NICHOLAS DISBOROUGH 1612-1683

[Ancestral Link: Harold William Miller, son of Edward Emerson Miller, son of Anna Hull (Miller), daughter of William Hull, son of William E. Hull, son of Sarah Wilcox (Hull), daughter of Stephen Wilcox, son of Hannah Kelsey (Wilcox), daughter of Hannah Disborough (Kelsey), daughter of Nicolas Disborough.]

Nicholas Disborough
The origins of Nicholas Disborough (also spelled Disbrowe, Desborough, etc.) are somewhat obscure. Because he had only daughters, with no sons to carry on the family name, chroniclers and genealogists have show little interest in him. What is known is that he was born in England, perhaps in Saffron Walden, Essex, between 1613 and 1620, and settled in Hartford, Connecticut.He fought in the Pequot War of 1637, and was later granted fifty acres of land for that service. His homelot in Hartford was on the east side of the road to the cow pasture, which later became North Main Street. He was an early member of the First Congregational Church of Hartford.

He married MARY-1 BRONSON on 2 April 1640, probably in Hartford. Mary was baptized on 6 March 1622/3, in Lamarsh, Essex, England, shortly before her mother's death. She was the daughter of Roger Brownson of Earl's Colne and his wife, Mary Underwood, and the sister of John Bronson.Mary was raised by her stepmother Margaret, and was an extremely rebellious and "high-spirited" girl -- to the point of being a juvenile delinquent. She accompanied her older brothers John and Richard to the New World when still a very young girl. Once there, she apparently lacked adequate adult supervision. In the Spring of 1640, four boys (John Olmstead, Jonathan Rudd, John Pierce, and Nicholas Olmsted) got into trouble with the authorities for "wanton dalliances, lacivious caridge, and fowle mysdemeanors at sundry times with Mary Brunson." Mary and the first three boys were "corrected;" Nicholas Olmsted was fined and pilloried.
Nicholas and Mary had five daughters:
i Mary born circa 1641 married Obediah Spencer
ii Sarah born circa 1642 married Samuel Eggleston
iii Hannah born 20 December 1644 married John Kelsey v Phebe baptized December 1646 probably died young
iv Abigail born 1 February 1648/9 married (1) Robert Flood married (2) Matthew Barnes/Barnard
found on ancestry.com

Nicholas Disborough
Nicholas Desborough (Disbro, Desbrough, Disborow Desbrow), Hartford, 1639, a proprietor “by courtesie of the town”; his home-lot was on the east side of road to the Cow Pasture (North Main St.), not far from the present tunnel. He served in the Pequot War; received a grant of fifty acres for his services, May 11, 1671. He married 1640, Mary Brunson, probably sister of John. Chosen chimney-viewer, 1647, 1655, 1663, 1669; surveyor of highways, 1665; freed from training, etc., March 6, 1672-3, when sixty years old. He married (2), after 1669, Elizabeth, widow of Thwaite Strickland.1 Cotton Mather (Magnolia, vi. 69) tells a marvellous story of molestations in Desborough's house by invisible hands, in 1683. He died in 1683; inv. August 31, £81. 15.[1]
found on ancestry.com

Disturbing for him
One of the last episodes in Nicholas' life was perhaps the most disturbing for him. In 1683, Cotton Mather (1663-1728), one of the most renowned Puritan clergymen of his time, tells how Nicholas was beset by witchcraft:" In the year 1683, the house of Nicholas Desborough, at Hartford, was very strangely molested by stones, by pieces of earth, by cobs of Indian corn, and other such things, from an invisible hand, thrown at him, sometimes thro' the door, sometimes thro' the window, sometimes down the chimney, and sometimes from the floor of the room (tho' very close) over his head; and sometimes he met with the in the shop, the yard, the barn, and in the field. There was no violence in the motion of the things thus thrown by the invisible hand; and tho' others besides the man happen'd sometimes to be hit, they were never hurt with them; only the man himself once had pain given to his arm, and once blood fetch'd from his leg, by these annoyances; and a fire, in an unknown way kindled, consum'd no little part of his estate. This trouble began upon a controversie between Desborough and another person about a chest of cloaths, which the man apprehended to be unrighteously detain'd by Desborough; and it endur'd for divers months; but upon restoring of the cloaths thus detain'd, the trouble ceased. At Brightling in Sussex, in England, there happened a tragedy not unlike to this, in the year 1659. 'Tis recorded by Clark in the second volume of his "Examples.""Nicholas died in August of that same year.
found on ancestry.com

