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William Towne and Joanna Blessing |
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Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts Topsfield, Essex County, Massachusetts |
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| "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 | |||||||||||
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William Towne and Joanna Blessing were married on March 25, 1620 in St. Nicholas Parish, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk County, England. Their older children were born in England. Rebecca Towne Nurse was baptized on February 21, 1620/21. John Towne was baptized on February 16, 1623. Susanna Towne was baptized on October 26, 1625. Sergeant Edmund Towne was born in 1628. Jacob Towne was baptized on March 11, 1632/33. Mary Towne Estey was baptized on August 24, 1634. The family came to America and settled in Salem about 1635. Joseph Towne was born in 1639 and Sarah Towne Bridges Cloyes was born in 1639. The first record of the family in America was in the town book of Salem in 1640. William was granted "a little neck of Land right over against his house on the other side of the river." In the same year, he sued John Cook in what seems to have been a boundary dispute and obtained a verdict and costs. William moved from Salem to Topsfield in 1651 where they lived in North Fields. William Towne's name appeared on an undated list of land grants in North Fields. He also purchased land in Topsfield from William Paine of Ipswich. This farm contained forty acres "part of which is plow land, another part is meaddow, another part is upland unplowed, all lying together:" He sold his Salem property to Henry Bullock in 1652 and bought additional land at Topsfield in 1656. The land south of the river got him involved in land disputes with the Putnams of Salem, which may have had some impact on the accusations of witchcraft which claimed the lives of two of his daughters forty years later. When his son, Joseph married Phebe Perkins, daughter of Deacon Thomas Perkins, in 1663, William Towne deeded two-thirds of his real property to Joseph. William and Joanna probably lived with them. William died in 1672 and Joanna followed in 1682.
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