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"Mathew ye sonne of Edward Howard & of Ester his wife borne 15th Mrch 1661 & 62"

source notes in progress

Mathew or Matthew Howard wasn't a common name in mid 17th century England or New England. The only record of one in New England at that time was born in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony, on 15 March 1661/62 to Edward and Esther Howard.1 It's understandable, then, that he is assumed to have been the Mathew Howard who settled first in Little Compton, Rhode Island, by 1688, which, at the time, was in Massachusetts Bay Colony.
     What isn't plausible is the assumption that Edward of Boston, father of Mathew, married Hannah Hawkins there on 7 June 1661.2 The marriage record says Hannah was the daughter of Thomas Hawkins of Boston. Hawkins and his wife Hannah had three children, Abraham, Hannah and Job, baptized in Boston on 22 August 16413 That record says Hannah was 30 weeks old, so she was born in 1640. This leaves little doubt that the marriage record is correct in calling her Hannah. Undaunted by the evidence, Esther, mother of Mathew, and Hannah Hawkins were conflated to become "Hannah Esther Hawkins." I haven't pinpointed the first appearance of this in print, but it's been repeated as fact many times since. Another reference to Edward, husband of Hannah, is in 1670, when Thomas Hawkins petitioned the General Court for help paying a ransom to get Edward out of the captivity of the "Turks."4 There are several other appearances of a man or men with that name in Boston, but there isn't enough information to connect any of them to Mathew.
     Another mistake is the connection of Edward to nobility in England, the Howards of Effingham, and thus changing his name to "Edward Howard Effingham." I haven't found the origin of it, but the misnaming of Esther and the connection to these English nobles can both be found in the widely read Settlers of the Beekman Patent (1990). I believe the reference there was copied from elsewhere, since this publication does so heavily. It appears again in "The Howard Historian" (1997). Although extremely vague reasons are given for this, there is no plausible or credible evidence to support it and shouldn't be taken seriously.
     Supporting the idea that Mathew of Little Compton was the son of Edward and Esther is that a small group of Howards that include an Edward and Esther in the next generation living near each other evidently don't belong to any other Howard family. The others in this group were Mathew and William. They are reasonably thought to have been siblings. Mathew of Little Compton moved to Tiverton, also formerly in Massachusetts and now in Rhode Island, then to nearby Rochester and finally to Dartmouth by late 1726. Edward Howard, probably the oldest of the siblings, married and had children recorded in Dartmouth between 1722 and 1731. Esther Howard of Rochester married Thomas Lamunyon of Dartmouth in Tiverton in 1719. They had children recorded in Dartmouth between 1720 and 1728. William Howard married in Rochester in 1723 and had children recorded in Dartmouth between 1724 and 1744. Mathew Howard of Dartmouth married there in 1726 and had children recorded in Rochester between 1727 and 1735. These three generations aren't connected by documentation, but the evidence makes this a very good assumption. This group shouldn't be confused with the Howard (Haward, Hayward) family of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, which included Matthew and Edward.
     The first record of Little Compton Matthew is when he bought forty acres and a quarter right to undivided lands there from Benjamin Church in 1688.5 He was already of Little Compton. He sold that property on 27 February 1702/03, now with a house on it.6 While this may have been his homestead, he was still in Little Compton ("Seaconet," referring to Sakonnet, an early name for the area) in July 1704, when an ad appeared in a newspaper announcing the capture of his runaway slave.7

