GENERATION 12

GENERATION 11

Biography

EDWARD JEWETT, father of Deacon Maximilian and JOSEPH JEWETT, lived in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England where he was a clothier. By clothier it is not to be understood that he sold clothes, but was a maker or manufacturer of cloths. In those days, in England, the designation clothier was used only in the sense of the merchant manufacturer of woolen cloth who had in his employ a larger or smaller number of families engaged in the various manual employments connected therewith.

EDWARD JEWETT lived long before the days of factories. In his time the making of cloth was carried on in Yorkshire in private houses, the several parts of the process being conducted by different members of the family according to their age and sex. The clothiers of Yorkshire were considered among the most industrious and frugal people of the kingdom. They were of necessity capitalists. They employed weavers, fullers, etc., and furnished them the material. In part they were accounted among the millionaires of England. EDWARD seems to have been a man of property, and to have left goodly portions to his children. The twenty families that accompanied Mr. Rogers to New England are described by Winthrop, "most of them of good estate." From the fact that the families of clothiers were trained from early life to knowledge of the different parts of the operation of making cloths, we may infer that the two sons of EDWARD who settles here were also clothiers. This is confirmed by the well-known fact as stated by Johnson in his "Wonder Working Providence," "that the settlers of Rowley were the first people that set upon making cloth in the Western World." He adds that many of them had been clothiers in England.

The twenty families who accompanied Rev. Rogers to New England were described as "of good estate". EDWARD was thought to be a descendant of Henri de Juatt, a Knight of the First Crusade, 1096-1099. On Jul. 5, 1486, King Henry VII granted to Henry Jewet certain offices for life, including "Forrester of Windsor Forest and Parker of Sunnyng-Hill Park within Windsor Forest", but no reason is given for the honor.

EDWARD was buried on Feb. 4, 1614/15. His will was dated Feb 2, 1614/15 and is on file in the archbishopric of York. It was proved by his wife, MARY on Jul. 12, 1615. The will was dated only two days before he was buried, which may have been the day he died. In the will he claims to be "... sick and deseased in body yet sound in minde ..." , so the will may have been executed with death imminent.

MARY TAYLOR was the daughter of WILLIAM TAYLOR (or possibly Tayler) and SARAH ROGERS. She married EDWARD on Oct. 1, 1604, in West Riding Yorkshire, England. This marriage is recorded in the Bradford Parish Register. She married, second, William Lister on Aug. 7, 1616 in Bradford. MARY died before May 23, 1626.

A plaque honoring EDWARD and MARY is located in the Old Burial Ground in Rowley, Essex, MA.

Maximilian Jewett was one of the first two deacons of the Rowley Church, ordained Dec. 3, 1639. He was a freeman May 13, 1640, and many times representative in the General Court. His first wife was Ann, whose family has not been identified. The marriage was not recorded in Bradford. She was buried at Rowley, Nov. 9, 1667. He married second on Aug. 30, 1671, Ellen (Pell) Boynton, widow of John Boynton. Ellen married third on Jun. 1, 1686, Daniel Warner, Sr. She died a widow at Rowley on Aug. 5, 1689.