Thomas ATKINS (1619 -1716) was a fisherman, who purchased from the  sachem Mowhotiwormet,  commonly called Chief Robinhood, the southern end of Phippsburg Maine. Atkins Bay bears his name. Here is a Google Satellite Map showing Atkins Bay and directions from Civil War Fort Popham to the lost site of the original 1607 Popham Colony. He was Alex’s 10th Great Grandfather; one of 2,048 in this generation of the Shaw line.  He was also Alex’s 11th Great Grandfather; one of 4,096 in this generation of the Miller line.

Atkins was also a very bad dad, see below.

Atkins Bay, Popham, Phippsburg, Maine  was named for Thomas Atkins

Thomas Atkins was born in 1619 in St Clement Sandwich, Kent, England.  His parents were [__?__] ATKINS and Ellyn WRIGHT.  Records show a Thomas Atkins arriving in Bermuda in 1635.  He married Elizabeth SCAMMON in 1645.  Thomas died on 2 Apr 1716 in Portland, Cumberland, Maine.

Chief Robinhood 340 Robinhood Lane, Georgetown, ME – Thomas Atkins Thomas Atkins, a fisherman, purchased from the sachem Mowhotiwormet, commonly called Chief Robinhood, the southern end of Phippsburg (with the exception of Popham).

Elizabeth Scammon was born in 1625 in Tattershall, Lincoln, England. Her parents were  John SCAMMON and Elizabeth TAILOR.  Some sources say  she was married first to Peter Lidgett, but actually that Elizabeth Scammons was her cousin.  Elizabeth died in 1680 in Maine.

Children of Thomas and Elizabeth:

Alternative birthdates from Cape Cod History: children born in the Phippsburg area of Maine
ELIZABETH ATKINS b: 1645
MARY ATKINS b: 1647
REBECCA ATKINS b: CIR 1649
SUSANNAH ATKINS b: 1651
HESTER ATKINS b: AFT 1653
RACHEL ATKINS b: 1653
SARAH ATKINS b: CIR 1655
ABIGAIL ATKINS b: CIR 1655
ANNE ATKINS b: CIR 1655
RUTH ATKINS b: 1657

The surname ADKINS was derived from a combination of the surname Adam and the diminutive kin.  The many spellings of the name (, Atkinson although Adkins, Adkinson, Atkins, Adkyn, Adkyns, Adkynson, Atkyn, Atkynson, Adkinson, Attekson, Addykin, Akin, Akins, as well as the above four) came about during the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth centuries.

Thomas was the first settler in Phippsburg. Fisherman, had 10 daughters (all with biblical names). Bought southern end of Phippsburg except for Popham which was separated by a creek at the marsh. The land cost him one beaver skin, a quarter rent of a bushel of corn and a quart of liquor. He bought it from Indian Sagamore Robin Hood.

Ten Daughters of Thomas Atkins of Kennebec” by Mrs. John E Barclay, found in “New Eng Hist and Gen Reg” vol 121, (1967) pg 241.

There is a marriage of Thomas Atkins and Elizabeth in the 1994 IGI, married about 1644, of Mendon, Suffolk, Mass, LDS proxy sealing 3 Nov 1993 IFALL. There is a Mrs. Thomas Atkins in the IGI, married abt 1656, Kennebec, Kennebec, Maine, proxy baptism 24 Jun 1941 SLAKE, endowed 21 Aug 1941 SLAKE. His must have been done at the same time. There are several in the British IGI which could be him, but no way of idenifying. IGI has one of his daughters shown with mother Elizabeth Scammon, film 1760930), and Torrey’s “New England Marriages….” has a suggested name, “Scammon” for her but follows it with two question marks and the surname appears to have been crossed out. (see her notes) Duane Josephson’s “Emigrant Ancestors” states that Torrey said Thomas and Elizabeth were married in Salisbury. Torrey’s manuscript does give Salisbury as one of his places of residence but I don’t think that means he says they were married there. He gives no definite date of marriage.

One of the sources given by him was “Salisbury Families 190”, probably “Old Families of Salisbury and Amesbury, Massachusetts”, by David W. Hoyt, 1897, which says, on page 190, speaking of William Hackett of Dover, “In 1665 or ‘6 he bought of Thomas Atkins and wife Elizabeth, land in Sagadahock [Bath, Me.]” In a note at the bottom of the page it says “A Mary Haccat was dead in 1716, leaving daus. Mary, Sarah and Rebeca Haccat, and sisters Rachel Berry of Boston, and others. They were daus. of Thomas Atkins, of Boston, but formerly inhabitant and owner of land at Small Point near Sagadahock ….”. This is the only information in the book about Thomas Atkins and it doesn’t say he was a resident of Salisbury.
Small Point is about 75 miles up the coast from Salisbury.

