Thomas ALCOCK ("The Immigrant")

   Other names for Thomas were Thomas Alcocke ²⁵² and Thomas Alcott.²⁵²

  General Notes:

Patrick McDonald <[email protected]>

  Birth Notes:

ORIGIN: Unknown
MIGRATION: 1630
FIRST RESIDENCE: Boston
REMOVES: Dedham 1638, Boston 1651
OCCUPATION: Cowherd
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP: Admitted to Boston church as member #46 (late 1630) [BChR 14]; "Our brother Thomas Alcocke and our sister Margery his wife were recommended to Deddam" 8 September 1639 [BChR 26].
FREEMAN: 6 May 1635 [MBCR 1:370].
OFFICES: Chosen Boston cowkeeper 28 April 1651, 29 March 1652, 25 April 1653, 24 April 1654 and 12 March 1654/5 [BTR 1:104, 109, 116, 119, 123].
ESTATE: On 7 February 1636/7 the Boston selectmen "agreed that our brother, Thomas Alcock, shall have his great lot laid out at Muddy River" [BTR 1:15]. There is no record that this lot was laid out, but this may be the "lot of twenty acres more or less" which Thomas Alcock of Dedham sold to William Brisco of Boston in 1644 [BBOP 33-34].
He was granted six acres upland and six acres meadow by Dedham, and noted as not now present, 6 April 1638 [DeTR 1:42, including facsimile of original grant]; granted one acre and three roods of upland, 6 February 1642/3 [DeTR 1:95]; granted three acres, three roods and twenty rods of woodland, 4 February 1644/5 [DeTR 1:109]; granted two acres of swamp, 11 February 1650/1 [DeTR 1:176].
Thomas Alcock appears in surviving Dedham tax lists of 1648 and 1649 [DeTR 1:152, 154, 155, 158, 161].
The inventory of Thomas Alcock's estate was taken by James Johnson and Richard Truesdall, and totalled £20 7s., including "a house and yard" valued at £14. A separate annotation referred to "a legacy to two of our children by Deacon Allcoke deceased & by us received for them but we never yet gave it to them." Administration was granted to the widow Margery, and she deposed on 30 January 1657/8. The court ordered that the widow should have the residue of £16 to bring up the children [SPR Case #177].
BIRTH: No later than 1614 based on dates of church admission and freemanship.
DEATH: Boston 14 September 1657 [BVR 61].
MARRIAGE: By 1635 Margery _____; she married (2) Boston 16 November 1660 JOHN BENHAM [BVR 77], and moved to New Haven; she married (3) Charlestown 20 February 1666/7 Richard Pritchard [ChVR 1:24].
CHILDREN:
i MARY, bp. Boston 8 November 1635 [BChR 280]; d. before 4 October 1644.

ii ELIZABETH, bp. Boston 10 December 1637 [BChR 282]; "Joseph Soper & Elizabeth Alcocke daughter of Thomas Alcocke" m. Boston 6 May 1656 [BVR 58]. (There is a Dedham birth record for Elizabeth, daughter of "Thomas & Mary Alcock," 14 October 1638. This is probably meant for 1637, as otherwise the births are too closely spaced. Thomas and his family were present in Dedham in 1638, but the Dedham church had not yet been organized, and it would be correct for him to have a child born in Dedham at this time baptized in Boston.)

iii SARAH, b. Dedham 28 December 1639 [DeVR 1]; bp. Dedham 5 January 1639/40 "daughter of our brother Allcocke a member of the church at Boston" [DeChR 22]; no further record.

iv HANNAH, b. Dedham 25 May 1642 [DeVR 2]; bp. Dedham 28 May 1642 "daughter of Thomas Alcott & his wife being members of the church at Boston recommended unto us by their letters to watch over them during their abode here" [DeChR 26]; no further record.

v MARY, b. Dedham 4 October 1644 [DeVR 3]; bp. Dedham 1644 (before 3 November) [DeChR 28]; m. Dorchester 27 September 1664 [but listed under 1665] James Robinson [DVR 21].

vi REBECCA, b. Dedham 21 October 1646 [DeVR 3]; bp. Dedham 28 February 1646/7 [DeChR 30]; no further record.

vii (possibly) PHILIP, b. say 1648; m. (1) New Haven 5 December 1672 Elizabeth Mitchell [NHVR 31]; m. (2) Wethersfield 4 April 1699 Sarah Butler, widow of Nathaniel [WetVR Barbour]. (Philip may fit in this family, and if so would have accompanied his mother from Boston to New Haven after her marriage with John Benham [NH Fam 1:12].)

viii JOHN, b. Boston 2 July 1651 [BVR 33]; bp. Boston 6 July 1651 [BChR 321]; m. by 1678 Constance Mylam, daughter of Humphrey Mylam [BTR 144; SLR 26:259; William F.J. Boardman, The Ancestry of Jane Maria Greenleaf (Hartford 1906) 117].

ASSOCIATIONS: Brother of GEORGE ALCOCK of Roxbury and of Elizabeth Whitehead of Leamington Priors, Warwickshire (see account of GEORGE ALCOCK for evidence of these relationships, and for other matters common to the brothers).
COMMENTS: Most secondary sources assign two wives to Thomas Alcock: Mary, mother of the first two children, and Margery, the mother of the rest. But Mary is attested on only one record, the Dedham birth record for daughter Elizabeth. We are claiming, though, that this is the same as the Elizabeth baptized in Boston. The abbreviated form for Margery ("Margy") can be misread as Mary, and this may well be what has happened here. Our conclusion is that Thomas probably had only one wife, Margery.
Thomas Alcock and Margery were apparently married about 1634 or 1635. She is referred to as "sister" when recommended to Dedham in 1639, but there is no record of her admission to Boston church as wife of Thomas. Presumably, then, she is one of the otherwise unattached Margerys admitted to Boston church prior to 1635.
Note that there is no deed or probate record which accounts for all the children of Thomas Alcock, and that there are three daughters unaccounted for beyond their births: Sarah, Hannah and Rebecca. They may well have married, and, given the residences of their mother and known siblings, they might be anywhere in Massachusetts or Connecticut.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Immigration, 1630, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts. ²⁵²

• Residence, After 1638, Dedham, Norfolk, MA U. S. A. ^248,252

• Occupation: cowherd, After 28 Apr 1651, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts. ²⁵² He was chosen as Boston's cowkeeper several times after this date.

• Residence, After 1651, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts. ^248,252

Thomas married Margery ALCOCK before 1635 ^{248,252,257,258,259,260,261}.^,263

  Marriage Notes:

from TORREY:

ALCOTT/ALCOCK, Thomas (-1657) & Margery _____ (Mary in Dedham VR, 1638), m/2 John BENHAM 1660, 1659?, m/3 Richard PRITCHARD 1667; by 1635; Boston/Dedham {Boston VR 63; Olcott (1899) 42; Tuttle 673; Sv. 1:22, 165; Pope's Pioneers 12; Dedham Ch. Rec.; Reg. 2:104, 9:274, 344, 97:12; Lane (#5) 21; Blake-Glidden 24; Greenleaf 117; Beckwith Gen. 34; Fairfield Fam. 1:249; New Haven Gen. Mag. 12; Wethersfield 2:28; Hall-Baldwin 1}