At the 8 October 1706 session of the Bristol County Inferior Court of Common Pleas, a case against Matthew was heard in which Thomas Springer sued for him for breach of contract.8 He was indentured to Matthew on 29 May 1696, but hadn't received all they had agreed on. He asked the court and was given £10, and if not more in clothes, another £10. This was to be given to Springer by the end of January 1707. Matthew was also to cover Springer's £1, 17 shillings in court costs.
     Matthew was living in Tiverton, the town bordering Little Compton to the north, when he bought land there on 22 January 1704/05.9 This was in the narrow strip of land between Watuppa Pond and Stafford Pond. On 16 Febuary 1714/15, he and Mary mortgaged this property, which was called their homestead.10 This was part of a Massachusetts Province scheme to raise money to pay government bills at a time when banking in New England was still being worked out. The colony was in debt from King William's War, and the interest gained in buying mortgages was thought to help defray that cost. It didn't work. Matthew paid off the mortgage on 15 March 1719/20, having given the government $pound25 in the process. A customary note in the margin of the deed giving mortgage closure details says "paid by Matthew Howard by the hand of Philip Taber," likely meaning that Taber went to Boston with the money on his behalf. Matthew was almost 60. While this seems straightforward, there is another deed by which Matthew sold the homestead to Joshua Dwelley on 22 May 1718.11 It was agreed that Dwelly would pay Matthew £130 and £100 would go to the government for the original mortgage sum. Matthew was still legally responsibility for paying off the mortgage, so with Dwelly's £230 in hand, he sent the mortgage portion with £25 interest with Philip Taber to Boston. This deed says Matthew was a husbandman living in Rochester, Massachusetts Province. A previous deed by which Matthew sold his other real estate in Tiverton to Dwelly on 19 July 1715 says he was still in Tiverton.12 Ibid, 12:126. I don't find Matthew buying land in Rochester, which may have happened in an unrecorded deed, but the move was probably shortly before he sold the homestead, so perhaps Spring of 1718.
     Joshua Dwelly may have been Mathew's son-in-law. He married Elizabeth Howard in Swansea, Massachusetts Province, in 1711.13 Swansea was across the Taunton River from Tiverton. Joshua was a shipwright there with land bordering on the Taunton River. Edward Howard witnessed one of his Swansea deeds in 1714. It surely isn't a coincidence that Edward, the presumed son of Matthew, was also a shipwright. The may have both worked at the Lee River shipworks in Swansea. Samuel Lamunyon, son of Thomas and Esther (Howard) Lamunyon, witnessed Dwelly's Tiverton will in 1750.14 There were other Howards/Hawards in Swansea at roughly the same time who can be accounted for as descendants of William Hayward of Braintree, Massachusetts Bay Colony. There is no evidence of an Elizabeth in this family who could fit the circumstances of Elizabeth (Howard) Dwelly. The Tiverton marriage intentions might have more evidence. Dwelly moved to Tiverton between 25 August 1713 (Alger) and 19 July 1715 (Howard). 22 Feb 1713/14?, Durfee, no town named. b. 2 June 1689, Scituate.      William Earle of Freetown, Massachusetts Province, married Anna about 1712, and she is said to have been Anna Howard of Tiverton. There is no marriage record for them. I find no evidential support for the claim, but the specificity of it makes it more of interest. Anna (not Ann) may have been named for Mary (Case) Howard's mother. William was born in 1690, so Anna was very likely younger. Mathew (if he was born in 1661) and Mary (born in 1662) were well into adulthood by 1690, so they could have married in the mid to late 1680s.
     It was probably Matthew, Sr., who was brought to court 16 June 1724 for not going to church.15 A presentment for his appearance at court was made at the December 1723 and March 1723/24 terms. Living in Rochester, he said he was poor, lived a long way from meeting and had lost his horses. He sometimes went to meeting in Mattapoisett and elsewhere when he could, and would try to go as often as he could in the future. Since he isn't recorded as having bought land there, his location in Rochester is unknown. The church in Mattapoisett (at the time the Second Precinct in Rochester) was formed in 1736, so it's most likely he meant the Rochester church. His son William married Mary Parker the year before (1723), who lived on an abutting homestead to where Matthew, Jr., lived on Mattapoisett Neck after 1732.16 This suggests the Howards and their younger children, at least, were living in that neighborhood in 1723, maybe as tenants, and when Matthew, Sr., was charged in 1724. Walking to the Rochester church from Mattapoisett Neck was not reasonable, but since none of the other family members were charged, was not having a horse of his own just an excuse? He was in court again in March 1726 for defaulting on a note held by James Winslow of Rochester.17 He owed £12. The bond was "chancered," and Mathew was only obliged to pay about half plus Winslow's court costs: £6, 3 shillings, 8 pence and £2, 18 shillings, 6 pence. Mathew is called a yoemen of Rochester. Subsequent court records sketch a grim picture of Mathew's later life.
     Mathew signed another note on 4 June 1724, this time for £28 with Ebenezer Burge of Agawam (now Wareham), on which he defaulted and was brought to court 20 December 1726.18 Again, the bond was chancered and he paid £8, 11 sh, 3 p, plus £8, 7 sh, 6 p for costs. Mathew was "late of Rochester now of Dartmouth," husbandman. It may be that Matthew was having financial trouble by 1718, which caused him to sell the Tiverton homestead with an assumable mortgage. He mortgaged another property in Tiverton in 1709, to be paid off within a year. The mortgagee died in 1710, but Mathew didn't pay it off until March 1726. 6:313.

