First Branch of My Tree In New Hampshire: 52 Ancestors 2024 Prompt “Origins”

Seventy-Five Years in New Hampshire: Henry Langstaff’s Origins in America

Henry Langstaff: 1610-1705 (Maternal Tenth Great-Grandfather)

 

Nearly every year that I have worked on my family tree, I have discovered a new ancestor who arrived in the American colonies barely a decade after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620. Henry Langstaff, one of my many tenth great-grandfathers (everyone has over 1000 10^th great-grandfathers by the way…) is this year’s discovery, arriving in 1630 or 1631. He appears to be the earliest of my ancestors to settle in New Hampshire, where he was among the early settlers of Dover, New Hampshire. He was also one of my longest-lived ancestors.

I discovered Henry by chance. I had been tidying up my ninth-great-grandfather Anthony Nutter’s records in my tree, and was finally able to verify the maiden name of Anthony’s wife: Langstaff. Further research led me to her father, Henry Langstaff. A quick search for Henry on American Ancestors led me to his profile in The Great Migration Begins (see citation below), which provided me with fascinating information and plenty of record citations.

Not much is known about Henry Langstaff’s origins in England. His parentage and birthplace cannot yet be confirmed. He seems to have arrived in New England around in either 1630 or 1631, appearing in a document entitled “The Names of Stewards and Servants sent by John Mason, Esq, into this Province of New Hampshire”.

John Mason was a professional soldier who, along with Ferdinando Gorges and other soldiers, formed an investment company determined to exploit whatever riches could be found in the New World. Mason and Gorges received a huge grant of land that seems to have comprised most of the northeastern United States. They divided the grant, with Mason receiving all the land between the Pascataqua and Merrimac Rivers in what is now New Hampshire. Mason formed the Laconia Company and sent out the barque Warwick to the Portsmouth area in 1630, loaded with his stewards—probably about a dozen military men—and about forty servants or contract workers, along with some of those colonists’ wives. Since Mason’s immigrants were adults, Langstaff is believed to have been around twenty years of age when he left England, which would mean he was likely born around 1610.

Henry Langstaff was not an educated man; all documents he executed bear his mark only—he couldn’t write his own name. We can assume he was one of the servants aboard the Warwick rather than a steward. His lack of education may be a reason for the variations in the spelling of his name in various over his lifetime, from Langstaff or Longstaff to Langster, Lankster and even Lancaster.

Mason’s great dreams of a profitable investment didn’t work out. He died in 1635, and his heirs chose to cut their losses and stop funding the Laconia Company. Some of Mason’s colonists returned to England, others relocated in New England, and some, like Henry Langstaff, remained in New Hampshire in the Portsmouth, Dover and Bloody Point areas.

17th Century map of the New Hampshire Colony

In May 1699, Henry was deposed in a lawsuit and testified as follows:

“Henry Langstaff of Bloody Point, of Dover in this province, aged ninety years or thereabouts, testifieth and saith, that about the year one thousand six hundred and thirty five, he arrived at the port of Piscataqua River, in the service of Captain Jno. Mason, that he lived two years in the service of said Mason , with Mr. Walter Neal, one of the agents of said Mason at Little Harbor, then called Randevous.” (NHPP 2:529)

While Henry misstated his arrival year, his testimony supports the premise that he sailed on the Warwick in 1631 as one of the servants Mason recruited. It also supports 1610 as his likely year of birth.

Henry married at some point, probably around 1639 or 1640, as his son John Langstaff is believed to have been born in 1640. Henry’s wife’s name and parentage is unknown. Some researchers surmise she was part of the Sheafe family as one record refers to a Samson Sheafe as Henry’s kinsman, but there is no way to verify the hypothesis.

In addition to son John, Henry had two daughters, Sarah Langstaff Nutter, my ninth great-grandmother, born in 1643, and Mary Langstaff Coleman, born around 1650, and one additional son, Henry Langstaff, born around 1647.

