REMARKS.
The following details are published not as being complete, but with the hope that the publication of them may be as a magnet attracting to itself, and thus supplying the wanting links which might otherwise perish from the chain of a family history. Any information, however slight, respecting any of the lines, whether direct or collateral, hereby brought to light, will be welcomed by the author of this article, or the editor of this journal.
We are still in the dark as to the family history of not a few among the first fathers of New England. Much of this darkness might be dispelled were all the written memorials still extant sought out, compared, and committed to the keeping of the art preservative of all arts. Winthrop in his Journal speaks of a letter from the Yarmouth pilgrims to their brethren, with their names, as printed at London in 1630. The instructions to Endecott, the first Governor of Massachusetts Bay, were "Keep a daily register in each family of what is done by all and every person in the family."
In Young's Chronicles of Plymouth, (p. 36) and of Massachusetts Bay, (p. 157), lists of names of emigrants are referred to, but the lists themselves are not given.
Notwithstanding several good works upon the Huguenots have recently appeared, much genealogical labor remains to be performed in tracing the lineage of particular families to France, and investigating their condition there before their emigration. I have often sought, though without success, for the records of the Old French Church in Boston, which stood on the site of the Universalist Church in School street.
NOTES.
1. Neither the family name of Stephen Butler's wife nor any other particulars respecting him have been ascertained, except the record of the births of his children, which is extracted from the city registers of Boston, formerly kept in the Old State House. As he became a father in Boston within little more than twenty years after its first settlement, it may be presumed that he was an emigrant from Europe.
2. Benjamin Butler. The different dates in this and similar cases denote the births of different children bearing the same name; the former in all probability died before the birth of the latter.
3. James Butler probably died before 1692, if the Grace Butler, married to Andrew Rankin, April 15th, of that year, by Simon Bradstreet, was his widow.
4. Information as to the kindred of Abigail Eustice may doubtless be found in the public records of Boston.