Henry and Judith Cook of Salem Colony of the Massachusetts Bay

COLONIAL ANCESTORS

                           Henry Cook and Judith Birdsdall         1615-

                           Henry Cook II and Mary Hall 1652-

                           Henry Cook III and Sarah Turner 1683-

                           Henry Cook IV and Hannah Benham Cook 1723-

                           Selah Cook and Lucy Beckwith Cook 1576-

1. Henry and Judith 

         Salem Colony of the Massachusetts Bay Co.

         Voice of Judith Birdsall Cook

         As told in the summer 1689

         My husband Henry never thought it was important to write down information about him or his family so I don’t exactly remember all of the details of his story. It has been so long and so many things have happened in our lives. So many dates – births, deaths, marriages, coming and going – it is hard to remember. I have seen so many changes in my life. I thought it was about time for me to make some notes so that our grandchildren will know a little about me and their grandfather.

         My name is Judith Birdsdall Cook and I am seventy years old. I have lived in Salem Colony of the Massachusetts Bay for fifty-seven years. My father was Henry Birdsdall from Molton, Yorkshire, England. After my mother, Judith, died my father brought my brother Nathan and me to America. I was thirteen years old when we arrived in Salem in 1632. I was born on June 2, 1611in England.

         I married Henry Cook on June 29, 1639 at the First Church of Salem when I was twenty. At that time I think there was only one other family by the name of Cook in the colonies. Our ten children were all born in Salem. I think Henry was born in North Gray Parish, County Kent, England in 1615. His father was Edmund Cook and his mother was Elizabeth Nicholls Cook.  Like most everyone else we knew Henry was a Puritan by religion.  Father was always an active member of the church, too.

         I don’t know much about government and how it operates but I do know that things are so different now than when I first came here from the old country. Most of the first immigrants to come were from our Puritan church. Later other religious groups came to join us, but we were the first. I guess there were a lot of people who came who were Strangers too, but I don’t know any of them. There were many companies in England that sponsored people to move here and the different areas where people settled were named for the company that sponsored the people. For instance, there was the Plymouth Plantation, Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the New Haven Plantation. We called this whole area New England because we had all come from England. When the first of our church people left Holland and England to come to America in 1620 there were only one hundred and two of them. There was no settlement here for them to join when they arrived in Plymouth on the Mayflower. Those families were different from the many other men who had come to this land before them. The others came to trade, explore or just for the adventure of it all, but our people came to live. Many of them died that winter, but that didn’t change our minds about this land. Those old planters stayed and built new lives for themselves and their families. Their lives were so hard, but they stayed and I am glad they did.

         In the ten years after the Mayflower arrived here there were a lot of different land grants made by the King. Many new groups of Puritans came here and started to build their own little settlements around Plymouth. In 1628, with a charter from King Charles I, a group of about sixty Puritans arrived and built to a small settlement they called Salem. They had a governor and eighteen assistants, who were elected by the company, but the best thing about this new charter was that their main government was not in England, but right here in New England where they lived. The old planters of 1620 came with great excitement for building a new life but they had little knowledge of how to do it. By 1630 there were educated men and a few men with money who came here to start new lives. There were even some men of Parliament and preachers among the new arrivals. I guess in 1630 alone more than one thousand people came. Father, Nathan and I came as a family, in 1632, and we were also a part of a church congregation with our pastor as our leader. Most of the members of our church in England moved with us to New England. We settled in Salem where others of our church family already lived.

         I don’t know exactly when Henry and his brother John came to New England but it was after my family had already settled here in Salem. I don’t remember if Henry ever told me what ship he came on. It wasn’t very important to him to remember things like that. Henry was a free man when he came to Salem at the age of twenty-three. Not everyone was free in those days. Many young men had put themselves in bondage with the company in order to get passage to New England. The company owned everything, even the people. Many people came as indentured servants, who were contracted to work a year or more in order to gain their freedom, and then they were free and could work for themselves. I heard once that when there were 3000 people living in this area only 350 of them were freemen. In fact, Henry helped John Talbey by taking him in as a servant for a year in 1655. The town supplied John Talbey with shirts, cloth for a coat and his bed and covering and John lived with us for the year. Henry received eight bushels of Indian corn from the town for his service.

