Genealogical notes of Barnstable families - citizen hylbom blog

GENEALOGICAL NOTES OF BARNSTABLE FAMILIES. 69
married Elizabeth Besse, daughter of Anthony Besse,* of
Sandwich. He resided at West Barnstable ; his house was
on r)ursley's Lane, (Proprietor's Records), on the farm
owned bj the late Lemuel Bursley, and died Dec. 2, 1744,
in the 94th year of his age.
When he was eighteen, Plymouth had been settled fifty
years, and though liberal bounties had been paid to English
and Indians for wolves' heads, yet these ravenous animals
abounded in the Colony. In 1654, the whole number killed
was nineteen—of which three were killed in Barnstable, and
in 1655, thirty-one—nine in Barnstable. In 1690, the
number killed was thirteen, and in 1691, nineteen. Jonathan
Bodfish said his grandfather could set a trap, as cunningly
as the oldest Indians, and that the duck or the goose
that ventured to come within gunshot of him, rarely escaped
being shot. Wolf Neck, so named because it was the resort
of these animals, was about half a mile from Joseph Bodfish's
house, and there he set his traps. Once he narrowly
escaped losing his own life. Seeing a large wolf in his trap,
he incautiously approached with a rotten pine pole in his
hand. He struck—the pole broke in his hand, and the enraged
beast sprang at him with the trap and broken chain
attached to his leg. Mr. Bodfish stepped suddenly one side,
and the wolf passed by him. Before the wolf could recover,
Mr. Bodfish was beyond his reach. This trap is preserved
in his family as an heir-loom.
Anthony Besse, born in 1609. Came over in the James, 1636, from
London, settled in Lynn and removed to Sandwicli in 1637, and was
many years a preacher to the Indians. He died in 1657, leaving wife
Jane, and children Nehemiah : David, born May 23, 1649, killed in the
Rehobeth battle March 26, 1676 ; Ann, who was the wife of Andrew
Hallet, Jr., of Yarmouth ; Mary ; and Elizabeth who married Joseph
Bodfish.
His widow married, second, George Barlow, and had by him John,
who has descendants, and Rebecca who married William Hunter. The
widow Barlow died in 1693. Her last marriage was an unhappy connection.
Barlow was appointed June 1, 1658, Marshal of Sandwich,
Barnstable and Yarmouth. His name adds no honor to the annals of
the Old Colony—a hard-hearted, intolerant, tyrannical man, abusing the
power entrusted to him, and seemingly taking delight in confiscating the
property of innocent men and women, or in dragging them to prison, to
the stocks, or the whipping post.
In his family he exercised the same tyrannical spirit, and it is not surprising
that the aid of the magistrate was frequently called into requisition
to settle the difficulties that arose. The reader of the Colony records
may think the Besses were not the most amiable of women— perhaps
they were not; but in these family quarrels Barlow was in fault,
and deserving of the infamy yhich will forever attach to his name.