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The Great Migration Begins
Sketches
S
STILEMAN, ELIAS [1629, Salem]
ORIGIN: St. Mary at Hill, London
MIGRATION: 1629
FIRST RESIDENCE: Salem
RETURN TRIPS: Possibly return to England, and then back to New England by 1632
OCCUPATION: Merchant tailor. Innkeeper. Licensed to keep an ordinary, 3 September 1635
[MBCR 1:159]. Licensed to keep an ordinary to sell beer and provision, 23 February 1648[/9] [EQC
1:159], and to sell strong waters, 25 March 1656 [EQC 1:419]. License renewed if approved by the
selectmen of Salem, 27 March 1660 [EQC 2:196].
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP: In list of Salem church members prepared late in 1636 [SChR 5];
admission to Salem church prior to 3 July 1632 implied by freemanship.
FREEMAN: 3 July 1632 [MBCR 1:367].
EDUCATION: Sufficient to be chosen clerk of Salem Court [EQC 1:314]. He and his brother
Bartholomew were bequeathed all their father's books in 1609 [EIHC 17:119]. His inventory
included "one old Bible" valued at 2s. 6d.
OFFICES: Clerk of Essex court, 29 November 1653 [EQC 1:314]. Grand jury, 27 December 1642
[EQC 1:44]. Failed to appear as a juryman at the June term 1638 and was fined 5s. [EQC 1:8]. Essex
jury, 30 March 1641, 20 October 1653 [EQC 1:26, 309]. Petit jury, 25 December 1649, 25
November 1651, 29 June 1652, 30 November 1652 [EQC 1:181, 239, 254, 270].
Constable of Salem, 6 October 1635 [MBCR 1:163]. Selectman, 1636/7 [STR 1:34]. Tythingman, 7
July 1644 [STR 1:131].
ESTATE: In the 1636 Salem land grant, "Mr. El: Stilman" received one hundred acres in the
freeman's lands [STR 1:20]; this land was "besides that on Castle Hill, next to Mr. Skelton's
adjoining to Mr. Sharpe's" [STR 1:27]. "Mr. Stillman" appears in the list of those receiving meadow
lands in 1637; his household consisted of five persons, but the number of acres received is blank
[STR 1:103].
On 25 December 1637 Francis Weston and Mr. Stileman shared a grant of six acres [STR 1:61]. On
29 January 1637/8 "Mr. Stileman" requested enlargment for himself and accommodation likewise
for his son [STR 1:65]. On 24 February 1637/8 he was granted twenty acres of land near the
meadow which he shared with Mr. Weston [STR 1:67]. "Mr. Stileman" was granted "the quarter of
acre of marsh which Mr. Emery should have had and three quarters more lying in the Flag Marsh at
the upper end," 11 October 1640 [STR 1:108].
On 6 June 1648 "Elias Stileman the elder" sold to Richard Hutchinson his farm of 150 acres [ELR
1:4]. On 13 December 1652 "Elias Stileman of Salem, senior," sold to James Smith of Marblehead
upland and marsh called Castle Hill lying upon South River [ELR 1:15].
Administration on the estate of Elias Stileman of Salem, intestate, was granted to his son Elias
Stileman of Portsmouth on 30 September 1662. The inventory of the estate was taken on 7
November 1662 and was allowed at court on 24 November 1663. The estate totalled £176 12s. 6d.,
of which £72 was real estate: dwelling house, £50; one acre salt marsh, £5; 3 1/2 acres pasture land,
£14; and about 2 1/2 acres "of ground in the South Field." His interest in an "apprentice boy" was
£9. The estate had debts of £279 12s. 4d. [EPR 1:390-91].
According to a suit for her thirds brought in 1663, Mrs. Judith Stileman claimed that her husband,
Elias, had sold land to Richard Hutchinson in 1648 [EQC 3:108].
On 7 April 1664 Elias Stileman of Salem, administrator of the estate of Elias Stileman of the same
place, deceased, sold to Mr. William Browne Jr., merchant, of Salem, two acres of upland and a
piece of swamp "including the thirds of the abovesaid Stileman's widow, deceased" [ELR 2:77]. On
25 April 1664 Elias Stileman of Salem sold to Oliver Mannering, mariner, "2 acres formerly in
occupation of Mr. Elyas Stileman, deceased" [ELR 2:128].
