Robert Crosby

The Yorkshire village of Holme upon Spaulding Moor is about 10 miles from the River Homden and 25 miles from the North Sea, about halfway between York and Kingston upon Hull. It took the persecutions during King Charles I's "personal rule" without Parliament and the pillorying, branding, and ear cropping of Christians who did not wholeheartedly conform to the dictates of Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud, for our ancestor Robert Crosby to uproot his family from this quiet village and embark on the dangerous Atlantic crossing to the New World. Robert Crosby is thus designated as "the Emigrant."

Robert, his half-siblings Margaret and Peter, and his wife, Constance, were part of the puritanical, idealistic Righteous Generation (his two eldest half-siblings, Richard and Ellen, were part of the adaptive Sentimental Generation). His father was part of the heroic, civic-minded Elizabethan Generation. His children were part of the reactive, nomadic Cavalier Generation.

Robert's childhood had not been easy. By the time he was ten years old, both his father, our ancestor, and his only remaining sibling (his 21-year-old half-sister Margaret) had died. Genealogist Paul W. Prindle obtained the will of Robert's father, John Crosby, from the Bartlett Collection; Dr. Bartlett had obtained it from York Wills:

To wife Jane for life the house I live in, she paying a rent of 26s. 8d. yearly to my son Robert Crosby, beginning when he is 21; and he is to have said estate at her death. If wife remarry, she to give security to Robert Millington, to keep estate in repair. If all my children die s.p., then said estate to the children of Henry Patchett and Rowland Smith. To daughter Margaret, two cows, etc. If wife be with child, it to have two cows. All residue to daughter Margaret, she to be executrix. Witnesses: John Millington, Robert Millington.

So, though half-sister Margaret had been assigned to administer the will and, at the beginning of 1605, had proved the will, she herself died soon afterward. Robert's mother, our ancestor Jane Webster Crosby, then took over administration of her estate. Unfortunately, the administration of the estates of the decedents became entangled in a legal challenge. A Richard Yeoman of Holme-on-Spaulding Moor, through his attorney--a "Mr. Fothergill"--advanced a claim against the estates. According to York Wills:

16 Jan. 1606/7 warning was made not to give administration on the estate of John Crosbie, late of Holme-on-Spaulding Moor, nor on the portion of Margarete Crosbie, late of Holme-on-Spaulding Moor, not yet administered, without first "notefying" Yeoman or his attorney.

By 13 Feb.1606/07, the Yeoman claim must have been settled: On that date 10-year-old Robert became the ward of John Webster, who was probably his uncle, and the two of them were named as co-administrator in the estates of the decedents, whose inventory was by then less than £40. (Although Robert's mother had been designated by the dying Margaret to administer the estates of both decedents in August 1605, there is no further mention of her in genealogist Prindle's account of surviving guardianship documents, so we must presume she died soon after or had at least become incapacitated.)

At the age of 26 in 1622, Robert married our ancestor, 20-year-old Constance Brigham, a local girl. With each passing year thereafter, the agents of Established Church of England were making life very difficult for "Puritans," those who wished to "purify" the Church of its "papalist" trimmings. And England was relentlessly descending into the chaos of a civil war that mirrored the Thirty Years War on the continent of Europe.

In the spring of 1635 a small party of Yorkshire adherents of Rev. Thomas Shepherd, who had been preaching in Buttercombe, a few miles north of Holme upon Spalding Moor, decided to migrate with him to New England, and went to London to embark. This group included Constance's sister, Ann Brigham Crosby, aged 25; Ann's husband, Symon (Simeon?) Crosby (a distant cousin of Robert's), 26; their 8-week-old baby, Thomas Crosby; their first cousin, Thomas Brigham VI (son of John and Constance Watson Brigham, uncle and aunt of Constance and Ann), 32. On 18 April 1635, they sailed on the Susan and Ellen for a new life in Governor John Winthrop's Massachusetts Bay Colony. To board the ship they needed to be included in the following certification:

VIII April 1635. Theis under written are to be transported to New England imbarqued in the Susan and Ellen, Edward Payne Mr (Master). The p'ties have brought certificates from y Ministers and Justices of the peace y they are no subsidy men; and are conformable to y orders and discipline of the Church of England.

