Rev. Robert Jordan

The Rev. Robert Jordan, a priest of the church of England, came to Richmond's Island in Maine about the year 1640. Jordan probably divided Sunday ministrations between the Spurwink and Casco settlements and Saco.

"By his marriage with Sarah Winter, Mr. Jordan became one of the great land-proprietors and wealthy men of that region; 'a source of influence,' says a writer, 'which he failed not to exert in favor of his church and politics.'

"The writer of an article in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. xiii. p. 221, says of Mr. Robert Jordan:

'This gentleman and Rev. Richard Gibson were the pioneers of Episcopacy in Maine. Mr. Gibson left the country about the year 1642, but Jordan remained at the post of duty, and never relinquished his stand as a churchman or his professional character.'

Rev. Robert Jordan was born in 1611 in England and died in 1679. His estate was probated on 1 July 1679 at Portsmouth, Rockingham, NH.

Parents: son of Edward Jordan of Worcester and (?) Broughton.

Married:

1. Sarah Winter, daughter of John Winter, circa January 1644 at Richmond's Islan, d Portland, ME; Cape Elizabeth ME / Portsmouth NH.

Children of Rev. Robert Jordan and Sarah Winter:

1. John Jordan
2. Robert Jordan
3. Jedediah Jordan ( - 1735)
4. Samuel Jordan (c 1660 - 1720)
5. Jeremiah Jordan (c 1663 - 1729)
6. Dominicus Jordan+ (before 1664 ?1654 - 10 Aug 1703)

More facts

Rev. Robert Jordan was educated 15 June, 1632. He immigrated. He immigrated in 1639 to England. He lived in 1640 at Brunshick, ME. He was a founder in 1641 at Spurwick, Falmouth, ME. He was resident in 1641 at Richmond's Islan, d Portland, ME.

Notes

Owing to his religious affinities and associations, Mr. Jordan was an object of suspicion and hostility to the Puritan government of Massachusetts, who forbade him to marry or baptize. He paid no attention to this order, and, continuing to discharge the duties of his office, the General Court of Massachusetts ordered his arrest and imprisonment in Boston jail. This occurred twice, namely, in 1654 and in 1663.

"After his house in Spurwink was destroyed by Indians in King Philip's War, Jordan removed to Great Island (now Newcastle). He died in 1679 at Portsmouth, New Hampshire."

From Descendants of Robert JORDAN of Cape Elizabeth, Maine:

"In 1648 Rev. Robert Jordan, by a court decision in a suit of somewhat dubious morality, gained title to all the land, contained with the boundaries of the present town of Cape Elizabeth and the city of South Portland. The decision was confirmed by the court of Massachusets, Bay in 1658. Thin great tract had been granted by the Plymouth Company to Mr. Robert Trelawny and Mr. Moses Goodyear, two merchants, of Plymouth England, in 1631. After Goodyear's death in 1637 it vested entirely in Mr.Trelawny who had sent John Winter to Maine as the manager of his plantation.

"Rev. Robert Jordan married Sarah, the only child of Winter who remained with her parents in this country.

" The advent of the Commonwealth was disasterous to Mr. Trelawny, a staunch Royalist. He died in prison in 1644 and winter, in Maine, survived him only about a year. In 1648 Mr. Jordan, basing his claim on the unpaid salary of his father-in-law, demanded and obtained title to the entire patent in payment thereof, to the exclusion not only of the Trewawny heirs but Of the English heirs of Winter. Jordan's title, twice, questioned by Trelawny’s descendants, has always been sustained."

education and ancestry

From http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2008-03/...

Noyes-Libby-Davis, in their _Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire_, have this to say about the immigrant Rev. Robert Jordan of Maine:

[JORDAN,] REV. ROBERT, Spurwink, prob. that s. of Edward of Worcester,
co. Worc., 'pleb.' enrolled at Balliol Col., Oxford, 15 June 1632. The will of Edward of Worc., bookseller, 1 June--2 Aug. 1637, left to s. Robert L35 to be added to his gr. fa.'s former legacy of L15, both to be pd. within one month of his decease. The fa.'s death may expl. his leaving Oxford instead of taking an A.M., getting a parish and remaining in Eng. The mother's fa. was Foulke Broughton, gent., of Worc. Feeble investig. to confirm this ancestry has failed, but the fact that on 24 Dec. 1661 the Maine Rev. R. J. was app. adm. on the est. of Richard Leader(2) ag. which Mr. Thos. Broughton (4) had a claim (Doc. His. iv. 12-3, 70-1) may lead to proof that he was the Oxford student, related to Mr. Thomas Purchase, not thru the latter's w., as Col. Banks suggests, but thru the Broughtons. Purchase was a native of Dorchester, co. Dorset, and appar. F. Broughton's sons liv. there and in London. Over here in 1639, in 1640 Jordan was in Brunswick with Mr. Purchase, the Pejepscot patentee, and a yr. later was still lookiing for a position. He attended the first ct. to be held and was a referee in an important case. Within 3 months of coming to Richmond Isl. as chaplain of the Trelawny plantation, he was acting as its lawyer in ct. Also Cleeve's repeated statements that leading men in Saco and Casco Bay were taking legal advice from him indic. that bef. leav. Oxford his ambitions had switched from the priesthood to the Inns of Ct. His pleadings and other legal papers drafted by him confirm this, yet he usually lost his cases. ...

Concerning Rev. Robert Jordan's supposed grandfather, Foulke Broughton, I find the following records in the extracted IGI:

Saint Helen, Worcester, co. Worcester

• --Elizabeth Browghton, daughter of Fowlk, bapt. 12 July 1584
• --Andrewe Broughton, son of Fowlk, bapt. 21 Aug. 1586
• --Johan Broughton, daughter of Fowlk, bapt. 10 Dec. 1587

The extracted IGI records of St. Swithin, Worcester, show the 1608 marriage of Edward "Jorden" and Elizabeth Broughton, and the 1611 baptism of their son Robert Jordan (Edward's son Fowlke Jorden was also baptised there in Jan. 1609).  

Links

• http://www.newenglandancestors.org/research/Database/genealogies/jo...
• http://www.familyjordan.com/
• http://members.fortunecity.com/dickcoveney/p41.htm

Sources

• The Jordan Memorial: Family Records of Rev. Robert Jordan, and His Descendants in America (1882) (Online database: NewEnglandAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2003), (Orig. Pub. Boston, David Clapp & Sons. Tristram Frost Jordan, The Jordan Memorial: Family Records of Rev. Robert Jordan, and His Descendants in America, 1882)

Old Notes

Reverend Robert Jordan was Clergyman of the Church of England from Dorester or Devonshire, England, came to Richmond and took a Church about 1639

1. Jordan Memorial p. 71, 42, 64, 73, 75

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Born in England, Jordan arrived in the colonies as a minister, married the sole heir of a rich man, left the ministry when his father-in-law died, and disposed of his wife's property when he died.

http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/1021625/person/36856494/mediax/1?pgn...