Working on Wednesday: Edward Gaskill (About 1603 - 1690), Ship Carpenter

There's so much we don't know about this maternal ninth great grandfather--like where in England he was born, when he came to Massachusetts, how soon he settled in Salem or what his wife Sarah's maiden name is--but we do know his trade was. As you can see for yourself in this document from 1659 (at the beginning of the fourth line of text below the horizontal line on the page), Edward was a ship carpenter.

[Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Registry of Deeds. Southern Essex District.

http://www.salemdeeds.com/BookPageListArchive.asp?bplSearchBookArchive=1&bplSearchPageArchive=0119]

To assist you, just in case your paleography* skills are a bit rusty, here's an abstract of the text:

"Ralph Tomkins of Salem, planter" sold to "Edward Gaskill of the same place, ship carpenter,...a dwelling house & about one acre & half of land adjoining thereunto...in the township of Salem near the tide mill..."

This is the house where Edward died in 1690.

Here's a bit more about Edward, including some of the various spellings of his surname, from an early 20th century book.**

[Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Worcester County, Massachusetts: With a History of Worcester Society of Antiquity, Volume 1. Ellery Bicknell Crane, Lewis Publishing Company, 1907 - Worcester County (Mass.)]

Since the only times his name appears in the volumes of the Great Migration Project for 1634-1635 refer to later property transactions in the profiles of other men, I think it's safe to assume that he didn't arrive until after that period.

His oldest son Samuel married Provided Southwick, the daughter of Lawrence Southwick and Cassandra Burnell.

*If you are interested in improving those skills, look here for direction.
**Available as a Google Ebook here.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.