Witchcraft at the Disborough house

(The Nicholas Disborough family are on Guy's father, Morris Pierce's, side of the family) "In the year 1683, the house of Nicholas Disborough, at Hartford, was very strangely molested by stones, by pieces of earth, by cobs of Indian corn, and such other things, from an invisible hand, thrown at him, sometimes thro' the door, sometimes thro' the window, sometimes down the chimney, and sometimes from the floor of the room, (tho' very close) over his head; and sometimes he met with them in the shop, the yard, the barn, and in the field. "There was no violence in the motion of the things thus thrown by the invisible hand; and tho' others besides the man happen'd sometimes to be hit, they were never hurt by them; only the man himself once had pain given to his arm, and once blood fetch'd from his leg, by these annoyances, and a fire in an unknown way kindled, consum'd no little part of his estate. "This trouble began upon a controversie between Disborough and another person, about a chest of cloaths which the man apprehended to be unrighteouslydetained by Desborough; and it endured for divers months: but upon the restoring of the cloaths thus detain'd, the trouble ceas'd." ---Mather's Magnalia per "Coe-Ward Memorial": Nicholas Disbrow, Hartford, 1639, an immigrant ancestor, a proprietor by courtesy of the town. His home lot was on the east side of the road to the cow pasture, now Main street, not far from the tunnel. He was chimney viewer 1647-55-63 and 69; surveyor of highways 1665; freed from training 6th March 1673, when 60 years old. By reason of his having been very strangely molested by "stones, earth and cobs thrown at him from an invisible hand" his name is honored with a place in Mather's Thaumaturgus. From Conn. Col. Records, 1671, "This Court grants Nicholas Disbrow 50 acres upon the account of his service at the Pequot War." In 1640 he married probably as 2d wife Mary Bronson, and after 1669, says Porter, he married Elizabeth, widow of Thwaite Strickland. He died 1683, aged 71 years"When his estate was settled in August 1683...the following family were listed: Obadiah Spencer's wife, Samuel Eggleston's wife, John Kellcy's wife and Robert Flood's wife." Notes on possible connections: A Mercy Desborough, of Fairfield was the only woman to be found guilty of witchcraft during the Fairfield outbreak in 1692/93. Reprieved by Conneticut authorities after the Mass governor pardoned the remaining Salem accused in 1693. Born about 1640. Her maiden name was Holbridge, when she was a servant to Gershom Bulkeley of New London in 1661. (Could she be a niece of Nicholas'?) A Peter Disbrow came from England 1660, one of the first and principle proprietors of Rye, NY in 1665, removed to Stamford, Connecticut.
found on ancestry.com


Nicholas Disborough Accusations of Witchcraft
1637-1673, Connecticut
"But I proceed to give an account of some other things lately hapning in New-England, which were undoubtedly praeternatural, and not without Diabolical operation. The last year did afford several Instances, not unlike unto those which have been mentioned. For then Nicholas Desborough of Hartford in New-England was strangely molested by stones, pieces of earth, cobs of Indian Corn, etc., falling upon and about him, which sometimes came in through the door, sometimes through the Window, sometimes down the Chimney, at other times they seemed to fall from the floor of the Chamber, which yet was very close; sometimes he met with them in his Shop, the Yard, the Barn, and in the Field at work. In the House, such things hapned frequently, not only in the night but in the day time, if the Man himself was at home, but never when his Wife was at home alone. There was no [Page 34] great violence in the motion, though several persons of the Family and others also were struck with the things that were thrown by an invisible hand, yet they were not hurt thereby. Only the Man himself had once his Arm somewhat pained by a blow given him; and at another time, blood was drawn from one of his Legs by a scratch given it. This molestation began soon after a Controversie arose between Desborough and another person, about a Chest of Clothes which the other said that Desberough did unrighteously retain: and so it continued for some Moneths (though with several intermissions) . In the latter end of the last year, when also the Man's Barn was burned with the Corn in it . but by what means it came to pass is not known. Not long after, some to whom the matter was referred, ordered Desberough to restore the Clothes to the Person who complained of wrong; smce which he hath not been troubled as before. Some of the stones hurled were of considerable bigness; one of them weighed four pounds, but generally the stones were not great, but very small ones. One time a piece of Clay came down the Chimney, falling on the Table which stood at some distance from the Chimney. The People of the House threw it on the Hearth, where it lay a considerable time: they went to their Supper, and whilest at their Supper, the piece of Clay was lifted up by an invisible hand, and fell upon the Table; taking it up, they found it hot, having lain so long before the fire, as to cause it to be hot. [56] [56] These experiences of Nicholas Desborough were reported by the Rev. Joh Russell, of Hadley, in a letter of August 2, 1683, which may be found in the Mather Papers (pp. 86-88). Russell says he received the account from "Capt. Allyn, a neer neighbor to Disborough." John Allyn, long secretary of the colony, was one of the foremost men in Connecticut. From: Increase Mather, Remarkable Providences An Essay For the Recording of Illustrious Providences (Boston, 1684) George Lincoln Burr, ed., Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases 1648-1706, (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1914) 3-38Source: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=9190113

