John Scudder^{[1, 2, 3]}

Abt 1620 - Bef 1698  (< 77 years)

• Name	John Scudder
  Birth	Abt 1620	Horton Kirby, Kent, England   [4]
  	Family was from Horton Kirby, Kent, England as shown by the will of his father Henry Scudder, yeoman of Horton Kirby, Kent, dated 29 September 1594. This will shows extensive properties in the near vicinity and notes his mansion house at Horton Kirby.
  Gender	Male
  Death	Bef 1698	Newtown, Queens, New York, British Colonial America
  Person ID	I210	Scudder
  Last Modified	2 Mar 2020

  
  

  Father	Thomas Scudder,   b. Abt 1587, Horton Kirby, Kent, England d. Aft 30 Sep 1657, Salem, Essex, Massachusetts (Age > 70 years)
  Mother	Elizabeth,   b. Abt 1590, England d. 9 Sep 1666, Salem, Essex, Massachusetts (Age 76 years)
  Marriage	Bef 1615	Kent, England
  Family ID	F49	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Mary King,   b. Abt 1623, England d. unknown, Newtown, Queens, New York, British Colonial America
  Marriage	1642	Salem, Massachusetts, British Colonial America   [5]
  Children	1. Samuel Scudder, I,   b. Abt 1643, Salem, Essex, Massachusetts, British Colonial America d. Nov 1688/1689, Newtown, Queens, New York (Age 46 years)   2. John Scudder,   b. 19 Aug 1645, Salem, Essex, Massachusetts d. 1 Dec 1732, Newtown, Queens, New York (Age 87 years)   3. Mary Scudder,   c. 11 Apr 1648, Salem, Essex, Massachusetts d. Deceased   4. Elizabeth Scudder,   c. 18 Mar 1649/50, Salem, Essex, Massachusetts d. Aft 1712, Monmouth county, New Jersey, Brtish Colonial America (Age ~ 63 years)   5. Hannah Scudder,   b. 16 Jul 1649, Salem, Essex, Massachusetts d. Abt Jul 1679, Hempstead, Queens, New York (Age 29 years)
  Family ID	F115	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	3 Mar 2024

  
  

