Edmund Ingalls: About 1598-1648
9th Great Grandfather
Earliest settler of Lynn, Massachusetts
My ninth-great-grandfather on my mother’s Dane line, Edmund Ingalls, is quite a fascinating figure. He is known as the earliest settler of the city of Lynn, Massachusetts. He and his brother Francis moved to the area originally called Saugus in 1629, just nine years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. This early arrival may also make him the earliest of my ancestors to migrate to America.
Edmund’s birth date, birth place and parentage are unconfirmed. Biographical sketches about his life from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries claim he was born around 1598 in the Lincolnshire area of England, possibly to a Robert Ingalls. More recent research has called these claims into question.
Edmund married a woman named Ann, whose surname may have been Telbe according to some sources, sometime around 1618, possibly in the English town of Skirbeck. By 1628, they had six young children, including my eighth-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Ingalls Dane, born in 1622.
There is no record of Edmund’s profession, so it is hard to assess how well he was able to provide for his large family, but he apparently was eager for better opportunities and a fresh start. A company called The New England Company had acquired a grant of land along the sea-coast of what is now Massachusetts. The company was recruiting English settlers in order to develop trade with the new colonies. The company offered to assist emigrants with travel arrangements and promised them 10 to 25 acres of land each.
Edmund and his brother Francis Ingalls were among the first of the New England Company’s settlers. It is believed they sailed to the New World aboard the ship Abigail in 1628. This ship carried John Endicott, the head of the new colony of Salem and the eventual Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, along with some sixty to one hundred other people. The Abigail left Weymouth England in June and landed in Salem, Massachusetts eleven weeks later in Sepember.
There is no manifest or other written record listing the Abigail’s passengers; of the 60-100 people aboard, less than two dozen have been reliably identified. Therefore, it can’t be proven that the Ingalls brothers were among them. However, by spring 1629, historical records state that they had traveled from the Salem area to a region called Saugus and later renamed Lynn, becoming the first white settlers of Lynn. "The History of Lynn, MA" by Alonzo Lewis and James R. Newhall, states, "The first white men known to have been inhabitants of Lynn were Edmund Ingalls and his brother Francis Ingalls."
Since no other ships had arrived after the Abigail until late summer 1629, they must have been aboard the Abigail in order to have established their outpost in Lynn by June 1629. There are no records indicating whether Edmund’s wife and children were also aboard the Abigail, or whether they arrived later. It is likely the family emigrated together. The couple had three more children after arriving in Massachusetts.
The Saugus/Lynn area was inhabited by the Pawtucket tribe, but the Ingalls brothers had no apparent conflict with them, and may have negotiated a land grant from the tribe. While most of the initial settlers in Massachusetts were Puritans, Edmund may not have been the most devout follower of the faith (perhaps that was why the Ingalls brothers chose to move away from the Salem colony to found Lynn).
Map of early Lynn with Ingalls house
Despite this, Edmund was a respected citizen and landowner in the area, often mentioned in town records. Edmund and Francis owned 120 acres between them. Edmund built his home on “a fayre plain” beside a pond that was called Ingalls Pond on maps up until the 1880s, when it was renamed Goldfish Pond.
Edmund’s death was quite dramatic. He was traveling to Boston by horse in March of 1648 when he and the horse fell through a defective bridge into the Saugus River. He drowned. He was only in his fifties. Edmund’s son Robert petitioned the General Court for damages in the amount of 100 pounds due to the bridge defect, in accordance with a new law that had recently been passed in the colonies. This may have been the earliest wrongful death claim in the colonies—another “earliest” for Edmund! It is believed the petition was granted.
Historic map of Lynn Massachusetts
Edmund’s will was settled on September 16, 1648. His estate was valued at 135 pounds. According to The Ingalls Family in England and America, “Edmund Ingalls left his house, barn and outbuildings along with his original farm and also his grant of land. In addition thereto he had a house and land in West Lynn that he had acquired from Jeremy Fitts, and another house with six acres of land together with three acres in Rumney Marsh that he had got from Goodman West. These must have been acquired as investments, seeing that they were remote from his own estate. Besides these lands he still retained three acres in England… Of chattels Edmund Ingalls left one ox, two steers, three cows, one calf and four yearlings, one mare, two sheep, and four hogs, which would constitute a good inventory of livestock for a farmer in New England today. He had farming implements, household furniture and household utensils. He had no silver ware, but he possessed some pewter and he had three brass kettles. He had two guns whence we may infer that he knew how to use them, and three bibles…Finally the inventory of his goods lists one beer barrel, which reminds us that he malted grain, and probably brewed beer, and likewise probably drank it. We may also picture Edmund Ingalls as a kindly man. In his will he remembered all of his children and he was especially solicitous that his daughter Mary should have a heifer calf of which she had been fond.”
Edmund Ingalls is recognized as an early American founder by The Order of the Founders and Patriots of America. He is also noted for being the seven-times great-grandfather of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and may also be an ancestor of Pres. James Garfield. He is still remembered in the city of Lynn, Massachusetts. There is an Ingalls Street and and an Ingalls Elementary School. In addition, Ingalls Pond—now called Goldfish Pond—still exists and is maintained and enjoyed by a neighborhood association. Ingalls descendants erected a marker at the Bloomfield Street entrance to the park in 1915, which apparently still exists, although I can find no photos of it.
Sources Used:
Edmund Ingalls has a Wikipedia page entry, and there is another biography included in his FindaGrave entry, both of which I made use of for this blog post. Their sources include the following (some of which I also used directly):
Founders of Early American Familes 2nd Rev Ed 2002 p. 175; Ingalls Gen., pp. 17-18.
The Genealogy and History of the Ingalls Family in America Giving the Descendants of Edmund Ingalls who Settled at Lynn, MA in 1629. Burleigh, Charles. Malden, MA (1903)
Andover, MA Vital Records Ingalls Gen. pp 20-22
The Order of the Founders and Patriots of America R/C 6124 listing the lineage and references of Edmund Ingalls and his descendants.
The Will of Edmund Ingalls from The Essex Antiquarian page 120.
Jordan, JW p844 Vol I Colonial & Rev. Fam. of Penn.
"The History of Lynn, MA" by Alonzo Lewis and James R. Newhall
"The Ingalls Family In England And America" – By Walter Renton Ingalls, B.S.; D. Eng., In Commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the settlement of Lynn, Mass.by Edmund and Francis Ingalls
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