INDENTURED SERVANT: Judith Phippen 10thGGM

Dort/DART-WHITNEY/Blodgett/Simonds-Phippen

1635 IMMIGRANT JUDITH PHIPPEN Indentured Servant

From 1630 through 1640 approximately 20,000 English colonists came to New England.  Among these immigrants were all sixteen of Lucy Whitney [Jonathan] Dart’s great-great grandparents who settled in Middlesex, Massachusetts including the Whitney’s, Perham’s, Shipley’s, Blodgett’s, Simonds’, Hall’s, Davis’ and the Tarbell’s (who arrived in 1644). 

This Great Migration generation included my 10th great grandmother, sixteen-year old Judith Phippen who gained passage on The Winthrop Fleet’s ship The Planter, sailing out of London in April, 1635 as one of four servants (including future husband, James Haieward, 22) indentured to Nicholas Davies.  Upon the completion of their seven years of indentured service to Davies*, Judith and James were married for only about a year before James’ death in 1642.  [*Other accounts note them as married on board the ship or a year after arrival, both less likely due to the typical restrictions of indentureship at that time.]

Unlike colonial Virginia where indentured servants filled the needs of a large, expanding workforce to develop the tobacco industry, early Massachusetts was the destination for many Puritans and other religious dissenters who wished to escape English persecution and freely practice their beliefs.  It was not uncommon in the 1630’s for whole families to transplant their English roots in colonial soil.  Those of financial means were able to contract, or indenture, young men and women who were willing to ‘work off’ their expensive travel costs through unpaid service of typically four to seven years, after which they were free to begin a new life in New England. 

It should be noted that, as indentured servants, Judith and James were considered the ‘personal property’ of  Master Davies.  As such, they ran the risk of extended servitude by marrying or having children before their contract expired.  Since they sailed in the spring of 1635 and their only child was born at the end of 1642, it can be assumed that they were indentured for seven years.  Sadly, James would not live to see the birth of his baby, Rebecca, who was born only two weeks following his untimely death.

Fortuitously, the twenty-one year old widow and new mother soon married another immigrant, widower William Simonds, on January 18, 1643 in Woburn, Massachusetts.  William also arrived in 1635 and gained his freeman status four years later (although one source suggests that he only gained that status in 1670 after some years of discord with the town government regarding voter rights and the Woburn church regarding his Baptist views).  Nevertheless, he served as town officer, paid taxes, and together with Judith raised a large family of twelve including my 9th ggmother, Huldah.  According to one Ancestry.com source:

 He settled on Upstreet at a place called Dry Brook, located about a mile and a half north west from the center of town. He built a house on his property about 1670 which was one of the longest standing in Woburn after the Baldwin mansion. It was “a good specimen of the second period of architecture in New England. It had a large brick chimney in the center, was of two stories, and had a gable roof…That the house was new when William Simonds died [in 1672], seems apparent, that from his indebtedness to Sergeant John Wyman for seven windows at four schillings a piece”(Cutter 1908).

The house of "Widdo Simons" was used as a garrison house during King Philip's War, and eventually passed, it appears, to his son James. The family homestead remained in the family for almost two hundred years, passing at the death of Luther5 Simonds (Caleb4, James3-2, William1) to his widow, Bathsheba (Hayward) Simonds, in 1792 and from her to her second husband Nathan5 Simonds (Benjamin4-3-2, William1) and finally to their only daughter, Lucy (Simonds) Barnard, in 1827. [Johnson 1889; Cutter 1908].

Huldah’s sister Judith was an ancestor of the poet Emily Dickinson, rocket scientist Robert Goddard, and a founder of the ACLU, Roger Baldwin.  Their brother James was the great grandfather of “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman.

Judith Phippen 1635 indentured servant (1618 - 1689)

is your 10th great grandmother-as widow of James Hayward, married (2) William Simonds

Huldah Simonds (1660 - 1745)

daughter of Judith Phippen (Hayward) 1635 indentured servant

William Blodgett Dr. (1686 - 1751)

son of Huldah Simonds

Anne Blodgett (1714 - 1819) [or Amy/Ama Blodgett]

daughter of William Blodgett Dr.

Lucy Whitney (1739 - 1844)

daughter of Anne Blodgett

Timothy Dort/Dart (1756 - 1814)

son of Lucy Whitney

Titus DORT (1777 - 1844)

son of Timothy Dort/Dart

Titus Dort  (1806 - 1879)

son of Titus DORT

Andrew Jackson Dort (1837 - 1905)

son of Titus Dort & my great-great grandfather