         I think Henry had lived in Plymouth for a little while before he came to Salem. I don’t know for sure but Henry may have come to Plymouth as an indentured servant and served his work time there. He never really told me about his past. I do know that when Henry arrived in Salem he came with enough cash to buy some property. Henry registered his first six acres of land in Salem on December 25, 1638; Lot Number 68, by the cove. We were not rich but Henry was a hard worker and saved his money and we were able over the years to acquire several more acres of land. In January 1645 we built our house near the intersection of Washington and Essex Streets and that is where Henry died on Christmas Day 1661. He was only forty-six years old. Many of the men around here die young. That was twenty-eight years ago. I can’t believe how fast the time has gone. After Henry died I was able to keep the house and lived there for several more years before I sold it. Since them I have lived from time to time with several of our children. Over the years more and more people have come to Salem to live and more and more houses have been built. Washington at Essex has become the main intersection in the center of Salem. Our old house has been torn down now. It was on the western half of the lot and Reverend Edward Norris was on the other half. Our other neighbors were Edmond Batter and Samuel Sharpe’s field.

         In 1649 Henry the town council granted forty acres beyond the river which included a beautiful meadow. Then in 1655 Henry and a couple of other men who owned adjacent land in that area had to give their land back because the selectmen wanted to lay it out as common land to make the town square for Salem.

         In the early days all of the animals were brought here from England on the ships, those animals had babies, then those animals had more babies and now we have large herds of sheep, swine, cows, and goats all over New England. Henry was a hard worker. He was a butcher or slaughterer by trade, but over the years he did several other jobs to support our family. His first job, soon after we were married, was the keeper of the swine. For this job he received six shillings for each animal each day. He would go through town in the morning on his way to the pasture outside the settlement. As he walked he blew a horn and the owners of the swine would bring them out for him to drive. Then at sunset he would return the swine to their owner’s homes. As the swine keeper Henry was responsible for any animal that was lost. He had to pay the owner for lost animals, but, if the animal was killed by a wild beast he was excused if he brought back part of the flesh as evidence of the attack.

         For many years Henry worked as a butcher and farmers would bring their animals to him to kill, cut up and prepare for preserving and cooking. Henry had a building on the back of our property where he did his work. Young John Talbey helped him in this work and our older sons often helped him too.

         In March 1659 the town council appointed Henry as fence viewer or surveyor for the north neck, about the glass house, and Goldwaith’s field. He worked as a surveyor until his death in 1661. This was a much easier job for Henry as he was not well and found lifting the heavy carcasses a great effort.

         We had ten children but Elizabeth died very young. Most of us married women seem to have a baby about every two years. We have one baby and by the time we wean it there is another baby to take its place. I had ten babies in eighteen years. There was always a baby in our house, but for some reason some of my babies came in pairs. Our twins Rachel and Judith were born in 1645 when Isaac was three and Samuel was two. John came when the twins were four so that gave me a little breather but there was still five children under seven years old. The twins Martha and Mary were born in 1650, then Henry junior, Elizabeth and Hannah. Henry died when our nine living children ranged in age from four years old to twenty-one. It seems like my life had always revolved around caring for our home and raising the children. After Henry died I had so many more responsibilities it was very difficult for me. The older children helped with the younger ones as much as they could but they were getting to an age when they needed to start their own lives.

         I suppose all mothers believe it too, but I think all of our children are energetic, intelligent and patriotic citizens and I am very proud of them and their accomplishments in life. Our sons, Samuel and Henry, moved to Connecticut but most everyone else is still here in Salem where they have married and raised their families. I have many grandchildren and will probably have great-grandchildren soon. I am so proud of all of them.

         For years I have talked about the old country. For me the ‘old country’ or ‘back home’ is England. I have never gone back home. My children have never been to England and probably never will. Samuel and Henry have moved to Wallingford in the Commonwealth of Connecticut. They will probably someday be called the ‘old planters’ of Wallingford because they were the first families to settle the area. Samuel and Henry refer to Salem as ‘back home’. The way we talk is strange. England is not my home anymore. My home for fifty-seven years is Salem. I am home.

NOTES:

         1. Judith died September 11, 1689 in Salem Colony of the Massachusetts Bay