EDWARD DOTY

ORIGIN: Unknown

MIGRATION: 1620 on Mayflower

FIRST RESIDENCE: Plymouth

OCCUPATION: Planter [PCR 2:44, 69].

FREEMAN: In the "1633" Plymouth list of freemen, ahead of those admitted on 1 January 1632/3 [PCR 1:3]. In the Plymouth section of the list of 1639 [PCR 8:174].

EDUCATION: Signed his deeds by mark.

OFFICES: In Plymouth section of 1643 Plymouth Colony list of men able to bear arms [PCR 8:187]. His inventory included "a matchcock musket" valued at 12s. and "a watch bill" valued at 3s. [PCPR 2:1:15-16].

ESTATE: In the 1623 Plymouth division of land there are two consecutive entries for "Edward [blank]," granted one acre; one of these must be for Edward Doty [PCR 12:4]. In the 1627 Plymouth division of cattle "Edward Dolton" was the eleventh person in the fourth company [PCR 12:10].

Assessed £1 7s. in the Plymouth tax list of 25 March 1633 and 18s. in the list of 27 March 1634 [PCR 1:10, 27].

On 12 July 1637, "Edward Dotey" sold to Richard Derby "all those his messuages, houses and tenements at the High Cliff or Skeart Hill together with the four lots of lands and three other acres purchased of Josuah Pratt, Phineas Pratt and John Shawe," with an exclusion of an inner chamber in the "chief messuage ... wherein the said Edward Dotey layeth his com" and that Doty would keep possession of the other house and three lots until he received all the £150 and reaped the crop of com. If Richard Derby failed to return from old England or failed to have the £150 paid by harvest time, Doty could sow another crop and reap it until Derby returned or paid [PCR 12:20-21]. Apparently Derby settled for the single lot and paid £22 [PCR 12:46].

On 16 September 1641, Edward Doty was granted a forty-acre parcel of upland at Lakenham [PCR 2:26]. On 7 May 1642, "Edward Dotey" purchased one acre of upland at High Cliff from Joshua Pratt [PCR 12:81]. On 5 May 1643, "Edward Dotey" sold two lots totalling forty acres of upland to Stephen Bryan and John Shaw Jr. [PCR 12:91]. On a list entitled "Names of the Purchasers," probably dated after 26 December 1651, Edward Doty is twenty-first of fifty-eight [PCR 2:177].

In his will, dated 20 May 1655 and proved 5 March 1655/6, Edward Doty Senior of Plymouth "being sick" bequeathed "my purchase land lying at Coaksett unto my sons; my son Edward I give a double portion and to the rest of my sons equal alike," only to "my wife I leave a third during her life then after to return to my sons"; to "my loving wife ... my house and lands and meadows within the precincts of New Plymouth"; "my share of land at Punckquetest if it come to anything I give it unto my son Edward"; on 5 March 1655/6, "Faith the wife of Edward Dotten deceased" relinquished to her sons her right in lands at Coaksett [MD 3:87-88, citing PCPR 2:1:14].

The inventory of the estate of "Edward Dotten lately deceased," taken 21 November 1655, totalled £137 19s. 6d., of which £60 was real estate: "his dwelling house and his land adjoining," £25; "threescore acres of upland with the meadow adjoining to it lying in the woods," £10; "the land at Clarkes Iland," £5; and "the purchase land lying at Coakset," £20 [MD 3:88-89, citing PCPR 2:1:15-16].

In her will, dated 12 December 1675 and proved 8 June 1676, "Faith Phillips the wife of John Phillipes" of Marshfield "though weak in body" bequeathed to "my daughter Mary" £9 in "my son John's hands"; to "my daughter Elizabeth £6"; to "my daughter Mary £3 due by bill of sale"; to "my daughter Desire £6 due by my bill of sale and a warming pan." On 4 November 1676, letters of administration were granted to "John Rouse Junior of Marshfield ... in the behalf of himself his wife and sisters: viz: Desire [tom] and Mary Doten" [MD 3:89-90, citing PCPR 3:2:12].

BIRTH: By about 1599 (he was a servant on his arrival, but as he fought a duel within months of landing at Plymouth, he was more likely close to the end of his servitude rather than the beginning; he signed the Mayflower Compact, probably as an adult).

DEATH: Plymouth 23 August 1655 [PCR 8:17].

MARRIAGE: (1) Before 1635 ____ ; not seen in any record. Her existence is implied only by Bradford's comment that Edward had "a second wife" (see COMMENTS below).

