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Person Info

• Name: John PRESCOTT
• Sex: M
• Birth: Abt 1604 ^b
• Death: Dec 1681 in Lancaster, Massachusetts ^d


Parents:

Family:
Marriage:

• Mary PLATTS on 11 Apr 1629 at Halifax, Co York .^m1
  
• Mary PLATTS Birth: Abt Mar 1607 Death: After 1678 in Lancaster, Massachusetts

Children:

1. Sarah PRESCOTT Birth: Abt 1640 Death: 20 Nov 1727 in Sudbury, Middlesex Co, Massachusetts

Bibliography

Sources for birth and parent Information

date:

abt 1604 [Ref: Weis AR7 #34]

Sources for death Information

date:

[Ref: Weis AR7 #34],

place:

[Ref: Weis AR7 #34]

Sources with Information about marriage to Mary PLATTS

date:

[Ref: Weis AR7 #34],

place:

[Ref: Weis AR7 #34],

child:

[Ref: Rice Association 9/25/2000]

Research Notes:
founder of Lancaster, Mass, in 1645 [Ref: Weis AR7 #34]

will dated 1673, pro 4 Apr 1682 [Ref: Weis AR7 #34]

deposition of Mary Prescott of Lancaster dated 1678, when she was 66 yrs or thereabaouts (NEHGR 95:8, in Middlesex Co. files) identifies John Prescott of Lancaster, Mass., with Halifax, Yorkshire, where his children were baptized., while the will of his reputed father RALPH No. 42 does not identify him with the Prescott and Standish families of Standish Parish in co. Lancaster, Egn. (Presctott Memorial (1870), 32-40; Ancestry of John Barber White (1913), 107-28, pedigrees of Fleming and Harington, 107-112, Standish and Prescott, 102-104, 122-128, are based upon the research of Mr. Holding, but the other pedigrees in this section of Ancestry of John Barber White are dubious or defective. For fullest details and authorities now available see: Weis, the Families of Standish of Standish and Prescott of Prescott of Standish Parish, Lancashire, England, ms., typed, 203 pp., 1948, cf. 43-49, 53054, 58-60, 67-68, 78-79, 84-88. This work uses the 400 deeds, charters, inquisitions, marriage settlements, etc. of West, Earwaker, Mrs. Tempest, Porteus, the VCH Lanc. (8 vo9ls), Baines and the Rev. John Holding, and gives more than 500 of the ancestors of Roger Standish in charts, pp. 151-203). [Ref: Weis AR7 #34]

NEHGR, vol 113, pp. 71-72 is the following note by John G. Hunt:
Parentage of John Prescott, who settled in 1645 at Lancaster, Mass.--At p. 238 of the July 1958 REGISTER, the Society records receipt of a Prescott genealogy dated 1957, wherein Frederick Lewis Weis presents "eight lines of descent of John Prescott, founder of Lancaster, Mass., 1645, from Alfred the Great, King of England, 871-901."
The aforesaid eight lines record some of the ancestors of Ralph Prescott of Shevington, parish of Standish, Lancashire, who died testate in 1608/9; in his will he named his wife Elene, daughters Elene, Alice, and Cecille, and son John.
Dr. Weis has identified the aforesaid legatee, John, with John Prescott, settler in 1645 of Lancaster, Mass., for the following reasons:
i. Prescott is claimed to have founded Lancaster [in which case, he or his father probably came from Lancashire].
ii. His wife in 1678 identified him with Halifax, Yorkshire, where their children were baptized.
iii. His father's will is claimed to identify him with the Prescott family of Standish Parish, Lancashire.
An identification by his wife, showing that Prescott had lived in Halifax, cannot be held to prove association with Standish Parish, some 40 miles away from Halifax.
A will of a testator who died in 1608/9 can hardly be held to prove any connection with the emigrant who left England several decades afterwards, in the absence of other factors.
The published Parish Register of Standish Parish, in Lancaster, fails to record the baptism of a John Prescott of Shevington. However, that register includes the following entry "Buried, 28 Oct. 1616, John Prescott of Shevington". In the absence of contrary proof the preceding entry must be held to record the interment of the legatee, John Prescott, son of Ralph Prescott, of Shevington, the above testator. In the light of this evidence, it would seem that we who descend from Prescott of Lancaster, Mass., must reject the parentage of Prescott, advanced by Dr. Weis.
It is significant, that there were several persons named John Prescott in Standish parish, as indicated by the following entries from the printed registers:
John Prescott of Shevington, buried 20 July 1579
John Prescott buried 1563/4; John Prescott buried 1570
John Prescott buried 1585; John Prescott buried 1611
John Prescott buried 1614; John Prescott buried 1615.
John Prescott baptized in 1612, son of John.
John Prescott baptized in 1613, son of Thomas.
John Prescott had wife Margaret in July, 1628.
John Prescott had wife Grace, 26 Nov. 1637.
Cecilie, bap. 1602, and Ellen, bapt. 1607, daughters of John Prescott.
Cecilie Prescott was buried in 1628.
Further, it would seem to be highly significant that John Prescott of Lancaster had no known issue named Ralph, Roger, Alexander, Ellen, Helen, Cecile or Alice, which are the names one would expect to be commemorated in the family of a descendant of the armigerous Prescotts of Shevington. Moreover, the only son of that gentile English family would probably not have been a blacksmith, as was our John Prescott of Lancaster.
Since the foregoing was prepared, the following records have come to my attention: In Errington [adjoining Sowerby, Halifax Parish] one Bridget Prescot was buried 12 July 1624 ["Heptonstall Parish registers", printed]. Chances are that she was sister or mother of John Prescott who settled in Lancaster in 1645.
The following records are from printed Lancashire Parish registers:
Christened 27 Nov. 1606, John, son of Henry Prescot [at Prescot].
Christened 20 Apr. 1606, John Preskot, son of James [at Ornskirk].
Further wills at Chester indicate that the Prescotts were living in the early seventeenth century in Halsall, Heskin, Ince in Makerfield, Standish, Newlon, Upholland, Wigan, Gorton, Coppul and Sefton. The will of Robert Orrell the elder of Wigan, dated 1623, names his cousin William Molyneux, gent, and leaves legacies to Cicely, Jane, Agnes, and Elizabeth, daughters of John Prescott [Chetham Soc., vol. 37 [1897], pp. 22 through 25].
In my opinion, one would have to search the registers of all the parishes named above as well as the parishes of Lancs. that adjoin Yorkshire, before he could venture an opinion as to who was the father of John Prescott, in 1645 of Lancaster. My own thought is that the latter John, a blacksmith, may have been the son or nephew of Richard Prescott of Ince, Lancs., blacksmith, whose will dated 1633, is at Chester.
There is reason to suppose that this blacksmith, Richard, lived at Ince in Makerfield, not Ince-Blundell. Ince in Makerfield is [or was] a hamlet adjoining Wigan lying toward Halifax from Wigan, according to an old map of Lancashire [in the front part of Gregson's "Portfolio of Fragments" concerning Lancashire]. [Ref: Hunt PRESCOTT p71]



Pedigree of John PRESCOTT
John PRESCOTT



Descendants of John PRESCOTT

2nd generation