William Freeborn

  General Notes:

Source: Ancestral Lines Revised; Carl Boyer 3rd; Newhall, CA 1981. Name also spelled Freeborne. He lived at Batisfords Manor (also called Freebournes) in Witham until he sold it on 12/20/1633. It is said that Freebournes was built early in the 16th century & was reconstructed in 17th. It is now located on Newland Street. On 4/30/1634 he sailed on the Francis from Ipswitch, Suffolk to Boston with his wife, Mary 33, and children Mary 7, Sarah 2, and servant John Aldburg (or Albro) age 14. He gave his age as 40. Was freeman on 9/3/1634 when he may have been living in Roxbury, Massachussetts Bay, where Gideon may have been born. Later moved to Boston. On 3/7/1637/8 he and 18 others signed the Compact which incorporated Portsmouth, RI. Five days later he and eight of the other signers were formally banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony by the General Court. He helped survey Rhode Island in 1639, and was freeman in Portsmouth on 3/16/1641. He purchased a mill from James Sands and Samuel Wilbor in 1655 and it stayed in family until after 1800.

William married Mary Wilson in 1625. (Mary Wilson was born about 1601 in Malden, Essex, England and died on May 3, 1670 in Portsmouth, Newport City, Rhode Island.)