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Joseph Parsons

Male 1620 - 1683  (~ 63 years)


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  • Name Joseph Parsons  [1
    Nickname Cornet 
    Christened 25 Jun 1620  Beaminster, Dorset, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    Occupation 26 Mar 1661  Northampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [2
    "Lycensed to keepe and ordinary or house of common entertaynmt...for the yeare ensuinge, and he hath liberty...to sell wines or strong liquors as need shall require" 
    Residence 26 Mar 1661  Northampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [2
    Occupation 25 Mar 1662  Northampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [3
    Innkeeper's and liquor license renewed "provided he keepe good rule & order in his house" 
    Residence 25 Mar 1662  Northampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [3
    Occupation 29 Mar 1664  Northampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [4
    On this date the court renews his license to keep "an ordinary & for selling wines or liquors" 
    Residence 29 Mar 1664  Northampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [5
    On this date the court recorded:

    "The Jury presenting Joseph Parsons Senr to this Courte for lacivious carriage towards some women of Northampt vizt Hannah Roote & Goodwife Salman: The Courte did examine the case, & did judge that there are grounds to feare & suspect that Joseph Parsons hath misdemeanored himself towards the said women: And therefore the Courte did admonish the said Joseph concerning their suspition of such miscarriages" 
    Residence 27 Sep 1664  Northampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [6
    On this date, fined £5 for "opposing & resisting the Constable of Northampton in operation of his Office & work," an act of "high contempt of Authority." He and Constable Robert Bartlett "had some Scuffling in the Balywick whereby blood was drawn between them" and Parsons was fined a further 10 shillings. The court reduced the fine by 20 shillings upon Parsons' apology 
    Occupation 28 Mar 1665  Northampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [7
    On this date he is fined 20 shillings for "contemptuous behavior towards Northampton Commissioners & towards the Selectmen," and fined a further 40 shillings for allowing "Henricks ye Dutchman" to "spend his tyme" in Parsons' "house of ordinary."  
    Occupation 29 Mar 1676  Northampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [8
    Appointed constable of Northampton 
    Died 9 Oct 1683  Springfield, Hampden, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [9
    • "Cornet Joseph Parsons was sicke & died Octobr 9 1683"
    Probate 26 Mar 1684  Hampshire Co., Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [10
    Estate inventory filed, £2088.09.00; division of estate filed 
    Probate 4 Mar 1718/9  Hampshire Co., Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [11
    Estate appraisers appointed 
    Probate 19 May 1719  Hampshire Co., Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [12
    Appraisers return a value of £80 for the former residence of Joseph and Mary Parsons 
    Probate 21 Dec 1720  Hampshire Co., Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [13
    Estate administrators' account filed; additional moneys had come into the estate, resulting in payments to the legal heirs of £36.12.1½ each 
    Probate 18 May 1722  Hampshire Co., Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [14
    Another estate account is filed; the ongoing business activities in the estate result in payments to each legal heir of £40.19.5 
    Probate 18 Mar 1723  Hampshire Co., Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [15
    Administrators John and Joseph Parsons accuse their brother-in-law Joseph Willistone of having "taken in a clandestine way" a number of household goods and the deed to the lot on which Willistone's house was built; Willistone denies most charges, claiming ignorance of any deed and just possession of most of the items in question 
    Buried
    • Probably buried in the original Springfield cemetery, from which remains and monuments were exhumed and moved to a new cemetery in 1848 to make way for a railroad. Prior to about 1750 the people of Springfield did not have access to good stone with which to make grave markers so very few headstones survive from earlier times.
    Joseph 'Cornet Joseph' Parsons (1620 - 1683) - Find A Grave Memorial
    Joseph "Cornet Joseph" Parsons (1620 - 1683) - Find A Grave Memorial
    Includes monument photos and biography.

    Maintained by: Richard Baldwin Cook
    Originally Created by: Shari
    Record added: Apr 19, 2009
    Find A Grave Memorial# 36038380
    Notes 
    • Joseph Parsons is believed to have been the first of the name in America. He was known as Cornet Joseph, from the military title which he, in later years, bore; the Cornet being the color-bearer and third in command in a British troop or regiment of cavalry...

      [Parsons] came to America about 1635, possibly earlier. On July 15, 1636, he was witness to the deed of cession made by the Indians to William Pynchon and others of a large tract of land, then called Agawan but later Springfield... At that time he was about seventeen years of age... This deed was made but sixteen years after the landing of the Pilgrims, and but six years after the first settlement of Boston. Munsell's "American Ancestry" states that Joseph Parsons came over with William Pynchon, the leader of the Springfield colonists, who was one of the patentees of the grant by the Crown to the Massachusetts Bay Company, and a fellow passenger with Winthrop, who came over in 1630...

