52 Ancestors: #39, Francis Rand, Killed in an Indian Raid

Francis Rand, my 7X great-grandfather, was born ca 1616 probably in Devonshire, England. He was one of a company of fifty-eight men and twenty women sent by Captain John Mason to settle the area at the mouth of the Piscataqua River then known as Strawberry Banke (later Portsmouth, New Hampshire).¹

He married Christina ______ in say 1636. They had at least eight children:²

1. Francis Rand (?-prob bef 1689)
2. William Rand (?-bef 1680)
3. Nathaniel Rand (ca 1638-aft 1689)
4. John Rand, (ca 1645-ca 1694); married Remembrance Ault
5. Thomas Rand, (ca 1652-1736); married Hannah ______
6. Samuel Rand (est 1658-ca 1707); married 1) widow Mary Walton, 2) Susanna ______
7. Mary Rand; married Thomas Barnes
8. Sarah Rand; married Isaac Herrick

Francis Rand served as constable for Upper Strawberry Banke from 1649 to 1651.³ In 1653 the town granted lands in the area known as Sandy Beach (later Rye) to several of the townspeople, among them Francis, who received "eight acres of meadow and twenty acres of upland for a lot."⁴

Sandy Beach, like many early New England settlements, was a frequent target of Indian raids. One of the worst, later known as the Brackett's Lane massacre, occurred on 29 September 1691, when a raiding party burned several homes and killed or took captive at least sixteen people.⁵ The dead included both Francis and Christina Rand, and at least one son or grandson was among those taken captive.⁶

My descent from Francis Rand:

• Francis Rand + Christina ______
• Thomas Rand + Hannah ______
• Joshua Rand + Mary Moses
    |________________________________
    |                               |
• Joseph Rand + Susannah Goss     John Rand + Hannah Seavey
    |                               |
• Joshua Rand -------- + -------- Elizabeth Rand7
    |
• Nahum Alonzo Rand + Dolly Brister
• Kate Maria Rand + Silas Marchant Hillman Hodsdon
• Mary Milliken Hodsdon + Chester F. Kirk (my paternal grandparents)

(Note: This post is in response to Amy Johnson Crow's "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenge at No Story Too Small.)

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SOURCES

1. Langdon Brown Parsons, History of the town of Rye, New Hampshire: from its discovery and settlement to December 31, 1903 (Concord, N.H.: Rumford Printing Company, 1905), p. 70; digital images, Google Books (http://books.google.com/books : accessed 28 Apr 2012).
2. Sybil Noyes, Charles Thornton Libby, and Walter Goodwin Davis, Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire (1928-1939; reprint, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1991), p. 574. It's unclear whether the list of children is in birth order.
3. Ibid., p. 573.
4. Parsons, pp. 126-7.
5. Ibid., pp. 245-6.
6. Noyes et al., pp. 573-4.
7. See my post "52 Ancestors: #23, My Collapsing Pedigree: Joshua Rand and Elizabeth Rand" for a discussion of this double line of descent. The original title incorrectly named "John Rand and Elizabeth Rand." (Obviously I was confused by the whole "collapsing pedigree" concept!) I have since corrected "John" to "Joshua."