Love Brewster was born circa 1610, in Leiden,
Holland, the son of William and Mary Brewster. It is believed he was about nine
when he came to Plymouth on board the Mayflower.
He is my 9th great-grandfather on my grandfather Art Washburn Davis’
side of the family. I wrote about William and Mary Brewster here.
Love married at Plymouth on 15 May 1634, Sarah
Collier (PCR 1:30). Sarah was the daughter of William and Jane Collier. She was
baptized St. Olave, Southwark, Surrey, on 30 April 1616.
Jane and Love lived in Duxbury and raised four
children there: Sarah, Nathaniel, William, and Wrestling. After Love’s sister
Fear Allerton died, they also bought up her son Isaac.
I descend from their son William Brewster who
married Lydia Partridge of Duxbury.
Love was included in the 1627
Cattle Division as part of the household of his parents William and Mary
Brewster. In 1636 he was a Pequot War volunteer, but Plymouth’s soldiers
weren’t needed. Love became a freeman in Plymouth Colony on 2 March 1635/6. He
was, along with his father and others, an original settler of Duxbury,
sometimes spelled Duxburrow and Duxborough. He volunteered for the Duxbury
militia under Captain Myles Standish.
Early on Love and Sarah Brewster
lived in an area called the Nook, a cove area, now known as Standish Shore.
Love lived next to his father William Brewster, eventually moving in with his
father as the latter aged. Love inherited the farm after his father died in
1644. Jonathan and Love were the only sons to survive William Brewster, and
they divided their father’s 111 acres in Duxbury. Love received 43 acres on the east side of
Eagle Nest Creek; Jonathan received more acres but it is thought that Love’s
land was of better quality.
The location of William
Brewster’s house, later Love’s home, is off what today is Marshall Street.
Although there is some question, it looks like in 1646 Love sold part of the
farm to Samuel Eaton, son of Mayflower
passenger Francis Eaton. In Duxbury:
Ancient and Modern, Henry Fish writes that Love Brewster moved next to his
father-in-law William Collier’s house on Waiting Hill near North Hill and he
shows the location on a map included with the book. Collier was the richest man
in the colony.
In 1642, Love’s household must
have been rocked by the conviction of his servant Thomas Granger for buggery
with a variety of animals, including a mare, cow, two goats, diverse sheep, two
calves and a turkey. Thomas, who is my 11th great-uncle, was
sentenced to death by hanging after all of the animals were killed in front of
him (according to Leviticus 20:15 the animals were unclean and not fit for
work, food or clothing). Gov. Bradford described Granger as about 16 or 17
years old. Although sodomy and buggery were considered by the Pilgrims worse
offences than premarital sex and adultery, there must have been public outcry as
Thomas was the last man executed for a sex crime in the Colony. Aside from the
horror of what happened to Thomas, losing such scarce and valuable livestock
would have been a tremendous loss for Love Brewster. I’m assuming the animals
belonged to Love, but I’m not sure about that.
In Bradford's 1651 accounting he
says Love "lived till this year 1650 and died and left four children, now
living."
Love Brewster died, presumably in
Duxbury, between 6 Oct 1650 (when will was written) and "last day"
January 1650/1 (inventory taken). He was about 40 years old.
Love Brewster's probate is
recorded in the Plymouth Colony Wills and Inventories, Volume 1, folios 89, 90
and 91. The will was written 6 October 1650 and proved 4 March 1650/51. It
mentions his wife Sarah and children Nathaniel, William, Wrestling and Sarah.
All to receive a kettle, sons to each receive a gun. Wife Sarah was to receive
the residue of his whole estate, goods, chattel, and land at Duxburrow for the
bringing up of their children. His land was to go to eldest son Nathaniel after
Sarah’s decease; if he should die then to William, then to Wrestling. His wife Sarah was to distribute his books. Land
that was due to Love by purchase or for being a first-comer in 1620, should be
equally divided by his three sons. Wife Sarah was to be executrix. Witnessed by
Myles Standish.
An inventory of his estate was
taken by William Collier (his father-in-law) and Captain Myles Standish on the
last day of January 1650[/51] and totaled over 97 pounds, not including real
estate. It includes a detailed account of household items such as a salt
cellar, firkin, and candlestick; furnishings such as two cradles, two old
stools, three chests, four featherbeds; clothing; faming tools such as three
wedges and rakes; a large collection of books (presumably many inherited from
his father) including two books of the commandments, a Bible, five books of
Moses, Cotton’s Concordance, a dictionary, a book of Husbandry, a French
dictionary, and a book on the Spanish Inquisition; and firearms including
pistol, powder, shot, powder horns, pair of bandoliers, shot bag; livestock
including three cows, a yearling, a sow, two “shoats,” three ewe sheep, poultry;
bushels of wheat, rye Indian corn, peas, barley, oats, malt.
Sarah survived Love for thirty years, dying on 26
April 1691 at Plymouth in her 76th year. She had married, second, Richard
Park/Parke of Cambridge sometime after 1 September 1656. Richard Park died in
1665.
There are no surviving headstones for Love and Sarah
Brewster. It is quite possible they are buried at the Myles Standish Cemetery
in Duxbury.
Sources:
Robert
Charles Anderson, The Great Migration
Begins, 2000
Mayflower
Families in Progress, William Brewster
Barbara
Lambert Merrick, Mayflower Families in Progress,
William Brewster of the Mayflower and his Descendants for Four Generations,
1997
Torrey’s New
England Marriages
James
Deetz and Patricia Scott Deetz, The Times
of Their Lives: Life, Love and Death in Plymouth Colony, 2000
Mary B. Sherwood, Pilgrim A Biography of William Brewster, 1982
Lamont “Monty” Healy, Elder William Brewster and the Nook, 3-part series, Duxbury Clipper, June 26, July 24 and
August 28, 2013 (Note: Mr. Healy’s excellent series of Duxbury Clipper articles are available for purchase on the Duxbury
Rural & Historical Society website)
