Burnham, Benjamin (b. 21 DEC 1696, d. 15 OCT 1737)

Source: (Name)
Title: MA MAG
Media: Book

Page: 4:123

Source: (Name)
Title: American Ancestry
Media: Book

Page: 11:184

Death: 15 OCT 1737 Norwich, New London, CT

Death: JUN 1774 Ipswich, Chebacco Parish, MA

Source: (Name)
Title: History of Hadley, Mass
Author: Sylvester Judd
Media: Book

Death: 1741 Deerfield, MA

Death: 12 OCT 1698

Source: (Name)
Title: Gen. Dict. of First Settlers of New England
Author: James Savage
Media: Book

Source: (Birth)
Title: Probate Records
Media: Official Document

Source: (Birth)
Title: WFT 6, #0591
Author: Patricia Parra
Media: Family Archive CD

Page: Tree #2155

Death: 9 JUN 1695 Hatfield, Hampshire, MA

Death: 13 JUL 1697

Source: (Name)
Title: Gen. Dict. of First Settlers of New England
Media: Book

Death: BEF 24 JUN 1718 Lyme, New London, CT

Death: ABT 1720

Source: (Death)
Title: Gen. and History of the Church Family
Author: Alice M. Church
Media: Book

Death: 17 SEP 1691 Hatfield, Hampshire, MA

Source: (Name)
Title: Thomas Graves of Hartford, CT
Author: Kenneth Vance Graves
Media: Book

Death: 11 OCT 1766

Source: (Name)
Title: History of Hadley, Mass
Author: Sylvester Judd
Media: Book

Death: 1 MAY 1743 Sunderland, Franklin, MA

Source: (Name)
Title: Hammatt Papers
Author: Abraham Hammatt
Publication: 1880 Ipswich, Essex, MA
Media: Book

Death: 22 MAY 1727

Note: Was an early settler at Hartford, CT. Probably came there with Mr. Hooker's Company in 1636.

Source: (Name)
Title: History of Hadley, Mass
Author: Sylvester Judd
Media: Book

Source: (Birth)
Title: Simeon Church of Chester, CT (1708-1792) And His Descendants
Author: Charles Washburn
Media: Book

Source: (Death)
Title: Gen. and History of the Church Family
Author: Alice M. Church
Media: Book

Death: 16 DEC 1667 Hatfield, MA

Source: (Birth)
Title: Hale, House and Related Families
Author: Donald Lines Jacobus
Publication: 1978
Media: Book

Death: 10 MAR 1683/84 Hatfield, MA

Death: 28 MAR 1700 Deerfield, Franklin, MA

Note: Stephen Hopkins was one of only a few passengers on the Mayflower to have made a prior trip to America. He came in 1609 on the Sea Venture headed for Jamestown, Virginia. But instead, they were marooned on an island following a hurricane, and the 150 passengers were stranded for nine months. Hopkins led an uprising, challenging the governor's authority, and was sentenced to death. But he begged and moaned about the ruin of his wife and children, and so was pardoned out of sympathy. The company eventually managed to build a ship, and escaped the island. After spending several years in Jamestown, Hopkins returned to England sometime between 1613 and 1617.

Stephen Hopkins brought with him on the Mayflower his wife Elizabeth, children Giles and Constance by his first marriage, and Damaris by his second marriage. A son Oceanus was born while the Mayflower was at sea. Stephen participated in the early exploring missions and was an "ambassador" along with Myles Standish for early Indian relations.

Stephen Hopkins is mentioned in a letter written by William Bradford and Isaac Allerton on 8 September 1623, which was found in uncalendered papers at the Public Records Office in London. The letter was presented as evidence for the defense in the 1624 court case Stevens and Fell vs. the Little James. The letter is published in American Historical Review, 8(1903):294-301. The short section about Stephen Hopkins reads as follows (spelling modernized):

About Hopkins and his men we are come to this issue. The men we retain in the general according to his resignation and equity of the thing. And about that recconing of 20 odd pounds, we have brought it to this pass, he is to have - 6 - " - payed by you there, and the rest to be quit; it is for nails and such other things as we have had of his brother here for the companies use, and upon promise of payment by us, we desire you will accordingly do it.

In 1636, Hopkins was fined for the battery of John Tisdale, in 1637 he was found guilty of allowing men to drink on a Sunday at his house, and in 1638 he was fined for not dealing fairly with an apprentice-girl, Dorothy Temple. He was also charged with several other minor crimes, including selling glass at too high a price, selling illegal intoxicants, and allowing men to get drunk at his house. However, this in no way indicated he was disloyal to the Colony--in fact he was Assistant governor from 1633 until 1636, and he volunteered to fight in the Pequot War of 1637.

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SOURCES:
Caleb Johnson, "The True Origins of Mayflower Passenger Stephen Hopkins," The American Genealogist, 73(1998):161-171.

