Edward Bates

*The contained narrative is the combined works of many sources. Please review the sources and citations bellow.*

Edward “Edward of Boston” Bates (Baytes) was born on November 26, 1606, to John Edmund Bates and Elizabeth Leverett, in Boston, Lincolnshire, England.

Edward Bates arrived in Boston Massachusetts, from England, September 18, 1633 onboard the Griffin. On that ship were 100 passengers, including Anne Hutchinson who would play a part in his life. Most on the Griffin were likely followers of Reverend John Cotton who had already made his way to Boston. On the passenger list was the Reverend Jonathan Lothrop who had conducted separatist services in Edgerton, Kent and London, and the Rev. Zachariah Symmes of Canterbury, Kent. From The Planters of the Commonwealth by Charles Edward Banks:

It is a puzzle to imagine what things occupied the time of these emigrants for ten weeks on the crowded decks of the small vessels which took them across the three thousand miles that lay between the continents. Even to-day with our many permitted diversions time hangs heavily. Certainly those residents of the rural hamlets left nothing of interest behind them, and so missed nothing in their drab lives when exchanging their pithless parochial existence ashore for the monotonous doldrums of a swaying deck at sea. Ships carrying religious groups, like the Mayflower or the Arbella, indulged in daily services when their spiritual leaders ‘exercised’ the Godly in prayer and sermon. We can readily believe that Mistress Anne Hutchinson furnished enough excitement aboard the Griffin when she engaged the Reverend John Lothrop and the Reverend Zachariah Symmes in theological bouts, but these were exceptional ships, as the vast majority of emigrants came without ministerial leaders to entertain them. If the voyage were stormy, they were obliged to go below decks and kill time in the darkness. Doubtless they went to bed at sundown, as there was no way to light the decks. They rose at the break of day to begin another round of nothing in particular.

– The Planters of the Commonwealth by Charles Edward Banks

It’s not known how much Edward Bates may have been involved in the religious discussion that most likely occurred on the Griffin but it is known that he found something he liked in what Anne Hutchinson had to say, if not then, in the near future.

Edward came to Boston as a man servant/apprentice of Thomas Leveritt [a lawyer Alderman from Boston, England who had come previously with John Cotton and would also be an Elder in the first church of boston]; he was admitted to the Boston church in November of 1633 and was later freed of his obligation to Leveritt, becoming a free man on March 9, 1637.

On June 12 1637, Edward was granted fourteen acres of upland and marsh at Pullen Point Neck (now the town of Winthrop, where a Bates Road still exists). On March 30, 1640, the Boston selectmen ordered that Edward shall be allowed 6 months to build upon his lot; otherwise he consents to leave it to the town, his charges being allowed to the value”. He almost lost the land because he sailed off to Sable Island to hunt instead of tending to the required house building but the town fathers relented and gave him an extension of time.

Edward and Lydia Fairbanks had a child, John Roger Bates I, on January 9, 1641, who was later baptized in the first church of boston.

Edward was excommunicated and disarmed for heresy as a follower of Anne Hutchinson on November 20, 1642 durring what was called the Antinomian Controversy. Also known as the Free Grace Controversy, this was a religious and political conflict in the Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1636 to 1638. It pitted most of the colony’s ministers and magistrates against some adherents of the Free Grace theology of Puritan minister John Cotton. The most notable Free Grace advocates, often called “Antinomians”, were Anne Hutchinson, her brother-in-law Reverend John Wheelwright, and Massachusetts Bay Governor Henry Vane. The controversy was a theological debate concerning the “covenant of grace” and “covenant of works”. Anne was a strong and good woman who tended the sick, offered aid at birthing and dying, and believed in a personal relationship with God. She led discussions and prayer meetings, infuriating the men clergy who banished her from Massachusetts Bay Colony. Her followers were allowed to remain but were branded “heretics” and allowed no rights or property, including weapons. Edward eventually recanted and was allowed back into the fold in April 28, 1644.

Edward married Lydia Fairbanks in 1645.

While no stone has been found, as an original resident of Boston, Edward would have been laid to rest at the Kings Chapel Burying Ground.

Evidence points to Edward Bates’ son, John, being raise by William Fletcher, whom Lydia married November 7, 1645, before passing on October 12, 1704.

My family and I visited the burying ground on Aug 7, 2020 – Jason Daemon

My family and I visited the burying ground on Aug 7, 2020. Plots were moved and stones lost over the year as the area modernized, but it’s believed that Edward is here somewhere. – Jason Daemon

John Cotton also rests here, whom Edward Bates was a follower of.

U.S., New England Marriages Prior to 1700

New England, The Great Migration and The Great Migration Begins, 1620-1635, pg131

New England, The Great Migration and The Great Migration Begins, 1620-1635, pg132

– The Records of the First Church of Boston, 1630-1868, pg37

– The Records of the First Church of Boston, 1630-1868, pg41

EDWARD BAYTES (Bats, Bates, Batts) came from Boston in England in 1633 in the “Griffin” as an apprentice of Thomas Leverett.

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Edward Bates arrived in Boston from England September 18, 1633 onboard the Griffin. On that ship were 100 passengers, including Anne Hutchinson who would play a part in his life. Most on the Griffin were likely followers of Reverend John Cotton who had already made his way to Boston… – Bates Place (Archived by the Wayback Machine)

“In the 9th month (1633) List to First Church . . . Edward Baytes, Anthony Harker, our brother Thos. Leverett’s men servants.” – The Memorial History of Boston, vol 1, pg 567

1919 clarification of two Edward Bates’, noting Edward’s Son, John, as being raised as William Fletcher’s step son. – Bate Bulletin, Series III, Volume III, October. 1919, Number 1

Edward Bates among the disarmed. –Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts bay in New England, 1853, pg 211

Edward disarbed, complicit in the signing of the petition. -Saints and sectaries; Anne Hutchinson and the Antinomian controversy in the Massachusetts Bay, 1962, pg312

Edward married to Elizabeth, occupation as Servant to Thomas Leverett. –Saints and sectaries; Anne Hutchinson and the Antinomian controversy in the Massachusetts Bay, 1962, pg330