Simon Huntington (prob c.1587 – 1633×4) was my double 9th-great-grandfather, an English immigrant, and a primary progenitor of the North American Huntington family, through his marriage to Margaret Barrett on 1623-05-11 in Norwich, England. He was a Puritan, and the family fled England to escape persecution. Simon died of smallpox; tradition has him dying on board ship in 1633 just before reaching America, but this is questionable.
Simon’s origins had long been unknown and indeed were the subject of a notable forgery, but research published in 2024 found that he was likely the son of Robert and Margaret Huntington from Battisford, England.
Some family tradition is related in a letter written in 1793 by Simon’s great-great-grandson Joseph Huntington (
[Simon] was a citizen of Norwich, England.... He was more than fifty years of age, and his wife some years younger.... They made their course for the mouth of Connecticut River. But our progenitor being seized with a violent fever and dysentery, died within sight of the shore.
This was written 160 years after the events in question, and the letter contains many errors (indeed this short passage gets multiple details wrong), and so the reliability of this information may be doubted. Also, other copies of this letter have the wording “nearly fifty years of age”. Still, if Simon’s approximate age was remembered accurately, it would place his birth around 1580. Newer evidence (below) puts it later.
The letter also claims that Simon had a brother Samuel who was “captain of the King’s Life Guard, and much in his favor”. However, the family identified below includes no such brother, and this could well be a wrong tradition.
In 1629, Simon was accused of irreligion due to his Puritanism. Such incidents no doubt pushed him to emigrate.
Some correspondence between Simon’s children and his wife’s family back in England has survived.⟮2⟯
In 2024, research by Carolyn Alderson identified Simon (often written Simond, Symonde, and variations) as very likely the son of Robert Huntington (✝1598) and Margaret of Battisford, England.⟮3⟯Carolyn Alderson, “Using Wills to Develop a Family Tree. The Case of Simon Huntington (d. 1633) and his Ancestors in East Anglia, England.” https://www.carolynalderson.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Carolyn-Alderson-Simon-Huntington-and-his-ancestors-in-East-Anglia-14-October-2024.pdf⟮4⟯ Margaret survived Robert. Robert’s parents were Simon (✝1564) and Ann. Ann was still alive in 1566 when her son Gilbard mentions her in his will.
Earlier records of Battisford do not show anyone named Huntington, so it is presumed that the elder Simon moved there from elsewhere, likely outside of Suffolk County. No further generations have been identified, although wills of his likely brothers were found. He was in Battisford by 1534, and worked as a carpenter. He named five sons in his will. Robert seems to have been youngest, and was later recorded as a yeoman.
Alderson’s chronology has Simon the immigrant, the youngest known child of Robert, born no earlier than around 1587, which is younger than in the tradition related in the letter quoted above.
A false ancestry of Simon in England, starting with identifying his parents as “George Huntington” and “Anne Fenwick”, is widely circulated. It was prepared around 1910 by Gustav Anjou (
Unfortunately, due to the Internet and general credulousness, Anjou’s false claims continue to be repeated more than a century later.
I include Anjou’s fabricated pedigree here, to facilitate recognition of these fictitious people:
Anjou also invented siblings and sometimes spouses of siblings for a few of these.
Simon married Margaret in 1623. She was the daughter of Christopher Barrett, who was mayor of Norwich in 1634.⟮5⟯ The Barrett line, variously spelled Barret or Baret, can be traced back to the 15th century; see below. Moreover, Margaret’s great-great-grandfather John Barrett (✝1514) is a named beneficiary in the 1483 will of Geoffrey Barrett, but their relationship is not stated and has not been determined.⟮6⟯
Simon and Margaret had five known children:
The children with known dates were baptized in Norwich, England.
Simon is often suggested to be related to William Huntington of Amesbury, possibly as his father, but this is not just unproven but unlikely. If William were Simon’s son, it is fairly certain Margaret was not his mother, so it is speculated that Simon had an earlier marriage. No evidence of such a marriage has been found. The names of children in William’s family do not match those of Simon’s, as was then common for relatives. There is likely no relationship, or at best a distant one, between the two men.
Roxbury church records include this note:⟮7⟯
Margret Huntington widdow; she came in the yeare 1633. Her husband dyed by way of the small pox, she brought children with her.
Tradition is that Simon died on board ship to America, according to the letter above just before making landfall (although it gets the location wrong). However, this may be a misreading of the phrase “by way of”, and there are reasons to doubt he died in transit. It is unlikely that smallpox would be contracted on a ship only at the end of its journey, while by contrast epidemics were common in the colonies. Also, Alderson points out that a death on ship would normally be registered in England, but no such record was found. Rather, it may be that Simon completed the trip but died soon after.
A letter written in December 1634 states that Margaret is widowed and about to remarry.⟮8⟯ This places Simon’s death in either 1633 or 1634.
Margaret remarried to Thomas Stoughton in likely early 1635, and they moved to Windsor, Connecticut, where Thomas died 1661-03-25. Margaret was still alive on 1666-03-14 but there is no further record.
Caleb Huntington (* 1695-02-08), grandson of Simon’s son Simon, and Lydia Griswold (* 1696-05-28), granddaughter of Simon’s son Christopher, were married 1720-01-28 and were my 6th-great-grandparents through their son Caleb Huntington (* 1721-12-09), father of Caleb, thus making me a double descendant of Simon.
This assumes the cited research above is correct.