I have 2048 9x great-grandfathers. Technically, everyone does. We have two birth parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents…it just keeps doubling. I’d never be able to trace them all, particularly in Ireland where an overwhelming majority of my ancestry comes from. However, for the thin slice of my father’s Colonial predecessors, history has been very well documented and I can dig up fascinating things from family of long, long ago.
Ipswich, Massachusetts, is a very well-preserved coastal town with the largest collection of first generation Colonial houses in America. Take, for instance, this old house of Reginald Foster, a 9x great-grandfather of mine which I visited last summer. Foster moved to this lot around 1658 and whether this house was here, or whether they built it later is unclear—but he certainly lived here.
Reginald was an immigrant from Exeter, Devon, England, and came from a well-regarded family. In 1638, with his wife Judith and their seven children, he sailed to and settled in Ipswich. Reginald served as a town planner and a surveyor of roads in the area, and owned part of Plum Island, as well.
What makes the Fosters particularly interesting to me is their small connection to the famous Salem Witch Trials. Reginald’s son, Reginald Jr., was a signer of a petition to save the life of John Proctor, the first man accused and arrested for being a witch. Proctor had previously lived in the Fosters's neighborhood before moving to Salem, and a number of his old friends vouched for his innocence. (Another signer was William Story, my 8x great-grandfather.) Unfortunately, the petition was unsuccessful and John Proctor was hung not long after. John Proctor’s story was the basis for the great American play The Crucible, by Arthur Miller.
