Earlier this week, while reading an article in The Boston Globe about one of the oldest American coins being put up for auction, I thought I saw a familiar name and checked my family tree.
John Hull, authorized as "mintmaster" by the Massachusetts General Court in 1652, is my 8th great grandfather.
He and a colleague, Robert Sanderson, established a mint in Boston, about where Macy's currently is located, according to the Boston Globe article. The earliest coins minted in America were at this mint in Boston in 1652. The men continued to mint coins for several decades, but all were dated 1652 to be able to claim that the coins were made during the period right after the English Civil War. (Otherwise minting of coins in the colonies was a treasonous act!)
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| Image from The Boston Globe article |
John Hull was born in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, England, on December 18, 1624, to Robert and Elizabeth Hull. The family immigrated to Boston in 1635, where his father, was granted 25 acres for farming, though he primarily worked as a blacksmith.
Robert later made a gift of land to his son, John. In the December 25, 1635, Boston land ownership map below, #96, circled in red, corresponds to the land John Hull received from his father in 1646.
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| George Lamb, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons |
John Hull's Wikipedia page details the history of coinage in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Hull's involvement in it. He also worked as a merchant, exporting goods to Europe, and holding a partial ownership stake in several ships starting in 1664. The goods he shipped included furs, fish, and wood, as well as New England farm products.
In 1657, he participated in land negotiations in Rhode Island, including acquiring land on Block Island and Point Judith, which was allegedly named for his wife.
He also participated in Boston's civic life, serving as a selectman in Boston, as well as treasurer for the city for almost a decade in the 1660s. He sat in the Massachusetts General Court as a representative several times and was treasurer of the Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1676 to 1680.
On May 11, 1647, John Hull married Judith Quincy, daughter of Edmund Quincy and Judith Pares (and his step-sister; her mother, Judith (Pares) Quincy Payne had recently married his father, Robert Hull, as her third husband. She was his second wife.)
John Hull and Judith Quincy had several children, but only one survived to adulthood, Hannah Hull, who married Justice Samuel Sewall.
John Hull died on October 1, 1683, and is buried in the Granary Burying Ground. See his FindAGrave memorial, which includes linked parent-child memorials all the way down to my grandfather.
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Note: There is no evidence that my 7th great-grandfather on my father's side, John Hull, of the New Haven Colony in Connecticut, is related to this John Hull.
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My line(s) from 8th great-grandfather, John Hull and his wife Judith.
This week's theme is Homestead.
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