Abraham Shaw 1590-1638

Abraham Shaw came to Massachusetts in 1636 with wife Bridget Best (1592-1638) and their six children, landing at Watertown to join the wave of Puritans settling in John Winthrop's Massachusetts Bay Colony. Spanning four hundred years of history, the book "Yorkshire Roots Replanted" first profiles Abraham Shaw, then charts a particular line of Abraham's descendants through his son John, tracing journeys from Yorkshire to Watertown and Dedham, to Weymouth, Taunton and Middleborough - and later, remote Paris, Maine, and Portland. The journey begins in Abraham Shaw's ancestral village, Northowram, West Yorkshire, amid the political and religious schisms unfolding in 17th century Britain - schisms that led to Abraham abandoning Yorkshire and settling in colonial New England, first at Watertown, then Dedham. After the deaths of Abraham and Bridget Best Shaw in Dedham, 1638, "Yorkshire Roots Replanted" shifts to life in Weymouth and the Shaw's youngest son, John Shaw (1630) and wife Alice Phillips (1633). Soon the focus is on John Shaw's fifth son, Benjamin Shaw (1670) and wife Hannah Bicknell (1675), settlers at Taunton - and later, their son Benjamin Shaw Jr. (1694) and Margaret Dean (1695) living in Middleborough. Still wrapped in historical context, the track leads to Benjamin Shaw Jr.'s son, John Shaw (1725) and wife Hannah White (1731); and to their son Abner Shaw (1751) and Abigail Eaton (1754), homesteaders in Paris, Maine. The account turns to Abner Shaw's son Gilbert Shaw (1772) and wife Silence Cole (1775), in Paris, Maine - and concludes with Eleazer Cole Shaw (1807) and Mary Niles Kinsley (1808), along with their son Charles Henry Shaw (1830) and wives Mary Clarice Oxnard (1835) and Henrietta Cobb (1843), all in Portland, Maine. This prolific family personified the resolute émigrés who arrived early to colonial New England as devout Puritans, holding a steadfast common purpose at the forefront of the extraordinary American Experience.