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Isaac Cousins[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]

Male Abt 1613 - 1702  (~ 89 years)


Personal Information    |    Notes    |    Sources    |    Event Map    |    All    |    PDF

  • Name Isaac Cousins 
    Birth Abt 1613  [1, 8, 9] 
    Gender Male 
    Court 20 Mar 1653  [10] 
    for "not delivering a horse and colt that came of a gray mare"
    Court 29 Mar 1653  [11] 
    for non-delivery of a colt
    Parties Involved:
    Capt. Edmund Greenleaf, defendant
    • The case was withdrawn.
    Court 26 Nov 1656  [5, 12] 
    "Isaack Cozens brought suit against Thomas Treadwell. Defendant given fees"
    Occupation expert gunsmith and locksmith  [3, 7]
    Property 4 Jan 1657  Haverhill, Norfolk, Massachusetts Bay, British America Find all individuals with events at this location  [13] 
    "house and lot of five acres, bounded by John Clement and Theophilus Satchwell; also, 6 acres of meadow at ye east meadow, bounded by Richard Littlehale; also, two acres of commonage; all in Haverhill"
    Anne Hunt, participant
    Property 4 Jan 1657  Haverhill, Norfolk, Massachusetts Bay, British America Find all individuals with events at this location  [14] 
    for £30, "five acres of planting land at east end of Haverhill, bounded by Jno Clement and grantee"
    Anne Hunt, participant
    Edward Clark, conveyee
    Death 23 Jul 1702  [1, 8, 15] 
    Person ID I6171  Duane's Ancestors
    Last Modified 5 Jan 2020 

    Family 1 Elizabeth ________   d. 14 Oct 1656, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts Bay, British America Find all individuals with events at this location  [7, 8, 16] 
    Marriage BY Abt 1644  [1, 8] 
    Children 
     1. Elizabeth Cousins
     2. Isaac Cousins   d. 1675
     3. Abraham Cousins
    +4. Thomas Cousins,   b. Abt 1649   d. Abt 1690 (Age ~ 41 years)
     5. Jacob Cousins,   b. 12 Sep 1652, Haverhill, Norfolk, Massachusetts Bay, British America Find all individuals with events at this location
     6. Sarah Cousins,   b. 31 Aug 1656, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts Bay, British America Find all individuals with events at this location
    Family ID F2042  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 4 Apr 2020 

    Family 2 Anne Hunt   d. Bef 1660  [6, 7] 
    Marriage Bef 1657  [1, 6, 9] 
    Family ID F2043  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 4 Apr 2020 

    Family 3 Martha Priest  [8] 
    Marriage BY 1677  [8, 15, 17] 
    Family ID F2045  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 4 Apr 2020 

  • Event Map
    Link to Google MapsProperty - "house and lot of five acres, bounded by John Clement and Theophilus Satchwell; also, 6 acres of meadow at ye east meadow, bounded by Richard Littlehale; also, two acres of commonage; all in Haverhill",Anne Hunt, participant - 4 Jan 1657 - Haverhill, Norfolk, Massachusetts Bay, British America Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsProperty - for £30, "five acres of planting land at east end of Haverhill, bounded by Jno Clement and grantee",Anne Hunt, participant
    Edward Clark, conveyee - 4 Jan 1657 - Haverhill, Norfolk, Massachusetts Bay, British America    		 Link to Google Earth
     = Link to Google Earth 
    Pin Legend  : Address       : Location       : City/Town       : County/Shire       : State/Province       : Country       : Not Set

  • Notes 

    • ISAAC COUSINS, born about the year 1613, an expert gunsmith and locksmith, was living in Rowley, Massachusetts Bay in 1647, when it was recorded that Samuel Fogg was apprenticed to him.(+) His ability at his trade is several times commended and he seems to have been a man of education, writing a firm clear [Image for The Ancestry of Lydia Harmon 1755-1836 ]



      hand, an accomplishment which his wife, Elizabeth Cousins, shared, but a wandering spirit and a fatal propensity for litigation makes the sum of his career in New England a sad record of continuous failure.

