William VASSALL

Notes:

Excerpt from "Certain Comeoverers": William Vassall, your ancestor, the brother of Samuel, was six years younger than Samuel and was born at Ratcliffe August 27, 1592. In 1613 he married Anna King, the daughter of George King of Cold Norton in Essex. At a meeting of the patentees of Massachusetts Bay Colony held in London October 5, 1629, William Vassall, who was then acting as an assistant to Governor Cradock, was chosen "to go over." He came to Boston with Winthrop on his second trip, arriving in June, 1630. The ships of the little fleet were the Arabella, the Talbot, the Ambrose, and the Jewel. The Mayflower and several other ships which is was expected would accompany the fleet were not ready and were left behind. It is altogether probable that William Vassall, who was, in a sense, Governor Cradock's representative, was on the Arabella, which was the "admiral's ship." ..... After looking about the new settlements for a month or so William Vassall returned to England on the ship Lyon, (the same ship that took back William White's Breeches Bible.) ...
William Vassall was too liberal in his religious views to please the tyrannical Puritans of Boston, men of the stamp of cotton and Elliot. Winthrop called him " a man of busy and factious spirit, never at rest but when he was in the first of contention." He came back to New England in 1635 on the ship Blessing with his family (Anna his wife forty-two years old, and his children, Judith sixteen, Francis twelve, John ten, Ann six, Margaret two, and Mary one). Soon after he proceeded to the Plymouth Colony and subjected himself to the more liberal government of the Pilgrims.
William Vassall settled at Scituate and in 1635 a tract of two hundred acres on a neck of land by the North River was laid out to him by the Plymouth Court.
In 1642 he was a Counsellor of War of the Colonial Government.......
Disgusted with the powers which controlled the destinies of his adopted country, he left England for the Island of Barbadoes, where he and his brother had large estates, and there in 1655, the same year that Edward Winslow met his death in the West Indies, he died.

William married Anne KINGE on 29 Jun 1613 in Cold Norton, England. Anne was born on 01 Dec 1594 in Woodham, England; died in Barbados. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Judith VASSALL was born in 1619 in Of, Stephney, Middlesex, England; died on 03 Apr 1670 in Marshfield, Plymouth County, Massachusetts; was buried on 03 Apr 1670 in Marshfield, Plymouth, Massachusetts.
2. Frances VASSALL was born in 1623 in Stephany, England.
3. Margaret VASSALL was born about 1633; died before 18 Jul 1657.

Notes:

Excerpt from "Certain Comeoverers": Through the Vassalls you are remotely tinctured with somewhat aristocratic blood. There was a De Vassall of the fifteenth century who was the lord of Rinart near Cany in Normandy, who sent his son to England "on account of disturbances at home." This John had a son John, who achieved wealth and distinction. He had estates in Ratcliffe, and at Stepney, and in his later years was of Eastwood in Essex. He was prominent in the business world in London. For some years he served as an alderman. At the time of the attack of the Spanish Armada he fitted out, at his own expense, two ships to join the English fleet. One was Samuel of one hundred and forty tons, carrying seventy men, and the other the Tobey, Jr., of a like tonnage. It is stated that he commanded one of these ships in person in the memorable engagement with the Spanish fleet. He died September 13, 1625. His descendants were numerous. Among them were Lady Holland (Macaulay's Lady Holland), whose husband, Lord Holland, abandoned his own sufficiently distinguished name of Fox and by royal license took his wife's name of Vassall.
John Vassall, by his second wife, Anne Russell, had two sons, Samuel and William, who became interested in the new lands across the sea. They were both among the original patentees in 1628 of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Samuel never came over to New England, but his financial interests in the new country were large. He was an alderman of London, a member of Parliament, and a royal commissioner in the matter of establishing peace with Scotland. There is a monument erected in his honor, by a grandson, in King's Chapel in Boston, which extols him principally as a man who refused to pay his taxes. He certainly had the strength of his convictions since he was imprisoned sixteen years for his failure to pay the same. His descendants in the West Indies and in Boston were people of wealth and distinction.

John married Anne RUSSELL England. Anne was born in Ratcliffe, Middlesex, England; died in Stephany, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]