Joseph BEMIS, Sr.

1619 - 1684  (~ 66 years)

• Name	Joseph BEMIS
  Suffix	Sr.
  Birth	Between 1618 and 1619	Dedham, Essex, England
  Gender	Male
  Death	7 Aug 1684	Watertown, Middlesex County, Massachusetts   [1]
  Notes	Joseph Bemis was born 1619 in Dedham, England (probably), and died 07 Aug 1684 in Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts3. He married Sarah (_____). She died Bef. 18 Nov 17125. Notes for Joseph Bemis: Resided at Watertown, Massachusetts was a Blacksmith and farmer Bond: "was in Watertown as early as 1640; was selectman 1648, '72, and '75, and d. Aug 7, 1684. By his wife, SARAH, he had 9 chil. Mary Bemis, perhaps a sister of Joseph, m., Mar. 20, 1644-5, William Hagar...Will dated Aug. 7, 1684, proved Oct. 7, 1684. Wid. Sarah admin. Oct. 7, 1684. She d. about 1712" [Roger Thompson, Divided We Stand - Watertown, Massachusetts, 1630-1680, (University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 2001, (Harvard College Library -- Widener, WID-LC/ F74.W33/T48/2001), pp. 184-186.] White v. Bemis, 1679 Actions for debt between neighbors in Watertown were extremely rare. The normal procedure with slow settlers was to ask some other, influential townsmen to lean on the debtor. Such informal pressure almost always worked, which was what Anthony White decided to try on 8 June 1679. As reported by selectman Samuel Stearns, White "asked him, Ensign [Daniel] Warren and John Stearns to go to Joseph Bemis in order to settle his debt" of £10.16.6, which went back seven years to 1672. Bemis, however, "utterly refused…he said they had reckoned formerly. He had tendered his pay two years before." According to White's daughter Mary Willard, they had indeed "made a general reckoning [on 9 October 1675] from the beginning of the world to that day." Nonetheless, White's bill included subsequent supplies of food and such services as carpentry, fencing, plowing, pasturing, and carting. Witnesses described young John White bringing a load of hay "by order of Joseph Bemis," or carrying four barrels of Bemis's cider to Boston from Robert Harrington's cider mill. There could be no doubt about the indebtedness. Why then the debtor's obduracy? The conciliators soon discovered when they visited Bemis. He "insisted upon the wrong that he sustained from that family…there was differences between them…If there were a debt, he reckoned Anthony White owed him fifty shillings for giving information about his sons having cards." On 27 May 1670 the General Court had sadly noted that "the great sin of gambling increases among us…to the corrupting of youth." Draconian £5 fines were imposed on possessors of decks of cards or dice. Informers were given a onetime reprieve for their own involvement. This noxious tattling ordinance was one cause of the Bemis-White confrontation. On 20 November 1677 John White had been fined £2.10.0 for possession of a deck of cards. In the following February and March a string of witnesses had testified about other cardplayers in Watertown, Sarah Hall, aged thirty-three, described how "last winter, Goodman Bemis's sons did frequently resort to our house in the evenings to play at cards though much against my will and desire for often both I and my children were deprived of the use and benefit of the fire and were often constrained to go to bed and they were so bold in it that we knew not how to restrain them." John Wayte, aged forty-eight, had no doubt about the ringleaders: "Living near Anthony White's [I] did see this winter Goodman Bemis's sons often and frequently resort to Anthony White's house and hearing a rumour of their playing at cards there, caused me to speak of it to Goodman Bemis's sons and reprove them for it, and further, till this winter I never knew or heard that John White was given or addicted to going out at night or to company-keeping." The court records also contain an abominably spelled and craven letter from John Bemis to Major Gookin, the Cambridge magistrate, bewailing that he had had the effrontery "to take away the cards out of Major Gookin's house…rashly to do such a thing not considering of the evil that was in it…please to forget and forgive…it is a warning to me for overrunning." For this selfcondemnation he was let off with an admonition. White's incrimination of the Bemis boys' cardplaying and their fining by Gookin had plainly enraged their father, but for the Whites it was far less serious than another interfamily outrage of that winter. On 14 March 1678 Joseph Bemis had to try to ingratiate himself with the General Court to seek a reduction for his son Ephraim's fearsome punishment for "trapanning and procuring [a young married woman] by his lying and false information in order to her being abused by one John Oynes [Owens?] under the name of Mr. Woodman…to the end that John Oynes might commit adultery with her." The respectable woman thus ensnared was Anthony White's daughter Mary, married in 1677 to Jacob Willard. It is easy to see why White should have decided to call in Bemis's debts. This was not a confrontation between young hotbloods. Bemis was sixty and White seventy in 1678; both had been in Watertown nearly four decades. The court did not allow White the £10.16.6 he claimed; Bemis must pay £5.0.6 in money, £2.6.d in country pay, and £1.11.8 in costs. It was not fifty shillings less, but a £1.17.4 discount could not but help to calm frayed nerves. Five years later, in 1684, John White married Rebecca Bemis. He was thirty-five, she thirty. They may have had to wait for the feud to subside. Habitual restraint in neighborly relations was only broken by behavior perceived as betraying communal expectations. Two households previously conforming were