Despite Henry’s humble beginnings as a servant, he acquired several properties and became a valued member of his community. He seems to have been granted his first property in 1648, a six-acre plot in the Cocheco marsh. In 1652, Henry, along with three partners, were granted permission to build and operate a sawmill at Fresh Creek near Dover. In 1658, he was granted another 200 acres in Dover, along with a lot where another colonist’s home was located. In 1668, he purchased John Hale’s lands, livestock, and house with its contents in Bloody Point. In 1669 he, along with two partners, purchased land and buildings in the town of Greenland from a man named Chapernown. The Greenland property turned out to be a problem for Henry and his partners, leading to at least two lawsuits regarding their rights to timber and the use of the buildings.

The map above shows the areas where Henry Langstaff owned land. They are quite a distance apart. Given that he needed to travel by horse over rugged land, it is impressive that he managed to acquire and use all these properties.

Henry also held office in his community. He appears on a 1658 list of Dover freemen, and he served as a selectman and on the grand jury. He signed several colonial petitions to the British government asking for more favorable taxation rates. Apparently, the New Hampshire colonists were a litigious lot, as Henry’s remaining appearances in colonial records were as a party in various lawsuits over land boundaries and use.  

As Henry entered his nineties, he began planning for the distribution of his estate, which comprised extensive land holdings and livestock. His wife was apparently long dead, and his eldest son John appears to have moved out of state. In 1702, he transferred land:

“…to my daughter Mary Langster [for] natural love, goodwill, affection, etc., and her carefulness in taking pains to wait and attend upon me upon all occasions in this my great age.” (See NHPLR 7:143 below.)

We can gather from this bequest that Mary was his caregiver, and that she may have given up her own chances for marriage to care for her father. Henry provided for Mary further in 1704, deeding over more land in Dover and half his lands in Greenland.

He also provided for his son Henry, deeding him the “homestead at Bloody Point”, his remaining Dover property, and the other half of the Greenland property.

Mary and Henry Jr. also each received half of their father’s household goods “excepting three cows and ten sheep which I give to my daughter Sarah Nutter.” (See NHPLR 9:472 and 7:141) Sarah was already provided for as Anthony Nutter’s wife, so her bequest was significantly smaller.  

Henry’s preparations were prescient, for he died July 18, 1705. The journal of Rev. John Pike of Dover stated:

“Mr. Henry Langstar of Bloody-point deceased after ten days sickness, occasioned by a fall into his leanto, four stairs high, whereby being grievously bruised, it brought an inflammation upon him. He was about 100 years old, hale strong, hearty man, & might have lived many years longer, if &c.”

Transcription of Rev. Pike's journal on Henry's death

Rev. Pike may have slightly off in judging Henry a centenarian, but Henry likely was about ninety-five years old in 1705. It sounds as if he was in amazing shape for his age. He must have been quite a tough old gentleman. I have trouble imagining a lean-to building with a four-step staircase—I wonder what the structure looked like.

Henry lived in New Hampshire for nearly 75 years. From his humble origins as a servant, he transformed himself into a respected citizen and landowner, one of the original colonists to settle in the Dover, New Hampshire area. He is to be admired for his strength and determination. He was long-lived but his life seems to have been well-lived as well.

 

Sources:

The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633. Robert Charles Anderson. New England Historic Genealogical Society. Boston. 1995. Henry Langstaff entry: pgs 1156-1160. Accessed through NEHGS/American Ancestors.

NHPP: Provincial Papers, Documents and Records Relating to the Province of New Hampshire from 1686 to 1722, 40 vols., Nathaniel Boulton, ed. (Manchester, NH, 1867-1943)

NHPLR: Provincial Papers, Documents and Records Relating to the Province of New Hampshire from 1686 to 1722, 40 volumes, ed. Nathaniel Boulton (Manchester, N.H., 1867-1943).

NHGR: New Hampshire Genealogical Record, Volume 1 through present (1903-1920, 1900-present).

Pike, John, 1653-1710. [from old catalog], and Alonzo H. (Alonzo Hall) Quint. Journal of the Rev. John Pike, of Dover, N. H. Cambridge [Mass.]: Press of J. Wilson and son, 1876. Pg. 28. Accessed through the Library of Congress.