JOHN SEVERENCE 1647-

[Ancestral Link: Marguerite Anderson (Miller), daughter of Hannah Anderson (Anderson), daughter of Mary Margaret Edmiston (Anderson), daughter of Martha Jane Snow (Edmiston), daughter of Sarah Sawyer Hastings (Snow), daughter of Salome Burt (Hastings), daughter of Enos Burt, son of Martha Severence (Burt), daughter of Ebenezer Severence, son of John Severence.]


JOHN SEVERNS/SEVERANCE 1647-1709
-by Maureen O'Brien Chepiga (1955-)
The principal source for what follows is a genealogy for a Cyrus J. Severance (1862-), found in the Geneaological and Family History of Jefferson County, New York: A History of the Achievements of Her People..." on ancestry.com, except where otherwise noted.
John, son of John Severns/Severance (or as he himself spelled the surname on an occasion in 1685, Seaverns) was said to have been born in 1647. His mother was Ursula Kimball (or according to various family trees posted on ancestry, Abigail Kimball). Eventually he had a stepmother, Susanna(h), who was the widow of Henry Ambrose before she became John's father's second wife.
John was apparently living in Suffield, Connecticut by February 14, 1678, where he was among the first settlers. (Suffield is in north-central Connecticut, along the Connecticut River just south of the border with Massachusetts. According to historical information provided on suffieldtownhall.com, settlement began in 1670, with the purchase of a 6 acre tract from the local Indians. Since a surveying error in 1640 mistakenly placed the land within the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Massachusetts authorities originally exercised jurisdiction. Since the area was thought to be in southern Massachusetts, the name Suffield, a corruption of Southfield, made sense. In Suffield, the Congregational Church in effect acted as the local government for many decades.
In the late 1670s, during the Indian attacks that engulfed much of New England in King Philip's War ("King Philip" having been an Indian chief named Metacom who was nicknamed King Philip by the colonists), Suffield's residents were forced to flee, but they returned and rebuilt their township after it had been burned.
As for John Severn, he moved again, to Bedford, NY about 1702, and died there in 1709.
John's wife's first name was Mary.
found on ancestry.com