Isaac Allerton, Jr

Early life and ancestors

He was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, sometime after May 22, 1627 and before September 21, 1631; however, no birth record has been found for him. He was the son of Mayflower Pilgrim Isaac Allerton Sr. and his second wife Fear Brewster, the daughter of Elder William Brewster, the Pilgrim colonist leader and spiritual elder of the Plymouth Colony, and passenger aboard the Mayflower and one of the signers of the Mayflower Compact; and Mary Brewster. Fear arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts on July 10, 1623 aboard the Anne. Fear died sometime before December 12, 1634. His father had been married first to Mary Norris who died on February 25, 1621. He had 3 half-siblings: Bartholomew, Remember and Mary, the last surviving passenger of the Mayflower. After Fear's death, he moved to the New Haven Colony, and by 1644 had remarried to his third wife, Joanna Swinnerton.

Because of the general ire of the Plymouth Colony against his father, he had moved to the New Haven Colony. As a result of the upheavals of losing his mother and his father moving away, the young Allerton became a member of the extended family of his grandfather William Brewster and eventually joined the family of his uncle Love Brewster.

His aunt Sarah Allerton was married to Degory Priest who was a signer of the Mayflower Compact, and one of the original 102 Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower to Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. Sarah did not travel aboard the Mayflower; she arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts on July 10, 1623 aboard the Anne.

Education

He was tutored by his grandfather Brewster prior to entering college. He graduated from Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1650.

Marriage and family

Allerton married, as his first wife, Elizabeth (...) in New Haven, Connecticut in 1652/3. They had two children, Elizabeth (1653–1740) and Isaac (1655-?). When his wife Elizabeth died circa 1660, he moved his family to Northumberland County, in Virginia's Northern Neck. Initially he settled in Wicomico at the far eastern end of the county on land adjacent to the Chesapeake Bay and in the vicinity of the plantation of Col. Richard Lee II. His daughter, Elizabeth, was born on September 27, 1653 in New Haven, Connecticut. She subsequently married Benjamin Starr, who was born in Yarmouth, Massachusetts, the grandson of Doctor Comfort Starr of Boston (who emigrated from Ashford, Kent and founded Cambridge, Massachusetts and Harvard College) and nephew of Hannah Starr, the wife of John Cutt (the first President of the Province of New Hampshire). Following Starr's early death, Elizabeth married his first cousin Simon Ayers/Eyres/Eyre of New Haven.

His son Isaac (the third of the name) was born at New Haven on June 11, 1655. He accompanied his father to Virginia when he was a child, but returned to New Haven about 1683 and lived there most of the remainder of his life.

(The following marriage and children information is no longer accepted by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants; see Mayflower Families Through Five Generations (Vol. 17: Issac Allerton) by Robert S. Wakefield and Margaret Harris Stover.) In 1663, Allerton married as his second wife the twice-widowed Elizabeth Willoughby (Overzee) Colclough. They had three children: Willoughby (b. ca. 1664), Frances (b. ca. 1668), and Sarah (1670–1731). As a tobacco planter-merchant Allerton probably constructed a wharf and warehouse (as his father had done in New Amsterdam) since financial success required both growing and transporting tobacco. Whether Allerton bought land from his neighbor Richard Lee II or acquired it over time is not known. He may have acquired the land from his marriage to Elizabeth, who would have acquired it from her previous marriages or from her parents.

In any event, Allerton's family became wealthy, with indentured servants, and owned a 2,150-acre (8.7 km²) plantation on the south side of the Rappahannock River.

In 1688, he along with Captain George Brent of Stafford County, Virginia (former Governor of Maryland) and Captain Lawrence Washington were named by their friend, Col. Nicholas Spencer Jr. to serve as trustees of his estates. Captain Washington, named by Spencer as a trustee, was the younger brother of Lieutenant Colonel John Washington and was born in 1635. The trustees named by Colonel Spencer in his will received forty shillings for mourning rings.

Career

In 1663 Allerton was a justice of Northumberland County. In 1667 he was a member of the "Committee of the Association of Northumberland, Westmoreland and Stafford Counties". He became a member of the Virginia militia and ultimately rose to the rank of colonel. As a major in 1667, he served under Colonel John Washington, the great-grandfather of president George Washington, in order to subdue Susquehannock and Doeg Indians, who were raiding settlements. Allerton served as justice of the peace and member of the House of Burgesses in 1676-77. During Bacon's Rebellion Allerton was a member of the House of Burgesses but remained loyal to the governor. Allerton's family developed a close relationship with Lee's family. Both Allerton and Lee were senior officers in the Virginia militia and both served as members of the General Court of Virginia. Records of the region indicate that Allerton and Lee participated in commerce, governmental affairs and social activities. In 1691 Allerton, Lee and John Armistead refused to take the oath recognizing William III and Mary II as England's rightful rulers.

Lee's younger brother Hancock (1652–1709) married Allerton's daughter Sarah (1670–1731) following the death of Hancock's first wife. They became the great-grandparents of President Zachary Taylor, through their daughter Elizabeth Lee and grandson Colonel Richard Taylor, an officer in the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. Another great granddaughter was Mary Willis Lee (1757–1798), the daughter of Hancock Lee II (1709-1762) and Mary Willis (1716–1766). She married Ambrose Madison (1755–1793). He was the son of James Madison, Sr., the owner of a tobacco plantation in Orange County, Virginia; and the brother of James Madison (March 16, 1751 – June 28, 1836) an American politician and political philosopher who served as the fourth President of the United States (1809–1817) and is considered one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

Death

He died between October 25, 1702 and December 30, 1702 in Westmoreland County, Virginia.