Registered Wills, 49 ER 20, otherwise Register Whitehead, folio 49 (FHL microfilm 91,218). An abstract of the will of John Poulter appears in Register, 141 [1987]:216-217.

15. Court of the Archdeacon of Essex, Registered Wills, 78 ER 20, otherwise Register Whitehead, folio 78 (FHL micro 91,218).

16. It is certain that John Aylett was born after 1606, as his parents, Rev. Giles Aylett, M.A., clerk, parson of Sutton, Essex, bachelor, and Mary Thurgood, daughter of Robert Thurgood of Magdalen Laver, Essex, yeoman, married in that year at Chelmsford, Essex (Boyd's Marriage Index, Essex [FHL micro 6,026,993 (Ailett)]; cf. Joseph Foster, London Marriage Licenses, 1521-1869 [London: B. Quaritch, 1887], 56). John Aylett's parentage is proven by the will of his mother, Mary Aylet, widow, of Sutton Magna, Essex, dated 7 April 1634, proved 14 Dec. 1635, in which she named her sons Giles, John, and Richard Aylet; grandson Thomas Westbrok; and son-in-law Thomas Westbrok (Court of the Bishop of London's Commissary, Original Wills, 68 BW 53 [FHL microfilm 94,422]).

17. Besides the five Parker brothers and their probable aunt, Sarah (Parker) Converse, research indicates that another immigrant, Joseph Hills of Malden, Mass., came from Great Burstead. Possibly the Hills and Parker families were related in England - Joseph Hills' son-in-law, Capt. John Waite of Malden married, second, Sarah, widow of Jacob Parker.

18. The parish of Great Burstead included the site of an episcopal chapel (formerly a chapel of ease) located in the market-town of Billericay. In 1840, the chapel was described as an "ancient brick building in the center of the town erected probably in the 14th Century" (Samuel Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of England, 4th ed., 4 vols. [London: S. Lewis & Co., 1840], 1:206). If some of the local church rites were performed in the Billericay chapel, it might explain the poor recordkeeping of the Great Burstead parish registers.

19. This placement of Sarah (Parker) Converse is consistent with the chronology of both the Converse and Parker families and with the other known facts of the Parker family. Below, Sarah (Parker) Converse is shown as the daughter of John Parker and the sister of John and James Parker, all of Great Burstead. Having male relatives named John and James Parker accounts for the appearance of the given names, John and James, among Sarah (Parker) Converse's children, as these names were not used in the previous generation in her husband's family.

MAIDEN NAME:

John Poulter in his will refers to his mother-in-law as Marie Pope. 'Pope' might be the maiden name of John Poulter's wife Mary, or it might be the surname of a later husband of Mary's mother.

1 "Find-a-Grave," Memorial # 18168097.

2 Vital Records of Billerica, Massachusetts, Repository: http://ma-vitalrecords.org/.