John Chase born 1649, Yarmouth (now Dennis), Massachusetts and wife Elizabeth Baker

 

John Chase was born 6 April 1649 in an area of Yarmouth that is now Dennis, Barnstable County, Massachusetts. He was the son of William Chase.* He is my 8^th great-grandfather on my grandmother Milly (Booth) Rollins’ side of the family. Whenever I write about my Baker and Chase families, I feel I should put an asterisk after each of their names. I never feel confident I have their information completely correct since they were so plentiful and confusing!  Please consider this sketch a work in progress.

John Chase married Elizabeth Baker (date unknown but Torrey gives as by 1668 when first child born). Elizabeth was the daughter of Francis Baker and Isabel Twining, born about 1648, and was also of Yarmouth (now Dennis which spun off from Yarmouth in 1793), Massachusetts.  I have read John was a Friend, or Quaker, but need to do more research.

John and Elizabeth lived in what is now Dennis Port where they raised their children:

William who died young

John who married Sarah Hills

Thomas who married Sarah Gowell

William who married Dorcas Baker and Patience Walker

Jonathan who married Sarah Green

Jeremiah who married Hannah Baker

Isaac who married Mary Berry and Charity O’Killia Pease

 Vernon Nickerson and others have Jeremiah O’Killia/Kelley’s wife Sarah as daughter of John Chase, but I have not found proof of this.

 Unfortunately some of the records of his children’s births are worn so all of their identities aren’t known with certainty. 

 In the way only cozy places like the Cape offer, I descend from three of John and Elizabeth Chases’ children: Thomas, Isaac, and William. If Sarah, wife of Jeremiah, is found to be a daughter of John, then that would make four.

 John Chase built a homestead on the east shore of Swan Pond in what is now Dennis Port. Nancy Thacher Reid writes its location can still be located, marked by a huge clump of lilac bushes. He was allowed by the town to have meadow along Herring River.

Source: CCGS Bulletin

 In 1676 he had taxable property worth 12 shillings, 4 pence. He received multiple land grants in Yarmouth/Dennis.

 John served in King Philip’s War and received one pound, four shillings for his service. His name was on the List of the Soldiers of Yarmouth who went to Mount Hope under Capt. John Gorham against the Indians in 1675, and took their first march upon the 24th June, 1675.  John Chase was among others in an expedition that same month to repel an expected attack on Swansey. In 1713 he received twenty-two shares in common lands.

In 1727, John Chase (or his descendants) received a land grant in what is now Maine for his service in the war.

I have not found death records or probate in Barnstable County for John and Elizabeth. Some descendants have Elizabeth Baker Chase’s death as 16 May 1706 in Swansea, Bristol County, Massachusetts, but I haven’t found that record yet. John and Elizabeth’s son John lived in Swansea, so there is a connection to the place. I have seen other researchers give John’s death as 1684 and about 1718, but again without a source.

 *Some descendants have John’s mother was Elizabeth Holder, a second wife of William Chase; others claim his mother was Mary who was a Native American. I have not found evidence for either of these claims, although the latter would be hard to prove.

 Sources:

George Walter Chamberlain compiled for John Carroll Chase, Some of the Descendants of William Chase of Roxbury and Yarmouth, Mass., NEHGR, January 1933

 Charles Swift, History of Old Yarmouth, 1884

 Nancy Thacher Reid, Dennis, Cape Cod: From Firstcomers to Newcomers, 1639-1993, Dennis Historical Society, 1996

 Vernon R. Nickerson, From Pilgrims and Indians.... manuscript