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WILLIAM PONTUS (say 1585–1653)
WYBRA HANSON (say 1587–aft. 1633)
William was born say 1585. [1] He died on 9 February 1652/3 in Plymouth. [1] He married Wybra Hanson on 4 December 1610 in Leiden. [1]
Wybra Hanson was born say 1587. She died after 15 December 1633, when she was listed as a creditor of the estate of John Throop. [1]
William was a fustian worker. [1]
William was on a jury on 7 June 1636. [2] He was on a 7 March 1636/7 list of freemen in Plymouth. [2]
William was granted six acres by his house on 5 February 1637/8. On 5 March 1637/8 the court noted that he had "long since" been granted 40 acres with trees and had built a house. Plymouth required the land back and William relinquished all but five acres. The court confirmed he could keep the five acres and granted him six more acres [perhaps the ones granted on 5 February?] [2]
On 3 September 1638 William Pontus was on a jury that found Arthus Peach, Thomas Jackson and Richard Stinnings guilt of murdering and robbing and Indian and sentenced them to hang. A fourth man—Daniel Cross—escaped before he could be tried. [2]
William Pontus was assigned to help repair the herring weir in the town of Plymouth on 17 March 1639 and 25 March 1640. [3]
William was granted two acres of upland to his half acre of meadow on 31 December 1641. [4]
William Pontus had a share of land in Middleborough, and the courts settled this land on his daughters Mary Delano and Hannah Churchill on 3 May 1664. On 1 January 1693/4, Mary Delano's son and heir Samuel Delano sold his half to John Churchill, weaver of Plymouth, for 14 pounds. [5]
Children of William Pontus and Wybra Hanson:
i. Mary Pontus was born on 15 October 1622 in Leiden. [1] She married first James Glass on 31 October 1645 in Plymouth. [1][6] She married second Philip Delano. [1]
ii. Hannah Pontus was born say 1624. She died on 22 December 1690 in Plymouth. She married first John Churchill. She married second Giles Rickard.
References:
1. "The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620–1633, Volumes I-III," digitized book, AmericanAncestors.org, originally published as: Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, 3 volumes (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995), 1491–3.
2. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, Records of the Colony of New Plymouth, vol. 1, Court Orders, 1633–1640 (Boston: William White, 1855).
3. Records of the Town of Plymouth (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1995).
4. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, Records of the Colony of New Plymouth, vol. 2, Court Orders, 1641–1651 (Boston: William White, 1855).
5. Ann Smith Lainhart, "Plymouth County Records of Deeds," Mayflower Desecendant 41 (1991): 65–70, specifically 69.
6. Lee D. van Antwerp and Ruth Wilder Sherman, Vital Records of Plymouth, Massachusetts: To the Year 1850 (Camden, ME: Picton Press, 1993), 655 (marriage of Mary).
Last revised: 28-Dec-2023