Nathaniel Gorham – Family History Ralph Gorham of Benefield ...

Nathaniel Gorham – Family History
Ralph Gorham of Benefield, Northamptonshire, immigrated to America on the ship Phillip in
1635, accompanied by his son John Gorham, then about fifteen years old, baptized in Benefield
in January 1620. Settling in Plymouth Colony, Ralph Gorham pursued his profession as a joiner.
His son John 1 Gorham married in about 1643, Desire Howland, daughter of John Howland and
Elizabeth Tilley, both Mayflower passengers. John Gorham lived in Plymouth, Marshfield,
Yarmouth, and finally Barnstable, Massachusetts, where he owned a grist mill and tannery; he
was a Captain in the Militia in King Philip’s War and fought at Narragansett in December 1675,
when he was wounded “by having his powder horn shot and split against his side”; he died of the
resulting fever, and was buried at Swansea, Massachusetts, 5FEB1676/7. His widow Desire
(Howland) Gorham, survived him by five years, and her mother, Elizabeth Tilley of the
Mayflower, lived until 1686.
John Gorham and Desire Howland had five sons and six daughters.
Their youngest child, Shubael 2 Gorham, was born in Barnstable in 1667, and married on the
Island of Nantucket in May 1695, Puella Hussey, daughter of Stephen Hussey and Martha
Bunker, of Nantucket.
Shubael was a minor when his father died, and he received £50 from his father’s estate to be
“educated in a learned profession”, but he preferred to be a carpenter. When he and his wedding
party sailed to Nantucket, they were taken prisoner by a French ship from Port Royal and
relieved of their valuables, but released unharmed. He settled his wife at South Sea in Barnstable
County and built a tavern near Hyannis Port, where they had two sons and seven daughters.
Their youngest son Daniel Gorham died of smallpox in London, England in 1745, leaving his
brother and sisters an estate of £960. Shubael Gorham died in 1750, leaving his substantial real
estate to his surviving son George.
George 3 Gorham, born 1696, was married by a Church of England minister in New Rochelle,
New York in July 1726 to Hannah Banks, daughter of Joseph Banks and Hannah Purdy.
George was a merchant and sea captain, licensed in 1727 to sail his sloop Hannah between New
London CT, Boston, London England, and the West Indies; he owned several grist mills and was
a town official of Stamford and Darien, CT. George Gorham and Hannah Banks had five sons
and eight daughters.
Their firstborn, Shubael 4 Gorham, was born in Greenwich, CT April 1727, and married in
Stamford, CT August 1748, Mary Selleck, daughter of Nathaniel Selleck and Mary DeMille;
he died about 1771 when many of his children were still young. His widow Mary (Selleck)
Gorham married 2 nd Eliakim Whitney, widowed father of her daughter-in-law Mary (Whitney)
Gorham, and moved with her youngest children to Ball Town, Albany County, N.Y.
Shubael Gorham and Mary Selleck had six sons and three daughters. Three sons sided with the
British in the Revolutionary War: Nathaniel, Samuel, and John, who served as an Ensign in the
Royal Fencible Americans.

Samuel Gorham, according to a family legend, having engaged in some sort of Loyalist activities
when still a youth, was wanted by the rebel forces, and a search party was in pursuit of him when
he arrived at his home; his mother Mary (Selleck) Gorham, was quilting under the trees in the
orchard, her quilt frame supported on four barrels. When Samuel came home seeking shelter, she
lifted one of the barrels and put it over him; he being very small in stature, it covered him
completely. The search party arrived and tried to intimidate and frighten Mary into revealing the
whereabouts of her son, but she would not be frightened, and telling them to go ahead and
conduct their search, she returned to her quilt. The premises were thoroughly searched without
success, and after the rebels had gone, Mary released Samuel from the barrel, and he escaped to
the British lines. Samuel came to New Brunswick with the Loyalists, or soon after, although he
did not marry and did not receive a grant of land. He lived most of his life with his brother
Nathaniel and with Nathaniel’s daughter Hannah McCleery in his old age; his grand nephew
William Sterrett, in 1924, remembered him as an extremely frail and tiny old man, who “did not
die of any disease, he just dried up”. He was buried at Trinity Church, Kingston, November
1854, aged 96.
[Information provided by Eric Langley]