Though Robert was not listed on this voyage, he and his wife, with their three surviving children, must have emigrated soon afterward: not before 1634, since the youngest of the children, Hannah, was born in that year in Holme upon Spaulding Moor; and not after 1642, Robert died in Rowley, Essex County, Massachusetts, in that year or earlier. Actually, their leaving England was probably not after 1637, since the government severely restricted emigration in that year.(1) According to William Lander (176 Gieger Rd., Cleveland, TN. 37312, WLander@aol.com) [see the "Sources" at the bottom of the page]: "I've been unable to discover when Robert Crosby brought his wife and family to New England. But Hannah, the youngest of his children was baptized on 31 October 1634 in Holme-on-Spaulding-Moor. So they would have had to have emigrated after that date. They settled in Rowley, Essex County, Massachusetts, where Robert was dead by 1642. This date is used because Constance received a grant of an acre and a half house lot in 1643."
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Year by year in the life of Robert Crosby
The life of Robert Crosby in its historical context

Descent chart

*Birth of Robert Crosby*
Baptized:	30 October 1596
Birthplace:	Holme upon Spaulding Moor, Yorkshire, England
*Parents*
Father:	John Crosby, 1556-1604 (our ancestor)
Mother:	Jane Webster (our ancestor) (d. prob. before February 1607 (2)) Jane's dying stepdaughter Margaret had appointed Jane to administer her estate in August 1605. According to William Lander (176 Gieger Rd., Cleveland, TN. 37312, WLander@aol.com): "Yet 17 months later, in February 1606/07, when her son, Robert, was being assigned as a ward and co-executor of her late husband's estate, there is no mention of her. Less than a month earlier she was conspicuous by her absence of mention in the suit filed Richard Yeoman against her late husband's estate. Had Jane died during that 17 months? Robert was her only child by John Crosby and it would seem improbable that there would be no mention of her in some fashion during these proceedings unless she was dead." To close this footnote, click the number again or click (Close)
*Siblings*
Half brother:	Richard Crosby bapt. 16 May 1580, prob. Holme-upon-Spaulding Moor, Yorkshire, England (died young)
Half sister:	Ellen Crosby bapt. 10 November 1582, prob. Holme-upon-Spaulding, Yorkshire, England (died young)
Half sister:	Margaret Crosby b. about 1584, prob. Holme-upon-Spaulding Moor, Yorkshire, England d. bet. January and August 1605, unmarried, without issue, Holme-upon-Spaulding Moor, Yorkshire, England
Half brother:	Peter Crosby b. about 1586, prob. Holme-upon-Spaulding Moor, Yorkshire, England (died young)
*Spouse and children*
Wife:	Constance Brigham, 1602-1682 (our ancestor) (daughter of Thomas Brigham V, 1576-1633 and Isabel Watson Brigham, 1561-1634, our ancestors of Holme upon Spaulding Moor, Yorkshire, England) Married 1622 Holme upon Spaulding Moor, Yorkshire, England
Son:	John Crosby bapt. 25 January 1623/24, Holme-upon-Spaulding Moor, Yorkshire, England probably died young
Daughter:	Jane Crosby bapt. 22 April 1627, Holme-upon-Spaulding Moor, Yorkshire, England m. 29 October 1644 in Rowley, Essex County, Massachusetts to John Pickard (Rowley selectman 1676, freeholder list 1677)
Daughter:	Mary Crosby, 1629-1667 (our ancestor)
Son:	Robert Crosby bapt. 22 July 1632, Holme upon Spaulding Moor, Yorkshire, England probably died young
Daughter:	Hannah Crosby bapt. 31 October 1634, Holme-upon-Spaulding Moor, Yorkshire, England m. 6 December 1655 in Rowley, Essex County, Massachusetts to Captain John Johnson (Rowley freeholder list 1677)
*Other information*
Occupation:	No firm information available: Possibly manufacture of coarse linen and hemp textiles(3). According to Fischer, David Hackett, Albion's Seed (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 151-152, quoting John Winthrop's journal (in Winthrop's Journal, ed. James K. Hosmer [2 vols. New York, 1908], II, 122 [1643]), Edward Johnson, Johnson's Wonder-working Providence, 1628-1651, ed. J. F. Jameson (New York, 1910), 58-61, Samuel Maverick, "A Brief Description of New England and Severall Townes Therein, Together with the Present Government Thereof," MAHSP, 2d series, I (1884-85), 235, and David Grayson Allen, In English Ways (Chapel Hill, NC, 1981): "[t]he town of Rowley in Massachusetts was founded by an untypical group of English Puritans who came from the East Riding of Yorkshire, and had been drawn into the great migration by the charisma of their East Anglian minister [presumably Rev. Thomas Shepherd]. Their home in the north of England had been the center for the manufacture of coarse linen and hemp textiles by a work force that consisted largely of children. The new settlement of Rowley, Massachusetts, rapidly developed the same sort of industry that had existed in Rowley, Yorkshire [about 8 miles southeast of Holme upon Spaulding Moor]. John Winthrop noted in 1643 that the American community's production of hemp and flax 'exceeded all other towns' in New England [where farming predominated]. Edward Johnson wrote of the Rowley colonists that they 'were the first people that set upon the making of cloth in this western world, for which end they built a fulling mill, and caused their little-ones to be very diligent in spinning cotton wool, many of them having been clothiers in England.' About the year 1660 Samuel Maverick described the inhabitants of Rowley as a 'very laborious people... making cloth and rugs of cotton wool and also sheep's wool.'" To close this footnote, click the number again or click (Close)
Religion:	Puritan
*Death of Robert Crosby*
Died:	Possibly in 1640 but definitely before 1642 (age 44-46)(4) Handwritten notes on a pedigree chart by Mary Edmands or her daughter, Ethel Jean Edmands Weeks, state: "Constance Brigham Crosby came over from England as a widow with Mary and two other young children." This contradicts Lander's research and indicates that Robert Crosby had already died (the handwritten notes indicate that he died in 1640, not 1642) in England, and that widow Constance must have immigrated no earlier than 1640. The other children would be Jane and Hannah, since the boys John and Robert junior had already died. To close this footnote, click the number again or click (Close)
Deathplace:	Rowley, Essex County, Massachusetts [But see the note on Robert Crosby's death]
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Sources for Robert Crosby:

