Wyman/Clifford/Saxton

DEATH: 'MEMENTO MORI' 'FUGIT HORA' 'Here lyes ye body of Francis Wyman aged about 82 years, died November 28th, 1699 [an error of 1 or 2 years] 'The memory of ye just is blessed'

Proof of the lineage of Francis and John Wyman of Woburn is from Water's 'Genealogical Gleanings in England' and from Threlfall's 'Fifty Great Migration Colonists to New England & Their Origins'. The English Wymans are well covered in 'The Wymans/Whymans of Hertfordshire' by Christine E. Jackson of Amberly, Herts, England.

To take possession of this extensive territory a party of fifty or sixty persons, under John Endicott, was sent out to Salem the following June, and another party of two hundred, under Francis Higginson, the year after. In the year 1630, seventeen ships in all, but not all together, brought at least one thousand passengers from England, as estimated by Palfrey in his History of New England, though commonly reckoned at fifteen hundred. Of these ships the Lion left Bristol in February, bringing people from the west of England; the Mary and John sailed from Plymouth March 20th, and arrived May 30th, bringing passengers from Devonshire, Dorsetshire, and Somersetshire. Four ships, the Arbella, Jewel, Ambrose, and Talbot, left the Isle of Wight together, on the 8th of April, having on board Winthrop, Dudley, Isaac Johnson, his wife the lady Arbella, Increase Nowell, William Pynchon, and other principal persons; seven ships, the Mayflower, Flower, Whale, Hopewell, and others, sailed from Southampton in May, and four others followed not long after.

The two Wyman brothers Francis and John were seventeen and fourteen in 1636 and so probably came over with their older uncles, Samuel and Thomas Richardson. The first definite record that we find of the Wyman brothers in New England is when the town order of Charlestown Village (Woburn) were signed in 1640; which the Richardsons and Wymans all signed. By that date the Wymans were 21 and 18. John Wyman the brother of Francis was made a freeman 26 May 1647 at age 25, and Francis a freeman 1657. Later in 1658 Francis Wyman Sr. in his will said '.. do give and bequeth unto my two sons Francis Wyman and John Wyman which are beyound sea ten pounds a piece of Lawful English money to be paid unto them by mine executor if they be in want and come over to demand the same.' The Wymans built on what became Wyman St. in Woburn, and by 1666 they had also built country farms in what is now Burlington, a few miles north, on what became the Billerica boundry.

He settled with each son at majority and in his will left his remaining estate to his youngest son Benjamin. (William had already inherited land and the homestead). Abigail is also mentioned in his will.

Overlooked by many is the fact that a grant of land was made in Woburn on 25 Feb 1679 to a John Wyman, a wheelwright. This was not Lt. John Wyman the brother of Francis, but rather the son of Thomas and Ann (Godfrey) Wyman and hence the nephew of the Wyman brothers. This John was know and Sergant John Wyman.

Their is also found in Boston a tailor named Thomas Wyman or Wayman who was in the 1675 war against the Narragansett Indians. He is believed by some to be the son of the brother Richard Wyman, hence another nephew of Francis and John Wyman.

Francis1 and John1 Wyman became tanners in Woburn, perhaps having learned the craft in England (Buntingford, two miles north of Westmill, was a tanning center in Hertfordshire) By 1641 they were granted lots for 6d per acre near the center of Woburn at the present Main and Wyman Streets near Central Square. Francis' house has not been recorded, but John's house was a two story frame house 34 by 26 feet with 13 windows having 40 rods of land adjoining. Nearby on Wymans' Lane were the tanning vats, a barn, tan house, currying shop and sheds. Their tanning business carried on until 1768 when it was sold to David Cummings. The water needed for tanning was diverted from a brook which was done away with when the nearby Middlesex Canal was built about 1800. Woburn became the tanning center of the country.

A grant of 500 acres in what became the town of Billerica was made in 1648 to the Rev. Henry Dunster the first president of Harvard College.

This he sold in 1655 to Francis and John Wyman for 100 sterling. Because of Dunster's Baptist leanings, he was removed as the president of Harvard College and apparently needed some cash. After some political maneuvering the pending town of Billerica was persuaded to lay out the grant which was entirely within the new town. The grant was on the border of Woburn, adjacent to where the Wymans already had land.

In 1657 The Woburn selectmen agreed to exchange 94 acres of land the Wymans already possessed in the town for an equal amount 'adjoining to their land at Billerica.' Again, in 1661 Francis exchanged with the town of Woburn 'a parcel of land lying in the treasury(for land at)_his farm next Billerica.' The same year Billerica granted 70 acres in the same general area to the Wyman brothers which was laid out and the return made in 1663.

In 1665 the Wymans purchased for the sum of 50 the Coytmore grant of 500 acres which was to be laid out in Woburn. The Woburn selectmen attempted to have the grant laid out elsewhere, but the General Court in 1666 had it laid out at this time when the Woburn-Billerica boundary was being settled. It was stated that the grant was to be laid out '_in Woobourne bounds, next adjoining to the land and houses of the said Waymens, apprehending it to be most convenient and profitable for them so to lye.' Interestingly, the deed of sale is witnessed by Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, a Martha's Vineyard Indian who was the solitary Indian to have graduated from Harvard College at this time.

