His baptismal record of 1639 was detected by historians looking through folios and boxes of church records, of the type now in the "Dorchester Collection" at the Massachusetts Historical Society. His death date? The stones of early members of old Northampton's First Parish are in the old cemetery on Bridge Street. The lettering of stones is so worn after 400 years, that the names and dates have to be found in paper records.

First Parish was initially under Rev. Eleazer Mather. Enos and his year-older brother Eldad were said to be school chums of Eleazer, other Mathers brothers older. The schooling was back at a once much larger and more independent Dorchester. (Its remnant, called Dorchester Neck, aka Mattapan, is now part of south Boston.) The father of the Mathers brothers, Rev. Richard Mather, was at Dorchester, one to encourage education.

Rev. R. Mather had brought much of his family from England, on a hurricane-stricken ship arriving in tatters in Aug. 1635, its crew most likely not in a mood for shipside record-keeping. Mather started a new congregation at Dorchester a year later, in Aug. 1636. He'd come with a fair number, not clear how many, a hundred? Were Kingsleys along? Did they Instead came with Winthop's greaer number of ships in Apr. 1630? Or, in some other way, given Salem, for example, had a port a bit earlier than did Boston?

Rev. Mather's set, once at Dorchester, could choose to fill some considerable empty housing and workplaces, already built, left behind by an old half-departed congregation, newcomers' payments making it affordable for more of the earlier set to depart. Details were in book of 1851, from records gathered by a Dorchester "Antiquities Committee", including Mather's diary. Member Ebenezer Clapp Jr was its public facing-member. (That half to depart had been under Rev Wareham, scouts sent out first to find a better place. An influential majority were believed to take some early records with them, leaving in steps, not all at once, with a big beginning in 1633. Events showed non-departures trickling into early 1636, as, for example, Rev. Maverick, co-pastor to Wareham, died in Boston in early 1636. The departees went both down the coast and across interior land. Either way, they headed south and westward, past Rhode Island, creating their initial settlement at Windsor, at the mouth of the Conn. River. They would then be closer to the Dutch at future NYC, than to Winthrop's people and the British military officers headquartered at Boston.)

Rev. R. Mather trained ministers at Dorchester, given there was not yet a seminary at Harvard. Rev. Newman was one trained by Rev. R. Mather. Rev. Newman signed, too, when the parents of Eldad and Enos "signed the covenant" at Dorchester,.

There were two pages of signatures gathered Aug. 23, 1636, Enos' parents the only Kingsleys there to sign. John was last of the first six in the new congregation to sign below the minister, Rev. Richard Mather, An Israel and Elizabeth Stoughton not departing with Wareham, but staying, four male elders. "Elizabeth Kingesley" was last of the wives signing below the "top-signing" male elders. (Any man among top signers, if with no wife named below, were either widowers, had non-covenanting wives, or were single.) No couple was labelled "man and wife", but the congregation was so small, "everybody knows everybody", that few surnames were duplicated among the adults signing unless they involved a married couple. Many women could not read or write, so wrote an X to show they approved the signing of their name. The elders' wives could all write their own names.

MOVING OUTWARD. Their signing marked John Kingsley and others helping Rev. Richard Mather begin a new congregation at south Boston's edge and, intended or not, to train new ministers going outward with their daughter congregations. Rev. Newman ministered later at places just east of the Seekonk River.

John Kingsley was thus with Newman in the southeast end of future Mass, when his son Enos was instead with Eleazer Mather at the southwest end, upriver of Windsor. His son Eldad was southeast, at Bristol County, associated with the newly created Baptists, of the separating type, others up at Boston often integrated. His daughter Freedom, elder sister to Eldad and Enos, her spouse called John French, had gone up the coast to that John French's well-documented family of tailors at Ipswich, in far northeast Mass. His Frenches were thus northward of Salem, almost in future Maine; they had distant cousins at Billerica and Cambridge, closer to Boston.

Freedom and John would move later down to Northampton, to be with Enos, a tailor being an occupation that worked anywhere with enough population. They were thus north/upriver of Springfield, in Mass., last sizeable town on the Conn. River upriver of Windsor. The bride of Enos was from there. Had his father taken him up the Conn. earlier?

Moving around was something the Kingsley family did, an occupation necessity for his father. John Kingsley was a "husbandman". As such, he would have had their era's version of veterinary skills, his business one of breeding and raising cattle or sheep, driving them pasture-to-pasture, then pasture-to-market. Two key markets would have been in different colonies, Boston in the Bay Colony vs. Providence among the Rhode Island plantations, just west of the Seekonk River, at Rhode Island's edge. A third colony, Plymouth, held pastures , east of the Seekonk River, supplementing and then maybe replacing Kingsley land at Dorchester Neck.

