John Dane, Jr.      1644-1707

 

Born:  About 1644/5 in Ipswich, Massachusetts

Died:  1707

 

 

Spouse:        Abigail (Warner) Dane m. December 27, 1671 at Ipswich, Massachusetts.  (More below)

Children:       Abigail (Dane) Crackbone  (b. 1673) Married Joseph Crackbone March 27, 1705

Elizabeth Dane  (b. 1678)

John Dane  (b. 1681)

Benjamin Dane (b. abt 1683)

                    William Dane  (b. 1685)

                    Susannah Dane  (b. 1685)

Sarah Dane  (b. 1687)

                    Rebecca Dane  (b. 1687)

                    John Dane  (b. 1687)

                    Elizabeth Dane  (b. 1689)

                    Daniel Dane  (b. 1689)  married 1st Lydia Day and 2nd Mary Annable.  Daniel and Lydia’s son Daniel had 3 children, Abigail, Nathan, and Daniel (b. March 17, 1733).  Son, Nathan Dane, is the one that went on to become a lawyer and Senator and was instrumental in founding Harvard’s law school.  (Type his name into Google and you’ll get all kinds of information.) 

                    Nathaniel Dane

 

(Note: More information can be found regarding the children in George Stayley Brown’s Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Genealogies, Genealogical Pub. Co., Baltimore, MD, 1993.)

 

Occupation:  Yeoman (Most likely in the sense of being a farmer on a smaller sized lot of land.)

 

Father’s name:        Dr. John Dane         of Little Berkhampstead, Herts, England                     

Mother’s name:       Eleanor (Clark) Dane

Siblings:        Mary Clark (Dane) Chandler 

                    Philemon Dane 

                    Elizabeth (Dane) Johnson  (m. Stephen Johnson on November 5, 1661 in Andover, Massachusetts.)

                    Sarah (Dane) Heald

                    Rebecca (Dane) Hovey

         

 

John Dane, Jr. appears in List of Men With Commonage Rights, 1678, extracted from Materials for the History of Ipswich, New England Historical & Genealogical Register, Vol 7, January 1853, pg 77.  [Transcribed by Jane Devlin]  18 Feb 1678 - a List of ye Names of those psons yt have right of Comonage according to Law and order of this Town…”

 

John was a Juror in the Salem Witch Trials.  Afterwards, the Jurors published this letter:

 

Declaration of Regret:

We whose names are underwritten, being in the year 1692 called to serve as jurors in court at Salem, on trial of many who were by some suspected guilty of doing acts of witchcraft upon the bodies of sundry persons, we confess that we ourselves were not capable to understand, nor able to withstand, the mysterious delusions of the powers of darkness and Prince of the air, but were, for want of knowledge in ourselves and better information from others, prevailed with to take with such evidence against the accused, as, on further consideration and better information, we justly fear was insufficient for the touching the lives of any (Deut. xvii) whereby we fear we have been instrumental, with others, though ignorantly and unwittingly, to bring upon ourselves and this people of the Lord the guilt of innocent blood; which sin the Lord saith in Scripture he would not pardon (2 Kings xxiv.4) - that is, we suppose, in regard to his temporal judgments. We do therefore hereby signify to all in general, and to the surviving sufferers in special, our deep sense of, and sorrow for, our errors in acting on such evidence to the condemning of any person; and do hereby declare, that we justly fear that we were sadly deluded and mistaken - for which we are much disquieted and distressed in our minds, and do therefore humbly beg forgiveness, first of God, for Christ's sake, for this our error, and pray that God would impute the guilt of it to ourselves nor others, and we also pray that we may be considered candidly and aright by the living sufferers, as being then under a strong and general delusion, utterly unacquainted with, and not experienced in, matters of that nature.

We do hereby ask forgiveness of you all, whom we have justly offended, and do declare, according to our present minds, we would none of us do such things again, on such grounds, for the whole world - praying you to accept of this in way of satisfaction for our offense, and that you would bless the inheritance of the Lord, that he may be entreated for the land.

Thomas Fisk, Foreman
William Fisk
John Bacheler
Thomas Fisk
John Dane
Joseph Evelith
Thomas Pearly, Sr.
John Peabody
Thomas Perkins
Samuel Sayer
Andrew Eliot
Henry Herrick, Sr.               

         

The Rev. Francis Dane (Named in the trials, but no arrest warrant issued) would be John Dane, Jr.’s Uncle and Abigail (Dane) Faulkner (Tried, found guilty and pardoned due to being pregnant.) was Rev. Francis Dane’s daughter, John Dane Jr.’s niece.  I have some more information about Rev. Francis Dane here.

 

Abigail Warner was born in 1655 in Ipswich Massachusetts.  She was the daughter of Daniel and Elizabeth (Denne) Warner.  Abigail passed away January 31, 1698.

 

“In 1705, the Hamlet was granted by the town of Ipswich one acre of common land for a burial place.  This was, the next year, exchanged with John Dane for one-half acre which is a part of the present burial ground…John Dane, the grantor, died in 1707, and was buried in this lot; the stone erected in his memory bears the oldest date of any in the cemetery.  The inscription is “Momento Mori, Fugit Hora.  Here lyes ye body of John Dane, Sen., who departed this life December 23d, 1707, in the 65th year of his age.”  From History of Essex County, Massachusetts, Volume 2, part 1, edited by Duane Hamilton Hurd, 1888.  Information from an historic walking tour of Ipswich comments that the oldest markers were made of wood and today none exist.

                   

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