In brief

1630: Came to America. He died July/13, 1684.

Family

Children

  • John Barsham
    b. December 8, 1635, in Watertown, Massachusetts
    m. Mehitable ____
  • Anna/Hannah Barsham
    b. January 7, 1637[1638], in Watertown, Massachusetts
    m. John Spring, December 19, 1656, in Watertown, Massachusetts
  • Joshua Barsham
    b. March 15, 1640, in Watertown, Massachusetts
  • Susanna Barsham
    b. January 28, 1641[1642], in Watertown, Massachusetts
    m. John Capen, November 19, 1663, in Dorchester, Massachusetts
  • Nathaniel Barsham
    b. Abt. 1644
    m. Elizabeth Bond, March 13, 1678[1679], in Watertown, Massachusetts
  • Sarah Barsham · in this line
    b. Abt. 1646
    m. March 3, 1673[1674], in Lynn, Massachusetts
    m. November 14, 1681, in Reading, Massachusetts
    d. After August 1714
  • Mary Barsham
    b. June 23, 1648, in Watertown, Massachusetts
    m. John Bright, May 7, 1675, in Watertown, Massachusetts
  • Rebecca Barsham
    b. December 12, 1657, in Watertown, Massachusetts
    m. Edward Winship, May 14, 1683, in Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • Elizabeth Barsham
    b. July 29, 1658, in Watertown, Massachusetts
    m. Adam Eve, July 5, 1694, in Watertown, Massachusetts

Life story

A Watertown Landholder

William Barsham emigrated to Massachusetts in 1630 and settled in Watertown, where he built a substantial landholding — including an eighty-eight-acre farm granted in 1642 — over more than two decades, and served the town as a selectman in 1652 and as clerk of the market, responsible for certifying weights and measures, in 1656. In his August 1683 will he divided his farms, livestock, and household goods among his son John and six daughters, leaving one seventy-two-acre farm to his daughter Rebecca Winship and a sixty-four-acre farm — originally granted to her grandfather, John Smith “Bland” — to his daughter Elizabeth. William died in July 1684; his estate was appraised at twenty-six pounds in real estate alone.

Sources (2)
  1. Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, 3 vols. (Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995), 1:108-111; digital images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2496/images/42521_b158318-00182 : accessed 20 August 2026).
  2. Robert Charles Anderson, “John Smith of Watertown, Massachusetts,” The American Genealogist 61 (January/April 1985): 18-31; image copy, American Ancestors, (https://www.americanancestors.org/DB283/i/12790/18/144273857 : accessed 24 August 2026).