Can you imagine making the decision to leave 200 years of heritage, family, friends, and property to sail halfway around the known world for an idea — an idea of religious freedom? And to take that risk with a young wife and an 8-week-old son.
We can trace our family lineage in England back to the year 1440. Simon was the 6th generation from John Crosby, who was born in that year. The Crosbys were generally landowners and lived in County York, in the northern part of England.
They lived around Holme on Spalding Moor, a land of rolling low-land marshes and slightly higher, drier ground. The low lands have been drained, and today are mostly farmland.
England during the 1600s was undergoing a cultural revolution. Religious freedom was under attack by the crown kings of England.
The Crosbys most likely worshipped in All Saints Church, which is still in existence. The church stood on ground about 150 feet higher than the surrounding ground, and gave a grand view of the surrounding area.
There were several fire-brand preachers who advocated emigrating to America. Apparently, the Crosbys became a part of that movement.
Simon, along with his wife Anne and infant son Thomas, sailed from London on April 18, 1635, on the ship Susan & Ellen. They crossed the perilous Atlantic to start over in the New World, and arrived at the Bay Colony in July 1635, at the current location of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Prosperous landowners such as the Crosbys fled England to seek a better life. This better life was not for economic reasons, but for reasons of personal liberty.
Although Simon Crosby was the first Crosby to emigrate to America, the story is not complete without his father. Thomas Crosby emigrated 3 years after his son. The wealth that allowed Simon to emigrate, and to secure his new home, was bestowed by his father. We have Simon’s signature on a document dated March 24, 1633/34, co-signed with Thomas.
Simon and his young family had land and acreage in what is now Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the current location of Brattle Square and Brattle Street. They had a house and land already under cultivation by the previous owner, who was in the process of moving.
Even though Simon lived only another 4 years, he quickly became a leader in his community.
He and Anne had 3 sons — Thomas, Simon Jr., and Joseph — from whom we have all descended.
Anne remained single and raised her three sons. In 1645 she married Rev. William Tompson and moved to Braintree, Massachusetts. She died on October 8, 1675, at age 69, and is buried at Hancock Cemetery in Quincy, Massachusetts. Her gravestone reads Anne Brigham Crosby Tompson.
This is the history of Simon and Anne — and it is also our history.
Later places
The descendants of Simon Crosby have spread far and wide across America. The homepage calls them thousands, scattered all across the country. The family moved west through a series of stopping points: places where families gathered, burial grounds, and family enterprises. Later place stories on this site include Montana (Toluca, George Francis Crosby) and Cuba (Bartle). Floyd Wallace and Charlotte Crosby wandered all over the country and even into Cuba. Their stops, as the family pages name them, include Sheffield, Alabama; Zion, Illinois; Toluca, Montana; Ashtabula County, Ohio; Dickson, Tennessee; South Wayne, Wisconsin; and Bartle, Cuba.
This site is stories and documents, not only charts. The story is more than the surname Crosby. Later pages also follow Caspers and Day. Larry’s whole tree is on RootsMagic.
Who kept the story
More of that account, and the photographs, are on the About page.
The work was done by family and by professional researchers. Early researchers had no internet and no software. They relied on memory, and on mail.
In June 1968, Bertha (Bert) Charlotte Crosby (1893–1978), Lula Crosby Keyes (1939–), and Fannie Crosby McCleskey (1890–1988) published Ancestors and Descendants of Floyd W. and Charlotte P. Crosby. Bert and Fannie were sisters, both born in Dickson, Tennessee. Lois Louise Crosby (1908–2004) wrote History of George Francis Crosby.
Larry Allen Crosby (1943–), 9th great-grandson of Simon Crosby, and his wife Carol Kay Crosby (1942–) took that 1968 book up again after Larry retired in 1999. In 2000 they made a 30-day trip around the United States to visit Crosby families, cemeteries, and research libraries, and then spent two years working with relatives. They expanded the work of Aunt Bert and Lula, and they built this website so the stories would be easy to find.
Larry Allen Crosby and Carol Kay Crosby, for the Crosby family. May 2018.