Click to see full sized

The Strattons arrive in New England in the person of Samuel Stratton (1592-1672), as early as 1633 (thirteen years following the Plymouth colony), at Watertown, Massachusetts, which is just up the Charles River from Cambridge and Boston.  His wife, Alice (Beeby) Stratton accompanied him, but some records say their young son, Richard (1627-58), came later.  A second son, John, is believed either to have been born shortly after Samuel's arrival in the New World, or had been born in England and accompanied his parents (some records say Samuel and Alice did not arrive until 1647).  Samuel (Jr.), a third son, also accompanied his parents.

This extract from a considerable set of notes regarding the first two Stratton generations in America:

[W]e know son Richard came later. Son Samuel married in 1651, John in 1658, and Richard before April 1658 (but probably after arrival in 1656).  Other than estimated from their marriage years that Samuel and John were probably born in the 1620s or 1630s, we do not know how old they were. Richard died on 25 July 1658 'aged about 30 years,' and so we know he was born about 1628. Richard had one son before he died, and Samuel and John had many children, and through them the senior Samuel became the progenitor of at least tens of thousands of Americans today.

One source says Richard arrived in 1656 aboard the "Speedwell."  Our line springs from that single son born to Richard and Susannah (?), another Samuel (1658-1726).

(A footnote:  that same set of notes recounts some fascinating history of the elder Samuel's involvement with witchcraft accusations and executions in the Boston area -- cf. the Salem witch trials and Arthur Miller's The Crucible.  More may be found in that regard with this Google search.  We would expect nothing less from Chester Jackson's ancestor!

(In New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial:  A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of Commonwealths and the Founding of a Nation, Volume 3, by William Richard Cutter, p. 1858:

Samuel Stratton was a man of sterling character and common sense.  When Margaret Jones was executed for witchcraft he condemned the authorities in a manly outspoken fashion and was before the court in 1648.  Both he and his wife were fined five pounds each for reflecting on the judgment of the court.  Stratton refused to admit that his statement was wrong and he had to pay an additional fine.)

As mentioned, Richard Stratton (1627-58) lived only long enough to sire a single son (and we know nothing more of him), but from him the line continues:  Samuel (1658-1726), Enoch (1700-55), Samuel (1728-1810), and Ruth (1771-1807), who married Asa Goodrich.

As to Richard's son, Samuel Stratton (1658-1726), three months old at the time of his father's death, a little is said:

• From A book of Strattons; being a collection of Stratton records from England and Scotland, and a genealogical history of the early colonial Strattons in America, with five generations of their descendants, by Harriet Russell Stratton (1908), p. 170:

• And further regarding some of that land:

Next came Samuel's son, Enoch Stratton (1700-55), for whom we also have a little information:

• From A book of Strattons; being a collection of Stratton records from England and Scotland, and a genealogical history of the early colonial Strattons in America, with five generations of their descendants, by Harriet Russell Stratton (1908), p. 178:

In the "small world" department, note in this account in the French & Indian War he served under Colonel Eleazer Goodrich, who is my first cousin many, many times removed, and a few fewer times removed from Chester and Fanny Jackson.

• His gravestone:

• He left a will:

Enoch appears to hope that son Samuel Stratton (1728-1810) would continue as a farmer, as evidenced by the will above.  He may have, but he moved to Glastonbury, Connecticut, to do so:

Samuel's life overlapped the Revolutionary War (although he would have nearly been in his fifties by 1776), but we have no record that he served in any capacity.

Which brings us to his daughter, Asa Goodrich's wife, Ruth Stratton (1771-1807), about whom we know nothing.  She bore Asa seven or eight children, of which there are public records for six (see discussion of Fanny Goodrich).  Hers was a relatively short life, and those children were born between approximately her 20th and 36th year (unless you credit the account she lived until 1846, in which case she lived 39 additional years, about 20 of them during which she might have still borne children).

[Return to Chester Jackson Forebears]

[Jump to Jackson]
[Jump to Button]
[Jump to Goodrich]