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Posted by Stephen Robbins on 14:32:27 4/7/2010 from 66.212.78.220:In reply to: Re: Never thought there were so many of us! posted by Meg Adamson on 14:22:13 4/9/2008 from 69.138.9.60:
As Dr. Willard Jolls’ ms. clearly indicates, there are stories which are passed down and which become embellished or garbled. One of them surrounds the arrival and career of our immigrant ancestor, Thomas Jolls. While one can speculate that he may have taken out letters of marquee from the British government and acted as a privateer in the 1670s, he was never a pirate and he is exceptionally unlikely to have “sailed up the Hudson.” His career, once he immigrated, was as a successful merchant captain and ship builder in Boston. To help untangle the confusion and complexity regarding the period 1660 to 1700, and to provide possibilities for further research, the following information is provided. I am certain that Dr. Willard Jolls would find it in the best tradition of his own scholarship.
From: The Prince Family Genealogy, by George Prince, 1902, Bloomington, Illinois, available at:
http://www.archive.org/stream/princegenealogy00prin/princegenealogy00prin_djvu.txt
at p. 23:
Sarah Jolls was the only dau, of 6apt. Thomas Jolls,
a retired ship-master and merchant of Boston; in 1674 he was taxed ten
shillings; he had four wives and four children by the first three; by
Rebecca he had Thomas, b, April 25, 1672; by Abigaile he had Johnathan,
b. March 21, 1674 euid probably a daughter Saraih (whose birth is not re-
corded), perhaps b, in 1675; by his third wife Susanna he had Robert,
b, June 2, 1677; his fourth wife and widow was Hannah, widow of Bapt,
Samuel Winslow, who he married in 1681, by her he had no issue; they
resided at her house in Black Horse Lane, now Prince it. Nos, 59-61,
where he died in 1686; his widow resided there until 1714, Capt, Thos.
Joll*3 estate was apprized at 566 pounds; his dau. Sarah inherited by
will (rol. 11, p. 213) all the property of her breother Thomas, a ship-
wright of New York who d. in 1696, which included a lot of land on
Prince St. , now Nos, 60-62, opposite the widow Jolls, this lot she deeded
to her brother Robert of Bridgewater, in 1706 and moved there with her
two children, Christopher and Abigail, and in 1713 ra, Thomas Shurtlef,
and had other children,
For other details of Captain Thomas Jolls’ sailings as a merchant captain between Boston and Britain in the period 1675 to 1685, see Diary of Samuel
Sewall, available at: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=77283982
See also Meg Adamson’s comments on this site (“Jollsboard”) dated 9 April 2008. The Prince Genealogy also indicates (p. 22) indicates that Sarah Jolls (daughter of Captain Thomas Jolls) married Christopher Kimball (also a merchant sea captain), on April 3, 1701. The ceremony was conducted by Cotton Mather, further suggesting the stature of the Jolls family in Boston.
Robert Jolls (son of Captain Thomas Jolls and brother of Sarah Jolls Kimball) was born in 1677 in Boston, married Experience Holbrooke in moved to Bridgewater (Mass). He is well documented there in Town records. Robert’s son, Thomas, was born in Bridgewater in 1703. At some point following Thomas’ birth, Robert, with his family, moved to Rhode Island, where he died in Bristol in January, 1738 o.s. (1739 n.s.) Ebenezer Jolls (b. 28 Jan 1746 o.s.) was the son of Thomas and the grandson of Robert.
I hope this provides useful research clues for more detailed exploration of the earliest days of the Jolls family in America.
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