Only very brief accounts of the life and activities of the settler John Carman have heretofore appeared in print, and it is believed that this article will provide a complete story of his known career, as well as correcting some mistaken statements that have been made about him.
Various theories have been put forth about his origin. One family history says that the family came from Brittany in France, and gives a coat of arms, while another account offers a descent from three Johns and two Thomases, the first of whom was a martyr, burnt at the stake at Norwich, England, on May 19, 1558. No evidence is offered in support of the identification of the emigrant as the descendant of this family, nor in support of the additional statement that his birthplace was at Hemel Hempstead in Herfordshire, where he was born, it is said in 1606.
According to the notes of the late historian and genealogist Charles Edward Banks, he came from Bishops Stoke Parish in Hampshire. Unfortunately the records there before 1661 have been lost or destroyed, so this cannot be corroborated by further research. Possibly adjoining parish records might yield some information, but so far no record has been found of the birth or parentage of John Carman or his wife, Florence, or of the date of their marriage. 1
As John Kirman, he first appears as a passenger on the Plough, which reached these shores on July 4, 1631. John Winthrop, whose history of the early settlers is so invaluable to researchers, refers to the arrival of this ship as follows: "A small ship of sixty tons arrived at Natascott, Mr. Graves master. She brought ten passengers from London, they came with a patent to Sagadahock, but not liking the place, they came hither. . . . These were the company called the Husbandmen, and their ship called the Plough. Most of them proved familists and vanished away."
These "familists" were followers of the doctrine that religion lay in love, not in creeds, - a dangerous theory and one liable to abuse. Their patent was the Lygonian Patent, on the Maine coast, and the proposed settlement there never materialized, at least under this patent. Winthrop says that most of these settlers were familists, which leaves us in some doubt as to whether Carman had emigrated for religious reasons or for other causes. It is certain however, that whether or not he was affiliated with this sect, he was required to have ten pounds for the venture, a not inconsiderable sum for the time.
A few months after his arrival, on October 18, 1631, the following order was issued by the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony concerning him: "there shalbe taken out of the estate of Mr Crispe & his company the sumeof xii L js vd, & delued to John Kirman, as his pp goods, & after the whole estate to be inventoryed whereof the sd John Kirman is to haue an 8th pte." Other orders on this matter came later. On June 5, 1632, the Court of Assistants of the Colony ordered "that the goods of the company of husbandmen shalbe Inventoryed by the Beadle & prserued here for the vse and benefitt of the said company." Again on April 7, 1635, the General Court ordered that Captain Traske should pay Kirman L24 11S 5d, the remainder of the eighth part due him out of the estate of the Company of Husbandmen.
Since John Carman's name is not on the list of grantees of the Sagadahock Patent, and he so promptly received a refund of his investment when the patent was abandoned, it seems probable that his joining the Company was merely a business venture from which he was able to withdraw. The name of John Crispe, who was ordered to make the refund, its first on the list of patentees, who are given as "all of London." No explanation has been found as to how or why any men from Bishops Stoke Parish became interested in it. In addition to Banks' statement that Carman was of that parish, it is interesting to note that Richard Dummer and Stephen Bachelor, with both of whom Carman was closely associated in Massachusetts Bay, came from there. There are records of many Carmans in Hampshire, and of marriages between Carmans and Dummers.
Although the Company of Husbandmen had not chosen to take up their patent of land at Sagadahock, the London members had not, for some unknown reason, been notified of the change of plan, and in the following year two more ships brought more passengers for this company. The Whale arrived May 26, 1632, and the William and Francis on June 5, 1632. On the first of these came Richard Dummer, and on the second, Thomas Welde, later paster of the Roxbury, Massachusetts, church, and Stephen Bachelor, later minister at Lynn, Massachusetts. Both of these men were members of the Company of Husbandmen. Possibly Florence Carman, who is known to have arrived in this year, came with one of these men, or with other neighbors from Bishops Stoke Parish.
Carman and his wife settled at Roxbury, where they were members of Welde's church. John Eliot was the Teacher there, and he kept a record of the church members, in which the Carmans are noted as follows: "John Carman. He came to N. E. In the yeare 1631 he brought no childr--: his first borne John was borne the 8t of the 5t month 1633. his daughter Abigail was borne on the 5t month: 1635. his 3d child Caleb was borne in the first of the first moneth: 1639." Under date of 1632 appears: "Florenc Carman the wife of John Carman."
On March 3, 1632/33, John Kirman was admitted to the freeman's right and took the freeman's oath. He served on a committee, on September 3, 1634, appointed "to sett out the bounds of all townes not yet sett out, or in differences betwixte any towne." A month later, on October 6, 1634, he appeared before the General Court, and "tooke oath hee was summoned by Rich: Kent to appeare this day att the court, to answer him in an accon of trepasse, & now psecutes not: soe the Court hath giuen him xs damage." He speedily rose to the honored office of Deputy to the General Court of the Colony, and served as Deputy at the Courts of March 4, 1634/35, and December 7, 1636, being called "Goodman" on the latter occasion.
