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Classification: Query
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I see this early Kerley/Carley info and for several reasons am immediately aware that
someone got it wrong early on! Probably because of all the massacres and because of the
constant moving around in the Boston area, too much was lumpted together. And this
information involves several early families of Boston in wrong
information(Joslin/Lewis/Johnson/White/Rowlandson)!Please allow me to set up the simple
skeleton of this early family as I understand it at this point. We have William Carley
coming over on the Confidence to Boston/Hingham in 1638 with his son Henry b.1632. There
is also a son William Jr b. 1633, and there is a daughter Mary. William Kerley Sr has
married Ann White d/o John White. Later on he will also marry widows Joslin and Rowlandson
and a Hannah before he dies in 1670.
His son Capt Henry b. 1632 m Elizabeth White, niece of Ann White Kerley, and they have
William and Joseph Kerley. The second son ,William Jr, marries a Jane_____ and they have a
bevy of girls(Lewis/Johnson), one of whom,Hannah, gives him a grandson William Whittacker.
They are buried in Cambridge.
Now comes the big event! It is the Massacre at Lancaster in 1676. The Kerleys had been
involved in the settling of Lancaster as they also had been involved in Marlboro. William
Sr had died in Lancaster in 1670 so he was out of it. William Jr and family had already
left so they missed it and thus survived. Capt Henry, who himself had gone for help,
looses big! His wife Elizabeth White dies and his sons William and Joseph are reported to
have died. There is a caveat here. Though reported to have been killed by the Rowlandson
Diaries, Joseph(Kerley/Carlye)'s life, marriage and family are reported later from
Maine. A descendent of his becomes the second wife of Paul Revere. We can see that he was
carried away after Lancaster by the Joslin family-another story. But Capt Henry is left
and Elizabeth Ward Howe,who lost her husband,is left. They marry in 1677. That is- Henry
Kerley b. 1632, and s/o William Sr, m (2) Elizabeth Ward Howe abt 1677 and they live in
Marlboro. Her father !
was William Ward. The record states that they had at least two unnamed sons. One is
Mariner William Kerley b. 1779-1784 in Marlboro and married by Cotton Mather to Mary
Bowden/Booden of Spurwink River,Scarborough,Me, in 1703 at Boston. One of their sons is
John Carley b-1706. This birth record is from the records of the Sherwood family of
Fairfield, Conn. His father, Mariner William, was long involved in coastwise shipping. He
may have had other sons William and James who went to Va. This is another story as is the
story of the descendents of Bartholomew Carley. Bob Lefler-families
Sherwood/Carley/Keeler/Rockwell/St John/Canfield/Weed/Meeker