Edmund Frost

b. 28 Aug 1593 d. 12 Jul 1672 (came to America)

Edmund Frost was born in Hartest, Suffolk, England in 1593, the son of John Frost and Thomasine Belgrave of Heartest, Suffolk. Edmund lived in Earles-Colne and married Thomasine Clench in 1630.

This map is an animated overlay of Earls-Colne showing where the Frost home was located in 1598, now called High Street.
Thomasine Clench's uncle's house was two houses away to the east.

During the years 1604-1607, the famous dissenting clergyman, John Robinson, preached secretly in the neighborhood of Norwich, Norfolk, England. There is considerable foundation for the belief that John Frost, the father of Edmund Frost of Cambridge was a member of his congregation at one time. At this time, members of our branch of the family were located at Pulham, Norfolk, and at Bury St. Edmunds, Hartest and Bardwell, in the County of Suffolk, all places in close proximity to each other.

John Frost of Hartest, Suffolk, the father of Edmund Frost of Cambridge, was born about 1561. The records at Hartest show that John Frost of that place had sons Edmund and John. There is no record of John Frost of Bury St. Edmunds having a son Edmund. John Frost of Langham and Bardwell had no son Edmund, but he did have a grandson by that name. So the sound conclusion appears to be that Edmund Frost of Cambridge (Mass) was the son of John Frost of Hartest and possibly the brother of John Frost, who graduated from St. John's College, Cambridge, 1635.

The Sexy 1600s... Copied from the Archdeaconry Act Book (ERO D/ACA27) from 29.3.1604 (Thursday 29 March 1604) document 1700767, office of the judge against Eliz Frost of Earls Colne detected by the wardens for that she is with child in adultery or fornication by Robt Leppingwell of Pebmarsh excommunicate.  Elizabeth (b. 1584/5) may have been the daughter of John Frost (1561-1616) of Glemsford, making her Edmund Frost's aunt.  After this account by the Archdeacons, there is no further history of Elizabeth Frost in Earls-Colne.

The Frost Homes in England... Careful research tends to show that the original home of the Frosts was in the vicinity of Cambridge, England. They were certainly in Cambridge as early as 1135 when Henry Frost donated land for St. John's Hospital. In the fourteenth century one branch appears to have located in the vicinity of Hartest Suffolk. Other branches appears to have located in Hull Yorkshire, Pulham Norfolk, Whepstead Suffolk, Great Fakenham Suffolk, Norton, and another at Hepworth Suffolk. All were unquestionably connected by relation to a common ancestor. John Frost, the probable father of Edmund Frost, resided at Hartest, County Suffolk, in the year 1592. He had children, Edmund, Thomas, and John, born somewhere between 1592 and 1610. Hartest is not far from the border of Suffolk and about fifteen miles from Earls-Colne, where Shepard preached from 1630 to 1633. It is also not more than thirty miles from Chelmsford, where Rev. Thos. Hooker (the great New England pastor) preached between 1615 and 1630. A lectureship such as Shepard held at Earls-Colne was in effect nothing but a dissenting pulpit and as such was so highly prized that dissenters for miles around were in the habit of resorting thither to hear the Word of God preached by one of their own faith and doctrine. It was undoubtedly at Earls-Colne that the friendship between Thomas Shepard and Edmund Frost was formed, which resulted in Edmund becoming a member of Shepard's party when they sailed for America in 1635.

About the year 1627, Thomas Shepard, a native of Towcester England, a graduate of Emmanuel College of England (with marked sympathy for all dissenters), accepted a so-called lectureship at Earls-Colne, Essex, England. These lectureships were little more than thinly disguised pulpits for dissenting clergymen. After having been at Earls-Colne for nearly three years, Shepard was so interfered with and persecuted by the ruling power in the established Church of England, namely the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, that he had to flee to Yorkshire and remain there in seclusion for some time. Before he left Earls-Colne, the subject of an emigration to America on the part of Shepard and some of his friends at Earls-Colne had been discussed most seriously. But Shepards' sudden and enforced flight into Yorkshire postponed the execution of the plan until 1634.

In June of 1634, Shepard sailed for Ipswich, Suffolk from Newcastle, with his family. After remaining in hiding for some months, the ship Great-Hope was secured and on it some two hundred persons embarked from Ipswich, England for America, October 16, 1634. Among this number, according to Rev. Thos. Shepard himself were Champney, Frost and Goffe. The ship Great-Hope was wrecked two days afterward off Yarmouth, England, but all on it were saved. This voyage to America had been planned and arranged for, during Shepard's absence, by John Norton of Suffolk, England. The master of the ship Great-Hope was, according to Shepard himself, a personal friend by the name of Captain Gurling. A violent storm ensued and the ship was disabled. The harrowing account of the destruction of the ship and the aftermath can be found in Rev. Thos. Shepard's diary.