Pastures needed large expanses, so land not too costly per acre. Places with cheaper rough land or salt marsh land were more suited to grazing, obtainable more cheaply, than would be the better land needed for the growing of planted crops. Their father would thus be, not just at Dorchester Neck in the Bay Colony, outside old Boston, taking animals into and out of Boston, but also at Taunton and Rehoboth in the Plymouth Colony, swimming or ferrying animals across the Seekonk to Providence proper. Much later (mid 1800s?), East Providence was created from former MA land now sufficiently urbanized to be valuable,transferred, from MA, to Rhode Island. One effect was that John Kingsley's crude and jagged looking gravemarker, or remnant of one, was moved to Newman Cemetery, causing his memorial to be in East Providence, not in Rehoboth.

NORTHAMPTON, SOUTHWEST. Enos would end westward with a son of the Rev. Mather of Dorchester, in a new church formed at Northampton. They may have thought the area was "empty". Once too many families arrived, they would discover, too soon, that the prior occupants were gone temporarily, not permanently, mainly for winter hunting in the hills, not ready to leave their summer garden sites.

The barn and house of Enos would both burn, but his family stayed safe. That was his nephew, Thomas French, afterward a Deacon, moving up to Deerfield with the Rev. Williams who was an in-law to Rev Eleazer Mather. (Thomas was son to Freedom Kingsley French, older sister of Enos.)

Enos is documented at MinerDescent.com, an excellent site on most things. It notes accurately that there is no proof his mother, signing at Dorchester in 1636 as Elizabeth "Kingesley"had maiden name Stoughton. She could not be that particular Elizabeth Stoughton who died as a child. However, Stoughton cannot be ruled out, given mill-owners Israel and Elizabeth Stoughton were early to sign at Dorchester, their known child a William Stoughton. Possibly other Stoughtons locally had a daughter Hannah who married someone from a Minot family at Dorchester in the early 1640s.

It was common for the emerging New Englanders to repeat first names inside their family. They might make some newborn child a namesake for a child who died "too young" a year or two earlier, or for an aunt or uncle. For example, his sister Freedom named her last daughter Elizabeth, for her mother. Her eldest son, Eldad, also named a daughter Elizabeth.

John's second wife, the A. K. with initials marked on John's crude stone, was not Enos' mother. A.K.'s proof of widowhood (will, etc., attributed to her first spouse, Mr. Jones. naming A's and his children as among his heirs) was dated later than the birth of Enos. Only one later child, Renewed, was attributed to A.K and to John Kingsley. A.K. seems to stand for Alice Kingsley. Hadn't John Kingsley stated in his will that he wanted to be buried in his farm yard at Rehoboth, where wife Alice had been buried previously? John's son Eldad died a month or so after John, as did John's third wife, like his second wife and himself, widowed with prior children. All wee most likely weakened by the starvation a year or so earlier at Rehoboth, during "King Phillip's War". The animals had been killed, the grinding stones to make flour out of grain had been broken. The immense need for food to be sent was cited in John's letter to a Conn. minister, asking if anyone knew about the well-being of Enos. (Historian's name, writing alone, escapes me for now, as does the date, maybe after Clapp Jr and committee published their book. He was skilled at deciphering John's dialect-biased writing, and tracked down the War-precipitating event, by two whites, father and son, the son killing a native, maybe in fear, the father then refusing to apologize when requested to do so by the affected natives.)

Something not pointed out at MinerDescent.com-- "Signing a covenant" was what one did in order to join a Puritan church. A "covenant" was an agreement among the founding and incoming members to follow the rules of their church, usually including promises of financial support to the minister, to baptize their children, to attend church, to heed the advice of elders, and so on. A congregation or its elders could vote later, to change rules that proved awkward. (Scottish Presbyterians with this signing custom or ritual were called Covenanters.)

When people read that "Elizabeth Kingesley" signed, some conclude the church membership ritual of signing was instead a marriage ritual, that she and John had freshly married that day. However, that was not the case. Multiple women already married had signed that same day. (See the image at the grave page of his mother.)

There was no marriage record showing Elizabeth's maiden name, whereas marriages actually done there later did give the maiden name. Nor was his elder sister Freedom illegitimate. (In that case, her maiden name would match her mother's, had her mother not been married at Freedom's birth.

Freedom had two records proving her maiden name was Kingsley, though she lacked a birth/baptism record, maybe true also of Stephen Kingsley's son John Kinglsey, born "about 1636", married to a Daniels of Milton in 1670. Stephen and others in his family lived at Milton, its own church and town by 1662, having split from Dorchester that year. It was once called Unquity, much as Dorchester's heart had been called Mattapan, Braintree's Monatiquot, Randolph's called Cochato, names given by native populations who'd already vacated or been killed by diseases brought onshore, by fisherman catching cod off the shores pre-Puritan days.

Freedom had a very rare first name. Confirming she was a Kingsley, pre-marriage, she'd been a servant to a William Lane of Hingham. Her master named her in his will as a "Kingley", making that record hard to find if insisting the search find "KIngs".

Freedom was born "about 1630", according to records at her spouses' church up in Ipswich, her spouse born 1622.