(2) Plymouth 6 January 1634/5 "Fayth Clarke" [PCR 1:32], daughter of Thurston Clarke. She married (2) Plymouth 14 March 1666[/7] John Phillips [PCR 4:163-64, 8:31; MD 18:56] and was buried at Marshfield on 21 December 1675 [MarVR 9].

CHILDREN:

With second wife

1. EDWARD DOTY, b. say 1636 (eldest son in father's will); m. Plymouth 25 or 26 February 1662[/3] Sarah Faunce [MD 13:204; PCR 8:23], daughter of JOHN FAUNCE [PM 201].
2. JOHN DOTY, b. say 1638; m. (1) by 1668 Elizabeth Cooke ( eldest known child b. Plymouth 24 August 1668 [PVR 5]), daughter of Jacob Cooke and granddaughter of FRANCIS COOKE {1620, Plymouth} [MF 12:54, 81-82; PM 144]; m. (2) Plymouth 22 November 1694 Sarah Jones [PNQ 3:121], daughter of Joseph Jones and great-granddaughter of RICHARD WARREN [MF 18:1:82; PM 477].
3. THOMAS DOTY, b. say 1640; m. by 1675 Mary Churchill (by whom he had had an illegitimate child in 1672), daughter of John Churchill. Widow Mary m. (2) 8 February 1687/8 Henry Churchill. (In 1960 Florence Harlow Barclay studied the family of Thomas Doty and concluded that he married two women named Mary [TAG 36:1-7]. In 1996 Barbara Lambert Merrick reexamined the problem and concluded that Thomas Doty had only one wife and that Henry Churchill was not son of John Churchill [TAG 71:114-20]. We follow the latter article here.)
4. SAMUEL DOTY, b. say 1642; m. Piscataway, New Jersey, 13 November 1678 Jeane Harman [NJHSP 4:4:34] (by license dated 24 October 1678 Jeane Harman, both of Piscataway, New Jersey [East Jersey Deeds 3:149; GMNJ 43:49]).
5. DESIRE DOTY, b. about 1645 (d. Marshfield 22 January 1731, aged eighty-six years [MarVR 409]); m. (1) Marshfield 25 December 1667 William Sherman [MarVR 10], son of WILLIAM SHERMAN [PM 416]; m. (2) Marshfield 24 November 1681 Israel Holmes [MarVR 16], son of WILLIAM HOLMES {1635, Scituate} [GM 2:3:392-97]; m. (3) by 1689 as his second wife Alexander Standish, son of MILES STANDISH [MD 12:48-52; PM 451].
6. ELIZABETH DOTY, b. say 1646; m. (1) Marshfield 13 January 1674[/5] John Rowse [MarVR 8]; m. (2) Marshfield 28 January 1718/9 William Carver [MD 8:43; MarVR 35, 40].
7. ISAAC DOTY, b. Plymouth 8 February 1648/9 [MD 15:27; PCR 8:5]; m. by about 1673 Elizabeth England (in his will of 11 January 1684[/5], Hugh Parsons of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, who had married Elizabeth, the widow of William England, bequeathed to "my wife's two daughters, living on Long Island, viz: Susannah Carpenter and Elizabeth Doty" [Austin 144]).
8. JOSEPH DOTY, b. Plymouth 30 April 1651 [PCR 8:12]; on 27 October 1674, accused by Elizabeth Warren of fathering her child [PCR 5:156]; m. about summer 1674 Deborah Ellis (late enough to have conceived a child with her b. 22 February 1674/5 but not so soon as to have committed adultery to conceive a child with Elizabeth Warren still unborn 27 October 1674 [TAG 36:9-11]); m. (2) Rochester 5 March 1711/2 Sarah Edwards, widow [TAG 64:152-54].
9. MARY DOTY, b. say 1653; m. after 10 July 1677 Samuel Hatch [PCR 5:239; MD 5:111-13, citing PCLR 4:345 and PLR 25:120; TAG 36:7-8].

ASSOCIATIONS: Edward Doty had a complex financial relationship with Richard Derby, but not one that necessarily implies kinship.

COMMENTS: In 1988 Neil D. Thompson published a refutation of the false claim for the ancestry of Edward Doty made by Gustave Anjou [TAG 63:215].

Bradford, in his accounting of 1651, stated that Edward Doty came on the Mayflower as a servant of STEPHEN HOPKINS, and that in 1650 "Edward Doty by a second wife hath seven children, and both he and they are living" [Bradford 442, 447]. Doty signed the Mayflower Compact.