The explanation may be in the 1967 NEHGR article which says, in the information about his first daughter, Mary, on page 242, that Mary’s husband, William Hackett of Dover, Exeter and Kennebec, has often been mistaken for that of Capt. William Hackett of Salisbury. Duane Josephson’s book also says according to “Emigrant Ancestors, Miscellaneous” in his CD data base, there was a Thomas Atkins, age 16, aboard the ship Dorset bound for “ye Bermodos” (Bermuda?) in 1635. This could possibly be the Thomas Atkins who later showed up in Maine. Bermuda records could be searched for his marriage.

Hotten’s “ORIGINAL LISTS…..” shows a Thomas Atkins in the Sept 1635 list of those aboard the Dorset, bound for Bormodos. (pg 133) It also lists a Thomas Atkins on page 434 in a list of burials of the Parish of St. Michaels, Barbados, with date 17 June 1679.

The article in the 1967 NEHGR says “Thomas Atkins, called ‘a Kennebec farmer, lived in that area now known as Phippsburg, Maine. From the data at hand we assume that Thomas Atkins and his wife Elizabeth (her parentage is unknown) were married in England somewhere near 1640; thus he would have been born before 1620. No date of their arrival in this country has been found but he is first mentioned, 15 May 1654, in a list of inhabitants along the Kennebec, who were ordered to meet at the house of Thomas Ashley at Merry Meeting upon the 23rd of the present month to take the oath of fidelity and for the setting of a government under the jurisdiction of New Plymouth (Plymouth Colony Records ‘Court Orders’, vol 3 pg 58-62). However, there is some slight evidence he may have been there as early as 1648: a Thomas Ackings is mentioned in the accounts of Mr. Francis Knight and Mr. John Holland, 1647-8 (Suffolk Deeds, Liber 3, p. 100). In 1656 he bought a large tract of land of the Indians, ‘the whole neck down to Small Point,’ according to Depositions in York Deed, Book 6, p. 17, 140, 161).

Atkins Bay Satellite Map.  Shows directions from (A) Civil War Fort Popham to (B) Site of 1607 Popham Colony.  Parker Island (now Georgetown) purchased by John PARKER Jr. is in the northeast corner of the view

Phippsburg was included in the Pejepscot grant to Purchase and Way, and after Wharton’s purchase their lands were confirmed anew to some of the purchasers.  The south part of the town was bought from the Indians by Thomas ATKINS, the remainder by John Parker, III. in 1659, and the northern part was assigned to his brother-in-law, Thomas WEBBER, who also obtained an Indian title.  Silvanus Davis, widely known in his day, owned and improved a farm south of Webber’s .  In 1734, Colonel Arthur Noble built a strong garrison on the north side of the peninsula near Fiddler’s Reach.  The first house of worship known in this settlement was erected near this garrison in 1736.

Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire.

Thomas was a farmer. He bought land from the Indians in Phipsburg in 1656. He returned after the King Phillips War. His farm was on the Kennebec River adjoining Atkin’s Bay. He died before Nov 10, 1686 at Phipsburg, Maine. He was also found in Salisbury and Bath, Maine.

Phippsburg was the site of the Popham Colony, Phippsburg was — between 1607 and 1608 — the first English settlement attempted in New England. During its brief existence, colonists built Virginia of Sagadahoc, the first ship in Maine’s long history of shipbuilding.  Our ancestor John PARKER Sr. (1568 – 1651) was first mate on the Mary and John which arrived at the Popham Colony Aug 16, 1607.

On October 8, 1607, colonist John Hunt drew a map of the colony showing 18 buildings including the admiral’s house, a chapel, a storehouse, a cooperage, and aguardhouse. Hunt was listed in the colony register as “draughtsman”. It is not known if all the buildings were completed at the time. Hunt’s map was discovered in 1888 in the Spanish national archives. A spy had sold it to a Spanish ambassador who had sent it to Spain. It might be a copy of the now-lost original map, and is the only known plan of the original layout of any early English colony

Overlay of the Hunt Map on an 1865 topographic map of Sabino Head (Brain 2001)   The stone spit of Sabino Head stretches out into Atkins Bay.

The next British settlement at the mouth of the Kennebec River began in 1653; Thomas Atkins, a fisherman, purchased from the sachem Mowhotiwormet, commonly called Chief Robinhood, the southern end of Phippsburg (with the exception of Popham). Atkins Bay bears his name. The population gradually increased until King Philip’s War, when  Indians in August 1676 attacked the eastern side of the Kennebec River,massacring and scalping the colonists, or else carrying them into captivity. Dwellings were burned and stocks of cattle killed. The entire area was abandoned

During the American Civil War, the Union army built Fort Popham in the area, directly on the Kennebec River at the mouth of Atkins Bay (about 500 m east of the Popham Colony site).

Resettlement commenced in 1679 at Newtown, located on the southern end of Arrowsic Island (across the river from present-day Phippsburg Center), but in 1689 the area was again destroyed and deserted during King William’s War. With the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1713, conflict was formally ended between the Abenaki Indians and English settlements.

