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Hello Porter researchers,
I am a researcher and descendant of Matthew Stanley (1629?-1686) who was an early immigrant to Massachusetts (1646?) He may be related to the Matthew Standley who was a servant to Edmund Chapman, Esq. of Middlesex in 1640. That Edmund Chapman seems to have a connection to John Porter, cousin of Thomasd Brett, who is Edmund Chapman's father-in-law.
I have discovered a cache of documents on Edmund Chapman, Esq., whose servant was a Matthew Stanley in 1640. They are summarized on the British National Archives website: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/s/res?_q=%22Edmun...
Short title: Chapman v Porter.
Plaintiffs: Edmund Chapman and Anne Chapman his wife, daughter of Thomas Brett.
Defendants: John Porter, Edward Emerie and Thomas Emerie.
Subject: messuages and lands in Little Baddow, Essex, late of Thomas Brett.
Document type: [pleadings].
Date: 1603-1625 Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Of particular interest is this archival record, involving the lawsuit against John Porter, over lands held in Little Baddow, Essex England. I have ordered a digital copy of that one. Others may shed some more light on Chapman's life and whereabouts and by inference that of his servant Matthew Standley (who would be of the age of our Matthew's father.)
I am still very perplexed, if this aforementioned John Porter is the immigrant John Porter or his son, John, of Salem MA and the same John Porter, Sr. of the 1669 deposition:
1669. Deposition of Matthew Standley, "in the year 49 John Porter Senir tould me that his Sonn John was gone for Eng- land and that he had given him 40 or 50 £ then saith the above sayd deponent did you give him this to improve for himself e or for you. To the which the above sayd John Porter Seinor answered, it is for his portion, he stands or falls to himself e either losse or gaine. " Sworn in Court held at Ipswich 30 Mar 1669.
This 1669 deposition has to be the John Porter of Salem (said by most records to have been from Dorsetshire) , not the other, older, John Porter of Windsor Connecticut. But it is the John Porter of Windsor (who died in 1648) that is said to have hailed from Feldsted, Essex and married in Little Baddow Essex, England. As far as I can tell John Porter of Windsor would have never had an encounter with our Matthew of Topsfield.
So, what gives here? Have the Porter ancestral records gotten the two John Porters' ancestral homes mixed up? Is this Little Baddow connection with Edmund Chapman and his father-in-law Thomas Brett (who calls Edmund Chapman his son-in-law and John Porter "cousin," in his will) just a devilish coincidence?
Thanks for any help in sorting this out.
Stephen Stanley srstanley@cox.net