The Great Migration Begins, Sketches, PRESERVED PURITAN
BENJAMIN CRIBB
22 March 1630/1: "It is ordered, that Beniamyn Cribb, John Cable, & Morris Trowent shall be whipped for stealing 3 pigs of Mr. Ralfe Glovers" [MBCR 1:85].
COMMENTS: As shown in the next sketch, BENJAMIN CRISP deposed in 1656 that twenty-five years ago, that is in 1631, he was servant to Major Gibbons. In 1631 both RALPH GLOVER and EDWARD GIBBONS were residing in Charlestown, and Cribb and his cohorts have the appearance of being a group of servants caught in a criminal act. The probability is high, then, that this record for Benjamin Cribb is in fact for BENJAMIN CRISP. Savage has assumed this identification, without noting the discrepancy in spelling.
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BENJAMIN CRISP

ORIGIN: Unknown
MIGRATION: 1631
FIRST RESIDENCE: Watertown
REMOVES: Groton 1666, Watertown by 1681
OCCUPATION: Mason.
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP: Admission to Watertown church prior to 6 May 1646 implied by freemanship.
FREEMAN: 6 May 1646 [MBCR 2:294].
EDUCATION: Signed deed of 25 September 1666.
OFFICES: On 13 April 1681 Watertown selectmen ordered that "Benjamin Crispe" have "the charge of the meeting house committed to him to sweep and ring the bell and what else is needful to be done to fasten the doors and windows when the exercise is done" [WaTR 2:7, 8].
ESTATE: Granted twenty acres in Great Dividend in Watertown, 25 July 1636 [WaBOP 4]; granted three acres in Beaverbrook Plowlands, 28 February 1636/7 [WaBOP 6]; granted three acres in Remote Meadows, 26 June 1637 [WaBOP 9]; granted a sixty-four acre farm, 10 May 1642 [WaBOP 12].
In the Watertown Inventory of Grants Benjamin Crisp was credited with six parcels of land: seven acre homestall; twenty acres of upland in Great Dividend; nine acres of upland beyond the Further Plain; one acre of meadow at Beaver Brook; four acres [sic] of Remote Meadow; and three acres of plowland in the Hither Plain [Beaverbrook Plowlands] [WaBOP 88]. In the Composite Inventory Benjamin Crisp held four parcels of land: seven acre homestall; twenty acres of upland in the Great Dividend; nine acres of upland beyond the Further Plain; and a sixty-four acre farm [WaBOP 31].
On 25 September 1666 "Benjamin Crispe of Watertown, mason," joined by "Bridget Crispe, his wife," for a valuable sum of money sold to Thomas Boyden of Groton four parcels of land in Watertown: seven acres of upland and buildings; twenty acres of Great Dividend; twelve acres in Lieu of Township; and a fifty-three acre farm [MLR 3:173]. (Since the Lieu of Township land was the same as the upland beyond the Further Plain, and since the farms, as finally surveyed, were somewhat smaller than originally granted, these four parcels are the same as the holdings more than twenty years earlier in the Composite Inventory.)
BIRTH: About 1610 (deposed aged forty-five in 1656, fifty-two in 1662 and seventy-seven in 1683 [Sarah Hildreth Anc 56, presumably from Middlesex Court Files]).
DEATH: Watertown between 5 November 1683 and 21 December 1683 (Frederick C. Warner suggests this range of dates because on the latter date Crisp was replaced in his duties about the meetinghouse, but on the former date at a town meeting no mention was made of the need for such a replacement [WaTR 2:15]; certainly he is seen in no record after 31 October 1682 when he sold his son Jonathan's property [MLR 8:227]).
MARRIAGE: (1) By 1636 Bridget _____; she d. Groton about the time of King Philip's War, and perhaps in consequence of the raid on Groton during that conflict.
(2) After 29 November 1680 Joanna (Goffe?) Longley, widow of William Longley Sr. [TAG 62:26]; she died at Charlestown 18 April 1698, aged 79 [ChVR 1:173; Wyman 248, citing gravestone]. She settled her estate on her Longley children [MPR 9:231; MLR 12:77].
CHILDREN (all born Watertown):
With first wife

i ELIZABETH, b. 8 January 1636/7 [WaVR 4]; m. Watertown 29 September 1657 George Lawrence [WaVR 20].
ii MARY, b. 20 May 1638 [WaVR 5]; m. by 1661 William Green (eldest child b. Cambridge 21 May 1661) [TAG 62:25, citing MLR 20:338, 25:555
iii JONATHAN, b. 29 January 1639/40 [WaVR 6]; served in King Philip's War [Bodge 122, 272, 359, 360], and d. before 25 October 1680, when his father administered his estate [MPR 5:109; see also MLR 8:227]; apparently unmarried.
iv ELEAZER, b. 14 January 1641/2 [WaVR 9]; no further record (but see TAG 62:27).
v ZACHARIAH, b. say 1644; served in King Philip's War (including duty at Groton garrison) [Bodge 71, 360]; did not marry, but had an illegitimate child with Mary Stanwood (see Sarah Hildreth Anc 58 for details on his "turbulent youth").
vi MEHITABLE, b. 21 January 1645/6 [WaVR 12]; no further recor
vii MERCY, b. say 1648; m. Chelmsford 11 April 1667 Robert Parish (or Parris).
viii DELIVERANCE, b. about 1650 (deposed in 1670 aged twenty [TAG 62:27]); m. by 1674 William Longley Jr. of Groton [TAG 62:27, and sources cited there].