In 1667 Francis, John and eleven other citizens of Woburn were hauled before the County Court for publicly manifesting contempt for the ordinance of baptism and for attending illegal assemblies of the Anabaptists. Nothing much happened and both were later active in the local church, although Francis in his will left small bequests to two elders of the Baptist Church in Boston. The country house of Francis built sometime before 1666 still stands in Burlington and is now owned by the Francis Wyman Association. It is an eight room, two story, center chimney house with attic and half-cellar.

Nearby in Billerica is the Amos Wyman cellar hole, the site of John Wyman's original farm house, a house to which Samuel Adams and John Hancock retreated on 17 April 1775 when they fled Lexington. Elizabeth (Pierce) Wyman, the wife of Amos is said to have fed her visitors boiled potatoes, pork and bread instead of the salmon which her guests had planned to eat at the Lexington parsonage. Hancock is reported to have sent a cow to his hostess at a later date in appreciation of her hospitality.

In 1640 500 acres of land in Woburn (now Burlington) was granted to Mr. Thomas Coytmore and was subsequently sold by Joseph Rock to Francis and John for 50 in Oct. 1667. They also owned a large farm in West Woburn extending into Billerica adjoining the Coytmore grant. (2) 'Billerica, 19.9m.1661. At a Towne Meeting, The towne do grant to ffrances Wyman & John Wyman that parcell of land that lyeth betweene Woburne line & the former that they purchased of Mr. Dunster, which is by estimation four score acres, more or less and is bounded on the South or South East with Captaine Gookins farme line.'

'Whereas John Wright, Isaac Cole, ffrancis Wiman, John Wiman, ffrancis Kendall, Robert Peirce, Matthew Smith & Joseph Wright, members in full communion with the Church of Christ at Woburne, were presented by the Grand Jury of the County of Middlesex in New England at the Court in October last (1671) for refuseing communion with the Church of Woburne in the Lord's Supper, and rejecting the counsell of neighboring churches, and all other measures for healing the disorder and scandall thereby occasioned: This Court having heard their severall answers, wherein they pretend and alledge that the grounds of their withdrawing are sundry scruples in poynt of conscience, not daring to partake with the church for fear of defilement by sin, giving some reasons of their dissatisfaction, which not being satisfactory to the Court, who are sensible of the scandall thereby redounding to our profession, and considering the directions given by the word of God and laws of this Colony, requiring the attendance of all due meanes for preserving the peace and order of the churches in the wayes of godliness and honesty, that so all God's ordinances may have passage unto edification, according to the rules of Christ. This Court do therfore, upon serious consideration of the whole case, order that the respective churches of Charlestown, Cambridge, Watertown, Redding & Billerica be moved and requested from the Court, according to God's ordinance of communion of churches, to send their elders and messengers unto the church of Woburn the ( ) day of March next, where the brethren that were presented as above said are ordered and required to give a meeting together with the church there, and shall have liberty humbly and inoffensively to declare their grievances, and the church also to declare the whole case for the hearing of their proceedings: And after the case is fully heard by the said councill, they are to endeavor the healing of their spirits, and making of peace among them, for the issuing of matters according to the word of God, and to make returne of what they shall do herein to the next county Court to be held at Cambridge: And the Recorder of this Court is ordered seasonably to signify the Court's mind herein to the several churches above named. It is ordered that the Court's final determination in the above named case be respited, untill they receive the councill's return, and the above named persons that were presented by the Grand Jury are ordered to attend at the next court at Cambridge.' (3) These people of Woburn were prosecuted before the Middlesex County Court Dec. 1671 for contempt for the ordinance of Infant Baptism as administered in the church of Woburn and for withdrawing from that church and attending the assemblies of the Anabaptists which was not allowed by law. John Wyman seemed to have been convinced of the 'error' of his ways and was admitted back to the church in Woburn and took an active part in the settlement of Rev. Jabez Fox as a colleague of Rev. Thomas Carter in 1697. In his will 10 March 1683/4 he gave them 40/ each calling them his 'Reverend Pastors'. Francis however always retained his partiality for the Baptists for in his will 5 Sept. 1698 he gave to two elders of the Baptist Church in Boston, Mr. Isaac Hull and Mr. John Emblen 20/ each. Francis did however remain in communion with the church in Woburn.

In 1671 Francis, John and eleven other Woburn citizens were prosecuted before the Middlesex County Court for publicly manifesting contempt for the ordinance of infant baptism and for attending the then illegal assemblies of the Anabaptists. No serious action was taken against them and both were later reconciled with the parish church. John seems to have been wholly mollified, for in his will he left 409 each to the two town ministers (one, Rev Thomas Carter, was his son's father-inlaw). Francis was less penitent; in his will he left 209 each to two elders of the Baptist Church at Boston.