Marblehead, Mass. Edmund Nicholson, 1660, wife Elizabeth. Inventory; and Christopher, 1662. Thomas, age 15 in 1669. Edmund, son Christopher, 1646
Christopher Nicholson Lynn, son of Edmund, married Oct 27, 1662 Hannah Redknap, probably daughter of Joseph. Edmund, of Marblehead, 1648 died 1660, it is presumed, for his inventory taken the 22nd of November of that year was brought in six days after by Elizabeth, his widow, who was prosecuted as a Quaker the same year. His children then were aged, as the record shows, respectively, Christopher 22, Joseph 20, Samuel 16, John 14, Elizabeth 11, and Thomas 7. Joseph, Thomas, and Elizabeth, then the wife of Nicholas Andrews, all unite in a deed in 1672 to their brother, Samuel.
Friday, Jan. 22, 1684-5, Joseph Redknap, a man of 110 years old was buried. He was awine keeper in London, lived there about 50 years. Joseph Redknap, of Lynn, presented by the Grand Jury in 1644. Joseph, aged between 70 and 80, in 1670. Joseph Rednape, on the list of Freemen, Sept 3, 1634. Jan 22, 1686, Joseph Rednape died at Lynn, aged about 110.
A very graphic account of the persecution of the Quakers is given in the trial and sentence of William Ledra at Boston on May 5th, 1660. He, with the Nicholsons and other Quakers, had been banished from Massachusetts before March 15, 1660. The Nicholsons departed while William Ledra remained, stood trial, was sentenced to be hanged and was executed. He had been in prison at Plymouth, Massachusetts, and was sentenced at Boston March 1659-60. The warrant for Ledra’s arrest was signed by William Hawthorne whose farm, called Plain’s Farm, Edward Nicholson, father of Christopher and a party of Quakers had purchased in 1646. The amount paid for the Plains Farm was 136 pounds 10 shillings, of which Edmund Nicholsons’ part was 4 pounds. The suffering of the Quakers (1660) in New England was described “William Ledra was soon taken prisoner and being fastened to a log of wood was kept night and day locked in chains in an open prison during a very cold winter. In 1661, he was brought into court with his chains and log at his heels.” Ledra was executed March 14th, 1660-1. It was such a fate as this that Christopher Nicholson and his family escaped when they fled into North Carolina.
Christopher Nicholson was a Quaker preacher and leader in the Colony.
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