James CUDWORTH Gen.

1604 - 1680

  • BIRTH: 1604, Aller, Somerset, England [1050]
  • DEATH: 1680, England [1051]
Father: Ralph CUDWORTH Rev.
Mother: Mary MACHELL

Family 1 :
  1.  James CUDWORTH
  2. +Mary CUDWORTH
  3.  Jonathan CUDWORTH
  4.  Israel CUDWORTH
  5.  Joanna CUDWORTH
  6.  Jonathan (2) CUDWORTH 

                                          _Rauf CUDWORTH __+
                       _Rauf CUDWORTH ___|
                      |                  |_Agnes LEES _____+
 _Ralph CUDWORTH Rev._|
|                     |                   _Arthur ASHTON __
|                     |_Jane ASHTON _____|
|                                        |_________________
|
|--James CUDWORTH Gen.
|
|                                         _________________
|                      _Matthew MACHELL _|
|                     |                  |_________________
|_Mary MACHELL _______|
                      |                   _Edward LEWKNOR _+
                      |_Mary LEWKNOR ____|
                                         |_Dorothy WROTH __

[1052] Source: Records of the Cudworth Family, A History of the Ancestors and
Descendants of James Cudworth of Scituate, MA; W.
John Calder; 1941.
A Little Commonwealth, Family Life in Plymouth Colony; John
Demos; 1970.

James Cudworth was an educated man of an educated family of country
gentlemen, who lived by farming, intersperced with sheep raising, and the
sale of wool to English, and Flemish weavers of cloth. James had a clear
understanding of business methods, knew a little law, and probably had
more or less to do with colonizing the new country in America, in
connection with Timothy Hatherley, who we think, but cannot prove, was an
acting agent of the Earl of Warrick, a long time friend of the Cudworths,
amd landlord of the Stoughtons of Coggshall. James came to New England
in the ship "Charles" in company with Timothy Hatherley, and they landed
in Salem. He made a connection with Israel and Thomas Stoughton who had
arrived in the Winthrop expedition of 1630, and had settled in what is
now Dorchester, MA. He seems to have kept up his association with
Timothy Hatherley, and probably had something to do with the placing of
colonists in appropriate settlements in and around Boston and Plymouth.
He probably met and married his wife in the vicinity of Boston rather
than Plymouth. Our first knowledge of them is related to the setteling
of the village of Scituate, a promotion of Timothy Hatherley, in a former
visit to New England, in 1628, when eight families of settlers were
established there. James Cudworth and his wife, newly married, became
the nineth, and with money borowed in part from Isael Stoughton, bought
his lot of land, and built his home there. That was probably in the
winter and spring of 1634, and his letter to Rev. John Stoughton of
Aldermanbury, England who was his stepfather, is our first indication of
his new venture.

After having served for more than two decades as an Assistant, Cudworth
in 1680 acepted a mission to England, to plead for the Colony in the
delicate political negotiations then in progress. He was at the time 76
years old. He survived the long ocean voyage without difficulty, only to
contact smallpox and die within days of his arrival.

[1050] [S60] Records of the Cudworth Family; W. John Calder; 1941; p. 22

[1051] [S61] A Little Commonwealth, Family Life in Plymouth Colony; John Demos; 1970; p. 175

Nav Bar