Family History 2.37

Bjgelow History:

Post-1630

from Bigelow Society Pages

 

 

 

Sgt. Isaac ³ BIGELOW, son of Samuel ², John¹, and Mary (FLAGG) BIGELOW, was born in Watertown, Middlesex county, MA, 19 March 1691.

 

He was married, in Watertown, 29 Decembeer 1709 to Mary BOND, daughter of Thomas and Sarah (Woolson/Woolsom) BOND. She was baptized 07 December 1690 in Watertown.

 

They soon moved to Colchester, CT; land records show that he bought land there 23 March 1712, and was admitted as an inhabitant 05 January 1717. He held various offices in Colchester: tax collector 1724; way warden 1725, 1732, 1733, 1734, 1737, 1740, 1742, 1745, 1751; howard 1726; grand juryman 1732, 1737; surveyor 1751; lister 1751.

 

He was a member of the local militia and in 1744 was commissioned a sergeant by the governor of the province.

 

Colchester First Church records show Isaac Bigelow and wife were admitted prior to 1733 (early records of Mr. Bulkeley's pastorate are lost.).

 

Rose, a "servant" of Isaac Bigelow, was baptized 09 June 1745; and Robin, Negro child owned by Isaac Bigelow, baptized 10 May 1747.

 

His will is dated 17 November 1749. In it he mentions his wife Mary, and bequeaths to her one-third the personal estate, and "the use of one'half the howse, whichever end she chuse" for her lifetime or as long as she remain his widow; also the use of one-half the barn. To son Elisha he gave the Negro boy named Robbins. Additionally he mentioned son Isaac, daughters Mary Fitch, Mary Waters, Hannah Clark, Abigail Fowler, and Sarah Skinner. The estate was valued at L 2087- 11-9.

 

Isaac died in Colchester 11 September 1751; his widow Mary died on 09 July 1775.

 

Children of Isaac and Mary (Bond) Bigelow were all born Colchester, New London, CT: 

 

Mercy, b 23 July 1711; d "three months after."

 

Isaac, b 04 May 1713; d after 1792, traditionally in Barre, VT while visiting a son; m 14 Mar 1734 Abigail Skinner; res Colchester CT; Cornwallis (near Canning) Nova Scotia; Chesterfield NH. 13 children.

 

Mercy, also known as Mary, b 04 Feb 1715; made will 04 May 1789; inventory taken 05 June 1794, and probated 15 Apr 1796; m, date unknown, Lemuel Fitch, son of Daniel and Mary (Sherwood) Fitch, who d 16 Aug 1757; res Colchester; her will mentions 2 daughters.

 

Mary, b 31 July 1719; d ; m, unknown date, L. Waters (taken from town records).

 

Hannah, b 02 Oct 1721; d 05 Apr 1771 Colchester; m 24 Apr 1746 Roger Clark; res Colchester. No surviving issue.

 

Abigail, b 13 Apr 1723; d 09 June 1796 Lebanon, CT; m 18 Dec 1745 (Colchester) Capt. Adijah Fowler, Rev War soldier, res Lebanon. 7 children.

 

Samuel, b 21 Dec 1724; d 05 Jun 1745 Colchester; unmarried; he drowned at the age of 21 according to his headstone.

 

Sarah allegedly died at 3 months, but possibly confused with child Mercy.

 

Sarah, b 27 June 1727; d 10 Dec 1814 Colchester; m 10 June 1746 (town recs) or 23 June 1746 (church recs) Noah Skinner; res Colchester. 11 children.

 

Lydia, b 22 Apr 1729; d 16 May 1745 Colchester; unmarried.

 

Elisha, b 14 Apr 1731; d 1804 Cooperstown, Otsego co, NY; m (1) 25 May 1751 Mary KILBORN, who d (Jan?)1765; m (2) 02 Oct 1765 Deborah CHAPMAN, who d 1773; m (3) 03 Aug 1773 Thankful Beebe; res Colchester and East Haddam, CT; then Springfield, NY after 1793. Total 22 known children.

 

Note. Numbers after Christian names in the Bigelow Society Pages indicate generations from John Biglo.

Sketches Again

On a cool, dull, grey afternoon I sat in a window of Puke Ariki and sketched the view out to the west towards Ngamotu and the Port:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On my way home from the bank one afternoon I sat on a bench in the main street and sketched the nearby corner as quickly as I could:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When it was too wet to go out I got out one of the old photos from our trip to Europe. We paused while walking along the Avenue de l'Opera in Paris to pop into a shop and buy a new wallet, and then take a shot of the front of the Opera Building:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or a shot of part of Portofino across the little bay there while we had lunch:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Family History 2.36

Bigelow History:

Post-1630;

from Wikipedia

Waltham, later home of Samuel Bigelow 

 

Waltham, Massachusetts, was first settled in 1634 as part of Watertown and was officially incorporated as a separate town in 1738.