thrown into conflict by breaches of trust. The sins of the younger generation were held against the older. It took years rather than months for the sense of injury to abate and normal relations to be restored. "The History of the Bemis, Perkinson, Fay and Lawrence Families", Ted H. Bemis, 1981: "Joseph Bemis, the American progenitor, was born in England in 1619 and came to America with his sister Mary Bemis in 1640, both settling in Watertown. Although I have not found any evidence, Draper (:2.1) feels there is strong evidence that this Joseph had a wife prior to his marriage to Sarah, even though it was Sarah who came to America with him. He was a blacksmith and farmer by trade, and on 11/8/1647 was one of seven men chosen to order the prudentiall affayers of the town (Watertown). On 2/12/1649 he was fined three pounds for felling trees on the common. Fifty shillings of this was returned to him with the provisio he pay the other ten shillings and have no share in the wood or timber on the common. Joseph was granted a strip of land against the meadow to make in lune, or fence, straight, and to pay the town what it was worth. On 1/14/1655 he was fined one shilling for a hog, disorderly. By August of 1656, he was one of two overseers of fences and hogs (perhaps this was his easiest means of assuring that he would not again be fined for disorderly hogs! - ed.) On 1/3/1658 he was elected surveyor of highways, and a Constable on 11/4/1667. Joseph Beamis and two other men were chosed by the town on 11/2/1674 to see that all children were taught to Read the Inglish tung (and who was the judge of that? - ed.) and the orthodox catechism, and that each man have in his home a copy of the 'Capital Laws'. He was a selectman of Watertown in 1648, 72, and 75. :1.1 states that he was a soldier in King Philip's War. Joseph Bemis' will is as follows: The Last Will of me Joseph Beamase I comit my soule unto god my Creator and my body to the Earth to the dust from whence it (was) taken and my Worly goods as foloeth. It is my will that my wife Shall have all my estate during hir life for hir maintinance: and hir Daughter Martha It is my will that my daughter martha shall have all my orchard During hir Life and a comfortable Roome in my Dwelling house hir Lif time I give my Sone Joseph Bemase my farme to him and his ars: but if he di without an are Lafuly begoten after his deces to be equally devid a mongst ye rest of my children It is my will that after my Wife' deces all my Estate that is left to fe devid Equaly amongst my other 5 children the 7 day of 7 month 1684 The mark of Witnes by us Joseph Beamase John Whitney Senior The mark of Susana Harrington "7.8.84. Sworn in Court by sd witnesses & admr granted to his relict widd. Bemas" His inventory lists his books. (:Middlesex Probate docket# 1541) It is not know when 'his relict' died, but in 1712 the heirs began to divide the property which included 'the ffarme' and the orchard." The following is found in Bond, 679 Volume II: The estate of Joseph Bemis [1], was divided, Nov. 18, 1712, after the d. of his wid. Sarah, and it was distributed (except what had been given to "eldest son, Joseph," and dr. Martha), to the following children, viz.; Ephraim, Mary, Rebecca and John. As the eldest child, Sarah [2] is not mentioned in this distribution, she was probably d.s.p. It appears that Joseph [3 1/2] the eldest son lived to have a share of his father's estate, but it is not known what became of him. Martha [4], was adm. f.c. by Rev. Mr. Angier, Feb. 25, 1697-9, then aged about 49, unm. Ephraim, [7 and 9] settled in Watertown, where the births of four of his children are recorded, but the account of the family is brief. He probably had other children besides those four recorded, and it is probable that his family, or some part of it, moved to Windham and Hamton, in Windham Co., Conn. There was a suit in Mid. C. C. P., in 1714 vs. Daniel Bemis of Wat., and another suit there in 1718, viz. Samuel Bernard, of Wat., house-sarpenter, vs. Daniel Bemis, of Windham, Conn., since [formerly] of Watertown. * [See Hinman, p. 190] ------------------------------------------------------------ History of Paris, Maine from Its Settlement to 1880 with a History of the Grants of 1736 & 1771 Together with Personal Sketches, a Copious Genealogical Register and an Appendix Bemis. "Joseph Bemis was in Watertown, Mass., as early as 1640. He was b. in 1609, and d. Aug. 7, 1684." ------------------------------------------------------------ [NEGHS:1857:11:345] "Suffolk Wills" In the "Inventory of Goods & Estates of Mr. David Evans aprized by Capt. James Johnson & Sergant Thomas Clarke 10 Aug. 1663...A list of Debts hoped Good" appears the name of Joseph Bemis. ------------------------------------------------------------ [Great Little Watertown - A Tercentenary History, by G. Frederick Robinson and Ruth Robinson Wheeler, published at the request of the Watertown Historical Society, 1930 (Family History Library US/CAN 974.44/W5 H2r)] Founders of Watertown p. 113: Joseph Bemis and Sarah came from Ireland and lived near Warren Street. He was Selectman three times and left a large family prominent in town affairs. [2]
  Person ID	I7323	Ellingboe
  Last Modified	1 Sep 2012

  
  

  Family ID

  F5108

  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Sources

  [S340] Watertown Records Vol. 1, (Watertown, Massachusetts: The Historical Society, 1894), Births, Marriages and Death, p. 55, REF F74 /W33/W3. (Reliability: 3). [S466] Roger Thompson, Divided We Stand, Watertown, Massachusetts, 1630-1680, (University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 2001), pp. 184-186, WID-LC/F74.W33/T48. (Reliability: 3).