Family of Eltweed + POMEROY and Johanna KEECH

Husband:	Eltweed + POMEROY (1585-1673)
Wife:	Johanna KEECH (1586-1620)
Children:	Dinah POMEROY (1617- )
	Elizabeth POMEROY (1619- )
Marriage	4 May 1617	Beaminster County, Dorset, England

Husband: Eltweed + POMEROY

Name:	Eltweed + POMEROY
Sex:	Male
Father:	Richard + POMEROY (1550-1611)
Mother:	Eleanor + COKER (1562-1612)
Baptism	4 Jul 1585 (age -1)	Beaminster County, Dorset, England
Birth	7 Jul 1585	Beaminster County, Dorset, England
Death	7 Mar 1673 (age 87)	Northampton,Hampshire, MA, US

Wife: Johanna KEECH

Name:	Johanna KEECH
Sex:	Female
Father:	-
Mother:	-
Birth	15 May 1586	Beaminster County, Dorset, England
Death	27 Nov 1620 (age 34)	Beaminster County, Dorset, England

Child 1: Dinah POMEROY

Name:	Dinah POMEROY
Sex:	Female
Birth	6 Aug 1617

Child 2: Elizabeth POMEROY

Name:	Elizabeth POMEROY
Sex:	Female
Birth	28 Nov 1619

Note on Husband: Eltweed + POMEROY

Eltweed Pomeroy is believed to have come to America in 1630, in the ship “Mary and John.” He took the oath of freeman, in the Colony of Massachusetts, March 4, 1632. (Mass. Colony Records, Vol. I., p. 367.) He was one of the first settlers and proprietors in the town of Dorchester, and first selectman in 1633. (Hist. of Dorchester, 1859, pp. 33, 35.)

Note: Dr. Rodman did not know more about Eltweed (as he indicates in the above paragraph), but as of January, 2007 the Pomeroy line has been traced back to 1328. Eltweed was born on 4 July, 1585 in Beammister, DC, England, christened as an adult on 4 May, 1617 in Beaminster, Dorchester, Dorset, England, a month after he married his first wife Joanne Keech Kreech on 4 March 1617. Joanne apparently died with no known surviving children, and on 7 May, 1629 Eltweed married his second wife Margery (or Mary) Rockett, in Shewbourn, Dorset, England. It was a year after this marriage that he and Mary embarked for Massachusetts. – CA]

The spelling of the surname has varied from that of his own signature of Pumery to the present Pomeroy. The Christian name is variously spelled, Elty, Eltwed, Eltwud, Eltwood, and Eltweed; and there are suggestions that the crabbed MS. may mean Eldad, or even Edward. But as Eltweed Pomeroy the sturdy armorer and gunsmith is now known to a large circle of descendants, and this spelling will be followed.

In 1636-7, Mr. Pomeroy emigrated with Mr. John Warham’s congregation to Windsor, Conn. (Hist. of Dorchester, p. 75) Scanty as are the records of his life – something of his standing and character may be gathered from incidental references to him to be found in Stiles’s “Ancient Windsor,” Vol. I., p. 164 et seq. His place in the meeting house was on the “long seats” ; land was granted him in 1638 ; he had a house and lot in the Palisado, which he sold to Thomas Nowell in 1641 ; and he made gifts of houses and land to his son Caleb, and his youngest son Joseph, the latter getting “the little stone house built on his land, adjoining his dwelling house” which he allowed Mrs. Elizabeth, widow of Rev. Ephraim Huit, to build “in time of her widowhood, by way of courtesy; which she enjoyed ; and after her death, said Eltweed Pomeroy took for his own, at a price agreed upon between him and those which she desired to be her overseers and friends to order that little estate which she left for children ; which price he hath payed as they appointed him.”

Of his first wife, the mother of his eight children, we know only that she was named Mary, and died in Windsor, July 5, 1655. [Actually, Dr. Rodman did not know about Eltweed's wife in England, Joanne, and this Mary was his second wife – but the one with which he emigrated to the U.S. – and we do know a bit more about her than Dr. Rodman did 100 years ago. – CA] On Nov. 30, 1661, he married second [third – CA] Lydia (Brown), widow of Thomas Parsons. In 1665 he made generous provisions for his “dear and loving wife Lydia.”