William Brewster III and his Children
To restate some of the information we have on him, William Brewster, b. 1567, d. April 10, 1644, was a leader of the Pilgrims. His father, William Brewster II lived his entire life in Scrooby, Nottingham, England. In England, William III studied briefly at Cambridge, the only Pilgrim Father to have some university training. A member of the local gentry in Scrooby, Yorkshire, he helped organize a separatist religious congregation in 1606 and financed its move to Holland in 1608. His influence was instrumental in winning the approval of the Virginia Company for the proposal to resettle the congregation in America, and he was one of the few original Scrooby separatists who sailed on the Mayflower. As the church's ruling elder in Leiden and then in Plymouth, Brewster shared with William Bradford and Edward Winslow the leadership of the Pilgrim enterprise.
Of his children, Jonathan, Patience, Fear and (Son) Brewster were all born in Scrooby, England, while Love and Wrestling were born in Leyden (or Leiden) Holland. Certainly religion not only affected his movement from England to Leyden to America, but also the naming of most of his children.
Jonathan Brewster II came from England on the Fortune, which arrived Nov. 10th, 1621. He had lived for some time in Leyden where he had accepted citizenship. It is believed he may have married there to a Miss Rabnitz, but there has not been found any proof. He married in 1624 in Plymouth to Lucretia Oldham of Darby.
He moved from Plymouth to Duxbury, Massachusetts about 1630 and served as deputy to the General Court 1639, 1641, 1643-4; as a military commissioner in the Pequot War of 1637; and a member of the Standish's Duxbury Company 1643. He was prominent in the settlement of Duxbury and in the establishment of its church. He practiced as an attorney and was the master and owner of a coasting vessel plying as far south as Virginia. Sometime prior to the death of his father, he had suffered severe losses but had received support from his father.
Sometime before September, 1649 he moved to Connecticut, being appointed town clerk in 1650 of Pequot (now New London) and obtaining a grant of land from the Mohegan Sachem, Uncas in that town. a large tract, still known as Brewster's Neck, where he operated a trading post with the Indians.
Jonathan and his wife the former Lucretia Oldham, were very involved in the New London, Connecticut society. It was there that some of their children married and raised their families.
It was there, probably in the town clerks office that Jonathan's daughter Grace Brewster met another town clerk (1668) Daniel Wetherell. Capt. Wetherell was not just the town clerk. From 1680 to 1710 he was more prominent in public affairs than any other inhabitant of the town. He was also moderator, justice, assistant, judge of probate, and judge of the county court. No man in the county stood higher in the point of talent and integrity. Only two of their children lived to adulthood and marry, Hanna and Mary Brewster.
(Source: "History of New London, Connecticut, from the First Survey of the Coast in 1612, to 1860", by Frances Manwaring Caulkins, New London, 1895.)
(Source: "A Notebook on the Descendants of Elder William Brewster of Plymouth Colony", compiled by Milton E. Terry and Anne Borden Harding, starting from the Family Worksheets of Mrs. Kathryn Greeley of Winnetka, IL, 1985)