Hugh Smith

     Hugh Smith married Mary. His will was probated 20: 1mo: 1655/56 (20 March 1655/56).²
     
     Hugh Smith, immigrant, was one of the original settlers at Rowley, Essex County, Massachusetts, where he was a proprietor and town officer.²

     Rev. Ezekiel Rogers arrived in New England in 1638 with many of his followers from Yorkshire, and they spent the winter of 1638/39 in Boston. This company was granted a township on 13 March 1638/39, and, on 4 September 1639, the court ordered that "Mr. Ezechi[el] Rogers plantation shall be called Rowley."

     The people of Rowley, it appears, labored together and in common, for nearly five years before any land was alloted.

The survey of the towne of Rowley, taken the tenth of the eleaventh Anno Dni 1643, by Mr. Thomas Nelson, Mr. Edward Carleton, Humphrey Reyner, Francis Parrot, appointed for that purpose by the fremen of the said towne, who also are to regester the severall lotts of all the inhabitants granted and laid out, and to leave thereof a coppy with the Recorder or the Sheire, according to the order of the General Court.

     There is no evidence that Hugh Smith was among the Rogers immigrants consisting of eighteen or nineteen families, though he was with the Rogers Company when they settled at Rowley, the number by then having increased to about sixty families. When the land was surveyed in 1643, each freeman or family was granted at least 1½ acres. Those who had contributed to the 800 pounds Rogers paid for his plantation were alloted more. Smith had not contributed to that fund, as his grant on Bradford Street, was for the minimum:³

To Hugh Smith, one lott containinge an acree and an halfe, bounded on the south side by William Jackson's house lott, part of it lyinge on the west side, and part or it on the east side of the streete.⁴