HENRY2 ( Thomas1) TOWNSEND died in Oyster Bay Long Island the 30 March 1695, survived by his wife Anne. He married about 1653 ANN COLE, daughter of Robert, who was born about 1635 . Henry and Anne settled in Oyster Bay in 1661.
Henry appears to be most interesting of the brothers, he never stopped trying to convert the world to the Quaker faith, and he was very nice about it, a true Friend who really cared about other people. In 1663 he received a legacy (the story does not mention why) from a Richard Grassmore of Jamaica for his wife and children. A large legacy, with "housing and lands. ..with meadows and accomodations" plus £ 176 in money. He gave it away "unto the poor, viz., poor widows and children, persons blind or aged, that are unable to get their living, or any that shall suffer by fire whose necessity shall call for relief " And this was to the town from which he and his brothers had been forced to leave.
Henry was not just a rich philanthropist, he was a hard working man. The Townsend Memorial said he seened to have had occupation enough for two men. He ran both a grist and saw mill, held the position of Town Clerk, "made many surveys and was employed, with his nephew Thomas, in all public business, such as adjus ting boundaries, procuring patents and buying lands of the Indians." He helped his sisters-in-law settle their estates; he was appointed by Captain John Underhill to look after his children in case his widow married again.
In 1683 he had six acres on a hill laid out to him on which he built a house for himself, and then gave everything else away to his children, He di d in the winter of 1695, and was buried upon his hill. Quite a guy.
He emigrated from London and settled in Lynn, Mass., about 1635. William S. Pelletreau says he was baptized at Bracon Ash, Norfolk County, England, on January 8,1594-5, and died at Lynn, Mass. on December 22,1677.
Until his majority, he lived at Gedding, Suffolk County, England, when he went to London and married Elizabeth Mansfield. His wife died after giving birth to three sons, John, Henry and Richard. With these three sons, he embarked from England for the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637, and was made a freeman of Lynn on March 14,1639. He became a citizen of wealth and influence. In 1645, Governor Kieft of the New Netherlands gave Thomas and his three sons a patent for the town of Flushing, L.I., along with others.
He married, 2nd, Mary Newgate (also spelled Neazati), the daughter of Phillipe Newgage and Jane Hoo and the sister of John Newgate, a merchant of Boston and a Selectman there. At this time he was a man of about 45 years of age, and his first three sons were men of full age. They were evidently dissatisfied with the Puritan spirit of the Colony, as they left him and emigrated through Rhode Island into the Connecticut Colony, which at that tine was included in the east part of Long Island. By his second marriage he had at least five children who remained loyal to him, and their descendants are found in eastern Massachusetts. Thomas was a farmer,
His three sons by Elizabeth married three sisters, Elizabeth, Anne and Deliverance Coles, the daughters of Robert and Mary (Hawxhurst) Coles; and his grandson Thomas, son of John, married a 4th sister, Sarah Coles.
It is said that all of the Townsends in North America are descended from Thomas and his three sons, John, Henry and Richard.
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Possibly this is incorrect - John, Richard and Henry were brothers but not necessarily sons of Thomas of Lynn.
Sampson Hawkhurst was born 1571 and died 1627.
He matriculated at Balliol College at Oxford, England, on November 6/1590. He received his B.A. on June 25/1593, and B.D. from Magdalen Hall on July 9/1607.
He was Vicar at Nuneaton, Warwickshire from 1626 to 1627.