#52Ancestors: Number 1 -- Samuel, who started it all

Here's another set of blogging prompts, courtesy of Amy Johnson Crow (thank you, Amy!) that, if I keep up with them, might help me keep this blog more active.  Since I'm starting a week late, I'll  do two this week.

Number 1 on the list is Samuel Packard (c. 1610-1684), who emigrated from Stonham Aspal, Suffolk, England to Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1638, during the "Great Migration."

Samuel was my eighth great-grandfather and the progenitor of most of the Packards present in the United States.  He is directly in my paternal line, my descent being, in the Packard surname:

Samuel
Zaccheus
Zaccheus
Eleazer
Richards
John Allen
Matthew Hale
Oscar Merry
Walter Heatherington
Arden (my father)

Samuel left England as a separatist, a protestor against the Chuch of England and the excesses of Archbishop William Laud.  When I was a kid, I had a Puritanical streak, and always wondered where it came from until I started delving into my family history and discovered myself to be a direct descendant of Massachusetts Puritans!  So I come by it honestly!

His wife was named Elizabeth, though the most reliable family research has failed to turn up her maiden surname.  Samuel and Elizabeth were married in Suffolk, and boarded the ship Diligent with an infant girl, Mary.

Samuel was a farmer and keeper of an ordinary, a word used in those days for a tavern located in one's home.  A room on the first floor of the house would be opened to the public for purchase of libations of an alcoholic nature (Puritans weren't all that pure!), and I would imagine for some lively conversations, too.  He also served the town at different times as surveyor of highways and collector of minister's rates (that is to say, taxes). 

Samuel and Elizabeth had fourteen children.  Two of them, twin girls Jane and Abigail, died young.  One, Israel, lived to young adulthood and then disappeared from records.  He was a soldier, and may have lost his life in that role.

Samuel's will was made 29 October 1684, nine days before his death.  Though Samuel was a literate man, Puritanism being a literate movement and his municipal offices also indicating literacy, he signed his will "by mark," which may indicate that he was too infirm in his terminal illness to have signed his name.

He bequeathed to his "loveing wiff Elizabeth" (ya gotta love the creative spelling of those days before orthography) all of his lands, buildings, and possessions for the rest of her life, then they were to be divided among their children as stipulated in the will.  There was apparently one no-good son-in-law among the flock, at least as Samuel saw him, for there is a stipulation in the will that provides that the inheritance of his daughter Jael, wife of John Smith, should not be delivered to John, but be given directly to hand to Jael.  John apparently was not to be trusted with money.

Samuel worked hard and left his family well enough off.  Good Puritan.