WILLIAM LEARNED

(circa 1581-1645/6) - Bermondsey, Surrey, England; Charlestown, Suffolk co., MA; Woburn, Middlesex co., MA

(First Generation - Learned Family)

FATHER
MOTHER
NOT KNOWN
NOT KNOWN


BIRTH William was born circa 1581 in Bermondsey, Surrey, England[1], as based upon his date of marriage.
DEATH & BURIAL He died in Woburn, Middlesex co., MA on 1 March 1645/6; he was 64[2,3].
MIGRATION & RESIDENCE William and his family migrated to New England by 1630[1], where he was admitted as an inhabitant of Charlestown, Suffolk co., MA that year[3,6,7]. "William Learned and Goodith his wife" were admitted to the church at Charlestown, Suffolk co., MA on 6d:10m(December):1632[1,6]. He made Freeman there on 14 May 1634[1,4]. William and his family remained in Charlestown for roughly a decade -- he is on the lists of Charlestown residents of 9 January 1633/4 and January 1635/6[3,8]. Then, they removed to Woburn, Middlesex co., MA in 1640[1].

In Charlestown, William acquired and divested a great deal of real estate. In 1635, he was allotted two shares of hayground, which was subsequently increased to three[1,12], and he surrendered 5 acres on the Mystic Side[1,11].

On 13 January 1636/7 the Charlestown selectmen "agreed to allow Goodman Learned a portion of marsh by his house agreed upon by Goodman Richeson & Goodman W[illia]m Baker for his haylot by Mr. Gibbon's which he yieldeth up to the town"[1,17].

In 1637, he had a 10-acre lot (number 7 on the Mystic Side)[6], and another 5 acres of land on the Mystic Side[1,13]. In addition, "W[illia]m Lernett" had 3.75 cow commons that year[1,14]. In the Mystic Side allotments of 23 April 1638 he received portions of 15, 40 and 5 acres[1,15].

Thus, in the 1638 Charlestown Book Of Possessions, "William Lernett" had 7 parcels of land: three acres of arable land and meadow, along with a dwelling house next to the "Olde Meeting House"; four acres arable land in the East Field; 3.75 cow commons; two acres of meadow in the Mystic Marshes; five acres of woods in the Mystic Field; fifteen acres of woods in the Mystic Field next to the Common; and forty acres of land in the Rock Field[6,9,10]. The 3.75 cow commons were further noted in an inventory of 20 December 1638[1,16].

TOWN SERVICE & EDUCATION William signed the petition on 10 February 1634/5 which established the office of the Selectman in Charlestown, Suffolk co., MA[3,20]. He himself served as Selectman in 1636[1,19]. On 26 April 1638, William was named to the Charlestown committee "to consider of some things tending towards a body of laws &c". Anderson uses this as evidence of his higher education level[1,18].
LEGAL MENTION On 16 November 1637 "Will[iam] Larnet acknowledged his fault in subscribing the seditious writing [in favor of Rev. John Wheelwright], & desiring his name to [be] crossed out, it was yielded his, & crossed"[3,5]. The case of the Reverend John Wheelwright involved the Antinomian movement of the 1630s in the Boston Area. Bucking church authority was a part of Wheelwright's nature, it would seem. Whilst a preacher in England, he was censured for non-conformity for his embrasure of Puritan sentiments. After arriving in Boston, Suffolk co., MA in 1636, he was soon suspected of following the Antinomian tenets proposed by his sister-in-law, Mrs. Anne Hutchinson. Thus, he was censured again, this time by the Puritan government under Governor John Winthrop after delivering a sermon at Mount Wollaston (now Quincy), Norfolk co., MA, disfranchised and banished. Unlike most Antinomian banishees, he went north to Maine instead of south to Rhode Island. Ever the contrarian... Wheelwright was forgiven in the 1650s when the hysteria over Antinomianism wore off.
MARRIAGE #1 On 22 April 1606 when William was 25, he first married Goodith GILMAN, in St. Olave, Southwark, Surrey, England[2,3,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36]. Goodith died sometime after 1632 in Charlestown, Suffolk co., MA[3]. It is worth noting that "Goodith" is neither a corruption of "Goodwife" nor "Judith", as has been proposed in several books, but her given name in its own right[3].

