Family Notes

 This morning I added the 9,500th name to the family tree. He was Jabez Gorham (1656-1725). Jabez was born on Cape Cod, died at Bristol, Rhode Island. He was the son of John Gorham and Desire Howland, and the grandson of John Howland of Mayflower fame. I had to add Jabez into the family tree in order to get William Blaxton in there, which was my real goal. Jabez and his wife (Hannah Sturgis) had a daughter, Katherine. Katherine married John Blaxton, the son of William. William was an interesting fellow. He was a graduate of Emmanuel College at Oxford, and  priest in the Church of England (thus, not a Puritan or a separatist). He arrived in New England in 1623, on board the Katherine . He was a chaplain with the failed expedition to establish Weymouth, and after most of those settlers returned to England he traveled a few miles north to build a cabin on a rocky peninsula surrounded by swampland, later to be known as Boston. He lived there alone on land that would someday be known as t