      Cousins was offered inducements to settle in New London, Connecticut, in 1651,?? but he remained in Rowley until the following year when he sold his land, house and shop to John Pickard and removed to Haverhill. The court records at this period give evidence of his uniform ill-luck at horse-trading. He participated in the divisions of land in Haverhill in 1652 and 1653, but he soon transferred his business to Ipswich, remained there a short period, and in the autumn of 1656, after selling his Ipswich house and shop º he continued his migrations to Boston.

      At this point his wife, Elizabeth Cousins, died, on October 14, 1656. In the succeeding year he married Ann Hunt "formerly wife of John Edwards" in Boston, and disposed of his Haverhill real estate. He left several law suits behind him in the Ipswich court, figuring both as plaintiff and defendant, in one of which he is sued by the town for bringing in an old woman and leaving without providing for her.**

      On December 16, 1659 Cousins was "received as a tradesman" at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where John Webster sold him an acre of land at Great Island in 1661. How long this venture lasted is not determined, but he was again in Boston in 1668. For the next ten years his name appears only occasionally in the records. His wife Ann had apparently died before 1660, when the name of the mother of his daughter Rebecca is given in the birth record as Rebecca Cousins. This may be a clerical error, however.

      In 1677 he had again married, this wife being named Martha Priest.

      In 1678, when he was quite advanced in age, he seems to have become identified with the proprietors of North Yarmouth in Maine, and during that year he witnessed for them several deeds executed in Boston. This connection led to a further attempt to better his fortunes in a new community, and in 1681 the committee of that town was directed to lay out a tract of land to him "hee or his sonn Ingaging to come & dwell yr, & to accomodate the inhabitants by ye work of his Trade."(*) Continued Indian hostilities, however, robbed this plan of fulfillment.

      During his latter years Isaac Cousins fell into real poverty. In 1691 he was warned out of Dorchester "having a long time bin an inhabitant of Boston and now being aged." In 1696, in seeking to enter a law-suit without fees, he states that he is "an ancient inhabitant of this country ... fallen much into decay and waxen soe poore" etc.(+) This suit was against Richard Priest of Boston for withholding household goods which "were in the house where the plaintiff and Martha his late wife lived next the mill bridge on the north side thereof." Finally, in the record of his death, on July 23, 1702, we find the old man, eighty-nine years of age, a town charge.??

      There is no documentary evidence available to prove that the first four names given in the following list are those of children of Isaac Cousins. There is strong circumstantial evidence, however, that the bearers were sister and brothers, and in seeking to prove their parentage the theory that their father and mother were Isaac and Elizabeth Cousins seemed most plausible, the supposition being that after the death of their mother they were placed in the care of relatives in Charlestown and Wells.

  • Sources 
    1.  1.  [S146] Mass & Maine Families, Vol. 1, 303, 00367.

    2.  2.  [S142] Vital Records of Haverhill, MA, Vol. 1, 80, 00585.

    3.  3.  [S988] Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire, 165, 00218.

    4.  4.  [S867] TAG, 58:73, 00863.

    5.  5.  [S576] TGMSP, Thomas Treadwell, 00516.

    6.  6.  [S259] NEHGS Register, 11:204, 00390.

    7.  7.  [S259] NEHGS Register, 6:249, 00390.

    8.  8.  [S482] Torrey 1st, 186, 00395.

    9.  9.  [S62] The Ancestry of Lydia Harmon, 47, 00497.

    10.  10.  [S682] TEA, 10:172, 00682.

    11.  11.  [S682] TEA, 10:79, 00682.

    12.  12.  [S682] TEA, 9:63, 00682.

    13.  13.  [S682] TEA, 2:82, 00682.

    14.  14.  [S682] TEA, 2:81, 00682.

    15.  15.  [S62] The Ancestry of Lydia Harmon, 48, 00497.

    16.  16.  [S259] NEHGS Register, 10:67, 00390.

    17.  17.  [S146] Mass & Maine Families, Vol. 1, 304, 00367.