- Emigrated from County Essex, England about 1638.
Rev. John Cornell["A Cornell Corner"1900] relates:"We have good reason to suppose that the Emigrant(Thomas) was buried in this place".
Thomas and Rebecca had nine children.
[birth & death years are estim.]
Primary research for early Cornell/Cornwell ancestors:
Google- "Genealogy of the Cornell Family" by Rev. John Cornell, 1902.
See also: Thomas Cornell Memorial # 9252760 by Jo Bohony & Sue Williams ∼ Thomas was a son of Mary and Richard Cornell. His siblings were: Daniel, Samuel and Sarah.
According to several biographical records and genealogical records, Thomas Cornell came to the Americas around 1636 with the 2nd Winthrop Expedition along with his wife, Rebecca and many of their children. There are many discrepancies about the number and names of the children. I have tried to access LDS records for this data. They settled first in Boston, then Portsmouth, New Amsterdam, and back to Portsmouth. Thomas was an Innkeeper while in Boston and was charged, at least once, with selling wine without a license. His wife's brother was one of the Antinomian followers, led by Ann Hutchinson, and were run out of Boston during the time. Thomas moved along with his family to RI in February 1646, where they started the settlement of Portsmouth for religious freedom.
One son, gained notoriety through an infamous murder mystery. He was found guilty of murdering his mother and was hanged for it. However, the murder was never really solved. You can read about it all in the book "Killed strangely: The story of Rebecca Cornell, by Elaine Forham Crane. A local record of the account,
"Rebecca Cornell, widow, was killed strangely at Portsmouth in her own dwelling house, and twice viewed by the Coroner's Inquest, digged up and buried again by her husband's grave in their own land.' On May 23 her son Thomas was charged with murder. John Cornell, in his Genealogy of the Cornell Family, wrote that the trial "reads like a farce. It appears that the old lady having been sitting by the fire smoking a pipe, a coal had fallen from the fire or her pipe, and that she was burned to death. But on the strength of a vision which her brother John Briggs had, in which she appeared to him after her death and said: ‘See how I was burned with fire.' It was inferred that she was set fire to, and that her son who was last with her did it, and principally on this evidence Thomas Cornell was tried, convicted and hung for her murder...."
One of the descendents of this Cornell line? Lizzie Borden.
Her will mentions their children: Thomas, Richard, William, John, Samuel, Joshua, Sarah, Ann, Rebecca, elizabeth and Mary.
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Genealogical Musings
1593 - 1655 (61 years)
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