An American Family History

Mary Estey Dwinnell's great grandmother, Mary Towne Estey, was executed for witchcraft in Salem in 1692. Mary's ancestors also included members of some of New England's earliest Puritan settlers. A Puritan is a member was a religious group in the 16th and 17th centuries advocating "purity" of worship and doctrine who believed in personal and group piety. Puritans were persecuted in England and came to America so they would be free to practice their religion.

The Towne family was in Salem by 1640. Jeffrey Estey was granted land in Salem in 1636. The Kimballs and the Bradstreets came on the ship “Elizabeth" which sailed from Ipswich, England in April, 1634. John Kimball and Mary Bradstreet married in 1655 in Massachusetts. John and Mary came to American on the same ship when they were both babies. Their families settled in Ipswich.

"Goodman William Towne was a man of character, substance and social position, but about a quarter of a century after his death three of his daughters were brought under the condemnation of a fanatical court on the charge of witchcraft, and two of them suffered death on the gallows while the third barely escaped a like fate at the hands of an unthinking and ill-advised judicial body. The name of Rebecca Nourse, who suffered the death of a martyr, will endure with time through centuries yet to come, and they who are her defendants, and descendants of her martyr sisters, will look back with pleasure to the fact that she and they are their ancestors, for they were good, innocent and unoffending women, the victims of fanaticism as unjust in its accusations as it was cruel and barbarous in meting out its punishments. This unfortunate episode in the history of the Towne family brought no disgrace upon the name, and there lives not one descendant of either Rebecca Towne Nourse or her sister Mary Towne Esty who cannot feel a just pride in the noble characters of those martyr mothers." William Richard Cutter

• Roger Scott
• Thomas Scott
• Ursula Scott Kimball

Jeffrey Estey & Margaret Pott 1606

Jeffrey Estey

Freston, Suffolk, England
Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts
Southold, Suffolk County, New York
Huntington, Suffolk County, New York

• Isaac Estey, Sr.
• Mary Estey
• Catherine Estey Scudder Jones

Richard Kimball and Ursula Scott 1611

Richard Kimball, Sr.

Rattlesden, Suffolk County, England
Watertown, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Ipswich, Essex County, Massachusetts

• Henry Kimball
• Abigail Kimball Severens
• Elizabeth Kimball
• Richard Kimball, Jr.
• Mary Kimball Dutch
• Martha Kimball Fowler
• John Kimball
• Thomas Kimball
• Sarah Kimball Allen
• Cornet Benjamin Kimball
• Caleb Kimball

William Towne & Joanna Blessing 1620

Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England
Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts
Topsfield, Essex County, Massachusetts

• Rebecca Towne Nurse
• John Towne
• Susannah Towne
• Sergeant Edmund Towne
• Jacob Towne
• Mary Towne Estey
• Joseph Towne
• Sarah Towne Bridges Cloyes

Humphrey Bradstreet and Bridget Harris 1622

Humphrey Bradstreet
Bridget Harris

Ipswich, Essex County, England
Ipswich (now Rowley), Essex County, Massachusetts

• Hannah Bradstreet Rolfe Holt
• John Bradstreet
• Martha Bradstreet Beale
• Mary Bradstreet Kimball
• Captain Moses Bradstreet
• Sarah Bradstreet Wallis
• Rebecca Bradstreet Bonfield
  

John Kimball and Mary Bradstreet 1655

Ipswich, Essex County, Massachusetts

• John Kimball
• Mary Kimball Knowlton
• Sarah Kimball Potter
• Hannah Kimball Carlton
• Rebecca Kimball Lull
• Elizabeth Kimball Jewett
• Corporal Richard Kimball
• Abigail Kimball Poole Estey
• John Kimball
• Benjamin Kimball
• Moses Kimball
• Aaron Kimball
• Joseph Kimball

• Isaac Estey, Jr.
• Joseph Estey
• Sarah Estey Gill Ireland
• John Estey
• Hannah Estey Abbott
• Benjamin Estey
• Samuel Estey
• Jacob Estey
• Joshua Estey

Salem Village

Isaac Estey & Abigail Kimball 1689

Topsfield, Essex County, Massachusetts

Selections from The Cummings Memorial

• Mary Estey Perkins
• Abigail Estey Cummings
• Sarah Estey Cummings
• Isaac Estey
• Aaron Estey
• Jacob Estey
• Hannah Estey Cummings
• Richard Estey
• Rebecca Estey Tucker Puffer
• Moses Estey

Aaron Estey and Esther Richards 1723
Topsfield, Essex County, Massachusetts

• Isaac Estey
• Aaron Estey
• Hannah Estey Towne
• Mary Estey Dwinel
• Isaac Estey
• Abigail Estey
• Esther Estey
• William Estey
• Daniel Estey
• Esther Estey Balch
• Aaron Estey
• William Estey

For family trees and all source information, link to my RootsWeb File