John D. Austin, Mayflower Families for Five Generations: Stephen Hopkins, volume 6 (Plymouth: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1992).

Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony, Its History and Its People, 1620-1691 (Ancestor Publishers, Salt Lake City, 1986).

William Bradford and Edward Winslow. A Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceedings of the English Plantation settled at Plymouth . . . (John Bellamie: London, 1622).

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Samuel Morison (New York: Random House, 1952).

Annie Lash Jester, Adventurers of Purse and Person--Virginia 1607-1625, p. 213-217.
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Stephen Hopkins was not from Wortley, Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, as has been previously published in numerous books and articles, and the claim he married a woman named Constance Dudley is complete fiction. This alleged origin was disproven in my article, "The True English Origins of Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower", published in The American Genealogist 73:161-171. The Wotton-under-Edge claim was never factually sound to begin with, based simply on a few name coincidences and wild speculations.

The baptism records of Stephen Hopkins' children Giles and Constance, as well as an additional child Elizabeth, were discovered in the parish registers of Hursley, Hampshire, England. Below is a scan of the Hursley parish register for 1606 showing Constance Hopkins' baptism in the original records. For those of you who can't read the handwriting, it says: "undecimo de May, Constancia filia Steph. Hopkins fuit baptizata", which translates into English as "Eleventh day of May, Constance daughter of Steph. Hopkins was baptized."

And there in Hursley, on 9 May 1613, Mary Hopkins the wife of Stephen was buried. Mary's children Giles, Constance, and Elizabeth are all named in her probate estate papers dated 10 May 1613 and on file at the Hampshire Records Office (file: 1613AD/046).

The claim Stephen had a son William is based on Wotton-under-Edge records, and is invalid since that Hopkins family had no connection with the Mayflower. The claim that Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower had a son Stephen baptized at St. Stephen Coleman Street, London on 22 December 1609 is also wrong--no such baptism record exists. This baptism is apparently an error for a real baptism which is found on 3 December 1609 at the parish of St. Katherine Coleman, London. This child died on 19 February 1609/10, and the father had another child named John Hopkins, baptized on 14 April 1611. Since Stephen Hopkins the Mayflower passenger was in Virginia at the time this child was conceived and later baptized, he could not have fathered it. The name Stephen Hopkins is quite common--there are at least five of them in London during this time period. This is just another man named Stephen Hopkins, and there is no connection with the Mayflower passenger of the same name.

NOTE: Stephen Hopkins did NOT marry Constance Dudley, a claim which is disproved in the July 1998 issue of The American Genealogist 73:161-171.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The Mayflower Quarterly has published a number of factually baseless articles on Stephen Hopkins' genealogy, most recently in the November 1997 and August 1998 issues. These articles should not be used by anyone concerned about genealogical accuracy; they were briefly corrected in the November 1998 issue, page 350-351 and 353.

Additionally, there is a highly erroneous biography published by Margaret Hodges, titled "Hopkins of the Mayflower: Portrait of a Dissenter". The genealogical information in these works are flat out wrong, and easily proven so with primary source documentation.

Death: BET 16 JUN AND 27 JUL 1644 Plymouth, Plymouth, MA

Source: (Name)
Title: Mayflower Database
Media: Book

Death: BET 1640 AND 1644 Plymouth, Plymouth, MA

Source: (Name)
Title: Hammatt Papers
Author: Abraham Hammatt
Publication: 1880 Ipswich, Essex, MA
Media: Book

Death: 2 APR 1750 Boxford, Essex, MA

Note: Capt. James Pecker, son of James and Ann (Davis) Pecker, was born Nov. 15, 1684, in Haverhill, Mass. He married Mrs. Bridget Papillion. They had two daughters, Mrs. Cogswell and Mrs. Susanna Clarke. Mrs. Clarke wrote verses against the use of tea in the Revolutionary times. Mrs. Pecker survived her husband, Capt. James Pecker, who died April 28, 1734, and also her son, Ebenezer, who was lost at sea in 1736, at the age of twenty-four years. Subsequently to the death of both husband and son, she writes: "Very pleasant were these to me while living. The loss of them will make me go mourning to my grave." A paper, inscribed by her after her husband's death, had the following reference: "He was my truly worthy and dearly beloved James Pecker, who died April ye 28th, 1734, in the forty-ninth year of his age, in the division of things to me, his widow, Bridget Pecker." "Open Thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law." Capt. James Pecker devised an estate of nearly œ3,000. For a copy of his will, dated April 22, 1734, and of the inventory of his estate, dated May 10, 1734, vid. "PEN PORTRAITS," pp. 565-572.

Death: 28 APR 1734 Boston, Suffolk, MA

Death: 29 MAR 1867 Bloomfield, ME