CHILDREN 2. i. Sarah LEARNED Please see her own page.
3. ii. Isaac LEARNED Isaac was born in 1624[2] and was baptized in Bermondsey, Surrey, England on 25 February 1623/4[3]. Isaac died in 1657; he was 33[2].

On 9 July 1646 when Isaac was 22, he married Mary STEARNS, daughter of Isaac STEARNS, in Charlestown, Suffolk co., MA or Woburn, Middlesex co., MA[2,3]. Mary second married John BURGE in 1662. She was born in 1626 and died in 1663; at the age of 37[2].

4. iii. Bethia LEARNED Bethia was born in 1612 and baptized in Bermondsey, Surrey, England on 29 October 1612[3]. There is no further record of her.
5. iv. Mary LEARNED Mary was born in 1615 and was baptized in Bermondsey, Surrey, England on 15 September 1615[3]. Mary died in 1625 and was buried on 26 July 1625 in Bermondsey, Surrey, England; she was 10[3].
6. v. Abigail LEARNED Abigail was born in 1618 and was baptized in Bermondsey, Surrey, England on 30 September 1618[3]. There is no further record of her.
7. vi. Elizabeth LEARNED Elizabeth was born in 1621 and was baptized in Bermondsey, Surrey, England on 25 March 1621[3]. Before 1645 when Elizabeth was 24, she married John HALL, in Charlestown, Suffolk co., MA[3,91].

MARRIAGE #2 After 1632 when William was 51, he second married Jane [surname not known], in Charlestown, Suffolk co., MA[2,22,37,38]. This marriage is also in the Malden, Middlesex co., MA vital records (they lived in the section of that town which later became Woburn, Middlesex co., MA) with the bride's name given as "Sarah". This name change stayed with her, either as a chronic mistake or as a preferred name of hers, for when Jane died on 24 January 1660/1 in Woburn, Middlesex co., MA[3,39,40] she was listed as "Sarah [sic] Learned widow". In March of 1660/1, the "inventory of the estate of the widow Jane Learned deceased in Malden" was taken. Administration was granted to Ralph Shepard on 2 April 1661[3,39,40].




GENERATION Great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great (G9) Grandfather
FAMILY NUMBER 3918
SOURCES 1. Anderson, Robert Charles, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633., (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society), [GreatMig.], II:1164.

2. Torrey, Charles, New England Marriages Prior to 1700., (Boston: New England Historic and Genealogical Society). [Torrey].

3. [GreatMig.], II:1165.

4. Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1628-1686; 5 volumes in 6, Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed. (Boston: 1853-1854), [MCBR], 1:369.

5. Ibid. 1:208.

6. Wyman, Thomas Bellows, The Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, 2 vols., (Boston: D. Clapp and Son, 1879), [Charlestown], II:611.

7. Charlestown Town Records (early Charlestown VRs), [ChTR], 6.

8. Ibid. 10,15.

9. Charlestown Land Records, 1638-1802, Third Report of the Boston Record Comissioners, 2nd ed., (Boston 1883), [ChBOP], 25.

10. [GreatMig.], II:1164-5.

11. [ChTR], 14.

12. Ibid. 19,20.

13. Ibid. 27.

14. Ibid. 32.

15. Ibid. 37.

16. Ibid. 42.

17. Ibid. 24.

18. Ibid. 38.

19. Ibid. 16.

20. Ibid. 13.

21. Learned, William Law, The Learned Family (Learned, Larned, Learnard, Larnard and Lerned) being descendants of William Learned who was of Charlestown, Mass., in 1632, (2d ed., Albany: Weed-Parsons Printing Co., 1898), [Learned], 4,10,17.

22. Warner, Frederick Chester, The Ancestry of Samuel Freda and John Warner, 5 vols., (Boston, Mass.: 1949, 1955), typescript, [Warner-Harrington], 396.

