Phillip Pinckney: England to Connecticut

Family History Post --

334 to 337 years ago this week (give or take), a man named Phillip Pinckney died.  He is one of my 10th Great Grandfathers.  

Phillip was born in 1617, in Dinton, Wiltshire, England.  He was one of a dozen or so children, born to Rev. Phillip and Margaret (Gough) Pinckney.  

I won’t pretend to know what growing up in Dinton was like in the 1600’s, of course.  The village is located about halfway between London and Plymouth, and about 32 miles northwest of Southampton.  There are still a few buildings in existence from the time Phillip was there… churches and estates.  I admit, it’s strange to think that anyone could go visit and see the same things my 10th Great Grandfather saw 400 years ago.

It’s unknown exactly when he came over to what would become America, but it’s thought to be somewhere between 1640-1645.  Once here, he first settled in Fairfield, Connecticut.  At the time he moved to Fairfield, it was still called by it’s Native American name, Uncoway (meaning “the place beyond”).

Phillip married Jane (last name thought to be Phippen) around 1650.  They had 11 known children, one of which is my 9th Great Grandmother, Abigail.  

In 1664, Thomas Pell granted land on the Hutchinson River in Westchester County, NY, to a group of men.  Phillip was one of those men, and the settlement became known as Eastchester (now known as Mount Vernon).  He served as Captain of the East Chester Militia in 1677 and 1681.  Also in 1681, Phillip was part of a small committee that secured a treaty with the Mohegan Indian tribe.  It said… “... a treaty between the Mohegan and the colony acknowledged a Mohegan interest in the land; it provided that the colony would administer ‘equal justice’ to the Mohegan ‘as our own people’ if they ‘beforehand declared their subjection to our laws.”

Phillip’s actual death date is unclear, as is the place of death.  What has been documented is that his will was written on January 9th… was proven on February 28th… and recorded in probate on March 7th. His place of death was likely either Eastchester or Fairfield.  I have seen it noted both ways. The death year is a question, too… it’s been transcribed from records over the centuries as being 1686, 1687, 1688, or 1689.

While there’s not a lot of fine details here… Phillip Pinckney is still an important leaf on a very large tree.  He crossed the Atlantic Ocean in his early 20’s, 400 years ago.  I wouldn’t want to cross the Atlantic on a cruise ship…much less the boat that he would have been on.  He came to a new world full of possibilities… and full of people and things that he had never seen before.  He helped create and lay out new towns.  He was chosen to take part in making peace with a local Indian tribe. He raised a family in what we would consider to be the wilderness.  He survived.