The Bancroft Men

The Bancroft name is a very prominent name in the history of the town. The Bancroft family was one of the original families that helped to form Worcester South Parish which is what Auburn was called in the beginning. Bancroft family names included in the General Court order that allowed for the forming of the South Parish of Worcester were William, Pheobe, Daniel, Jonas, and David. 

In the “American Guide Series Auburn 1837-1937” book, other Bancroft names appear and are given credit for serving in the Revolutionary War. James and Jonas were sergeants, William was a corporal, Jonas Jr., Rahan, and Benjamin were privates. It is not known how these people are related or even if these names are related to each other due to the naming pattern that was followed in this time period and a lack of data.

David Eaton Bancroft was born in 1718 in Reading.  His first wife Eunice was born in 1719 in Lynn. She died in 1777. Their children were Nathaniel, Timothy, Jonas, Jonathan, Ebenezer, and Mary. Timothy was the great-grandfather to Enoch who married Julia F. Knowles, a.k.a. Julia Bancroft. David Bancroft was a representative to the Worcester Provincial Congress and General Assembly in July of 1775.  He served as a moderator at the first meeting for South Parish of Worcester in 1773. David also served on many town committees from 1773 -1785: finding the preacher, overseer of the treasurer, committee to incorporate, leather sealer, moderator, church construction, school committee to name a few. David moved to Worcester sometime before his son, Jonas, was born in 1745. It is likely the family lived around the Pakachoag Hill area that was incorporated into the South Parish of Worcester in 1773.

Jonas did his part in the Revolutionary War as a Fourth Sergeant in Capt. John Crowl’s company of Colonel Ebenezer Learned’s regiment out of Oxford, which marched on the alarm of April 19, 1775. He served eight days according to “Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors who served in the Revolutionary War.” Jonas married Sarah Blood of Hollis, New Hampshire in 1769. They had two children, Jonas II, and John. Jonas also served in the town government and was listed as “Major” Jonas Bancroft in the town minutes of the first meeting of the “Town of Ward” in 1778. 

The Massachusetts colonial town of Ward was incorporated in 1778 and named in honor of Revolutionary War Major General  Artemus Ward. The land that became the town of Ward was previously part of the outlying areas of Worcester, Leicester, Sutton, and Oxford.  Due to the similarity in spelling to nearby “Ware” the town was renamed as Auburn in 1837 at the request of the Post Office. 

Jonas  Bancroft was appointed as the fence viewer and in 1782 he was appointed as a hogreevers for Ward.

According to a news article dated March of 1817, Jonas’s farm was in the southerly part of Ward and was about ninety-five acres of pasture and wood lots. The farm was sold by Jonas Jr. for a down payment of $600 and the rest on credit. It was offered as a whole package or could be broken down into house lots. 

A Daniel Bancroft was listed on the first warrant for the South Parish of Worcester on July 6, 1773, and on the committee July 27. On August 27 he was moderator for the first parish meeting. There was no Daniel Bancroft in the vital records listing or in the burial grounds.

“The American Guide Series Auburn 1837 – 1937” states that William Bancroft was credited to Ward and was listed as a Corporal, in Captain John Crowl’s company in the Colonel Ebenezer Learned’s regiment of Oxford which marched on the alarm of April 19, 1775, and served 12 days. No record of this service was listed in the “Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors who served in the Revolutionary War.”  William served the town of Ward from 1778 – 1782 as sealer of lumber, on the school squadron for second district, field driver, fence viewer, warden and a bondsman for Benjamin Carter Jr., who didn’t pay his taxes in 1785. Lastly, he was a highway supervisor in 1782. In the birth vital records of Auburn there was a William married to Mary, and they had a child Phebe in November of 1782. 

James Bancroft was also listed in the same book and was a Fourth Sergeant in the same company as William, but again no listing in the “Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors who served in the Revolutionary War.”

As for Phoebe Bancroft being listed as one of the original families, women’s information in this era is very scarce. No Phoebe was listed as married to any of the men coming from Worcester. It could be that she was a widow and was living on land that was being included in the South Parish of Worcester. 

Bancroft Street runs between Pakachoag Street and Millbury Street, which might have been where the Bancroft clan had lived in the 1770s. The Bancroft name has served the town greatly through the years and rightly deserves to have a street named after them.

This article is made possible by the Auburn Historical Society & Museum, 41 South Street. The museum is open Tuesday and Saturday mornings 9:30-12:30 and may be reached at [email protected] or 508-832-6856. Visit  auburnhistoricalmuseum. org or follow us on Facebook at Auburn Historical.                      

Submitted by Helen Poirier of the Auburn Historical Society