BIRTH: Baptized at Wantage, Berkshire, 30 December 1587, son of Richard and Anne (Greenway)
Stileman [EIHC 17:118-19].
DEATH: Shortly before 30 September 1662 (administration of his estate [EPR 1:390-1]).
MARRIAGE: St. Andrew Undershaft, London, 28 August 1614 Judith Adams; she was baptized at
East Locking, Berkshire, 29 August 1585, daughter of William Adams. She died after 2 November
1663 [EQC 3:108] and before 7 April 1664 [ELR 2:77].
CHILDREN:
i ELIAS, bp. Wantage, Berkshire, 17 June 1615 (deposed 13 August 1686 aged about
70 years [EQC 46:21]); m. (1) by 1639 Mary _____ (bp. of their first child at Salem 15
March 1639/40 [SChR 17]; seen with him in deeds as late as 1678); m. (2) after 14
March 1687/8 (her Wills husband's inventory) Lucy (Treworgye) (Chadbourne) Wills,
b. say 1632, d. New Castle before 13 April 1708 (proving of her will [NHPP 31:452-3],
daughter of James and Catherine (Shapleigh) Treworgye, widow of Humphrey
Chadbourne and Thomas Wills.
ii JOHN, second son [Hampshire Visitation 39] (and probably the John Stileman,
son of Thomas Stileman, baptized at St. Olave, Hart Street, London, on 23 February
1616/7); no further record.
iii ANNE, bp. St. Olave, Hart Street, 17 January 1618/9; no further record.
iv ELIZABETH, bp. St. Olave, Hart Street, 13 May 1621; no further record.
v REBECCA, bp. St. Mary at Hill, London, 22 April 1627; no further record.
vi (prob.) SAMUEL, bp. St. Mary at Hill 7 December 1628 (but no parents named);
no further record.
ASSOCIATIONS: Alice (Stileman) Sharp, the wife of SAMUEL SHARP, and Richard Stileman, who
settled in Salem by 1644, were niece and nephew of Elias Stileman, children of his elder brother
Robert.
COMMENTS: The Stileman family appears in the heralds' visitation of Hampshire taken apparently
in 1622 [W. Harry Rylands, ed., Pedigrees from the Visitation of Hampshire ..., Harleian Society
Publications, Volume 64 (London 1913), cited above as Hampshire Visitation, pp. 38-39]. Elias is
shown as son of Richard and Anne (Greenway) Stileman of Wantage, Berkshire; by the date of the
visitation he had married Judith, daughter of [blank] Adams of Locking, Berkshire, and had sons
Elias and John. Emmerton and Waters extracted and published a number of English wills relating to
this family [EIHC 17:118-20].
On 30 April 1629 the Massachusetts Bay Company, meeting in London, ordered that, in the
absence of certain other men, "Abraham Palmer or Elias Styleman are to administer the oath sent
herewith, to the said Governor, Mr. Endecott, for the execution of his place" [MBCR 1:37j]. If Elias
Stileman came to New England in 1629, he may have returned to England briefly, as he is not
otherwise seen in New England before 1632.
Elias Stileman made a comfortable living from commerce in fish, lumber, and liquor. The 19 June
1660 deposition of Peter Coffin, in a suit over Stileman's failure to procure 40,000 feet of pine
boards, gives much interesting detail of the practices in floating boards down the river from the
mills at Piscataqua [EQC 3:169].
The executors of Sarah Dillingham sued "Elias Stilman" at Salem court 27 December 1636 [EQC
1:5]. After this he was frequently in the courts suing and being sued over undisclosed controversies,
probably debts [EQC 1:7, 8, 11, 30, 349 etc.]. In his later years he acted as attorney for several
prominent men in matters of trade [EQC 2:6, 44, etc.].
In a decisive case over whether or not to grant unmarried women land in Salem, Deborah Holmes
was refused land "being a maid" and "would be a bad precedent to keep house alone," but Mr.
Stileman, Mr. Endicott, Mr. Verin, and John Woodbury each gave her some bushels of corn, 16
January 1636[/7] [STR 1:32].
He was saluted as "your very loving friend" by Simon Bradstreet in a letter dated Andover 13
August 1659, and enjoyed the confidence of the government and the courts throughout his career
[EQC 3:168]. Even so, he was much indebted at his death.