However, Archbishop Laud continued to search for Shepard and his followers forcing all involved into hiding until passage could be secured on another ship several months later.

Under the personal supervision of Rev. Shepard, with powerful financial assistance of his warm friend, Roger Harlakenden of Earls-Colne, the ship Defense was secured, Captain Bostock, master. Shepard and his party, which numbered sixty persons and included our ancestor, Edmund Frost, sailed from Gravesend, near London, on August 10, 1635. After a voyage lasting fifty-four days, the ship arrived in Boston harbor October 2, 1635. The entire colony settled at once in Cambridge, where Thomas Hooker had already preceded them with his colony.

Edmund Frost had undoubtedly, by reason of his pronounced and open sympathy and support of the dissenting clergymen in England, incurred the displeasure of the church party, which ruled in England. We know as a fact that this displeasure was vented in most serious form not only upon the dissenting clergymen themselves, but upon their lay supporters as well. This probably accounts for the fact that Edmund Frost, his wife Thomasine, and his infant son John, all embarked in the ship Defence under assumed names as servents of other families. Just what name Edmund Frost assumed is not known. But at the time the Defence sailed all emigrants had to be registered and had to obtain so-called clearance papers from the local preachers and authorities in their immediate locality before they were allowed to sail. Then there were a set of government officers called "Poursuivants" (derived from the French word for prosecutors), who searched outgoing vessels for the purpose of detecting and capturing dissenters who were embarking without proper authority.

We know from Rev. Thos. Shepard's own diary, that this was done in the case of a number of the passengers of the Defence, and was frequently practiced by others. Rev. Shepard himself came over under the name of his brother and was enrolled as a servant of Roger Harlakenden.

In the full list of all the passengers on the Defence, the name of Frost is not among them. But the very circumstances of his coming to America under an assumed name, and the probability that he was wanted by the authorities in England for the sin of having joined the increasing number of dissenters, serves to explain, in a measure at least, the reticence that Edmund Frost seems ever to have observed relative to his English forbears. The reader will find it stated over and over again that it is a tradition in one branch of the Frost family that the father of Edmund Frost was the Rev. John Frost, a silenced non-conformist minister in England.

Rev. Amariah Frost, a graduate of Harvard university and pastor at Milford Mass, from 1743 to 1792, was the great-grandson of Edmund Frost. As the first college graduate amongst the Frosts in America and as a distinguished clergyman of his day and generation, one would naturally look to him for light on the subject of his ancestry. Among the records of the church of Mendon (now Milford), is found the following: "A record of my genealogy, so far as I can trace it back according to the best accounts received by tradition: John Frost of England, in the time of Non-Conformists, wherein a great number were silenced in England, was one of them. Two of his sons came to America - fled for refuge to this then savage wilderness to escape the more savage oppression and enjoy the freedom of Englishmen (written about 1790)."  However, in 1790, Amariah didn't have all the records at his disposal as we have now. He mistakenly thought that Edmund and John were brothers when, in fact, John was the three year old son of Edmund and Thomasine.

Upon arriving in Boston, Shepard's party proceeded to Newtowne, which was renamed Cambridge shortly thereafter.

All fared equally with the General Court as to fines; none escaped. "4 Sept. 1646, Elder Frost, for letting his two oxen goe to feed on ye common, taken once is fined one shilling."

Elder Frost was a devout Puritan, a saintly man with no desire to amass wealth as did many of his confreres, but many visitors came to his humble home attracted by the nobility of his character. On 11 February 1636, Edmund and Richard Champney were installed by Governor Winthrop ruling elders of the First Congregational Church of Cambridge, the Rev. Mr. Shepard being installed as minister on the same day. On 3 March 1636, Edmund Frost was enrolled as a freeman.