23. [Riggs, Henry Earle-prob.], The American Ancestors of Margaret Esther Bouton Thom and John Thom, ([Ann Arbor, MI: Edwards Bros., Inc., 1944]), [ThomAncChart], 6.

24. Crocker, Henry G., Nathaniel Crocker, 1758-1855, His Descendants and Ancestors of the Names of Allen, Blood, Bragg, Brewster, Bursley, Chase, Davis, Fairbanks, . . . and Others, Together with Genealogies of Many of Their Connections., (Concord, N.H.: The Rumford Press, 1923), [Crocker (1923)], 59.

25. Lineage Books of National Society Daughters of Founders and Patriots of America, ([Washington], D.C., 1910), [LBDF&P], 4:166, #211, 334.

26. Bond, Henry, Genealogies of the Families and Descendants of the Early Settlers of Watertown, Massachusetts, (Boston: NEHGS, 1860) [Appended to the Watertown, Middlessex co., MA VRs on the CD], [Bond or Watertown], 333+.

27. Andrews, Henry Franklin, The Hamlin Family: (1639 to 1902) A Genealogy of James Hamlin of Barnstable, Mass., Eldest Som of James Hamlin, the Immigrant, Who Came from London, England, and Settled in Barnstable, 1639, 2 vols., (Exira, Iowa: privately printed, 1902), [Hamlin], 361.

28. Frost, Josephine C., Ancestors of Henry Rogers Winthrop and His Wife Alice Woodward Babcock, ([New York?], 1927), [Winthrop-Babcock], 312.

29. Farwell, John Dennis, Jane Harter Abbott, and Lillian M. Wilson, The Farwell Family, A History of Henry Farwell and His Wife Olive (Welby) Farwell of Boston, England, and of Concord and Chelmsford, Mass., 1605 to 1927, with Twelve Generations of Their Descendants; Also Many Lineages of Allied Families, 2 vols., (Rutland, Vt.: F.H. Farwell, 1929), [Farwell(1929)], 43.

30. Van Wagenen, Avis (Stearns), Genealogy and Memoirs of Charles and Nathaniel Stearns, (Syracuse, N.Y.: Courier Printing Co., 1901), vol. 2, [Stearns (#1)], 1:22.

31. Woolson, Lula May (Fenno), The Woolson-Fenno Ancestry and Allied Lines, with Bio. Sketches, ([Boston]: privately printed, 1907), [Woolson-Fenno], 121.

32. Boyd, Cora (Dunham), . . . Ancestors and Descendants of Wilford William and Cora Dunham Boyd 1620-1928, (St. Louis, Mo., 1928), mimeographed, [Dunham-Boyd], 8.

33. Norton, Arabella L. G., Descendants of John Gamage of Ipswich, Mass., (Worcester, Mass.: Charles R. Stobbs, 1906), [Gamage], 66.

34. Cole, Haydon S., Haydon Samuel Cole and His Ancestry, (1935), [Cole Anc. (1935)], 37.

35. Bryant, Blanche (Brown), The Progenitors and Descendants of Thomas Page Brown and Sarah (Sally) Parker, (Springfield, Vt.: privately printed, 1938), [Brown-Parker], 106.

36. Swift, Katharine (Whitin), The Whitin Family, (Whitinsville, Mass., 1955), [Swift (1955)], 27.

37. [Learned], 14.

39. [Learned], 103.

40. Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Probate Records, [MPR], case #13,856.

41. [GreatMig.], II:480.

42. [MCBR], 1:248.

43. [GreatMig.], II:481.

44. [Charlestown], I:338.

45. Ibid. I:338-9.

46. [GreatMig.], II:480-1.

47. [ChBOP], 93.

048. [Charlestown], I:339.

49. [Warner-Harrington], 189,396.

50. [ThomAncChart], 183.

51. Avery, Samuel Putnam, The Warren, Little, Lothrop, Park, Dix, Whitman, Fairchild, Platt, Wheeler, Lane and Avery Pedigrees of Samuel Putnam Avery, 1847 to 1920, ([New York]: N.Y. Gen. and Bio. Society, 1925), [Avery Anc. (1925)], 71.

