In the Earliest Town on Cape Cod — Nathaniel Fish

B. before 20 Jun 1619 East Farndon, England¹
M. (1) about 1646 in (probably) Sandwich, Plymouth Colony²
Wife: (possibly) Mehitable _________
M. (2) about 1656 in (probably) Sandwich, Plymouth Colony²
Wife: Lydia Miller
D. before 14 Mar 1694 in Sandwich, Massachusetts³

During the late 1630s, when the Plymouth colony expanded eastward onto Cape Cod, the first town was called Sandwich, and Nathaniel Fish was one of its earliest settlers.

Nathaniel was born in East Farndon, England, a village in Northamptonshire, and baptized on June 20, 1619.¹ His birth date isn’t known, and because his brother John was baptized at the same time, it’s likely the two boys weren't newborn infants. Nathaniel’s parents were Thomas Fish and Mary Sprigg; besides John, there were three other boys and two girls in the family. By 1622, they seem to have moved to the village of Great Bowden, located just to the north in Leicestershire.¹

Sometime in the late-1630s, Nathaniel migrated to New England with his brothers Jonathan and John.⁴ They were each in their late teens or 20s when they arrived in the Plymouth colony seeking an opportunity to become part of some new towns. The place they ended up was Sandwich, located where Cape Cod connects to the mainland. Records show that on April 16, 1640, Nathaniel was granted an acre and a half outside of town as part of a division of land among established settlers,¹ so he must have been there at least a year or two at the time.

Location of Sandwich on Cape Cod.

Nathaniel got married in about 1646 to a woman whose name may have been Mehitable.² She died by 1656,² and he took another wife named Lydia Miller², the daughter of Sandwich's minister. It’s uncertain how many children he fathered, but it was thought to be about ten, mostly boys. The youngest was born in 1668.⁵

Nathaniel didn’t seem to take a leadership role in his community. He did serve on the grand jury at least once, and was mentioned in a couple of court cases. In 1644, he was summoned to appear as a witness in a trial for a man accused of having out-of-wedlock sex, but it isn’t known what testimony he had to offer.⁶ In another case in 1654, Nathaniel was fined 20 shillings for welcoming an escaped indentured servant into his home and “abetting him in his stubbornness toward his master.⁶”

Tragedy struck Nathaniel’s family in August of 1664 when his oldest son was killed in a construction accident.⁷ The young man was only 18 when he joined a work crew which was trying to a build a dam at a mill, and an earthen bank collapsed on him. He died at home four days later. In an investigation into the accident, Nathaniel said that he hadn’t wanted his son to work on the dam that day, but the young man did anyway, leading to his death.

Nathaniel’s daughter Lydia went through another sort of ordeal in 1677. The girl, who was still in her teens, was raped by Ambrose Fish,⁸ who was possibly Nathaniel’s son from his first wife. The punishment for the accused was a public whipping, then the man was simply released. Lydia went to live with a maternal aunt in Billerica, far away from Sandwich.⁹

A few years later in 1682, Nathaniel fell on hard times, and the town proposed giving him aid.¹ When he passed away in about 1694, he left an estate that was worth only £31, including a two-room house, 8 acres of land and a few personal possessions.³ His wife Lydia survived him and it isn’t known when she died.

Children by his first wife:
1. Thomas Fish — B. about 1648, Sandwich, Plymouth Colony;⁷ D. 19 Aug 1664, Sandwich, Plymouth Colony⁷

2. Nathaniel Fish — B. 27 Nov 1648, Sandwich, Plymouth Colony¹⁰

3. (probably) Ambrose Fish — B. about 1650, Sandwich, Plymouth Colony;⁸ D. before 11 Sep 1691;¹¹ M. Hannah Swift, about 1675, (probably) Sandwich, Plymouth Colony¹²

4. John Fish — B. 13 Apr 1651, Sandwich, Plymouth Colony;¹³ D. 8 Mar 1730, Barnstable, Massachusetts;¹⁴ M. (1) Margaret Freeman (1652-?);¹⁵ (2) Phebe Lovell (1655-1732), 11 Nov 1724, Barnstable, Massachusetts¹⁶

Children by Lydia Miller:
1. Lydia Fish — B. about 1657, (probably) Sandwich, Plymouth Colony;⁹ D. 8 Sep 1712, Billerica, Massachusetts;⁹ M. John Jefts (1651-1712), 6 Apr 1688, Billerica, Massachusetts¹⁷

2. (probably) Mercy Fish — B. (probably) during the 1660s, Sandwich, Plymouth Colony;¹⁸ D. 29 Mar 1734, Sandwich, Massachusetts;¹⁹ M. Joshua Blackwell (1653-1737), about 1681, Sandwich, Massachusetts¹⁸

3. Nathan Fish — B. (probably) during the 1660s in Sandwich, Plymouth Colony;²⁰ M. Deborah Barrows (~1668-?), 20 Dec 1687, Plymouth, Plymouth Colony²¹

4. Jonathan Fish — B. about 1662, Sandwich, Plymouth Colony²²

5. Thomas Fish — B. about 1665, Sandwich, Plymouth Colony;²³ D. before 23 Apr 1736, Duxbury, Massachusetts;²⁴ M. Margaret Woodworth (1673-1723), 10 Jan 1697, Marshfield, Massachusetts²⁵

6. Samuel Fish — B. 10 Aug 1668, Sandwich, Plymouth Colony⁵

Sources:
1    “The Fish Family of Great Bowden in Leicestershire, England,” John Dean Fish, The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Vol. 53, 1922
2    WikiTree listing for Nathaniel Fish  
3    Nathaniel Fish inventory, Barnstable County Probate Records, V. 1
4    The Fish Family in England and America, Lester Warren Fish, 1948
5    Birth record of Samuel Fish, Massachusetts Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, FamilySearch.org
6    Records of the colony of New Plymouth in New England, 1855, V. 2 & 3
7    Records of the Colony of New Plymouth “Plymouth Colony Court Orders, 1661-1668,” Nathaniel D. Shurtleff, 1855
8    Court record of Lydia Fish rape case, Plymouth Court Records
9    WikiTree listing for Lydia Fish  
10  Birth record of Nathaniel Fish (younger), Vital Records of Sandwich, MA to 1885, 1996
11  Probate record of Ambrose Fish
12  Birth record of Ephraim Fish (son of Ambrose), “Sandwich, MA Vital Records,” The Mayflower Descendant, V. 14
13  Birth record of John Fish, M. T. C., V. & T. R.
14  Death record of John Fish, Vital Records of Sandwich, MA to 1885, 1996
15  WikiTree listing of John Fish  
16  Marriage record of John Fish and Phebe Lovell, M. T. C., V. & T. R. 

17  Marriage record of John Jefts and Lydia Fish, Records of the County of Middlesex in the Commonwealth of Mass., FamilySearch.org 
18  WikiTree listing for Mercy Fish  
19  Death record of Mercy Blackwell, Vital Records of Sandwich, MA to 1885, 1996
20  WikiTree listing for Nathan Fish  
21  “Nathan and Deborah (Barrows) Fish of Falmouth, Massachusetts,” Robert E. Bowman, The American Genealogist, V. 80, 2005
22  WikiTree listing for Jonathan Fish  
23  WikiTree listing for Thomas Fish  
24  Index of Obituaries in Boston Newspapers 1704-1795, Ogden Codman, 1968
25  Marriage record of Thomas Fish and Margaret Woodworth, “Marriages from the Early Records of Marshfield, MA,” The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, V. 6