The Webster-Shatswell-Emery Family of Ipswich, Newbury and Haverhill

John Webster and his wife Mary Shatswell Webster arrived in Boston from England, and he was admitted a freeman in Boston on March 4, 1634-5. Documents from a chancery court case in England show that Mary Shatswell’s mother, Judith, died in Sibbertoft, Northamptonshire, England, about 1616.

After moving to Ipswich, they were provided a lot of land, which was “granted to Mr. Rogers” in 1642. The Rev. Nathaniel Rogers was granted a planting lot on Argilla Road near Heartbreak Rd. John Webster was admitted a commoner by vote of the Town on February 28, 1644-5.

The first Shatswell house and the home of John and Mary Webster were between East Street and today’s Spring Street.

The Early Shatswell & Webster Homes

Mary Shatswell Webster’s brother, John Shatswell (also spelled “Satchwell”), was listed as a commoner in 1641. After arriving in Ipswich in 1636, John Shatswell was granted “about six acres of ground, upon part of which the said John Shatswell hath built a house, being between Mr. Wade’s house lot on the east, and Mr. Firman’s on the West, having Goodman Webster on the northeast.” Thomas Firman’s house lot was on the north side of High Street, between John Baker and Thomas Bracy.

From the descriptions of the adjoining lots, we find that John Shatswell’s first lot, and John and Mary Webster’s home, were located next to each other on the hill above the Ipswich Inn at the intersection of North Main, High and East Streets, where an ancient path extends along the hillside to Spring Street. Thomas Franklin Waters identified the location as an ancient right-of-way that leads to Spring Street. “This private way that ascended the hill…may have been used as a short way to the meeting house by the dwellers in the ancient Hog Lane or Brook St.”

The Shatswell House, 90 High Street

A 19th-century photo of the Shatswell House at 90 High Street

Most of the above settlers sold their early house lots and built finer homes on new lots. The ancient Tuttle-Shatswell House was constructed in the second half of the 17th century, and is still standing on High Street, north of Lord’s Square. The lot was purchased by early Ipswich settler John Shatswell, who died in 1647. In his will, Feb. 11, 1646 (Ips. Deeds 1: 22), John Shatswell bequeathed “to my sister Webster about seaven yards of stuff to make her a sute and alsoe a yonge heiffer thought to be wth calfe.”

Also in his will, he deeded the property to his sons Richard and John, and added, “If Richard shall not marry with Rebecca Tuttle, which is now intended, then my wife shall have her being in the house during her life unless she see good to dispose of herself otherwise.” The sons divided the estate in 1695. The right side is the oldest, and the exact date of construction is unknown, but in 1671 Richard Shatswell was granted the right to fell a thousand feet of boards, perhaps to build this house. In the 19th century, this was the home of Col. Nathaniel Shatswell, famous for his command of Union troops during the Battle of Harris Farm during the Civil War.

Shatswell Planter’s Cottage, Jeffreys Neck Road

An article about Joseph Smith [1783-1881] from the Ipswich Chronicle, May 28, 1881, states that in 1806 Joseph Smith married Hannah Lord, took down the original Shatswell house, and just in front of where it stood, he built the left side of this building, adjoining the home of Richard Shatswell on the right. The old original Shatswell house was remembered as having a very flat roof, which was also the case with a small outbuilding that sat in the rear of the property, and which may be the original small home of John Shatswell. The 14′ x 15′ structure was removed from the rear of the yard around 1950 by Daniel S. Wendel to the Wendel estate on Strawberry Hill. He concluded, based on superficial evidence, that the shed had been the early home of John Shatswell, and it is now known as the “Shatswell Planters Cottage,” which Wendel dated as 1646. That building, including the roofline, is greatly altered from its appearance when Wendel acquired it.

John & Mary Webster’s Family

John Webster died in 1646, leaving Mary a widow with four sons. John and Mary Shatswell Webster had eight children:

Mary Webster, born about 1630, married John Emery Jr. of Newbury in 1648. After John Webster Sr. died, his widow Mary Shatswell Webster married John Emery Sr., which must have caused confusion.

John Webster, born about 1633, married Ann Batt of Newbury in 1653. She died on October 1716 “when she had lived in a married state with her sd husband about sixty three years.”

Hannah Webster, born about 1635, married Michael Emerson of Haverhill in 1657. She is believed to have died in 1707 at about age 71 in Haverhill. Their daughter Hannah Duston killed and scalped ten Abenaki who had kidnapped her family during King William’s War. Alice Keenan wrote that Hannah Duston was born in Ipswich on High Street in 1657 while her mother, Hannah Webster Emerson was visiting her Shatswell relatives, but other sources show her place of birth as Haverhill. In 1879, a bronze statue of Hannah Duston was created by Calvin Weeks in Haverhill in Grand Army Park.

Stephen Webster, born about 1637, was a tailor. He married first, Hannah Ayer of Haverhill, in 1662. Hannah Ayer was the daughter of John Ayer(s) and his wife Hannah, who, along with several of their children, came to New England on board the ship James, which was caught in the Great Colonial Hurricane off the New Hampshire coast, but managed to make it to Boston Harbor two days later. Hannah died in 1676 after giving birth to her daughter Abigail. Stephen Webster married, second, Mrs. Judith Broad, widow of William Broad, in 1678. He died in 1694, and she died about 1728. Eventually that line moved to New Hampshire, New York, Wisconsin, and Missouri.

