Genealogical notes of Barnstable families - citizen hylbom blog

GENEALOGICAL NOTES OP BARNSTABLE FAMILIES. 31
as being at that time in this country. He was a man of wealth,
and before removing his family probably came over, as many did, to
examine the country and fix on a place for his future residence. In
the spring of 1635 Mr. Tilden, Samuel Hinckley, John Lewis, and
James Austin, of Tenterden, in the County of Kent, in England,
and several other families from that County, making a company of
102, counting men, women, children and servants, resolved to emigrate
to New England. In the latter part of March they sailed from
Sandwich in the ship Hercules, 200 tons, Capt. John Witherly.
Circumstances make it probable that they intended to join the Rev.
.John Lothrop, who, with several members of his church, had taken
passage in the GriflSn for Boston the preceding summer. More than
half of the passengers who came over in the Hercules were afterwards
inhabitants of Scituate.*
Samuel Hinckley brought with him his wife Sarah and four
children, and immediately after his arrival in Boston went to Scituate
and built a house which Mr. Lothrop calls No. 19. Three of
his fellow passengers also built houses in that town in the summer of
1635, namely, William Hatch, No. 17, John Lewis, No. 18, and
Nathaniel Tilden No. 20. The street on which they built was called
Kent street. Samuel Hinckley continued to reside in Scituate till
July, 1640, when he sold his house, farm and meadows, and removed
to Barnstable.
Samuel Hinckley bought his lands of the Rev. Joseph Hull, and
respecting the title he afterwards had some trouble with the town.
There is no record of his lands ; but their location is well known.
His houselot was bounded south by his son Thomas', and west by
Rowley's pond, near which, according to tradition, he built his
house, a small one-story building, with a thached roof. Precisely
how long he resided in that house, I am not informed. He was one
of the very first who removed to West Barnstable, where he owned
one of the best farms in the town, now owned by Levi L. Good-
speed, Esq. His son-in-law, John Smith, owned the adjoining lands,
since known as the Otis farm
In 1637 Mr. Samuel Hinckley, as he was called in the latter
part of his life, took the freeman's oath, though his name appears on
the list of the preceding year. As before remarked, he was not a
prominent man, though his name frequently occurs on the records
*Moore, in his "Lives of the GovernorB of New Plymouth and Massachusetts," pages
201 and 2, states that Samuel Hinckley, in 1623, remored with Rev. John Lothrop from
Egerton, in the County of Kent, to London, that he came over in 1634 in the ship Griflin
with Mr. Lothrop, arrived in Boston Sept. 18, 1634, and on the 27th of the same month removed
to Scituate, and that he removed to Barnstable In 1639. His son Thomas, he says,
was bom in 1621, and that he "came to New England soon after his father had made a settlement
in Barnstable." Mr. Moore makes these statements as matters of fact. To say
that he was mistaken in his suppositions, does not excuse him. He inferred or guessed that
Mr. Hinckley came over with Mr, Lothrop, and recorded his guess as a truth of history.
Mr. H. came from Tenterden in the ship Hercules in March 1635, bringing his wife and four
children, as the Custom House records at the port of Sandwich show.