 

1703 - Grove Hill Cemetery established.

1738 - Town of Waltham incorporated from Watertown, Massachusetts.

1755 - Part of Cambridge annexed to Waltham.^[1]

1793 - The Vale (residence) built.

 

In the early 19th century, Francis Cabot Lowell and his friends and colleagues established in Waltham the Boston Manufacturing Company – the first integrated textile mill in the United States.

 

Lyman Estate, Waltham

The city is home to a number of large estates, including Gore Place, a mansion built in 1806 for former Massachusetts governor Christopher Gore, the Robert Treat Paine Estate, a residence designed by architect Henry Hobson Richardson and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted for philanthropist Robert Treat Paine, Jr. (1810–1905), and the Lyman Estate, a 400-acre (1.6 km²) estate built in 1793 by Boston merchant Theodore Lyman.

 

In the year of 1857, The Waltham Model 1857, was a watch made by the American Watch Company in the City of Waltham, Massachusetts in the United States of America.

 

In the late 19th and early 20th century, Waltham was home to the brass era automobile manufacturer Metz, where the first production motorcycle in the U.S. was built.

 

Waltham is the home of the Walter E. Fernald State School, the western hemisphere's oldest publicly funded institution serving people with developmental disabilities.

 

It is bordered to the west by Weston and Lincoln, to the south by Newton, to the east by Belmont and Watertown, and to the north by Lexington, all part of Greater Boston.

Family History 2.35

Bigelow History:

Post-1630

from the Bigelow Society Pages

 Samuel ² BIGELOW, fifth child and fourth son of John¹ and Mary (WARREN) BIGELOW, was born 28 October 1653 in Watertown, Massachusetts. On 03 June 1674 he married Mary FLAGG, daughter of Thomas and Mary  FLAGG. Mary was born in Watertown 14 January 1658.

 

 Howe's Bigelow genealogy gives no death date for Samuel, stating that the will was probated 21 February 1731. However Waltham town records clearly give Samuel's death as 01 February 1732, and since Samuel's son Thomas lived in Waltham from 1720 onward, we assume that Samuel and wife spent their declining years in Thomas' home. Mary, wife of Samuel, died 07 September 1720; her death is recorded in both Watertown and Waltham. Their headstones were still visible in Waltham in 1996:

These stones found in Grove Hill Cemetery, Waltham, MA. In Sept. 1996. The stones left to right are: Isaac (son of Thomas and Mary); Uriah 1734; Lt Thomas 1756; Samuel; Mary Flagg (his wife); Lt. Thomas again; and his wife Mary. 

  

---

The inscription on Samuel's gravestone reads:

 

" Her lyes buried

y Body of Mr.

Samuel Biglo

who died Feb ry

1 , 1731.

in 81 st (year?)

 

Howe's Bigelow Family in America states that Samuel Bigelow "was an important man in Watertown", an innholder from 1702 to 1716, and represented the General Court from 1708 to 1710. Bond's History adds that he was also a carpenter, and in 1686 received from his father a .gift in-deed for 16 acres and a house.

 

Thumbing through the third volume of Watertown town records, which covers the period from 1680 to 1727, we find Samuel's name appearing frequently. Following are a few extracts, which show Samuel's role in village politics, taken verbatim, including original spellings.

 

27 September 1687

Samuel Begaloo chosen survayer.            

7 Novovember 1692 

Samuel Begalo chosen Cunstabel [tax collector].

 

21 December 1696

Samuel Bigelow appointed to the committee to hire or procure housing for the Rev. Samuel Angier, and to take effectual care of the moving of Mr. Angier and family to Watertown.

 

20 January 1697

Samuel.Begelo issued his accounts, as he was constable, by his receipts and payments before the selectmen

.

February 1697
Samuel Begelo elected selectman(town council member]. 

March 1701
Samuel Bigelow given approval to keep a publick house.
 
7 May 1708
Mr. Samuel Bigelow chosen representative for the year ensuing. [The title "Mr." implies that his rank is above that of an ordinary "goodman", perhaps a sign of respect for his new office, and was henceforth used in referring to him.]

 

15 February 1709

Mr. Sam'll Biglow on committee to carry on the work of building a schoolhouse.

    

10 May 1709

Mr. Samuel Bigelow chosen representative.

 

6 March 1710

Mr. Samuel Biglo chosen representative; his nephew Joshua jr appointed hayward.

   

5 January 1711

Samuel Biglo one of several signing an agreement that Nathaniel Green was to be a town charge [i.e.,receive welfare assistance].