MORE ON THE DISBROW "WITCHES": NICHOLAS DISBROW; website material transcribed by Todd Shermanin 1995 from his grandfather's work (Jay Sterner) in 1956. All we know of Nicholas at this particular moment in history is that he was born at Walden in Essex in 1612, and that his father too was a joiner in that village. So far I have found no mention of when he came to America but as to what happened after he arrived in Hartford, the record is surprisingly explicit. In the first place, we learn from the later pension rolls that he had hardly got himself settled before he had to drop the work of clearing his land and leave with all the younger men on an expedition which was to wind up in a burst of glory. For in the spring of '37 came the first of the terrible Indian wars that were to culminate in New England with King Phillip's War and were to continue as the frontier moved westward for the next 250 years. This one became known as the Pequot War and was the settler's introduction to the Indian technique of pillage, burning and massacre which was to become so familiar later. Connecticut acted very promptly and, from the five or six hundred settlers now scattered along the valley, collected a tiny force of seventy men at Hartford under Major John Mason who, early in May, sailed down the river in "a shallop, a pinnace, and a pink" to Saybrook where they were joined by twenty men from Boston and seventy Mohegans under their chief Uncas. On May 20th they sailed out of Saybrook eastward past the known location of the Pequot stockade near Stonington. They landed near Point Judith and then, doubling back, surprised the Indians just before dawn on Friday, May 26th, 1637 - "with the moon as light as day." Within two hours the place was burned to the ground and over 700 savages were dead. Cotton Mather, that first flower of Puritan divinity, gives us, in his inimitable 17th Century English a brief but vivid flash of what followed. True, he wasn't present in person but his few words show such restrained good taste and such sympathetic kindliness toward the poor misguided red brethren that they deserve preservation here. He says - "Twas a fearsome sighte to see them (the Indians) thus frying in ye fryer, and ye streams of blood quenching ye same; and horrible was ye stincke and sente thereof. But ye victory seemed a sweete sacrifice, and they gave prayse thereof to God." The campaign wound up on July 13th with the Great Swamp Fight (not to be confused with the one thirty eight years later in King Phillip's War) which calmed down the Indians for nearly a generation. From the Pequot War onwards we are able to follow the career of Nicholas with surprising detail. He was a property owner in Hartford by 1639, where he lived at the north end of Burr Street, now North Main Street. In 1640, when he was twenty-eight, he married Mary Brunson though no mention is made of whether he was a widower or a bachelor at the time. Ground for speculation on this romance is provided by the following quotation from the Public Records of Connecticut (Vol. I, p. 45)during his suit against the Royal Governor Allen which we shall touch on shortly. "On April 6th, 1640, in the Particulars Court, Mary Brunson, now wyfe to Nicholas Disbrowe, and....certayne other females....were corrected for wanton dalliance and selfe pollution." In 1660 he obtained permission to build a 16-foot-square shop on the highway--probably the first recorded road-side stand. He held the office of "Chimney Viewer" (Tax Assessor) in 1647, 55, 63, and 69. In 1665 he was Surveyor of Highways, thus preceding your Uncle Don in that office by exactly 270 years. In 1669, Mary Brunson having presumably died meanwhile, Nicholas now 57 married again, this time Elizabeth, the young widow of one Thwaite Strickland, and the mother of four children. This union of June and December seems to have been the cause of no end of excitement for our Henry Disbrow in the neighborhood of Oyster Bay that same summer as we shall later see; but the marriage itself must have worked out smoothly enough for we find no entries to the contrary. For his services in the Pequot War, Nicholas was on May 11th, 1671 granted fifty acres of land. On March 16 1673, at the age of 60, he was freed from further liability for military service. A little later he was charged with practicing witch-craft, the charge apparently being dragged into the proceedings surrounding a disputed bill for a chest he had made and delivered to Colonel Allyn. It was here too that Mary Brunson's unfortunate girlhood experience was entered as evidence of something or other. Through all these years Nicholas continued his trade of furniture maker and when he died in 1683 he left a total property of a sizable estate for Hartford in those days. He is today rated highly as the earliest American cabinet maker. In Ormsbee's "Early American Furniture Makers" we find - "A two drawer chest was discovered in the early 1920's ornamented with an elaborately carved all-over design on the front. On the back of the lower drawer of this chest is written in 17th Century handwriting - `Mary Allyn's Chistt Cutte and Joyned by Nich Disbrowe.' This is the earliest piece of American furniture of proven origin." Mary was the daughter of Col. John Allyn, Secretary of the Colony (who later, as Governor tried to get out of paying the bill as we have seen above). "In Mr. Lockwood's