Lucius R. Paige, History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1877, with a genealogical register

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[488] Scituate, 1634, but soon removed; he was of Duxbury in 1639, and of Sudbury in 1647, where he d. 9 Mar. 1673-4, leaving dau. Mary, w. of William Brown, dau. Alice, w. of John Bourne of Marshfield, and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Betts, John, came to N. E. 1634, aged 40. Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., XXX. 143. Before 1639, he purchased a house at the S. W. corner of Holyoke and Winthrop streets, which he sold to John Shepard, 6 Dec. 1662. In 1642, besides many other lots of land, he owned about an acre, fronting the Common, which he sold to Harvard College in 1661. Dane Hall stands on the southerly part of this lot. He d. 21 Feb. 1662-3, a. about 68. His w. Elizabeth d. 2 Jan. 1663-4. In her will, dated 16 Dec. 1663, she devises house to John Bridge, Sen., who seems to have been her brother, and trifling legacies to a large number of friends, but does not mention any children.¹ The following, from the Colony Records, 18 May 1653, is sufficiently definite: ‘John Betts of Cambridge, being at a Court of Assistants on his trial for his life, for the cruelty he exercised on Robert Knight his servant, striking him with a plough-staff, &c. who died shortly after it, the jury brought in their verdict, which the magistrates not receiving, came in course to be tried by the General Court.’ .. ‘The General Court do not find John Betts legally guilty of the murdering of his late servant Robert Knight; but forasmuch as the evidence brought in against him holds forth unto this Court strong presumptions and great probabilities of his guilt of so bloody a fact, and that he hath exercised and multiplied inhuman cruelties upon the said Knight, this Court doth therefore think meet that the said John Betts be sentenced, viz. 1. That the next lecture day at Boston, (a convenient time before the lecture begin,) the said Betts have a rope put about his neck by the executioner, and from the prison that he be carried to the gallows, there to stand upon the ladder one hour, by the glass, with the end of his rope thrown over the gallows. 2. That he be brought back to prison, and, immediately after the lecture, to be severely whipped. 3. That the said Betts shall pay all the witnesses brought in against him 2s. per day for so many days as they have attended upon the Court of Assistants and the General Court, upon his trial. 4. That he shall pay £ 15 into the Country Treasury, for and towards the charges the Court have been at, upon his trial. 5. That the said Betts be bound to the good behavior, for one whole year, in the sum of ten pounds.’

Bittlestone, Thomas (elsewhere written Bittleston, Bicklestone and Beetlestone), d. here 23 Nov. 1640, owning house and land east of North Avenue, which was in possession of his wid. Elizabeth, in 1642. By will, dated 3 Nov. 1640, he bequeathed £ 150 to his dau. Elizabeth, £ 5 to Mr. Thomas Shepard, £ 1 to Mr. Foordham (prob. Rev. Robert Fordham, who settled at South Hampton, Long Island, 1648, and d. 1674) and the remainder to his w. Elizabeth. His boy, John Swan, was enjoined to serve the w. five years and was then to receive £ 5. Mr. Bittlestone was prob. from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, as he ordered, in case his w. and dau. should both decease without legal heirs, his estate should be divided, one third to his natural kindred in Old England, one third to the Church in Camb., and one third to ‘my two friends Thomas Cheesholme and William Cutter,’ which two persons are known to have formerly resided in Newcastle. Elizabeth the w. or dau. of Thomas, m. John Bisco of Watertown, 13 Dec. 1650.

2. William, prob. brother of Thomas (1), in 1638, owned house and three acres, east of Garden Street, near the Botanic Garden. He d. (on the 5th of October, the date of the year mutilated), before 1642, when the estate was held by Guy Banbridge, Edward Hall, and Edward Winship, feoffees; but for what heirs, or for what purpose, it was so held, does not appear.

Blacklkach, Benjamin, by w. Doreas (dau. of Nathaniel Bowman, of Wat.), had Nathaniel, b. 12 Oct. 1666.