Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/219

"The most remote ancestor to whom we can with certainty trace our descent is William Simonds, who in the year 1644 settled at Woburn, Massachussets. The statement that James Simonds was descended from Samuel Simonds of Essex, England, is improbable, though it was long thought correct in our family. Samuel had a son William, but his career is different from our ancestor's of that name, and it is asserted that no male descendants of Samuel Simonds, Deputy Governor of Massachusetts, now exist."

The maiden name of the wife of William Simonds was Judith Phippen who came to America in the ship Planter,^[1] which sailed from London April 2nd, 1635. There is a story that as the Planter was nearing the American coast, land was first descried by Judith Phippen which proved to be the now well known head land called Point Judith.

In the year 1643 Judith Phippen became the wife of William Simonds. They settled at Woburn, Mass., and built a house, which, when Mr. C. E. A. Simonds visited the place in 1888, was still standing. Here their twelve children were born, of whom the tenth, James, was grandfather of James Simonds, our old pioneer at Portland Point. The elder James Simonds married Susanna Blogget, (Blodget) and their sixth child, Nathan, married Sarah Hazen of Haverhill, February 24, 1735. The family of Nathan Simonds consisted of two sons, James and Richard, and two daughters, Mary and Sarah. The family lived at Haverhill until the death of the father, Nathan Simonds, in 1757. James Simonds, who was the eldest of the family, was born at Haverhill Dec. 10, 1735. He