 

2 March 1713

Samuel Biglow appointed tithing-man.

 

1 March 1714

Samuel Biglow chosen selectman.

 

8 April 171

Sam'l Biglo appointed to a committee to take care that Nicholas Wyeth and wife be provided with work and kept at it according to their ability.

  

18 July 1714

Town treasurer to pay Samuel Biglo nine shillings for corn provided Nicholas Wyeth and wife

 

10 August 1714

Mr. Samuel Biglo to be paid 18 shillings from town treasury.

 

15 February 1715

Mr. Samuel Biglo chosen selectman

 

9 September 1715

Mr. Samuel Biglo and Samuell Stearns to prepare answers to the petition of the Eastern congregation, which wishes to form a separate town.

 

20 March 1716

Samuell Biglo to bargain with John Cutting to entertain[i.e.,board] Wyeth & wife, and provide them house room, with four cords firewood at reasonable rate-for the ensuing year.

 

20 February 1716

Mr. Samuell Biglo's account for Joseph Cutler's.funerals coffin, 6 shillings; for drink, 8 schillings; grave-digging, 6 shillings. ordered paid by Zachariah Cutting.

 

27 November 1716

Mr. Samuell Biglo to be paid 4 shillings for timber to make over the bridge by the brook by Widow Flagg's.

 

25 December 1716

Mr. Samuell Biglow to provide a shirt for James Holland in his needy condition, at the town's expense. [Note that our Puritan forefathers did not observe Christmas, and that the town council met as usual on December 25.].

 

Our Australian Bigelow connections report that Queensland Bigelows are descended from Samuel's next younger brother, Joshua, but that NSW Bigelows are from the same (Samuel) line as ours. 

 

Maatua Whaangai continued

More on Te Kohanga Reo

Visits to Kohanga Reo centres always involved a Powhiri at the local marae, and in this way I visited many of the marae in Taranaki. On one occasion we arrived at the Potaka Marae at Rahotu minutes ahead of a formal, official visit by John Rangihau, the national leader of the movement. There was no local male elder available, so I had to stand in!  My Maori language was pretty hesitant but I managed to convey the whanau’s welcome to the honoured manuhiri. 

John must have thought I did OK, for a few weeks later he got in touch and suggested I apply for the job of national co-ordinator! I did not apply; Wellington was not on my list of desirable places to live at that stage. 

Margaret and I decided that Matthew was more than ready for some sort of pre-school, so we took him to the St Joseph’s Kohanga Reo and enrolled him, and found that Julia was welcome as well. This gave us a great insight into the way the language nests were operating, and enabled us to meet some great people. 

Erima Henare, James’s son, was Director of Maori Affairs in New Plymouth, and his twin sons were attending the kohanga.

After about six months the advisory committee suggested we try a new project to divert at-risk teenagers into more productive pursuits by giving them a crash course in Maori culture. We had a separate office for Maatua Whaangai, which was on the third floor of the new TSB Bank building in Devon Street. 

What eventually ensued was an eight-week course held on four marae around Taranaki, including Parihaka, led by Sonny Waru, with Te Ru Wharehoka as his right-hand man, and we obtained funding to enable us to employ a worker for a few weeks to set this up, select the young people, and get it going.  The worker we secured was Albie Martin, who is now a respected senior Anglican clergyman, and he joined me in the office in the bank building. 

The young people came from institutions (eg DSW Boys Homes) and the community; all were recommended by social workers as needing help. Unfortunately we did not have any system of assessment of the results or of follow-up for the members of the course, so I know nothing about how successful it was. 

By the second year we had a young man, Bill Kaitoa, whose original home was in the Far North, (at Whatuwhiwhi) as Chair of the advisory committee, and I had become convinced that he would make a good Maatua Whaangai officer. So I moved back into the volunteer work, and Bill was appointed as the DSW half of the Maatua Whaangai team.

By this time Maraea had retired, and her place had been taken by Pat Hond, who was from an old Okato family, and whose husband, Jeff, was a tireless volunteer worker for WEA, Labour Party, and Adult Literacy, among others. Pat and Jeff’s son, Ruakere, later led the movement to retain and progress the Taranaki dialect of Maori language.

Maatua Whaangai

1983

Jim Henare

Robert Muldoon had been persuaded a few months earlier to launch a new initiative to help Maori families.  It was called Maatua Whaangai (=foster parent) and the kaumatua spearheading it nationally were my old acquaintance Sir James Henare, and John Rangihau, a prominent Maori educator. The plan was to establish teams of two workers in each region, one from Maori Affairs and one from DSW. 

