The English ancestry of Reinold and Matthew Marvin of Hartford, Ct ...

Rcinold and Matthew Marvin 65
cases. Among the debtors, Peter Leger is called " meser,"
? messor, a provincial word for a "lord's bailiff." Thomas
Cooper, the "berebruerof ypswych," is very likely the one
of that name mentioned above.* The " Town Marche " was,
I presume, the esplanade on the southern border, long a
favorite promenade. The " selond beme " (? scale and beam)
and "wayghts" in the "shope," given to her son, show that
he probably succeeded to his father's business.
11 Robert 3 {John 2 Robert 1
), was born in 1489 or earlier,
probably at Great Belstead, another name for Washbrook
according to a local history, or a part of that Parish, f
fourteenth century Washbrook had two Churches ;
In the
one was in
a hamlet called Felchurch, which with Hamer Hall in that
vicinity, belonged to the Dartford Priory, and was near
Sproughton ;
as Robert's father was a tenant by copy-hold of
the Prioress (see his Will, p. 36 supra), his land must have
been in that hamlet. Some ruins of the old Church re-
mained in the middle of the last century, but when it fell is
not known, and its name and that of the locality seem to have
been forgotten. This neighborhood, however, is thought to
be that once called Great Belstead ; the date of its ab-
sorption I have been unable to find. The other Church, as
previously stated, is dedicated to St. Mary ; the living, united
* See No. 20, pp. 40, 41. The Rev. C. H. Evelyn White, in his "Old Inns and
Taverns in Ipswich," has much curious information on the peculiar customs of the
brewers there, and the local laws regulating the business in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. Bylston (p. 56) where Anne's daughter Barker lived, is now called Bildcs-
ton; it is eleven miles north-west of Ipswich.
t Kirby, " Suffolk Traveller," p. 69, edition of 1764.