11. TRIPP-MOYSES

Bray Tree

JOHN TRIPP and ISABEL/ELIZABETH MOYSES (11)

 

JOHN TRIPP. We have traced our Tripp ancestry back to the marriage of Francis Tripp to Jane Foster in the Lincolnshire village of Horkstow in 1653. The evidence points to this being the second marriage of a 60-year-old widower, whose first wife had died two years previously.

There are two baptisms for Francis Tripp which would fit this, but one of these boys died aged 12. This makes his baptism the following.

Baptism. St Maurice, Horkstow.
1614/5 Feb 10  Francis the sonne of John Tripp

The christening register at that time does not name the mother, but the marriage register tells us that John Tripp married Elizabeth Moyses in 1609. This gives an expected birth date for John of around 1584. This is in line with the following baptism.

Baptism. Horkstow.
1586 May 27  John Trip

The register does not name either parent. For this we are indebted to a memoir written by John’s eldest son. He names his grandparents as John Tripp and his second wife Ellys.

 

ISABEL/ELIZABETH MOYSES. Their eldest son John was taken to America by his apprentice master. There he wrote an account of his English origins. He says that his mother was Isabel Moses. She appears in the Horkstow marriage register as Elizabeth Moyses. The names Isabel and Elizabeth were used interchangeably then.

This leads to the following baptism:

Baptism. St Maurice, Horkstow.
1584/5 Mar 20  Isabell ye daughter of Nicholas Moyses.

Isabel was the second child of a family which may have numbered between two and four.

We do not know her mother’s name for certain, but she was likely the Elizabeth Moyses who was buried in Horkstow in 1587, when Isabel was twelve.

Her father was a labourer.

The village of Horkstow stands on the Wold escarpment facing west over the Ancholme valley. Its fertile chalk soils favour arable farming, though the heavy clay in the valley is less suitable.

John and Isabel were still infants when the Spanish Armada attempted to invade England in 1588, following the execution of Queen Elizabeth’s rival Mary Queen of Scots.

The couple married in 1609, after James I succeded to the throne.

Marriage. St Maurice, Horkstow
1609 Jul 30  John Tripp and Elizabeth Moyses

They had the following children.

Baptisms. St Maurice, Horkstow
1611 Sep 8  John
1613/4 Jan 27  Grace and Robert. The twins lived less than a month. Grace was buried on 7 Feb and Robert on Feb 10. Twins were often born prematurely with a low birth weight. In the absence of modern health care they could struggle to survive.
1614/5 Feb 10  Francis
1616 Dec 15 Elizabeth
1618/9 Mar 20  Dorothie, Dorothie was buried on 19 Aug 1624, aged five.
1621 Jul 7  Anne. She too died young. She was buried on 22 Feb 1626/7 also aged five.
1625 May 8  Robert
1629 Sep 20  Bridgett. Hers was yet another early death. She was buried on 14 Feb 1629/30, aged four months.

Only John, Francis, Elizabeth and the second Robert survived. A high infant mortality rate is often a sign of poverty. The fact that most of those who died were girls may mean that, when food was short, the boys were given priority.

 

John senior was about 56 when he died.

Burial. St Maurice, Horkstow.
1636 May 15  John Tripp

He died too early to see the Civil War of the 1640s. This area south of the Humber was largely untouched by it.

Isabel’s remaining daughter died in 1649.

Burial. St Maurice, Horkstow.
1648 Jul 19  Elizabeth daughter of Isabel Tripp widdow

She was aged 31 and unmarried.

Isabel outlived John by 18 years. She lived on into the Commonwealth period of the 1650s under Oliver Cromwell. The family were probably always poor, but as a widow, Isabel found it particularly hard to support herself. She would almost certainly have received assistance from the Poor Rate.

Burial. St Maurice, Horkstow.
1654 Nov 4  Isabel Trippe a poore widdow

 

[1] North Lincolnshire Council