Doty went with his master Hopkins and more than a dozen others on the voyage of "discovery" on 6 December 1620 [Mourt 31-32].

He is said to have been guilty of the "second offence" committed in Plymouth. As Bradford tells us: " ... the first duel fought in New England, upon a challenge at single combat with sword and dagger, between Edward Doty and Edward Leister, servants of Mr. Hopkins. Both being wounded, the one in the hand, the other in the thigh, they are adjudged by the whole company to have their head and feet tied together, and so to lie for twenty-four hours, without meat or drink; which is begun to be inflicted, but within an hour, because of their great pains, at their own and their master's humble request, upon promise of better carriage, they are released by the governor" [Prince 190-91, citing Bradford's lost register].

This incident set the tone for the next twenty years in which Doty was frequently in court for fighting, slandering, trespass and debt. Edward Doty was defendant in three civil suits at the court of 2 January 1632/3, all involving hogs; he won one and lost two [PCR 1:6-7]. On 1 April 1633 Doty was sued for slander by one of the winning plaintiffs just noted, and was fined 50s. [PCR 1:12].

Still he prospered, for he had an apprentice in 1633, although an unhappy one. On 2 January 1633/4, the court settled a dispute between Edward Doty and his apprentice John Smith, reducing the time of the apprenticeship from ten years to five [PCR 1:23]. On 31 August 1638, Doty received the assignment of seven years labor of William Snow from Snow's previous master, Richard Derby [PCR 1:94].

On 24 March 1633/4, Edward Doty was fined 10s. for breaking the peace and drawing blood from Josias Cooke [PCR 1 :26]. On 28 March 1634, Edward Doty won a suit against Francis Sprague [PCR 1:29].

On 7 March 1636/7, Edward Doty was found guilty of a "deceitful bargain" over a lot of land, and restored the lot to George Clarke [PCR 7:5]. The controversy continued when George Clark won damages and costs from Doty on 2 October 163 7, Clark charging him with denying liberty to hold land for the term he had taken it [PCR 7:6]. Things escalated, for that same day Clark also charged Doty for assault and battery, and Doty was further fined [PCR 7:6]. Doty was sued in less sanguinary encounters between 1638 and 1651 with Richard Derby, John Shaw, widow Bridget Fuller and John Holmes over debt and trespass, and lost them all [PCR 7:10, 15, 16, 47, 48, 56]. On 7 December 1641, he successfully sued James Luxford for trespass [PCR 7:26].

On 1 February 1641/2, Thomas Symons charged "Edward Dotey" with carelessly allowing cattle put in his hands to "break into men's com" endangering the cattle and other property, and Doty was ordered to put his cattle in a "keep" [PCR 2:33].

On 10 February 1643/4, "Edward Dotey" was one of six men directed by the town of Plymouth to build a wolftrap at Plain Dealing [PTR 1: 16]. In March 1657 he was midway down the list of "those that have interest and proprieties in the town's land at Punckateeset over against Rhode Island" [PTR 1:37].

Writing in 1897 Ethan Allen Doty quotes many documents, including some that would be very helpful in refining our knowledge of this family, but which do not appear in the colony or town records. The most important of these would be receipts given by all the sons of the immigrant for their shares in his estate [The Doty-Doten Family in America (Brooklyn 1897), p. 28]. Perhaps these documents are privately held.

Desire, who married successively William Sherman, Isaac Holmes and Alexander Standish, was said to have been eighty-six when she died in 1731, placing her birth about 1645. But her last child with Standish was born when she would have been forty-eight by this reckoning. She was probably a few years younger than her age at death shows, but it is hard to know just where to fit her into the sequence of children.

Savage states that the immigrant had children William and Faith, in addition to the children listed above, but there is no evidence for such children. From the probate records for Edward Doty's widow we may be sure that no daughter by the name of Faith survived to adulthood. Savage also claims that Edward Doty removed to Yarmouth, but all records for him place him in Plymouth.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE: The Five Generations Project of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants has published its study of Edward Doty as Volume Eleven of the series, in three parts, compiled by Peter B. Hill. Part I, published in 1996, covered the descendants of sons Edward and John. Part II, also published in 1996, covered the descendants of sons Thomas and Samuel and daughters Desire and Elizabeth. Part III, published in 2000, covered the descendants of sons Isaac and Joseph and daughter Mary.

The Pilgrim Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth Colony 1620-1633

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