I wrote about Richard in my article, The Pinkhams of Strafford County, New Hampshire, New Hampshire Genealogical Record, Vol. 22 (2005):1-7, 63-67, 115-25, 164-71, 23 (2006):27-76. There remains much confusion about his man.
- He may be the same man baptized at Alvington, Devonshire on 7 November 1613 as Richard Pinkham, son of Richard. However, this is complete conjecture. This is an English origins based solely on the name and appropriate age of someone in England matching a man in New England. Various Internet sites take the ancestry back several more generations, which is based on research I've never seen published. As we shall see, the 1613 date makes the Dover man, slightly too old to be a slam dunk in my opinion and certainly casts doubt on this identification.
- Richard is said to come over in 1633 on the James. This is from Sinnett's book. Again, this is pure speculation. Only two people are certainly known to have been on that ship: Thomas Wiggins and the Rev. William Leverich. This is known by a surviving letter from John Winthrop. Both Wiggins and Leverich end up in Dover, so it is inferred that the other 30 men are early Dover inhabitants including Richard Pinkham. His name appears as such a person in the New Hampshire State Papers I:118-128, but even there, it is given as conjecture. It is a wonder that people see the word possibly and completely dismiss it.
- Richard's age is never given in any extant document. We can state that he must have been 21 or more when he signed the Dover Combination in 1640. So he was born in or before 1619. His first child was born in 1642. Richard, therefore, married about 1641 and likely in New England. Her name was Gillian (----). Sinnett confused the name with Julia. The fact that he was married here and not in England further hampers identifying his English origins. If 25 at marriage, he was born about 1617. So these two records point towards a man born in the late teens. That would make him very young if he came over in 1633. The 1613 baptism works well with the 1633 ship arrival, but then makes him almost 30 by the birth of his first child, which is on the late side.
- Richard died between 12 June 1671 when he deeds to his son John for life support and 5 May 1688 when his son John refers to him as deceased in a deed.
- Gillian's only mention comes in a 1663 court case. She is not mentioned in the 1671 deed, and is therefore dead by that time. It is again conjecture that she is the mother of his children.
- Richard had five sons. Sinnett gives only two and one of them is inverted with a grandson. That said we only know of descendants from two sons: Richard (Jr.) and John. Richard went to Nantucket and John stayed in Dover. My article only covers the descendants of John.
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