John Pickering

�����John Pickering was born 1615 in near Newgate in Conventry, Warwick, England.^1,2 He married Elizabeth in 1636 in Salem, Essex, Massachusetts, USA.³ He died on July 1, 1657 in Salem, Essex, Massachusetts, USA.¹
�����He emigrated in 1634 from England landed first at Ipswich, Massachusetts. He lived from 1634 to 1637 in Ipswich, Massachusetts, USA. He lived from 1637 to 1657 in Salem, Massachusetts, USA. He was a carpenter (built houses and repaired bridges) in Salem, Massachusetts, USA. He bought land that was then called "Broad Field" and built a house that was stilling at least as late as 1874 in 1641 in 18 Broad Street, Salem, Massachusetts, USA.
�����John Pickering is not to be confused with John Pickering of Portsmouth and Piscataqua in New Hampshire who lived during the same time. Nor is he the same person as Sir John Pickering, son of Gilbert Pickering of Tichmarsh, Northhamption, England, whose son John was baronet of Nova Scotia. However, he is possibly son of Edward Pickeringe of London. From will of Edward Pickeringe, 1 July 1623, proved 26 August 1623.

"To my loving and dear wife Mary Pickering eight hundred pounds. To my dear and tender father John Pickering one hundred and fifty pounds, to be kept in the hands of my executors &c. and disposed of for his benefit. I give unto my dear child John Pickering, my first born son, three hundred pounds. Similar bequests to daughters Sinseare and Mary Pickering. To Francis Stubb my brother in law fifty pounds. "Item. I give unto that hopefull worke begann in Newe England, to be employed and laved out for the benefitt and helpinge ouer those Englishe people whoe dwell in Laydon thether with the first fiftie poundes" To Randall Thickins, my loving friend, ten pounds. To certain friends here in London ten pounds (if the accounts prove overplus). The residue to be divided equally into five equal portions to be distributed between my wife, my father and my three children. I appoint my friends Mr. James Sherley and Mr. Richard Androwes for executors and my good friend and brother Mr. Thomas White and Mr. John Stubbe for overseers." The above will of Edward Pickering, of course, is only suggestive. From it, it appears that in 1623 his son John Pickering was a child and probably was born not far from 1615, the date of birth of John Pickering of Salem in New England.⁴

�����John Pickering had a 19th century descendant named John Pickering whose daugheter wrote in 1874: "Among the early settlers in the town of Salem, Mass., formerly called Naumkeag by the Indians, was John Pickering, who emigrated from England, where he was born about the year 1615. A tradition has always been handed down in the family that he came from Yorkshire, although there is no written record to establish the fact. The name of Pickering has, however, been associated with that locality in England, and with the moors and forest of Pickering there, from the time of King Henry VIII., when the " noble domain of Byland Abbey was granted by him to Sir William Pickering," down to the present day, when the town of Pickering is met with by the traveller in Yorkshire, in the vicinity of the celebrated watering-places of Scarborough and Whitby. The earliest authentic information relating to our English ancestor is contained in the Salem Town Records, where the following entry is found: — " SEVENTH OF 12 MO., 1636. " Jno. Pickering, Carpenter, granted to be [an] inhabitant." Two years afterwards, according to_the same Records, “ on the fourth of 12th month, 1638," John Endicott, Roger Conant, and others contracted with him to build a meeting-house, specifying that it was to be " twenty- five feet long and the breadth of the old building, with six sufficient windows, and to be finished with daubings and glasse and underpining with stone or brick, with carridge and all things necessary, by the said Jno. Pickering." Few facts connected with his private history remain to us. In 1651 he built the Pickering mansion, which is now standing in Salem (No. 18 Broad Street), and which has been in the possession of his descendants to the present time. A deed from Emanuel Downing ( father of Sir George Downing, of London) to the same John Pickering, dated in 1642, conveys to him a part of the estate in Salem which descended in the Pickering family, and of which a large portion has been laid out in streets and sold in house-lots within the two centuries since elapsed. The original deed, signed by Emanuel Downing and Lucie his wife, is carefully preserved in the family. The name of the first John Pickering's wife was Elizabeth, as seen by a record; but of her surname and personal history nothing is now known. They were married about the year 1636, and he died about the year 1655. They had two sons. The eldest son, John, born in 1637, married Alice Flint* in 1657; and these were the great-grandparents of Colonel Timothy Pickering, the grandfather of the writer of these memoranda, — which are here recorded by me out of regard to the interest always felt by the family, and especially by my father, in the personal history and dwelling-place of our ancestors. 18 BROAD STREET, SALEM, MASS., February 25, 1874. MARY ORNE PICKERING."⁵