Apparently he removed to Saugus, later called Lynn, Massachusettts, in 1636 (which creates some doubt as to whether he was Deputy from Roxbury or Lynn in December of that year), as he appears as a juror at Essex County Quarterly Court on September 27, 1636, and again on March 28, 1637. On June 27, 1637,he appeared as a witness in a case between the residents of Lynn. He was not altogether happy here either, for he is next heard of in a Court Order issued by Plymouth Colony on April 3, 1637, to "tenn men of Saugus," of who he was one, authorizing them to form a new settlement in Plymouth Colony, with "liberty to view a place to sett downe & haue sufficient lands for three score famylies." This new town was Sandwich, of which Carman was an early settler.
In Plymouth Colony Carman is mentioned a few times. On September 4, 1638, in a list of fines, is "John Carman, 1 sowe & xi piggs vnringed, xiis." On April 16, 1640, he was a member of a committee "to view and appoynt the said meddow land, and to consider as well the estate & qualyty of every pson, as also the qualyty and condicon of the meddowes," and appoint earch man't portion according to his "necessyty and abillity." Under the order land was laid out to 58 men. Carman received the second largest grant, one of 28 acres, peaking well both his necessity and ability. On June 2, 1640, "John Kerman deposeth and sayth that there was such disorder in James Coles house, by throweing stooles, & formes, & fyre, vntill within a hower of day, or there about, that they could hardly sleepe, and in the morneing he found them on sleepe by the fyer." On June 3, 1640, a record is given of land grants to John Kerman of Sandwich; a house, 15 acres, 16 acres, 8 acres, 10 acres and 90 acres. Further mention of him is made in the lists of freeman of Plymouth Colony, and in a deed, of September 14, 1638, in which it is mentioned that John Carman had at some earlier time sold two acres to John Billington.
Carman may next have been in Connecticut. It has been stated that he was at Stamford, but no record of him there has been found, and indeed the only record of him in Connecticut is in a list of debts due to the estate of William Lotham, taken on March 20, 1645/46 (Hartford district): "Ite: fro Goodman Carman, o. 6s."
Thompson, in his History of Long Island, says of John Carman: "He had been a ship Master, and it is supposed, followed that business awhile in this province." From the last record of him at Sandwich in 1640, until his appearance in the company of Robert Fordham in 1643 in purchasing Hempstead from the Indians, it is not known where he was or what he was doing. Perhaps, in view of Thompson's statement, the event recorded by Winthrop on July 5, 1643, concerning an encounter with Turkish pirates may be considered to refer to this emigrant. Winthrope wrote, under that date: "Here arrived one Mr. Carman, master of the ship called _________ of 180 tons. He went from New Haven in 10ber (December) last, laden with clapboards for the Canaries, being earnestly commended to the Lord's protection by the church there. At the island and of Palma, he was set upon by a Turkish pirate of 300 tons and 26 pieces of ordnance and 200 men. He fought with her three hours, having but 20 men and but 7 pieces of ordance that he could use, and his muskets were unserviable with rust. The Turk lay across his hawse, so as he was forced to shoot through his own hoodings, and by these shot killed many Turks. Then the Turk lay by his side and boarded him with near 100 men, and cut all his ropes, etc., but his shot having killed the captain of the Turkish ship and broken his tiller, the Turk took in his own ensign and fell off from him, but in such haste as he left about 50 of his men aboard him, then the master and some of his men came up and fought with those 50 hand to hand, and slew so many of them as the rest leaped overboard. The master had many wounds on his head and body, and divers of his men were wounded, yet but one slain; so with much difficulty he got to the island (being in view thereof), where he was very courteously entertained and supplied with whatsoever he wanted."
There are other mentions of a Carman as a seagoing man, some of which obviously inapplicable. The Mr. Kerman, master of a ship from London, whom Winthrop in an entry of December, 1645, notes as drowned could not have been our settler. Aspinwall, the Boston notary, notes in August, 1648, the "Release unto Major Edward Gibons of theire interest in the shipp Planter" by a group of men, one of whom was John Carman, by his attorney Bartholomew Barlow. This might easily enough have been our John Carman, in an earlier entry by Aspinwall, in June, 1648, of a suit by the seaman of the Planter, a ship from London, then in Boston harbor, for wages due them by which "John Carman, Gunner," recovered L52 7S, is somewhate puzzling. Although wide credence has been given the statement that John Carman was the son-in-law of Robert Fordham, we have found nothing to substantiate it, nor have we found any evidence of contacts between the two men before their purchase of Hempstead from the Indians. Neither is listed among the inhabitants of Stamford of that period. We have seen that John Carman came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony (from Hampshire ?) in 1631; at that time Robert Fordham was Vicar in Flamsted, Herts, and until he came to America in 1638 he held that assignment, and was also a licensed preacher in Lincoln Diocese; he was born in 1603,--hence hardly old enough to be John Carman's father-in-law. He was one of the founders of Sudbury, Mass.; sold his land there in 1643. Both these men had shown themselves to be leading spirits in their communities, and it may be that having in some way been brought together, they saw the opportunity to establish a less restricted and more liberal community on Long Island, and induced the Stamford people to come with them. The group in Stamford had not so long before come from Wethersfield on account of church dissensions, with the Rev. Richard Denton as their pastor and one of five men to administer civil affairs in Stamford; it is significant that Robert Fordham and not Richard Denton was made pastor of the new settlement in Hempstead, and that he held that office until 1657, when he went to Southampton, and Richard Denton was made pastor in his place.