opinion, Disbrowe was no ordinary carver and his designs are distinguished by undulating bands of carved tulips flowing from stiles to rails without breaking...Disbrowe's designs were carefully worked out to fit the individual piece and no two pieces were identical." When we come to Henry Disbrow shortly now, we shall refer again to Nicholas, but before proceeding with our family history, there are one or two things worth jotting down, both as to the Disbrows and as to the political events leading up to what follows. As the Colony of Connecticut grew through the years covering the life of Nicholas, two factions developed among its worthy citizens; one centering around Hartford which we might call the liberals, and one around New Haven which were definitely the conservatives - the democrats and the theocrats, the ungodly and the Puritans. The more liberal were irked by the strict blue laws of the Puritans and preferred the laxer viewpoint of the Dutch in New Amsterdam and the regions more under their influence. The Puritans of the Guilford and the New Hagroup feared the back-sliding of those from Hartford. This conflict crystallized upon the uniting of all Connecticut under one governor and the Royal Charter which was granted by Charles II in 1682. This charter defined Connecticut as all that land stretching South from the border of Massachusetts to the Sea, or to Latitude 41 North; and West from Narragansett Bay all the way to the Southern Ocean (the Pacific), thus including all of Long Island, all of New York State north of Manhattan, part of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio and all the distant unknown West north of 41 Texas was but a fly-speck beside this - had there been a Texas at that time. What is today Westchester County as well as all of Long Island, was then Fairfield County Connecticut so far as the English were concerned. The Dutch, however, had other ideas and claimed all this land clear to Narragansett Bay. When the British took New Amsterdam in 1664, the local confusion was dispelled somewhat, but there was argument and actual fighting over these Connecticut claims which involved all the other bordering states at one time or another until the Revolution put an end to it. Henry Sterner refers to this in his letter of Dec. 19th, 1932. So, for years before the British occupation of New Amsterdam and for long afterward, the district north and east of Manhattan, particularly Long Island and the mainland bordering the Sound, was filling with settlers from Connecticut who were disgruntled with one group or the other of the two factions. One lot, under Robert Treat, even migrated to the banks of the Passaic, founding Newark and transplanting Puritanism to our own fair State for a brief, a very brief, interval. In 1672 Treat returned home where he won laurels for himself in King Phillip's War, and eventually became the Royal Governor. He it is who figures as the judge in the following bizarre incident. It seems there was a special court, presided over by Robert Treat, Esq., which was held at Fairfield on June 2nd, 1692, convened by order of the General Court to try the "Witche Cases." At this trial it was testified that Mercy Disbrow, wife of Thomas Disbrow of Fairfield County, had bewitched animals and a child. Witnesses told of optical illusions - a pig that looked well on the table but could not be eaten, an enchanted canoe that went upstream of itself, high tide made low, etc., etc. One said Mercy could not read one word of a panel of the Bible in her hand although she could read other books without difficulty. On September 14th 1692 a true bill was found against Mercy Disbrow in these words - "Mary Disbrow is complained of and accused as guilty of witchcraft, for that on the 29th of April, 1692 and in the 4th Y're of their Majesties (William and Mary) Reign, and at sundrie other times, she hath, by the instigation and help of the devill in a preternatural way, afflicted and done harme to the bodies and the estates of sundrie of their Majesties subjects, or to some of them, contrary to the Law of God, the peace of our souveraigne Lord and Lady, King William and Queen Mary, their Crowne and Dignity." On September 15th, 1692 test by water was made. Two witnesses testified that Mercy and another woman, Elizabeth Clawson, bound hand and foot were thrown into the water and swam like corks. On October 8th the Jury was sent out a second time and again found her guilty, seeing no reason to change the verdict. Thereupon Governor Treat sentenced her to die on October 17th although Jos. Eliot and Timothy Woodbridge made a statement in which they say that to them "the evidence stands on slender and uncertain grounds, some of the statements and some of the witnesses being quite untrustworthy. From the easy deception of her senses and the subtle devices of the Devill, do not think one of the witnesses competent." She must have received a stay of execution for on May 12th, 1693 Samuel Wills, Wm. Pitkin, and Nathan Stanley request a further reprieve for Mercy Disbrow - say none of the evidence against her amounts to much." There is no record the sentence was ever carried out; on the contrary it would appear that she was still alive in 1707, in which year she is mentioned as Thos. Disbrow's widow when his will was probated."Source: http://www.afn.org/~afn09444/genealog/disbrow/disbro03.html
found on ancestry.com