For the story on the Shepherd party's voyage on the Susan and Ellen:
The Fay Family Homepage Genealogies, created by Ken and Susan Jean Fay Barbi, 1809 View Top Court, Annapolis, MD 21401-5873, phone (410) 757-5044 [Copyright � 2001], citing source "WFT Pedigree number 893."

John Crosby of Styllingfleet, Yorkshire, England, b. about 1440, constructed by William Lander, 176 Gieger Rd., Cleveland, TN. 37312 (E-mail: WLander@aol.com), � 1998 by William C. Lander.

Mr. Lander cited the following sources:

Guardianship of Robert Crosby, and the last assignment of administration of the estate of John Crosby, were apparently from Perorogative and Exchequer of York Wills, v. 29, p. 453, derived from Bartlett's research.
Walter Lee Sheppard, NEHGR, v. 120, 1966, pp. 21-25. "The Watson Ancestry of Constance (Brigham) Crosby of Holme-upon-Spalding Moor, Yorkshire, and Rowley, Mass., And Notes on the Southeron and Millington Families"
Paul W. Prindle, NEHGR, v. 119, 243, 248, October 1965. The Yorkshire Ancestry of the Three Crosby Sisters of Rowley, Mass.
Henry Cole Quimby, New England Family History, v. 1, p. 103: "Crosby, Mary, born 1628; married 16, 11 mo., 1647, Richard Longhorne"
Eleanor Davis Crosby, Simon Crosby the Emigrant, 1914, p. 5, derived from Bartlett's research.
G. B. Blodgette, Early Settlers of Rowley, Massachusetts, rev. and ed. by Amos E. Jewett. "[T]hree of Robert Crosby's daughters married Rowley men and left descendants: Jane Crosby maried 29 Oct. 1644 John Pickard and had eight children. All of whom married; Mary Crosby married 16 Jan. 1647/8 Richard Longhorne and left four surviving married daughters; and Hannah Crosby married 6 Dec. 1655 Capt. John Johnson and had three married children and many grandchildren." [This from Prindle, Yorkshire Ancestry [see above].]
Note: Most American works in the 20th century concerning the Crosby-Brigham and allied families of Holme-upon-Spaulding-Moor, Yorkshire, are founded upon the work of Dr. Joseph Gardner Bartlett, and his wife, Elizabeth French Bartlett, both professional genealogists, and both productive members of the NEHGS. Dr. Bartlett died in 1927, and his widow combined his mss. collection with her own. After her death in 1961, their combined collections were acquired by the NEHGS as the "Bartlett Collection, SG/BAR/86." Dr. Bartlett did the English research for Eleanor Davis Crosby's Simon Crosby the Emigrant, submitting to Mrs. Crosby a 237-page typewritten report. Both NEHGR articles quoted here made extensive use of the Bartlett Collection as their source. Carton 3 of the Bartlett collection contains carbons of the report by Dr. Bartlett to Mrs. Crosby along with many charts outling the collateral families associated with this Crosby line in Yorkshire.
Burke's, American Families of English Ancestry gives the line of Simeon Crosby of Cambridge, fourth cousin of Robert Crosby. This Simeon married Ann Brigham, the sister of Constance Brigham, who married Robert Crosby. Robert and Simeon Crosby were both g-g-g grandsons John Crosbye 1440-1502, the earliest known progenitor of the Crosby line.

Mary Caroline Findley Edmands, 1887-1970,.

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