Family-histories and genealogies : containing a series of ...

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in silencing and removing our Chief Rulers and Magistrates,' and, mentioning
among them Richard Christophers, he adds ' Another of them was
soon removed by death, the worshipful William Pitkin, a gentleman of great
worth, wisdom and piety, whose loss we feel and lament even to this day.'
" From the last expression we conclude the first Wilham Pitkin was
meant, as the death of the second William Pitkin had happened only
in 1723.
"The great attention he paid to religion- is evidenced by the manuscripts
he left behind him on religious subjects, which are now in my
hands. These manuscripts fill a very large folio volume of about six
hundred and fifty closely written pages, in a hand plain for that period.
They embrace one hundred and sixty-three essays, of different lengths, on
various texts of Scripture.''*
" The first emigrant, it is believed, left no parents living in England,
and only one brother, by the name of Roger p-'^^'^
and one sister named
Martha?^ The former was a military officer in the royal army; and the
latter, strongly attached to her brother William, in the year 1660, or early
in 1 66 1, crossed the Atlantic for the purpose of finding this brother, and
inducing him to return to England, not supposing that he really intended
to remain in the wilderness.
" A tradition has always prevailed in the family, that Martha Pitkin,
at that time a young lady of twenty or twenty-two, of no ordinary natural
talents, and improved by an excellent education, having by accident found
her beloved brother, at their first meeting, feeding his swine, she (after
their first salutation) said to him '
I left one brother in England serving
his king, and found another in America serving his swine.'
"The reception his sister met with in the colony was very flattering,
as has lately been given me by the Rev* Thomas Robbins, for some years
'* Mr. A. P. Pitkin says :
"
it might be inferred that he was educated for the ministry."
" A letter of Walter Barnesley of London (November 4, 1667) to Mr. William Pitkin, quoted in The
N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg., xxxiv, 195, says :
"
Since the dreadfull fire I live not above a stone's cast
from y' brother Roger pitkin" howse in Helmet court, but on the other side of London wall, whither I
pray you direct your letters to me At the next house to the signe of the George in the Posterne street,
neare little morefields. This day I saw y' brother Roger and his wife who are in good health (through
mercy) and theyr little son Roger. Litle Will :
died in the great sicknes time. They desire to be kindly
remembred to your self and wife, together with your brother and sister Woollcott."
203