Nocholas Disborough Service in the Pequot War
1637, New England
For his services in the Pequot War, Nicholas was on May 11th, 1671 granted fifty acres of land. On March 161673, at the age of 60, he was freed from further liability for military service. A little later he was charged with practicing witch-craft, the charge apparently being dragged into the proceedings surrounding a disputed bill for a chest he had made and delivered to Colonel Allyn.It was here too that Mary Brunson's unfortunate girlhood experience was entered as evidence of something or other Source: http://www.afn.org/~afn09444/genealog/disbrow/disbro03.html
found on ancestry.com


Witchcraft?
“Nicholas Disborough of Hartford in New England was strangely molested by stones, pieces of earth, cobs of Indian corn, etc., falling upon and about him. . . . The molestation began soon after a controversy arose between Disborough and another person about a chest of clothes.”This is from “Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of New England” by John Putnam Demos, at page 293, published in 1983 by the Oxford University Press. Nicholas Disborough is counted among the first Puritan settlers of the Colony of Connecticut. I hope for the sake of all involved that more a more mundane source of the flying corn cobs was found.
found on ancestry.com




Nicholas and Mary (Bronson) Disborough
The real origins of Nicholas Disborough (also spelled Disbrowe, Desborough) are somewhat obscure. Because he only had daughters, with no sons to carry on the family name, chroniclers and genealogist have shown little interest in him. He was born in England, perhaps in Saffron Walden, Essex, June 16, 1620. Nicholas was an immigrant ancestor coming to Hartford, Connecticut. Nicolas fought in the Pequot War of 1637, and was later granted fifty acres of land for that service. (The Perquot War was a moonlit pre-dawn in May 1637. English Puritans from the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Connecticut Colony, with Mohegan and Narragansett allies, surround a fortified Pequot village at a place called Missituck (Mystic). But within an hour, the village is burned and 400-700 men, women, and children are killed. The Pequot War was the first major conflict between European colonists and Native Americans in northeastern America, and its influence on colonial and United States Indian policy extended well beyond the region and the period. Although a small conflict by today's standards, it set the stage for the ultimate domination of all northeastern Native tribes by English colonists and set the policy for the treatment of other tribes throughout the country over the next three centuries. The underlying causes of the War are complex and its consequences are far-reaching. For the first time, northeastern tribes experienced the total warfare of European military methods. For the first time, the English Puritans realized they held the power to dominate the people they saw as Godless savages. The battle cuts the heart from the Pequot people and scatters them across what is now southern New England, Long Island, and Upstate New York. ) His homelot in Hartford was on the east side of the road to the cow pasture, which later became North Main Street. He was an early member of the First Congregational Church of Hartford. He married Mary Bronson on April 2, 1640, probably in Hartford. Mary was baptized on March 6, 1622/23, in Lamarsh, Essex, England, shortly before her mother's death. She was the daughter of Robert Brownson of Earl's Colne and his wife, Mary Underwood. Mary was raised by her stepmother Margaret, and was an extremely rebellious and "high-spirited girl - to the point of being a juvenile delinquent. She accompanied her older brothers, John and Richard, to the New World when still a very young girl. Once there, she apparently lacked adequate adult supervision. In the Spring of 1640, four boys (John Olmstead, Jonathan Rudd, John Pierce, and Nicholas Olmstead) got into trouble with the authorities for "wanton dalliances, lacivious caridge, and fowle mysdemeanors at sundry times with Mary Brunson." Mary and the first three boys were "corrected;" Nicholas Olmsted was fined and pilloried. Nicholas and Mary had five daughters: 1. Mary born about 1641 and married Obediah Spencer 2. Sarah born about 1642 and married Samuel Eggleston 3. Hannah born December 20, 1644 and married John Kelsey 4. Phebe baptized in December 1646 and probably died young 