710.John Besbedge. Born ca Oct 1587 in Biddenden, Kent. John was baptized in All Saints Church, Biddenden, on 8 Oct 1587.13
711.Thomas Besbedge. Born ca Mar 1589/90 in Biddenden, Kent. Thomas was baptized in Biddenden, Kent, 3 Mar 1589/90.16 Thomas died in Sudbury, MA 9 Mar 1673/4.16
Thomas lived in Hedcorn and later in Sandwich, England. He sailed on the Hercules in 1635. His certificate of conformity, required by law to emigrate, was certified by Thomas Warren, Vicar of Sandwich, and by Thomas Harmon, Vicar of Hedcorn, and was dated March 1634. He came with his two daughters, Mary and Alice, and seven servants: Jane, Sara, and John Engelden; Thomas Newley; Joseph Pacheing; and Agnes Love. Later, Joseph Pachein (or Patching) married Elizabeth (Bennet) Engelden, widow of Stephen Engelden on 10 Apr 1642 and moved to Fairfield, CT, in 1651.13
Thomas came in the Hercules 1635 with six children and three servants, embarked at Sandwich, Kent, and landed in Scituate Harbor in the spring of 1634. Thomas Bisbedge settled first in Cambridge, MA, then in Scituate. He was deacon of the First Church of Scituate that he joined 30 Apr 1637, but removed to Duxbury, probably for the religious quarrels at Scituate. He was rep. for Duxbury 1643. He removed again to Sudbury. Freeman 7 Feb 1637.
He was made a freeman by the general court of Plymouth Colony 2 Jan 1638. In Dec 1638 he was among a group of eight with ties to Scituate who were to be granted land at Seipican (now Rochester, MA). The people of Scituate decided against that area in favor of Barnstable where a large number of church members moved in 1639 with their Minister John Lothrop. On 1 Mar 1642 Thomas Besbeech of Duxbury was appointed to sit on the grand jury in Plymouth [Plym. Col. Rec., 2:34]. He apparently neglected his civil duties, for he was fined five shillings on 7 Jun1642 for "departing the Court without leave, being warned to serve on the grand inquest" [Plym. Col. Rec., 2:42]. Thomas remained in Duxbury and was elected a deputy to the general court from that town on 6 Jun 1643 [Plym. Col. Rec., 2:57]. On 13 Oct 1664 he sold his land in Scituate and removed to Marshfield, MA (he may have lived there before this date, for he is listed a freeman of Marshfield in 1658 [Plym. Col. Rec., 8:201]). He later resided in Sudbury, MA where he d. Mar. 9, 1674.
Thomas lived with the family of Mary, his daughter, for a number of years in Sudbury.
See NEHGR 47:34, and 67:34.
Elisha Besbedge of Scituate is commonly claimed to be Thomas’s son. Thomas was in Scituate in 1637, later in Duxbury, Marshfield, and Sudbury. Thomas’s will of 1672 doesn’t mention Elisha, and Anderson14 finds the chronology impossible to support that claim.
14 Jan 1618/9 Thomas married Anne Baseden in Biddenden, Kent.16 Anne died in Kent, England in Apr 1634. Buried on 21 Apr 1634 in Frittenden, Kent.16