ASSOCIATIONS: A "Mr. Crispe" came on the Plough in 1631 and settled briefly at Watertown, the same year and place where BENJAMIN CRISP is first seen. This is suggestive, but may be mere coincidence.
COMMENTS: On 7 October 1656 Benjamin Crisp, aged about forty-five, deposed that he was a servant to Major [EDWARD] GIBBONS "25 years agone" (original not found, but cited by Warner and others).
Benjamin Crisp appears every two years or so involved in minor Watertown town business, from 1647 to 1662 [WaTR 1:14, 34, 44, 54, 55, 59, 75].
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE: Walter Goodwin Davis in 1958 published an excellent account of BENJAMIN CRISP and his family [Sarah Hildreth Anc 55-58]. Frederick C. Warner, in an article published posthumously, improved upon the work of Davis with regard to the daughters, untangling a confusion between Mary and Mercy, and thus adding a daughter and son-in-law, and also elucidating the life of the youngest daughter, Deliverance [TAG 62:25-27]. (Warner had also treated the Crisp family earlier, in his typescript "The Ancestry of Samuel, Freda and John Warner," which was completed in 1949 and is available at the NEHGS library.)
[MPR]: Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Probate Records
[WaVR]: etc.
"Records of Births, Deaths and Marriages - First Book and Supplement," Section Three in Watertown Records Comprising the First and Second Books of Town Proceedings ... (Watertown 1894)
[TAG]: etc; The American Genealogist, Volume 9 to present (1932+)
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CRISPE.—BEN.I. CRISPE, b. about 1611 ; servant of Maj. Gibbons, 1630, or '31, and probably came over with him, 1629; proprietor of Wat., 1636-7; admitted freeman, May 6, 1646; by wife BRIDGET, had, 1. Elizabeth, b. Jan. 8, 1636-7; m., Sept. 27, 1657, George Lawrence. [Lawrence, 1.] 2. Mary, b. May 20, 1638. 3. Jonathan, b. Jan. 29, 1639-40, an early proprietor of Groton; his estate admin, by his father Benjamin, Oct. 25, 1680. 4. Eleazer, b. Jan. 14, 1641-2. 5. Mehitabel, b. Jan. 21, 1645-6. 6. Zachariah, impressed as a soldier by Capt. Mosely, of Boston, about 1673. [See Court File, 1674.] Sept. 21, 1666,
Benjamin Crispe, of Wat., a mason, and wife Bridget, sold to Thomas Boyden, of Groton, a dwelling-house. &c, with 7 acres, and several other parcels of land, amounting to 92 acres. He probably moved to Groton about that time. The Will of Joanna Crispe, of Groton (? wid. of Jonathan), mentions her daughters Mary Lemon, Sarah Rand, and Lydia Nutting, gr. dr. Sarah Nutting, gr. chil. Lydia, Elizabeth and William Longley, gr. dr. Anna Lawrence, gr. drs. Mary and Elizabeth Shaddock, and three gr. chil. in captivity.

Massachusetts and Maine Families, Vol. I, Crispe, of Watertown, page 321
(The Ancestry of Sarah Hildreth)
vi Zachary. There is no definite statement that he was the son of Benjamin Crispe, but his presence in Groton in 1675/6 is highly indicative. He had a turbulent youth. On Sept. 23, 1678 a writ was issued against Zachariah Crispe of Charlestown on the complaint of Mary Stanwood, aged 20, late a servant of John Long. She testified that she was with child by Zachary. Benjamin and George Lawrance were his sureties, further evidence that Benjamin was his son, and Lawrence being Benjamin's son-in-law. Zachary was found legally responsible. The child was placed with John Jones. July 28, 1674, Jones sued Zachary for breach of promise to pay for the child's maintenance. The jury found for the plaintiff, but Zachary appealed and won.
Possible illegitimate child:
1. Mary Crispe married Dec 13, 1695, John Rigby, both of Concord. Six children were born in Concord, 1697 to 1709. This is the only 'Crispe' entry in the Concord records.

He was living in Groton in 1664 when he owned a house lot of 28 acres with an addition of 3 acres in Gen. field, 5 acres in Flaggy meadow, 3 acres at Massabogue brook and 2 acres in Angle meadow. In 1675 he was of Dunstable when he appeared in Suffolk court and acknowledged a judgment against himself and his estate to Benjamin Gibbs of Boston. In King Philip's war Groton was attacked and largely destroyed by the Indians on March 13, 1675/6. He was probably one of its defenders as he was paid for his service on April 24, 1676. He died before Oct. 25, 1680, when his father was appointed administrator and entered as inventory of his estate consisting of 3 items: 15 acres of land in Dunstable, 28 acres in Groton, and a horse.