     Mathew and Mary may have moved in with one of their children, three of whom were living with their families in Dartmouth. Mathew, Jr., and his future wife Phebe Burges were transients in Dartmouth and warned out of the town in 1726. They married there soon after but moved to Rochester. Mathew, Jr., bought land on Mattapoisett Neck next to the Parker homestead in 1732. It's tempting to think that when his parents moved from Rochester, Mathew and Phebe took over the lease. He then bought property nearby when he had the means.
     On 1 May 1719, when Mary (Case) Howard and her sisters sold their rights to their father's property to their brother Isaac, their husbands (except Anna, who was single) also signed the agreement.19 They each "acknowledged" the deed at a later date, Mary on 30 January 1728/29. All the husbands joined in the confirmations except Matthew. Mary and her sisters Sarah Huddleston and Penelope Lake did so in Dartmouth. Matthew was still alive, though, because he acknowledged one of his own deeds on 3 April 1730.20

Children of Matthew Howard and Mary Case:

i. Edward, b. roughly 1692
ii. Esther, b. roughly 1696
iii. William, b. roughly 1698
iv. Matthew, b. roughly 1700

vital records sources: "Massachusetts, U. S., Town and Vital Records 1620-1988," ancestry.com database online (Provo, UT:2011), image 187 of original mss vol. "Boston Registry of Births, Deaths 1630-1690." There are many transcriptions of the Boston vital records, all of which I've seen are not exact. 15 March lies within the Julian and Gregorian calendars overlap, and in the 17th century, dates in that overlap tended to be double dated to show this. Some transcriptions say 1661, others say 1662. Since the original says 1661 & 1662, it means that, on the Gregorian or modern calendar, the year is 1662. Without the double-date and no other context, it could be 1661 or 1662.

1. "Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988," ancestry.com database online (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011), Boston, Registry of Births, Deaths, 1630-1699, image 187 of ms page 195.
2. An image of the oldest manuscript record is in Boston Births, Marriages and Death, image 365 of ms p. 216. This was taken from a very poor microfilm and is barely readable. There were numerous transcripts of these records made, see for instance Boston, Marriages 1649 - 1800, image 106 of ms p. 54. All transcripts agree as to information.
3. A Report of the Records Commissioners, Boston Births, Baptisms, Marriages and Deaths, 1630-1699 (Boston: 1883), 12.
4. Wendy Warren, The World of Colonial America: An Atlantic Handbook (2017), 180; Charles Sumner, White Slavery in the Barbary States (Boston:1853), 68.
Plymouth Co. MA, deed 1:86.
5. Bristol Co., MA, deed, 1:86.
Ibid, 4:80.
6. Bristol Co., MA, deed 4:80.
7. Boston News-Letter, 10 July-17 July 1704, 2.
Plymouth Co., MA, deed 5:132.
8. "Bristol County Inferior Court of Common Pleas, 1702-1720," p. 72, images of ms volume at familysearch.org, film 007902644, image 377.
9. Bristol Co., MA, deed 5:132.
10. Ibid, 9:26.

Ibid, 19:475.
11. Ibid, 9:740.
12.Ibid, 12:126.
13. 13 February 1710/11, Vital Records of Swansea, Massachusetts to 1850, vol. 1 (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1992), 182.
14. "Rhode Island, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1582-1932 for Joshua Dwelly, Newport, Probate Records, Vol 2 and 4, 1747-1792; Town Council Probate, 1776-1789; Vol 5-6, 1792-1814," ancestry.com database online, (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), image 163 of ms p. 316.
15. vol. 2, General Sessions, ms 8:13 NEGHS image 39. Plymouth Court Records, vol. 2 (Wilmington, DE:1978), 39, from General Sessions of the Peace record. Case introduced in the December 1723 session, heard and decided in the March 1724 session.
16. Plymouth Co., MA, deeds 10:48, 27:131, 38:88.
17. Plymouth Co., MA, Common Pleas session of 1 Mar 1725/26, case 41, vol. 5, NEGHS image 151, transcription of ms 2:123-127. Ibid, vol. 5 (Wilmington, DE:1979), 151, Court of Common Pleas record.

18. PC Common Pleas, case 13, 2:158-162vol. 5, NEGHS image 161, ms .
19. Bristol Co., MA, deed 19:476.
20. Ibid, 19:236.