52. [Dunham-Boyd], 78.

53. Bullard, Edgar, John Bullard and Allied Families. The American Ancestors of George Newton Bullard and Mary Eli Bullard, (Detroit, Mich., 1930), [BullardAnc], 220.

54. [Charlestown], I:338; II:611.

55. Otis, Amos, Genealogical Notes of Barnstable Families. . . , 2 vols., (Barnstable, Mass.: F.B. & F.P. Goss, 1888-90), [Barnstable Fam.], 360.

56. Anderson, Mary Audentia, Ancestry and Posterity of Joseph Smith and Emma Hale, (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1929), [Smith-Hale], 250.

57. Starr, Frank Farnsworth, Various Ancestral Lines of James Goodwin and Lucy (Morgan) Goodwin of Hartford, Conn., 2 vol., (Hartford, Conn.: [Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor], 1915), [Goodwin-Morgan], 2:379.

58. [Hamlin], 4,39,301.

59. [Brainerd, Dwight],, Ancestry of Thomas Chalmers Brainerd, (Montreal, 1948), [Brainerd Anc.], 200,255-6.

60. Boardman, William F. J., The Ancestry of William Francis Joseph Boardman, (Hartford, Conn, 1906), [Boardman Anc.], 281.

61. New England Historic and Genealogical Register. Vols. 1+, (Boston: New England Historic and Genealogical Register, 1845+), [NEHGR], 69:358.

62. [Learned], 18.

63. [GreatMig.], II:479.

64. [MCBR], 1:233.

65. Ibid. 1:230.

66. Ibid. 1:371.

67. Coldham, Peter Wilson, The Complete Book Of Emigrants, (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing co., Inc., 1987), [Coldham], 150.

68. Hotten, John Camden, The Original Lists of Persons of Quality., (London 1874; rpt. Baltimore 1974), [Hotten], 88.

69. [Charlestown], II:605.

70. [Brainerd Anc.], 200.

71. [Warner-Harrington], 218.

72. The Mayflower Descendant, vols. 1-34, Bowman, George Ernest, ed., (Boston: Mayflower Society, 1899-1937), [MD], 6:236.

73. [NEHGR], 2:195; 9:286.

74. The Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine, (Salt Lake City: Gen. Soc. of Utah, 1910), [Utah Gen. Mag.], 20:67.

75. [Boardman Anc.], 287.

76. [Dunham-Boyd], 77.

77. Clarke, Mary (Bosworth), Bosworth Genealogy; a History of the Descendants of Edward Bosworth who arrived in America in the Year 1634; with an Appendix containing other Lines of American Bosworths, (San Francisco, 1926), [Bosworth], 400.

78. [Charlestown], I:338-9; II:605, 611.

79. [Goodwin-Morgan], 279.

80. [Crocker, Uriel Haskell], Memorial of Uriel Crocker, ([Boston, 1891]), [Crocker], 58.

81. [Winthrop-Babcock], 313, 337-8.

82. Williams, C.B., Ancestry of Lawrence Williams, (Chicago: privately printed, 1915), [Williams (#16)], 313.

83. Flagg, Ernest, Genealogical Notes on the Founding of New England, (Hartford: Case, Lockwood & Brainard, 1926), [FlaggAnc], 277.

84. Hazen, Henry Allen, History of Billerica, Mass., with a Genealogical Register, (Boston: A. Williams & Co., 1883), [Billerica Hist.], 139.

85. [Hamlin], 106.

86. [Farwell(1929)], 540.

87. [Crocker (1923)], 58.

88. Hawes, Frank Mortimer, Foster Record: an Account of Thomas Foster of Billerica, Mass., and Some of His Descendants, with Appendices Relating to Inter-Marriages, Chillingsworth, Freeman, Winslow, Lewis and King, (Somerville, Mass.: Fred E. Bradford, 1889), [Foster Anc.], 87.

89. [NEHGR], 9:286.

90. [Bond or Watertown], I:453.

91. Charlestown Vital Records, [ChVR], 1:9.


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