Author: Fred Jackson
SHADRACH STANDISH, DRUMMER FROM PLYMPTON, MA
In the book, “Mayflower Families through Five Generations”, Captain Miles Standish, the expedition’s military leader, settled in Plymouth, MA and created a long line of Standish descendants.
Five generations later, Ebenezer Standish and Averick, nee Churchill, brought forth Shadrach in November, 1746. They had moved to the village of Plympton, MA which is about 10 miles inland, west of Plymouth Bay. Shadrach Standish and his brother helped their father with the farm chores. His name from the Old Testament was not Hebrew, but from a Chaldean or Babylonian tongue meaning, “I am afraid”. The Shadrach, from the Book of Daniel, and his two companions, were forced into the fiery furnace by the Babylonian king. Their miracle of escape has long been told to school children. In fact, the Hebrew name of Hananiah, meaning ”God is gracious”, was the given name of the Shadrach of the Book of Daniel at his birth in Judea.
Shadrach married Mary Churchill in 1771, a descendant of William Churchill and Ruth Bryant, one of the first settlers of Plympton. The couple’s family started in 1772 with the birth of Averick, my ancestor, who married John Avery Parker, Esq., also of Plympton. Farms were prosperous in the fertile valley and Shadrach listed as a “Husbandman”, invested in land, buying 2 lots in 1775. He fathered seven more children, all in Plympton. Four of his children are listed in the DAR database as descendants of Shadrach, DAR Ancestor #A108397.
The call of fife and drum sounded in Plympton and Shadrach joined the militia company of Captain Thomas Samson who marched in the alarm of March 1777 across the state line to Bristol, RI. This company under Colonel Thomas Lathrop also went to the Rhode Island colony in February, 1781. Shadrach, as a Drummer, had to learn the cadence and the meaning of all the messages sent to his company by the commander. Recall that a drummer came to our chapter several years ago to demonstrate how drum signaling worked. Also note that 17 Standish men are listed in the book, “Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the Revolutionary War”, of which 4 were Plympton cousins and his older brother, Ebenezer.
In the Historic American Building Survey, Shadrach’s home stands as an example of early New England architecture. The classic “salt box” shape reminds us of the simpler life in early America. The house, built about 1730, was still intact several years ago.
In the early 19th century, Shadrach and several partners commissioned a New Bedford, MA boat builder to construct a sailing ship to carry freight across the oceans.
In 1833 toward the end of his life, Shadrach moved to New Bedford to live with his daughter, Averick Parker, whose husband, John, was a successful businessman. Shadrach died there in November, 1837 and the family decided to have him buried in the Hillcrest Cemetery in Plympton. Shadrach has NSSAR Grave Record number P-295943. At his funeral service in the Congregational Church in New Bedford, Sylvester Holmes, a well-known pastor, gave a speech that is recorded in the town minutes. In Plympton, a new burying ground was dedicated in 1856 and the first burial was that of Shadrach Standish, having been moved from his site in the old grounds at the north end of the Plympton green.
Five generations after Shadrach, my father, Frederick M. Jackson, an SAR member, was born in Malden, MA. My mother, Josephine S. Jackson, nee Peters, was born in Haymarket, VA. My line from Shadrach comes through her.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mayflower Families through Five Generations, Volume 3, Myles Standish, published by General Society of Mayflower Descendants, December 2007.
History of the Churchill Family
www.genforum.com/churchill
Vital Records of Plympton, MA to the year 1850
Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, Volume 14, published by the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, 1906
Die Maus: Records of the Heineken family in Bremen, Germany