      In 1651, he was elected a selectman, the highest town office in the gift of the people.

      About 1655 he purchased of William Pynchon... a monopoly of the Connecticut River beaver or fur trade, in which... he was for many years successfully engaged.

      From 1672 to 1678 he was a Cornet of the Hampshire Troop, commanded by Capt. John Pynchon, the first troop of horse formed in Western Massachusetts, and in 1679, he was a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston, the first regularly organized military company in America...

      In the spring of 1671 Joseph Parsons, with three others, went on an exploring expedition to what is now Northfield, Mass., and concluded a bargain with the Indians for a tract of over 10,000 acres of land on the "great river" (Connecticut). His intimate acquaintance with the Indians as a fur trader, taking him to their villages up and down the Connecticut Valley, made him invaluable in any transactions with them...

      [Parsons] served in the French and Indian wars, Colony of Massachusetts Bay. He was a partner of William Pynchon in the fur trade of the Connecticut valley and was the chief founder of Northampton, Mass.

      Cornet Joseph Parsons was preemninently a business man, with the courage and enterprise which peculiarly fitted him to take a leading part in the settlement of a new country. Savage says that he was "the most enterprising man in the Connecticut valley for a quarter of a century," and Burt, in his Monograph, says that "with perhaps a single exception he was the most prosperous and successful of any of the settlers and acquired a handsome property, the largest, unless it be that of John Pynchon, of any in Hampshire County, an evident indication of his foresight and enterprise."

      pp. 39-42, The Parsons Family, by Henry Parsons
    Person ID I1334  Wm L Gann Ancestors
    Last Modified 26 Jul 2017 

    Family Mary Bliss,   b. 1625, Rodborough, Gloucestershire, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 29 Jan 1711/12, Springfield, Hampden, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 87 years) 
    Married 26 Nov 1646  Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut Find all individuals with events at this location  [1
    • "Joseph Parsons & Mary Blisse were joyned together in marriage 9 mon. 26 day 1646 at Hartforde"
    Family ID F564  Group Sheet

  • Sources 
    1. [S26921] Massachusetts, Springfield Vital Records, 1638-1887, (''FamilySearch'' (https://www.familysearch.org)), LDS film 185414, image 214 (Reliability: 3), 14 Jun 2011.

    2. [S112] Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1991, Ancestry.com, (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Hampshire Co., Probate Record vol. 1 p. 5 (Reliability: 3), 25 Jul 2017.

    3. [S112] Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1991, Ancestry.com, (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Hampshire Co., Probate Record vol. 1 p. 13 (Reliability: 3), 25 Jul 2017.

    4. [S112] Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1991, Ancestry.com, (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Hampshire Co., Probate Record vol. 1 p. 32 (Reliability: 3), 25 Jul 2017.

    5. [S112] Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1991, Ancestry.com, (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Hampshire Co., Probate Record vol. 1 p. 33 (Reliability: 3), 25 Jul 2017.

    6. [S112] Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1991, Ancestry.com, (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Hampshire Co., Probate Record vol. 1 p. 40 (Reliability: 3), 25 Jul 2017.

    7. [S112] Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1991, Ancestry.com, (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Hampshire Co., Probate Record vol. 1 p. 54 (Reliability: 3), 25 Jul 2017.

    8. [S112] Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1991, Ancestry.com, (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Hampshire Co., Probate Record vol. 1 p. 168 (Reliability: 3), 25 Jul 2017.

    9. [S26921] Massachusetts, Springfield Vital Records, 1638-1887, (''FamilySearch'' (https://www.familysearch.org)), LDS film 185417, vol 1 p 51 (Reliability: 3), 14 Jun 2011.

    10. [S112] Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1991, Ancestry.com, (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Hampshire Co., Probate Record vol. 1 p. 233-34 (Reliability: 3), 25 Jul 2017.

    11. [S112] Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1991, Ancestry.com, (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Hampshire Co., Probate Record vol. 4 p. 12 (Reliability: 3), 26 Jul 2017.

    12. [S112] Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1991, Ancestry.com, (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Hampshire Co., Probate Record vol. 4 p. 13 (Reliability: 3), 26 Jul 2017.

    13. [S112] Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1991, Ancestry.com, (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Hampshire Co., Probate Record vol. 4 pp. 43-44 (Reliability: 3), 26 Jul 2017.

    14. [S112] Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1991, Ancestry.com, (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Hampshire Co., Probate Record vol. 4 p. 60 (Reliability: 3), 26 Jul 2017.

    15. [S112] Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1991, Ancestry.com, (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Hampshire Co., Probate Record vol. 4 p. 76 (Reliability: 3), 26 Jul 2017.