Elizabeth Webster, born about 1639, married Samuel Simons of Haverhill in 1668.

Abigail Webster, born about 1641, married Deacon Abraham Merrill of Newbury in 1660. Her gravestone is at the Sawyer Hill Cemetery in Newburyport.

Israel Webster, born about 1644, married Elizabeth Brown in 1665/6, and married second, Elizabeth Lunt. The Brown family lived in the Rocks Village section of Haverhill, across the river from West Newbury.

Mary Webster’s Island Farm

On Nov. 30, 1646, after John Webster’s death, John Andrews conveyed to Mary Webster, “widow”, for the use of herself and her children, “all ye island lately in possession of George Carr, twenty acres more or less, bounded by the labour-in-vain creek west; Thomas Emerson’s farm southeast; Thomas Boreman’s farm on the northeast; which said island lyeth in the town of Ipswich.” This was Eagle Island at the Hamlin Reservation on Argilla Road, and was close to or adoining John Webster’s planting lot that was mentioned earlier.

On November 4, 1646, the widow Mary Webster petitioned the Court that when her eldest son, John Webster, reached the age of twenty-one, he should have the thirty-two-acre farm in Chebacco which was situated between Mr. Roger’s oxen pasture and Thomas Bishop’s farm. John would be obligated to pay Nathan, called the youngest child, five pounds when Nathan reached fourteen years.

Mary Webster’s marriage to John Emery Sr.

In 1634, the ship “Mary and John” left England carrying John Parker, James Noyes, and others to found a new town. They wintered in Agawam (today Ipswich), and in the Spring of 1635, they settled just north of the Parker River. On the 5th of April, 1635, “John Emery and Anthony Emery, carpenters from Romsey, Hampshire, England,” sailed from Southampton for New England on the ship “James,” and landed at Boston on June 3rd. The Emerys and others of his parishioners migrated under the influence of Rev. Joseph Avery, the vicar of Romsey, who came to New England in 1634 and who was drowned on a voyage from Newbury to Marblehead in 1635. John Emery’s first wife had probably died before his voyage.

The widow Mary Webster married John Emery Sr. in 1650, four years after her husband’s death. It is unclear how they met, but perhaps they knew each other from when the Newbury settlers had wintered over in Ipswich. Two years after they married, Mary gave birth to a son, Jonathan, her ninth child. Her daughter Mary married John Emery Junior. John Emery, Sr. died on November 3, 1683, and left his heirs a considerable estate valued at 263 pounds. The mother, Mary Shatswell Webster Emery, died April 28, 1694.

John Emery’s first house was in the original location of Newbury, just north of the Parker River. After a a few years, the entire town moved to the banks of the Merrimac River to the “New Town.” and John Emery was assigned “a house lot at the new town joyning Cross Street…at the upper end of the new town” on today’s High Street.

The town of Newbury granted 80 acres on the west side of the Artichoke River to John Emery, where the family owned and operated a mill, known today as Curson’s Mill, and accessible from Maudslay State Park. The mill remained in the Emery family until 1761, and the nearby Emery House, built by Stephen Emery, son of John Emory Jr., is a retreat center operated by the Episcopal Church. The gravestones of Stephen Emory and his wife Hannah Rolfe (1708-1779) are at Sawyer’s Hill Burying Ground, near the entrance of Maudslay State Park.

In 1661 John Emery was elected a selectman, and in 1666 he was appointed fence viewer and was appointed to the grand jury. In 1672 he was appointed a juror. This area was home to a group of Quakers, and in 1663, John Emery was presented at court for “entertaining Quakers” and was fined four pounds for granting food and lodging to two men and two women, who were traveling through. One of the witnesses testified that John Emery took the Quakers by the hand and bid them welcome. After being exiled, some Quakers repeatedly returned to Massachusetts. On June 1, 1660, Quaker Mary Dyer was taken to the gallows.

On October 7, 1652, John and Mary Emery of Newbury sold the twenty-acre parcel she had purchased from John Andrews to Thomas Boreman of Ipswich for the sum of thirty-five pounds. That same year, John and Mary Webster’s son, John Webster II, a blacksmith, sold a 25-acre farming lot at Chebacco, a former part of Ipswich, which he or his father had purchased from the executors of John Fawn’s estate.

All eight of the Webster’s children relocated with their mother to Newbury and joined the Emery family, ending the brief residency of the Webster family in Ipswich.

John Emery’s management of the Webster children’s inheritance played out in the Ipswich and Newbury courts over several decades. He became the primary guardian and administrator of her eight children’s portions from their late father, John Webster. In October 1651, John Emery petitioned the General Court for permission to sell specific real estate left to the Webster children to fulfill their cash inheritances. He was granted power to sell the Labor in Vain island in Ipswich that had been divided among three of the children (Mary, Stephen, and Hannah). In 1652, he sold the former home of John and Mary Shatswell Webster, which included a six-acre plot, to Thomas Boreman to raise the £20 owed to three other children (Elizabeth, Abigail, and Israel). As a condition of these sales, the court required John to post a bond ensuring the children received their full portions—£8 each—when the daughters reached 18 and the sons reached 21. On March 30, 1669, John Emery appeared in court to provide written receipts proving he had paid out the required inheritances to the now-adult Webster children.