John Rangihau

Terry called for a volunteer to pick up this task, and after a few days’ thought I offered to do it. So Ian Kilgour took over the volunteers and I started a new learning curve. I was given an office in King Street opposite the Public Library. 

I was introduced to my Maori Affairs colleague, Maraea Tippins, and to our dedicated car. Maraea was a very experienced community worker. She was a member of the Bailey family from Kairau Marae at Brixton near Waitara, and lived in Waitara itself just round the corner from Manukorihi Marae and from the house Margaret’s grandparents had lived in. 

Our job was to identify the at-risk Maori families and teenagers and do what we could to help them. We soon settled on helping to establish Kohanga Reo centres as the best thing we could do while we worked out a more long-term plan. 

Kohanga Reo was a new initiative of Maori iwi and hapu all over the country. It was working on shoe-string budgets and volunteer workers. It was like a Maori version of playcentre, but it had a double purpose: to encourage Maori families to use early childhood education, and to foster the learning and use of Maori language. 

Maraea and I visited groups all over Taranaki which were trying to get their own Kohanga Reo off the ground. She would help them access funds and other resources from Maori Affairs sources and I would make sure they knew the legal requirements and help them all maximise their funds from child support schemes operated by DSW. 

In this way we helped strengthen the existing centre in New Plymouth, which met in a building in the grounds of St Joseph’s school, and to establish centres in Fitzroy, Waitara, Oakura, Okato, Manaia, Hawera, Tawhiti, Patea (2), Ketemarae, Stratford and Inglewood.

We gathered an advisory committee of experienced people, which included kaumatua like Sonny Waru and Mate Carr. We attended conferences on several marae around Taranaki, and national conferences of Maatua Whaangai. I started a formal course to learn Maori language (Te Ataarangi) using cuisenaire sticks, in which Margaret joined me.

___________

Note: Today is 12 July, the birthday of Fred Gaze, my grandfather, 147 years ago. Here he is about 70 years old, with Noel and me.

 

 

Social Welfare Part 4

Volunteers continued

When I moved over to work with Maatua Whaangai, Ian Kilgour took over my role, and when I returned from that interlude I picked up the community volunteer work again. By now the Social Workers were housed in a building in Young Street. 

Ian Kilgour in 2013

By this stage my thinking had moved on.  DSW had a very good library service and I had read a lot about community work in theory and practice. In 1986 the Department asked me to attend a World Conference on Volunteering in Sydney. The Sydney Volunteer Centre had invited people from around the world and organised a great week of meetings and activities to encourage the work of volunteering.  There were five New Zealanders at the conference, including Pat Booth, whose parents had been colleagues in Tripura. 

I came back convinced that ultimately the work I was doing would have to be picked up by the community itself; community work cannot be done adequately from a base inside a Government Department.  But our programme was a good starting point! 

During the next year the Department asked me to meet with social workers in other regions and explain our work programme: I travelled to Timaru and Auckland on this assignment. Some years before this, George Barclay had moved away, and his place was taken by Peter Simonson, grandson of Rex and Ruby’s neighbour at Evelyn Place.

 

The Department of Social Welfare was by this stage being prepared to be split into two departments, one to join the Labour Department as Work and Income, and the other to be a stand-alone agency called CYPS, to work under the new Children and Young Persons Act, which for the first time incorporated some of the principles of Restorative Justice. 

Over this process the Volunteer Scheme was forgotten. Fortunately its work was eventually picked up by the District Council Community Development Section, and it is now run by our Restorative Justice colleague, Heather Dodunski.

 

A Different Tack 

Social Work team after end-of-year lunch at Pukekura Park Kiosk.

Terry Hickey is at far left with ray Roebuck behind him.

Gaye Watts is to the left of me, with Ian Kilgour behind her.

At right front is Murray Hickey, who died soon afterwards.

But I had had a break from the volunteer scheme from 1983 to 1985. Ron Nattrass had moved on on promotion and his place was taken by Terry Hickey.  Terry was the elder brother of Murray Hickey, one of our social work colleagues, whose life had been curtailed by a stroke before I joined the team. Terry and Murray were sons of Mrs Hickey, who had been the next-door neighbour of Margaret’s family in Omata Road many years before. 

Terry was a social worker with a great deal of common sense and a good sense of humour. He reminded me a lot of Frank Gee, my boss at Rangitoto College.  Terry had a “rule”: everyone was encouraged to play cards, Euchre, at morning tea time. He thought it was better to relax and think about something other than social work for ten minutes each morning. So we had uproarious games of euchre, with Terry as crazy as everyone else. I had never played euchre, but it was so like 500 and Oh Hell! That I had played, that I had no difficulty learning it. I came to appreciate Terry’s thoughtfulness about his staff in this and other numerous ways.