John Carman, in his various moves, --Roxbury, Lynn, Sandwich, &c,-- seemed to be always seeking greater religious liberty, --or tolerance. Mr. Welde, the pastor of the church in Roxbury, of which John and Florence were charter members, was one of the most straitlaced of the Massachusetts Bay divines; Mr. Leverich (Leveridge), pastor of the church at Sandwich, was virtually banished because he was "too conscientiously human for the times." The Patentees of Hempstead received a charter from the Dutch Governor, November 16, 1644, in which it was stated that they had "full power to build temples of worship, and use and exercise the reformed religion which they profess."
Possibly the suit of Lysbet Tyssen against "Goodman Karreman," for the purchase of a red petticoat with blue lining, and trimmed with cord, on December 7, 1645, may refer to John Carman. The first division of land at Hempstead took place in 1647, and John Carman was one of the freeholders. Not much is known of him in the years that follow. In 1649/50, Richard Denton, John Carman, and others of Hempstead, signed a petition against the sheriff of Flushing, and on April 18, 1651, Richard Denton wrote to Director Stuyvesant, complaining that Mr. Carman would not pay him. On April 6, 1654, the Connecticut Colony Records mention a bond of L1000 given by "Dickenson & Karmen of Hempstead." In 1654 Mr. Leveridge of Oyster Bay (one time pastor of Sandwich) declared that he had bought a certain debt of Mrs. Carman. Apparently Carman had died in 1654. On October 31, 1656, John Hicks sued Hendrick Jansen for payment of land Jansen had purchased from Mr. Carman. We learn from a later record that Hicks married the widow of John Carman, as on April 7, 1661, the children, John Carman and Caleb Carman, and Benjamin Coe as the husband of Abigail Carman, and representing their minor brother Joshua, petitioned that John Hicks, who had married their mother, might be obliged to render an account of the estate. On January 22, 1662, Hicks made a pre-nuptial agreement with Rachel Starr, so it becomes evident that Florence died in or before 1661.
John 1 and Florence Carman had the following children:
i. John 2, who was born July (fifth month) 8, 1633, recorded at Roxbury.
ii. Abigail 2, who was born July (fifth month) 1635, recorded at Roxbury.
iii. Caleb 2, who was born July (fifth month) 1, 1639, recorded at Roxbury.
iv. Joshua 2, who was born January 9, 1645/46, at Hempstead.
1Waters, in Genealogical Gleanings in England, gives the will of the widow Elizabeth Nevs, of the town and county of Southampton, Hampshire, England, probated February 20, 1645. She made bequests to the poor of the French Church of Southampton, and named her daughter Susanna, wife of Thomas Dummer, her daughter Elizabeth Carman, and Elizabeth's children. John and Elizabeth Carman, and her son Carman's three children by a previous marriage. There may be some connection with Carman of New England.
Banks, Topographical Dictionary, 60.
Boston, Massachusetts, Recordof Commissioners Reports, 6:74,77;32:152,208,209.
Bunker, Long Island Genealogies (1895), 164.
Calendar of New York Historical Mss., Part I. Dutch, 98,176,223,273,274.
Carman, Thomas C. Carman and Phebe Prudden Carman (1935), 19.
Connecticut Colony Records, I:253,473.
Essex County, Massachusetts, Quarterly Court Records, I:3,5,6.
Frost, Ancestors of Henry Rogers Winthrop and his wife Alice Woodward Babcock (1927),96.
Holmes, Directory of the Ancestral Heads of New England Families (1923),42.
Huntington, History of Stamford, Connecticut (1868),55,73.
Lawrence, Colonial Families of America, 2:85,86.
Lewis & Newhall, History of Lynn, Massachusetts (1865),169,576.
Manwaring, Early Connecticut Probate Records, I:21.
Massachusetts Bay Colony Court of Assistants, 2:20,23,49,52.
Massachusetts Bay Colony Records, I:92,125,132,135,143,185,367.
Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 2d series, 6:424,525.
Miller, Everhart-Miller and Allied Families (1931),85,86.
Minutes of the Executive Council of the Province of New York (1910),I:134.
Onderdonk, Annals of Hempstead, Long Island (1878), 15. Plymouth Colony Records,I:57,98,147,149,150,156,157,8:183;12:37.
Pope, Pioneers of Massachusetts (1900),88.
Roxbury, Massachusetts, Vital Records,I:52.
Thompson, History of Long Island (1918),2:468-470.
Waters, Genealogical Gleanings in England (1902),I:638.
Winthrop's Journal, History of New England (Hosmer ed.) (1908), I:65,80;2:126.249.
