Basement · Disputed
Disputed. Deborah is a proven ancestor whose maiden name is unknown; the Pokanoket parentage claimed for her has no record behind it.
The Deborah Crowell Question
A proven ancestor, an unproven parentage
Who she was
Deborah (c. 1663 – 1722, Yarmouth), wife of Thomas Crowell of Yarmouth, is a proven ancestor of the Long brothers, through her son Seth Crowell. The Yarmouth register of 1702 names her as the mother of ten children, born between 1685 and 1700, and gives her only as “deborah : crow.”[1] Her maiden name is unknown; Charles Banks, the historian of Martha’s Vineyard, leaves it blank.[2] Her birth is placed about 1663 from her children’s births; some compilers give about 1652, which would put her last child at about 48. FamilySearch’s tree gives her death as 22 April 1722; no record yet read gives her age.[3]
The Folland claim, and why it is not proven
FamilySearch’s tree makes Deborah a daughter of Thomas Folland Sr. of Yarmouth. No record supports it. His will of 1 October 1686 leaves a rug “to daughter Deborah Folland,” still unmarried, while it names his married daughters by their husbands; Thomas and Deborah Crowell’s first child was born on 19 August 1685, so the two cannot be the same woman.[4][1]A 1721 will of Thomas Folland’s son calls “Deborah Crowell” his cousin, which suggests she was a Folland relative, perhaps a niece; this does not establish her maiden name.[5]
The Pokanoket claim, and why it is unsupported
Online family trees make Deborah a daughter of the Pokanoket sachem Wamsutta and of Weetamoo, sachem of the Pocasset, and call her Deborah Luce or Deborah Pokanoket. The claim is unsupported:
- No record names Deborah’s parents.[1][2]
- The trees that make her a daughter of Wamsutta and Weetamoo cite no sources.
- They list Metacom(King Philip) as her brother, although Metacom was Wamsutta’s brother.
- They give her a sibling named “Laughing Water,” a name taken from Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha (1855).[6]
The Quanset lead
A 1715 estate record of Thomas Quanset, “Indian,” of Harwich is described as mentioning a “Mary Crow,” also called Indian; the archive has not yet read the record itself.[7]She is unlikely to be Thomas and Deborah’s daughter Mary Crowell, born 2 December 1688, who married Nathan Bassett on 7 March 1708/09 and was a Bassett by 1715.[1][8] Status: unresolved, and probably a different woman.
What the archive does and does not say
The archive makes no claim of tribal ancestry for Deborah or her descendants. Wampanoag history belongs to the Wampanoag Nation, today the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), and is theirs to tell.
Notes
- Yarmouth town records, “A regester of the names and bearthes of ye children of Tho[mas] and deborah : crow,” 21 May 1702, printed in The Mayflower Descendant 9 (1907): 252–53. archive.org
- Charles Edward Banks, The History of Martha's Vineyard, Dukes County, Massachusetts, vol. 3, Family Genealogies (Boston: George H. Dean, 1925), 156: Elisha Crowell, “son of Thomas and Deborah (———) Crowell of Yarmouth.”
- “Deborah (L64R-29B),” FamilySearch Family Tree, read 18 October 2026: death 22 April 1722, Yarmouth; no death record attached gives her age. familysearch.org
- Will of Thomas Folland Sr. of Yarmouth, 1 October 1686, proved 31 May 1687, Barnstable County Probate Records, vol. 1, 5–6, abstracted in “Abstracts of the Barnstable County, Mass., Probate Records,” The Mayflower Descendant 3 (1901): 176. archive.org
- Will of Thomas Folland Jr. of Yarmouth, 23 November 1721, proved 18 January 1721/2, Barnstable County Probate Records, vol. 4, 36–38, as abstracted on WikiTree (Folland-7); partly quoted in MacLean W. McLean, “John and Mary (Folland) Whelden of Yarmouth, Mass.,” The American Genealogist 48 (1972): 4–7. The will itself has not yet been read for the archive.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1855): “Minnehaha, Laughing Water.”
- Melissa Davenport Berry, “Crowell Family and Mayflower Lines (part 1),” GenealogyBank blog, 10 March 2026, describing the estate of Thomas Quanset of Harwich, 1715, in the Barnstable County probate records (FamilySearch image 3:1:3Q9M-C9YB-N9MT, not yet read for the archive). genealogybank.com
- Amos Otis, Genealogical Notes of Barnstable Families, rev. C. F. Swift, vol. 1 (Barnstable, MA: F. B. & F. P. Goss, 1888), 50. archive.org