Edmund Frost home in America. About 1639 he purchased of Thomas Blodgett a lot on the westerly side of Dunster Street between Harvard Square and Mt. Auburn Street, which he soon afterward sold to the widow Catherine Haddon. He then bought a house on the westerly side of Garden Street, opposite Waterhouse Street, which he occupied in 1643 but sold to Richard Eccles in 1646. He appears to have subsequently occupied the estate on the northerly side of Kirkland Street extending from Divinity Hall Avenue to and beyond Francis Street, which estate remained in the possession of his posterity until 1845, shown in the photo (click to enlarge). In the apportionment of the Shawshin territory, now Billerica, he received a share of 200 acres being lot number 59 which he seems to have given to his son James who went there to live.

When Colonel Goffe, the "regicide" (one of those who sentenced Charles I to death), came to New England, he went to see Edmund Frost and wrote of the visit in his journal, August 23, 1660, "In ye evening wee vissited Elder Frost, who rec'd us with great kindness and love, esteeming it a favour yt we would come into ye mean habitation, assured us of his fervent prayers to ye Lord for us; a glorious saint makes a mean cottage a stately palace; were I to make my choice, I would rather abide with ye saint in his poor cottage than with any of ye princes I know of at ye day ye world."

His first wife, Thomasine, died in Cambridge shortly after 1647, and he married his second wife, Mary about 1652. Mary died in 1653, probably in child-birth. He then married a third wife, Reana in 1669, widow of Robert Daniel, he being her fourth husband. Reana survived Edmond and died in 1676. Elder Edmund Frost died testate on 12 July 1672 leaving an estate of L118.15.10 of which his sons John, Samuel, Joseph and Ephraim were appointed executors. Among his various bequests was one of forty shillings to Harvard College.

Rev. Thomas Shepard, in his autobiography, called Edmund "my most dear brother Frost." The revered Elder died July 12, 1672, and his will was signed with his written signature and named his children, all but the first born in Cambridge. To his wife Reana, he left the use of his land and 20 shillings a year during her lifetime, to be paid in corn or cattle by sons Ephraim and Thomas; also 20 shillings a year to be paid by son John. There were other cash bequests and the dwelling was left to Ephraim and Thomas.

Edmund Frost had nine children, eight by his first wife Thomasine, and the youngest, Sarah, by his second wife, Mary.

They were:
1 John, b. about 1632, in England.
2 Thomas, b. March, 1637, d. 1639
3 Samuel, b. February, 1639
4 Joseph, b. Jan. 13, 1640.
5 James, b. Apr. 9, 1643
6 Mary, b. July 24, 1645
7 Ephraim, b. 1646, or later
8 Thomas, b. 1647, or later
9 Sarah, b. 1653

First Blood of the Revolutionary War
As one hundred and seventy of the name of Frost enlisted first and last, it is fair to assume that an equal number whose mothers were daughters of Frosts also engaged in the struggle for liberty. When it is considered that Massachusetts (including Maine) furnished this number, and other New England states probably supplied an equal proportion by the name of Frost, or of Frost blood, it will be seen that we may well be proud of the Revolutionary record of the Frosts.

On the night of March 13, 1775, there was a clash between the citizens of Westminster, Vt., and the civil officers of the Crown, the former having taken possession of the Courthouse. The sheriff’s posse fired upon them and some twenty were wounded; two of them, William French and Daniel Houghton, fatally. The tragedy is of interest to us, from the fact that the mother of William French was Elizabeth, daughter of William Frost, who was a grandson of James, son of Elder Edmund Frost, of Cambridge Mass.

The following is the inscription of the monument to William French in Westminster, Vt.

IN MEMORY OF WILLIAM FRENCH
SON OF MR. NATHANIEL FRENCH
WHO WAS SHOT AT WESTMINSTER
MARCH YE 13TH 1775 BY THE HANDS
OF CRUEL MINISTERIAL TOOLS OF
GEORGE YE 3D IN THE COURTHOUSE
AT A 11 A’CLOCK AT NIGHT IN THE
22D YEAR OF HIS AGE

Here WIlliam French his Body lies.
For Murder his Blood for Vengeance cries.
King George the third, his Tory crew,
tha with a bawl his head Shot threw.
For Liberty and his Country’s Good,
he Lost his Life his Dearest blood.

This is generally considered to have been “the first blood in the Revolution”; but in fact there was an affray between the citizens of Salem and a detachment of British soldiers, on Sunday, Feb. 26, 1775, in which one man was bayoneted but not fatally; so that the first man who actually laid down his life, was of the Frost blood. As is to be expected, the Frost name appears on the roster of every American war that has been fought since that of King Philip in the seventeenth century. In the Civil War both the Blue and the Grey were worn by men of the name and blood.

Samuell Frost, Sr is the next ancestor in our lineage.