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John Putnam

Generation 13 back

Descent: Meghan Jane Leineweber ← Catherine Raye Lobb ← Patricia Jane Loomis ← Edward Byron Loomis ← Isaac Hayes Loomis ← Juliette Cordelia Hayes ← Nelson Hayes ← Rhoda Slaughter ← Lois Carpenter ← Benjamin Carpenter ← Elizabeth Wilson ← Elizabeth Fuller ← Rebecca Putnam ← John Putnam

In brief

Baptized May 27, 1627, in Aston Abbots, Buckinghamshire, England. He married September 3, 1652, in Salem, Massachusetts. He died April 7, 1710, in Salem Village (Danvers), Massachusetts.

Family

Father
John Putnam
Mother
Priscilla ____
Spouse
Rebecca Prince
m. 1652

Children

  • Rebecca Putnam · in this line
    b. May 28, 1653, in Salem Village (Danvers), Massachusetts
    m. April 22, 1672, in Essex County, Massachusetts
    m. December 6, 1677, in Salem, Massachusetts
    d. September 21, 1689, in Salem, Massachusetts
  • Sarah Putnam
    b. September 4, 1654, in Salem Village, Massachusetts
    m. John Hutchinson in July 1672
    d. August 2, 1676
  • Priscilla Putnam
    b. March 4, 1657[1658], in Salem Village, Massachusetts
    m. Joseph Bailey
    d. November 16, 1704
  • Jonathan Putnam
    b. March 17, 1659[1660], in Salem Village, Massachusetts
    m. Elizabeth Whipple
    m. Lydia Potter
    d. March 2, 1739, in Salem Village, Massachusetts
  • James Putnam
    b. September 4, 1661, in Salem Village, Massachusetts
    m. Sarah ____
    m. Mary Read, March 6, 1719[1720] in Salem, Massachusetts
    d. April 7, 1727, in Salem Village, Massachusetts
  • Hannah Putnam
    b. February 2, 1663, in Salem Village, Massachusetts
    m. Henry Brown, May 17, 1682
    d. c. 1730
  • Eleazar Putnam
    b. 1665 in Salem Village, Massachusetts
    m. Hannah Boardman
    m. Elizabeth Rolfe, November 14, 1711
    d. January 25/26, 1732[1733], in Salem Village, Massachusetts
  • John Putnam
    b. July 14, 1667, in Salem Village, Massachusetts
    m. Hannah ____
  • Susanna Putnam
    b. September 4, 1670, in Salem Village, Massachusetts
    m. Edward Bishop
  • Ruth Putnam
    b. August 1673 in Salem Village, Massachusetts

Siblings

  • Elizabeth “Eliza” Putnam
    b. Abt. December 1612 near Aston Abbots, Buckinghamshire, England
  • Thomas Putnam
    b. Abt. March 1614[1615] near Aston Abbots, Buckinghamshire, England
    m. Ann Holyoke, October 17, 1643, in Lynn, Massachusetts
    m. Mary ____, November 14, 1666, in Salem, Massachusetts
    d. May 5, 1686, in Salem Village (Danvers), Massachusetts
  • John Putnam
    b. Abt. July 1617 near Aston Abbots, Buckinghamshire, England
    d. Abt. November 1620 near Aston Abbots, Buckinghamshire, England
  • Nathaniel Putnam
    b. Abt. October 1619 near Aston Abbots, Buckinghamshire, England
    m. Elizabeth Hutchinson in Salem, Massachusetts
    d. July 23, 1700, in Salem Village (Danvers), Massachusetts
  • Sara Putnam
    b. Abt. March 1622[1623] near Aston Abbots, Buckinghamshire, England
  • Phoebe Putnam
    b. Abt. July 1624 near Aston Abbots, Buckinghamshire, England

Life story

A Salem Farmer's Long Career

John Putnam was baptized May 27, 1627, in Aston Abbots, Buckinghamshire, England, and as a young man worked on Governor John Endecott's farm in Salem, Massachusetts — then considered the colony's most scientifically advanced — likely to learn agricultural methods. He went on to farm his own land in Salem for decades, in 1674 co-founding an ironworks at Rowley Village (Boxford) with future governor Simon Bradstreet and Daniel Dennison that was still operating more than twenty years later. John served in King Philip's War, including the Great Swamp Fight of 1675, and rose through Salem's militia to captain by 1687, while also serving repeatedly as the town's deputy to the Massachusetts General Court and, in 1681, as selectman.

Witness to a Witch Trial

In 1680 the newly arrived minister George Burroughs and his wife Hannah lived with John's family for nine months, a stay John and his wife later described as troubled — they said the couple often needed the Putnams to mediate their disputes, and that Burroughs was harsh to a wife they considered devoted to him. When Burroughs left Salem Village still owed back wages by the town, John had him briefly arrested in a disputed 1683 dispute over the account, and the two men tangled again in court that June over a funeral debt before John withdrew his claim. Those tensions resurfaced in 1692, when John and his wife Rebecca gave testimony during the Salem witch trials, describing the death of their own daughter and son-in-law and speaking to the good character of the accused Rebecca Nurse. John died in Salem Village on April 7, 1710, and was buried with military honors.

Sources (3)
  1. William Utermohlen, “Elizabeth Fuller of Salem and Woburn, Massachusetts; Rehoboth, Rhode Island; and Ashford, Connecticut – Probable Wife of Benjamin Wilson,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register 178 (Spring 2024): 169-188; image copy, American Ancestors, (https://www.americanancestors.org/DB202/i/82242/169/97028178 : accessed 10 August 2026).
  2. Eben Putnam, A History of the Putnam Family in England and America (Salem, Massachusetts: The Salem Press Publishing and Printing Co., 1891); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/ahistoryputnamf01putngoog : accessed 11 August 2026).
  3. Mary Walton Ferris, Dawes-Gates Ancestral Lines: Volume I (USA: Charles G. Dawes, 1943); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/dawesgatesancest00ferr : accessed 12 August 2026).
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