Another principal source for these Kingsleys and for their in-laws, the Frenches of Ipswich, is the Linzee book. It is described at the Findagrave page for Enos' sister, Freedom Kingsley French. John Linzee, like MinerDescent, was careful to check written records from the era of the person discussed.

THEIR FATHER'S TRAGEDY. He went from England to Dorchester to Taunton to Rehoboth to Bristol, back and forth between the first two, as Dorchester had his last church event in 1655, but Taunton had his land grant. Taunton was to the south, almost in Rhode island, so was in the Plymouth colony.

Some casual sources remarked that he was an "animal husbandman". That was good for Enos and the other children when young, as parents who knew how to keep their animals alive applied the same reasoning to their children, though not all contagions or too-early-births could be stopped.

Four of John Kingsley's six children named at MinerDescent survived to marry. The main three, with descendants, all cited in his will were Freedom, Eldad and Enos by first wife Elizabeth, signing as "Kingesley"with John at Dorchester in 1636. The fourth might include Renewed Kingsley, not cited in John's will so maybe deceased earlier. She was maybe by John's second wife, Renewed said to be off to Ipswich after marrying a Jones at Dorchester, that Jones maybe a step-brother, as John's second wife was said to be widow Jones, before she was Alice Kingsley. Two other children, murky, sparse evidence, were said to be Edward and Mary. Edward might be a mis-reading of Eldad.

His work would take him away from home, but put him near church?. Boston was still a peninsula, so non-swimmers accessed it by the "Dorchester neck."

While the starvation happened at Rehoboth, his death occurred soon after an evacuation trip from Rehoboth to Eldad's place of Bristol. His will said he wished to be buried back at the house where Alice was buried, in Rehoboth. Some think his second wife was born Alice Thatcher, her Thatchers, many of that name found back in Taunton. His body would be moved from Bristol back to Rehoboth. Land development later caused his bones to remain, but his homemade-appearing stone to be moved to the cemetery he had earlier rejected. The lettering was maybe re-carved at that time, as it is surprisingly readable for a stone now 400 years old (see photo at his grave page, by Jen Snoots).
Note the Newman cemetery, named for a minister people followed out of Dorchester, is now in East Providence, RI, not true until a shift eastward was made in the Mass. border.

The will of their departed elderly father, John Kingsley, skipped their youngest to survive and marry, Renewed. Her death date at in-law Frenches' town of Ipswich, was in 1676, according to MinerDescent. (She was baptized at Dorchester in Jan. of 1644, had married a Jones, sources not yet resolved as to which Jones, but an older Jones was among the six men listed as original covenant signers at Dorchester, who later had a son. John called himself the last of the elders of 1636 still alive, in his letter requesting food. That mortality was to be expected, given forty years had passed since the 1636 signing. John had done well to last that long, but maybe was among the youngest of the set.)

The father's will was signed and read 1677-1678. Harmful raids, not yet deadly, began in 1676. John had written his letters, starving while saying he also suffered from "ague" (malaria). He asked that spare corn be sent, as they were starving.

He assumed God was punishing them, but he wondered why others did not then suffer, as they had done the same. He wondered if son Enos survived in Northampton, wanted someone to tell "Enoes" that his father was ok, said/asked nothing about Freedom. Once rescued and taken to Bristol, John and his third wife died shortly, he first, he and Mary only having been married a few years.

One source gave three baptisms, the Jones marriage, and his father John Kingsley's's land and freeman dates. That was the long-ago Committee formed to write a "History of Dorchester", the town, before Boston swallowed it. It's found at archive.org.

AT NORTHAMPTON. , The fact of blank stones at Northampton was documented in the mid-1800s. Enos had gone to Northampton with a different Mather, so would have signed a covenant. Old church records there have also been transcribed, again, done in the mid-1800s. Older stones, such as his, are illegible. That's the case for many at this old church-and-town burying ground.

Still visible mid-1880s? The inscription for an heir named Enos Kingsley, born over a century later, confirming Enos' branch of the Kingsley family did not move to old Rehoboth. Enos' nephew, a John French the junior, however, had moved near their grandfather, then married someone in Rehoboth, so would stay.

The homemade-appearing gravestone of Enos's father, but not his body, is in Newman Cemetery (that cemetery is in that portion of old Rehoboth portion taken over by East Providence, Rhode Island). His will had stipulated that he be buried in his yard. Someone may have had the lettering re-carved when they moved it. Again, the stone at Northampton for this very first Enos Kingsley is illegible, was in that state, so left out of the old book of inscriptions for Northampton, Mass.. It was almost 200 years old then, would be over 300 years old now.

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From MinerDescent:

Birth "Enos Kingsley ca 1639/40"

Married "Sarah Haynes 15 Jun 1662"
Married "Ann Dickerson 30 Jun 1692"

Died "9 Dec 1708 Northampton, Mass "

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Added source:
"Historical catalogue of the Northampton First Church, 1661-1891"

"Enos Kingsley. Came from Dorchester. Married
in Northampton, 1662. "

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