In her book, Reminiscences of a Nonagenarian, Sarah Emery Smith (1787-1879) wrote, “John Emery was very fond of his stepchildren, and they reciprocated the affection. Israel and Nathan, the one eighteen and the other fifteen years of age, with their mother, soon after her marriage, petitioned the General Court to consent to their choosing their father-in-law, John Emery, Senior, and brother, John Emery, Jr., as their guardians. All of the Websters were remembered in Mr. Emery’s will, where they are styled “his dear children.” Mary was a widow again for 11 years, and died in April 1694 in Newbury. During her two marriages, Mary Shatswell Webster Emery had 21 children. None of her children married persons from Ipswich.

The children of John and Mary (Webster) Emery

Mary Emery, who married Samuel Sawyer
Hannah Emery, who married Richard Bartlett
John Emery, who married Mary Sawyer, and (2) Mary March
Bethiah Emery, married Henry Bodwell
Sarah Emery, married Isaac Bailey
Joseph Emery, married Elizabeth Merrill
Stephen Emery, married Ruth Jaques
Abigail Emery, married Henry Ingalls
Samuel Emery, married Tabitha Little field
Judith Emery, married Abel Huse
Lydia Emery, married Joseph Brown
Elizabeth Emery, married John Kelly
Joseph Emery, married Abigail Moody

The Emery House in Newburyport

The Emery House is a religious retreat practicing monastic traditions, based in a house built for several Emery family sisters. John Emery was a significant man in Newbury history, assuming several roles in the new community. Yet he was more than once taken to court for the courage of his convictions, taking in a “stranger” and befriending Quakers. John Emery played an extraordinary role in the lives of the Webster children.

John and Mary Emery’s home in Newburyport was very close to Curzon’s Mill, on the location where John Emery and his sons built and operated a mill on the Artichoke River, at the end of the park road at Maudslay State Park. John Emery and the Webster sons are mentioned frequently in the History of Newbury.

Shatswell Gravestones at the Ipswich Old North Burying Ground

B-179 Annis Shatswell, wife of John Shatswell, died Oct. 3, 1872, AEt. 71 yrs. 5 mos. and 15 dys. Fold her O Father in thine arms and let her henceforth be. Shatswell, Annis Lord

E-152 In memory of Mrs. Mary Shatswell wife of Mr. Nath. Shatswell, who departed this life May, 13th, 1786; In the 26th year of her age. Behold all you that do pass by, As you are now so once was I; As I am now so you must be, prepare for death and follow me. (F.S.) Mrs. Mary Shatswell. Mary Lord Shatswell 7 Dec 1760 – 15 May 1786

B-177 Mary White Shatswell – see Nathaniel Shatswell. Mary White Stone Shatswell 7 Apr 1835 – 7 Feb 1898

E-154 Mr. Nathaniel Shatswell died Dec. 16, 1824, AEt. 65. This spot contains the ashes of the just, who sought no honors, who betrayed no trust. This truth he proved, in every path he trod, an honest man’s the noblest work of God. Nathaniel Shattswell Birth 1759

B-177 (left) Nathaniel Shatswell, Col. 1st. Mass. H.A, Nov. 26, 1834-Dec. 14, 1905. COL Nathaniel Shatswell 26 Nov 1834 – 14 Dec 1905.His wife, Mary White, Apr. 7, 1835-Feb. 7, 1898. (base) Shatswell. Mary White Stone Shatswell 7 Apr 1835 – 7 Feb 1898. (right) John Shatswell, 1803-1873. John Shatswell 1803 – 22 Apr 1873. Annis Shatswell, 1801-1872. Annis Lord Shatswell 18 Apr 1802 – 1872. (F.S.) N.S, M.W.S. (G.A.R. marker.)

D-119 Sacred to the memory of Moses Shatswell who died March 26, 1845; AE. 76 yrs. Dust to its narrow house beneath, soul to its place on high, they that have seen thy look in death, no more may fear to die. Moses Shatswell 1769 – 26 Mar 1845

D-120 Sacred to the memory of Mrs. Sarah Shatswell, wife of Moses Shatswell, who died Sept. 14, 1838; aged 70. Nor art nor virtue could redeem from death nor anxious love prolong her laboring breath; conjugal bands asunder must be torn, and thou, surviving partner, left to mourn; But let her virtues now your grief suppress, and wait reluctant till you meet in bliss. (F.S.) S.S.

D-121 In memory of Miss Sarah Shatswell, daughter of Mr. Moses and Mrs. Sarah Shatswell, who died Nov. 5, 1821, AEt. 26. In youthful bloom my sorrows end, adieu vain world, farewell my friends, in Jesus’ arms I lay my head, and take my place among the dead. Sarah Lord Shatswell unknown – 14 Sep 1838

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