An American Family History

Humphrey Bradstreet was born in England about 1596. His possible ancestry is described below.

He married Bridget Harris in 1622. Their children and life together are described in detail in the section on Humphrey and Bridget Bradstreet.

He was 40 years old when he came to America in 1634. He settled in Ipswich, Massachusetts. He was admitted as a freeman on May 6, 1635 along with Richard Kimball and was made a representative to the general court in 1635.

He made his will on July 21, 1655. He died on July 25, 1655. “As he lived near Rowley line, he ordered his body to be put in the graveyard there.” 

The will of John Bradstreet of Capel, dated 1610, mentions a nephew Humphrey Bradstreet, probably the emigrant Humphrey Bradstreet, aged 40, who came in 1634 from Ipswich in the ship Elizabeth with wife Bridget and children Hannah, John, Martha, and Mary. It will be remembered that Isaac Mixer and his family, who came in the same ship, were also from Capel (register, vol. 63, p. 277).

I believe John of Capel, the testator of 1610, and his brother Thomas (probably father of Humfrey), to be the sons of that name born to Humfrey Bradstreet of Gislingham in 1568 and 1571. I also believe that the son Simon Bradstreet, mentioned in the will of John Bradstreet of Gislingham in 1559, was the father of Rev. Simon Bradstreet and grandfather of Governor Simon Bradstreet [husband of Anne Dudley Bradstreet]. It is known that the Governor's father. Rev. Simon, born about 1565-70, was a minister and held a living at Horbling, Lincolnshire, where the Governor was born in 1603, and that before this he held a living at Hinderclay, co. Suffolk, which is only five miles from Gislingham. (For the will of Rev. Simon Bradstreet of Horbling see Registry, vol. 48, p. 170.) There were Bradstreet families at Buxhall and vicinity, but there is no apparent connection with the Gislingham and Capel families. E. F.]

The above suggestion, that Humphrey Bradstreet, nephew of John of Capel, the testator of 1610, was the emigrant to New England, seems probably correct. It seems unlikely, however, that John of Capell, who died in 1610, was identical with John, born in 1571, the son of Humphrey of Gislingham. Capel, Bentley, and Wenham are adjacent parishes in Suffolk, about five miles southwest of Ipswich, and Gislingham is some thirty miles north of them. A Robert Bradstreet was taxed in Capel, and a Henry Bradstreet in Bentley, in the Suffolk Subsidy of 1568, and it is likely that one of these, probably Robert, was the father of John of Capel, the testator of 1610. In the Suffolk Subsidy of 1524 an Edmund Bradstrett and an Edmund Bradstet junior were assessed at Bentley.

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