Ann Sylvester Bowers 1669-1745 Great times 6 grandmother

(Note, my grandchildren are generation 1) in the numbering system in this post, so higher numbers are further back in history. Thanks to the comment below, I need to clarify that the Great times 6 is not using my children or grandchildren's generations at all. It is starting with me and not having any "great" until we go up to the 4th generation before mine.)

Ann Sylvester Bowers was a link between two well-to-do families, the Sylvesters of Shelter Island (at the tip of Long Island NY), and her husband, Jonathan Bowers, whose father became a Quaker in Cambridge MA.

Jonathan and Ann Bowers settled in Swansea, Bristol County, MA.  They also lived in Somerset, MA - probably the same area which changed names as they lived there.

I've honored her life before on blogs. I"ll patch some of them here for a summary. First, going back as far as I can, to a pinnacle person who I know no more about.  (Sometimes known as a brick wall, but sometimes more information can come along, and bing bang, there's someone from further back in history.)

While these women were pinnacles on my tree, they also appear as brick walls, and so I'm adding them to my 52 Ancestors, 52 weeks post for this week, sharing them at Generations Cafe on FaceBook, with this week's topic "The Brick Wall".  (This is a closed group, so check with Amy Johnson Crow.)

Two more matriarchs from 16th Century (edited repost from March 16, 2015) 

10) Ann Sylvester Bowers is daughter of 11) Grissell Brinley Sylvester and 11) Nathaniel Gascoigne Sylvester Capt.

11) Grissell Brinley Sylvester's parents were 12) Thomas Reeves Brinley, (born 1591 in Exeter, Devon, England died 15 Oct 1661 in Datchett, Buckinghamshire, England) and 12) Anna Wase Brinley (b. 1606 in Petworth, Sussex, England, d. 13 Jun 1687 in Datchet, Buckinghamshire, England).  

12) Thomas Reeves Brinley is well documented as the "Auditor General of the Revenues of King Charles I and II."  He left England during the English Civil War by Cromwell, and returned to his post for King Charles II but died a year later.

12) Anna Wase Brinley had 8 children, and also went with her husband when the revolution of Cromwell made Royalists unpopular, and lived into her 80s probably back in her home of Datchet.

Her parents were 13) William Wase (b. May 1580 in Petworth, Sussex, England, d. 19 September 1642 in Datchet, Buckinghamshire, England) and 13) Ann Cole Wase (b. 1582 as recorded in St. Leonard, Heston, London, Middlesex, England, death unknown.)  Apparently she married 13) William Wase when she was 16 in Petworth, Sussex, England.  There is no other information on her at Ancestry at this time.  But she is one of  the earliest matriarchs that I'll be mentioning today (a pinnacle ancestor.)

12) Thomas Reeves Brinley's mother was 13) Joanne Reeves (his middle name from her) (b. 1567 in Exeter, Devon, England, Death in (?) Exeter, Devon, England.) She's my other pinnacle ancestor.

An illustration of Exeter in 1563, entitled Civitas Exoniae (vulgo Excester) urbs primaria in comitatu Devoniae

Exeter has a wonderful history, dating from Roman times and before...and I can't begin to explore all that is in this town.  The map above would have been how it looked during Joanne Reeves lifetime.   

Exeter Cathedral, completed 1400

Looking back to the Sylvesters of Shelter Island, I just want to show their connection to my family.  Their daughter 10) Ann Sylvester married 10) Capt. Jonathan Bowers in 1695.

Their daughter, 9) Mary Bowers married 9) Joseph Swasey, my grandmother's great great something grandparent. (Grandmother was Ada Swasey Rogers.)

And...

The Family Bowers (repost from 2018):

to be posted tomorrow...