5. Abigail born February 1, 1648/9 and married (1) Robert Flood and (2) Matthew Barnes/Barnard. His name does not appear often in the colonial records. He was appointed Surveyor of Chimneys in 1646/7, and again in 1654/5, 1661/2, and 1668/9; and was appointed Surveyor of Highways in 1665. Nicholas was a carpenter and cabinetmaker by profession. On 28 March 1660, he received permission to build a carpenter's shop on the highway next to his own fence. His name appears on the Hartford list of freemen dated 13 October 1669. Mary died by 1670, probably in Hartford. In late 1670, Nicholas married Elizabeth (Shepard) Spencer, the daughter of Edward and Violet (------) Shepard of Cambridge, the mother of five children and the widow of Thwaite Strickland who died in Hartford shortly before June 21, 1670. Administration of Thwaite's estate was granted to Nicholas on September 1, 1670. Nicholas was freed from training in the militia on March 6,1672/3, probably because he had reached his sixtieth birthday. One of the last episodes in Nicholas' life was perhaps the most disturbing for him. In 1683, Cotton Mather (1663-1728), one of the most renowned Puritan clergymen of his time, tells how Nicholas was beset by witchcraft: "In the year 1683, the house of Nicholas Desborough, at Hartford, was very strangely molested by stones, by pieces of earth, by cobs of Indian corn, and other such things, from an invisible hand, thrown at him, sometimes thro' the door, sometimes thro' the window, sometimes down the chimney, and sometimes from the floor of the room (tho' very close) over his head; and sometimes he met with the in the shop, the yard, the barn, and in the field. There was no violence in the motion of the things thus thrown by the invisible hand; and tho' others besides the man happen'd sometimes to be hit, they were never hurt with them; only the man himself once had pain given to his arm, and once blood fetch'd from his leg, by these annoyances; and a fire, in an unknown way kindled, consum'd no little part of his estate. This trouble began upon a controversie between Desborough and another person about a chest of cloaths, which the man apprehended to be unrighteously detain'd by Desborough; and it endur'd for divers months; but upon restoring of the cloaths thus detain'd, the trouble ceased. At Brightling in Sussex, in England, there happened a tragedy not unlike to this, in the year 1659. 'Tis recorded by Clark in the second volume of his "Examples."" Nicholas died in August of that same year. An inventory of his estate dated August 31, lists among his effects the following: " his Wearing Clothes and Lining and money, Bedsted and cord a Bed and 3 Boulsters . . . a rugg . . . a Trundle bedsted and 2 Hatchets . . . Tin wear earthen ware 8 glass bottells . . . 12 Spoones and wooden ware Two churns Tubs and payles, 2 Iron potts and pot Hookes a chaffin dish . . . tosting Iron and Tongs, Hooke and Tramill a frying pann an hower glass and Chamber pott . . . Gun and old Pistole and a Sword and ammunition 2 payre of gloves . . . Bibles and other bookes Two tables . . . 2 Table cloathes and 4 pillowbeers 5 napkins 2 Toweles, 3 payre of Sheets, five pound of Ginger . . . and 5 Cushions, In meale English and Indian old Hogsheads and Barrills . . . Three howes and an adze . . . Two Smoothing Irons . . . Indian corn upon the ground Hay in the Barn, a mans Sadle and bridle . . . The dwelling house and Barn and out houses Home lott and orchard £65.00.00, Three acres of pasture and Land adjoyning £20.00.00, [?] upland over the great river 4 acres and a halfe £40.00.00, A cannew halfe a bushel of oat meale . . . a grindstone . . . a bason a pint pott and a chamber pott, one bed an old [?] a Blanckett and a payre of sheets a boulster and 2 pillows, An old Spade and a payer of [?], his part in the Mill £2.00.11, his Lott at [?], Debts owing to the Estate Mr [?] Nath Cole." The total value of the estate was £210.07.11, with debts against the estate owed to several individuals totaling £81.15.00. As he died intestate, the administration of his estate was granted to his step-son Joseph Strickland (since he had no sons of his own) on December 18, 1683. His second wife Elizabeth, by whom he had no children, died in Hartford and was buried on March 30, 1694. References:Genforum.comOurWorld.cs.comRich Houghton (email rich_houghton@thomas.senate.gov)
found at
http://bapresley.com/genealogy/hawkins/kelsey/nicholasdisborough.html