• Notes

  John Scudder was the 2nd son of immigrant Thomas Scudder I and his wife Elizabeth (unknown). The Scudder Association Foundation refers to Thomas, as (T), progenitor of the (T) Scudder line in America. John's mother (and Thomas's wife) was not Elizabeth Lowers who married a different Scudder, relationship not currently known but who is not on the direct ancestral line of the immigrants. See "Thomas Scudder Did Not Marry Elizabeth Lowers! She Was Another Man's Wife!–Corrections # 2," Scudder Family Historical & Biographical Journal, volume 1, no. 3, (December 2019), https://scudder.org/correction-2-thomas-scudder-elizabeth-lowers/. John Scudder md. at Salem, Massachusetts in 1642 to Mary King, daughter of William King and Dorothy (unknown) of Salem. Undocumented speculations have given Dorothy and William inaccurate identities. For the most recent NEHGS scholarship see The Great Migration, v. 4, I–L, p. 177, that states the problem that came from unproven speculations: "In 1902 Lucy D. Akerly (and apparently Rufus King) took note of the marriage at Sherborne, Dorset, on 17 February 1616/17 of William King and Dorothy H ayne, and suggested that this marriage pertained to this immigrant. In 1918 J. Gardner Baett stated (without proving any evidence or argumentation) that William King had two wives, of whom Dorothy was the second, and that he had four children with each of these wives.... "These two hypotheses are mutually exclusive. The English marriage record is certainly possible, but it seems a few years too early, based on both the approximate age of William and the ages of his children. Bartlett may have based his arrangnt of the family on the apparent gap of six years between the birthdates of the fourth and fifth children. The gap is not, however, as great as this, and the total range of dates of birth for the eight children, from about 1623 [Mary's age at immigration] to 1641, is well within the fertility span of a single woman. We do not subscribe to either of these hypotheses, and simply state that William had a wife Dorothy, surname unknown." The Scudder Association Foundation adds: There are a great many William Kings in England and several who married Dorothys that are more in line with the family's ages at immigration, but discourage speculations for any of them. Also to be considered is how many people in the early time do not have records that survive. John Scudder was an inhabitant at Maspeth Kills before 15 December 1659 when John Pudington of Maspeth Kills acknowledged conveyance of James Reilly of Maspeth Kills to John Scudar inhabitant of the same Place, of land Pudington had previously conveyed to Reilly. James Reilly assigned Right and title to John Scuder inhabitant of Mach Keells, on 4 June 1660. Town Minutes of Newtown, v. 1, pp. 27–28. There is an usual conveyance on the Town Minutes of Newtown, v. II, p. 230. On 13 December 1680, John Scudder, Sr. conveyed his estate to his son Samuel in exchange for Samuel's services to provide maintenance for him and his wife Mary for their lifetimes. The instrument states: " desember the 13th 1680 Know all home [whom] it may Concerne that I John Scudder sener:att prsent in habitant in Mashpath Kills in the bounds of newtown in the west Riding of york sheere on long Island doe by these prsents make over my whole Estate Exsepting my beede & some Jadges [?] which I hv Runing in the bounds of hempsteede:unto my sonn Samuell Scudder to have & to hould as his one proper Rite to him his Eayres Exctors administrators or asings the a bove Mentioned samuell scudder my sonn:only to alow my selfe & my wife. Comfortable & convenant mayntanence out of it during our life times & this I the above mentioned John scuder doe declare Ratify & Con farme to by my unchangable will Concerning the primises a bove mentioned & for the Confermation heare of I sett to my hand & Seale the day & date a bove mentioned John Scudder Samuell scudder Wittnessed singed [sic] (s) sealed & delivered In the prsents of us John denman his harman X Jonson Mark" John was a currier; a person who dresses, dyes, and colours leather. During June 1650, he was regularly excused from military training because of his trade, since leather might spoil after a day's absence. He was obliged, however, to pay an 18 pence fine for each day of training he had to miss. When he married in 1642, he was granted a half acre lot as a house lot near his 10 acres, located by Kings Cove in "Royalls Neck." This half acre was for "other uses" so he may have had his business there. Although the Dutch had established New Amsterdam on the southern tip of Manhattan Island in 1624, with subsequent villages established in Brooklyn shortly thereafter, the colonization of the eastern end of the Long Island did not immediately follow. It was not until the late 1630's that individual families began acquiring land and settling there and not until 1640 that a town was established. On the north fork of the island a settlement was established at Southold in October 1640, by a group of Puritans from Southwold and Hingham, England, by way of New Haven, under the leadership of the Reverend John Youngs. Augustus Griffin, author of Southold's first history, wrote in 1857, "a company consisting of 13 men, with their families left their mother country, old England, about the year 1638, for a newly discovered World, known as America. After a passage of some weeks, they arrived at New Haven, then a small village in the then colony of Connecticut. At this place they stopped until early in the autumn of 1640, having made their stay there about two years." While this settlement was the first organized community, the Puritans under Reverend Youngs were not the first English inhabitants of the area. The first footholds were established by individual pioneers, by some indications as early as 1636. One of them, who had already built a home and made other improvements, sold his property four days after Reverend Youngs had "gathered his church anew" on October 21, 1640. In 1655, John sold his house in Massachusetts and moved to Southold, Long Island. Economically, the region was heavily dependent on small farming, with fishing along the coastal areas, and trade with New England. With the defeat of the Dutch in 1664, all of Long Island was annexed into the new English colony under the control of James, Duke of York, brother of King Charles II. The new situation included the imposition of new laws dictated by York. Although loosely based on English common law, these new dictates did not include a representative assembly and required all trade to flow through the port of New York. This imposition generated much resentment among the settlers of eastern Long Island. Three east end towns went so far as to petition the king in 1672 for a return to Connecticut's jurisdiction. On 13 December 1680 John gave his estate to his son, Samuel, in exchange for the maintenance of himself and Mary for the remainder of their lives. This was later undone as Samuel died by 1689 and one implication is that the parents outlived Samuel. Their property was inherited by their son John II.

  
  

• Sources

  [S127] Ancestral File (R). [S15] Genealogy of Early Settlers of Trenton and Ewing, "Old Hunterdon County," New Jersey, 217. [S1509] John Scudder Town Minutes of Newtown. [S4] Scudder Family in America: The Beginnings, Vol. I, No. 2, pp. 7-9. [S4] Scudder Family in America: The Beginnings, Vol. I, No. 2, p. 9.