7 Aug 1660 (CA, PCR 3:197-98):

Att this Court, Thomas Attkins, an inhabitant att the River of Kennebecke, appeered before the Court, haueing bine apprehended and committed to jayle for committing insest with his owne daughter, named Mary, whoe accused him that hee had committed the said acte sundry times with her; and being strictly examined hee deneyed that hee euer hee had to doe with her in that kind, and was returned to the jayle againe, and there to remaine vntill the next Court for further tryall. The summe of the examination is elsewhere extant in the Court.

2 Oct 1660 (GC, PCR 3:199-200):

Att this Court, Thomas Attkins, inhabitant att the River of Kennebecke, and late prisoner att Plymouth, for committing insist with Mary Atkins, his owne daughter, came to his tryall according to law, which accordingly was procequted against him, by a bill of inditement prefered, and a jury of twelue men were impanneled for the tryall of the case, the prisoner examined, and all the euidence that could bee produced was presented.

The said Thomas Atkins put himselfe vpon tryall of God and the countrey. The grand jury found the bill of inditement a true bill, and indorsed on it bella vera. These brought in a verdict, wherin they expressed that they found the said Thomas Atkins not guilty of the said fact, and soe according to the law hee was cleared.

And wheras, in the examination of the said Thomas Atkins, it appeered that on a time hee being in drinke in the night season in his owne house, hee offered some vnclean, insestious attempts to his daughter, Mary Attkins, aboue said, in his chimney corner, as hee himselfe, in parte, confessed. Hee was sentanced to suffer corporall punishment by whiping, which accordingly was executed, and soe the said Atkins cleared and sett libertie to returne to his owne home.

Children

1. Sarah ATKINS (See John STAPLES Jr.‘s page)

2. Elizabeth Atkins

Elizabeth’s husband Lawrence Davis was born in 1643.

Elizabeth’s second husband Robert Nichelson was born about 1640 in Marblehead, Essex, Mass.

3. Ann Atkins

Ann’s husband Samuel Clark was born 1647 in Plymouth, Plymouth, Mass. Samuel died 9 Jan 1690 in Portsmouth, Rockingham, New Hampshire

4. Mary Atkins

Mary’s husband William Hackett was born 1635 in Kennebec, York, Maine. William died after 5 Jan 1687 in York, York, Maine.

5. Susanna Atkins

Susanna’s husband Richard Green’s origins are unknown.

6. Abigail Atkins

Abigail’s husband John Hayford was born in 1648 in Braintree, Suffolk, Massa. His parents were William Hayford (1620 – 1710) and [__?__]. John died 15 Apr 1710 in Braintree, Suffolk, Mass.

7. Rachel Atkins

Rachel’s first husband John Drake was born 12 Mar 1659 in Weymouth, Norfolk, Mass. His parents were Thomas Drake and Jane Holbrook. His grandparents were Thomas HOLBROOK and Jane POWYES. John died 10 Oct 1717 in Easton, Bristol, Mass

Rachel’s second husband [__?__] Berry’s origins are not known.

1670 – John Drake was a fisherman and the earliest settler Small Point Harbor.

Rachael sold her land to Wentworth and Noyes for about $45.  She bought Hermit Island, Cape Small Point from Greggory Mudge and Sheepsgut John (Indians) before her marriage to John Drake. They had a daughter, Martha, and after Rachael became widowed she remarried a Berry, and then sold her lands. Her daughter, Mary, inherited the part of Drake’s lands that included the area now known as Morse’s Mountain and north about a mile and west to Casco Bay.

8. Esther Atkins

Esther’s first husband George Pike was born 5 Dec 1640 in Mendon, Essex, Mass.  His parents were George Pike and Sarah [__?__]. George died 2 Apr 1716 in Mendon, Worcester, Mass.

Esther’s second husband John Reed was born about 1640.

9. Rebecca Atkins

Rebecca’s husband [__?__] Hall was born

10. Margaret Atkins

Margaret’s husband [__?__] Hackett was born

11. Ruth Atkins

Ruth’s husband Joseph Peck was born 22 Dec 1650 in Hartford, Hartford, CT. Joseph died 25 Nov 1718 in Lyme, New London, CT.

Ruth’s second husband John Hoskins was born 29 May 1654 in Windsor, Hartford, CT. John died 21 Feb 1734 in Windsor, Hartford, CT.

Sources:

http://www.genealogyofnewengland.com/b_a.htm

http://capecodhistory.us/genealogy/wellfleet/i2204.htm#i15253

http://capecodhistory.us/genealogy/wellfleet/Names18.htm

http://www.familyorigins.com/users/s/t/g/Bob–Stgelais/FAMO1-0001/d1452.htm#P21061

http://trees.ancestry.com/owt/person.aspx?pid=37079037

http://www.athenapub.com/popham.htm

http://www.georgetownhistoricalsociety.org/Georgetown%20History%2010-07.html

http://andreabrand.com/sebasco/history.htm

http://trees.ancestry.com/owt/person.aspx?pid=37079037