Jonas Pinsent: 1637 – xxxx DRO0115
Agnes/Anna Wills: xxxx – xxxx
Married: xxxx: xxxx, xxxx
Children by Agnes/Anna Wills:
Elizabeth Pinsent: 1660 – xxxx
Anna Pinsent: 1662 – xxxx
Jonas Pinsent: 1663 – xxxx
Edward Pinsent: 1664 – xxxx
Amy Pinsent: 1666 – xxxx
Family Branch: Combe
PinsentID: DRO0115
Jonas was the eldest son of the Reverend Edward Pinsent by his wife, Amy Bennett. He was born in Chudleigh but grew up in Loddiswell, where his father was the vicar, with four brothers and two sisters.
When Jonas’s father married in 1634, his father, (another Jonas) arrange for a settlement by which he, Edward, would acquired a property on a “street leading into Market Street” in Plymouth, a house in St. Sidwell’s Parish in Exeter, and a house called “Hill End” in Bovey Tracey. What Edward did with them, I am not sure; however, he may have given the St. Sidwell parish house to his son Jonas who, some years later, turns up in Exeter.
Our Jonas married a girl called Agnes (or “Anna”) Wills in Exeter the late 1650s, or early 1660s. The lady in question is referred to as “Agnes” in some documents and as “Anna” in others – which complicates matters. I have yet to find their marriage record. The couple are known to have had five children, two boys (Jonas and Edward) and three girls (Elizabeth, Anne and Amy) who were all baptized in St. Edmund’s Parish Church.
A Chancery Court deposition shows that Jonas Pinsent “of the City of Exon” acquired a lease on three houses on the Exe Bridge, in St. Edmund’s Parish, from Christopher Lethbridge in around 1658 or 1659. However, he then found that there were other claimants including John Hornabrook – who said that they had taken a lease from an earlier leaseholder and the tenements belonged to them! The issue made its way to the Court of Chancery where, in 1665, Jonas pleaded for the Court to appointment Commissioners to come and take oaths (C6/578/155). Presumably he won his case as they were still living in St. Edmund’s parish in 1660. The couple paid 8/6d for their Exeter Poll Tax that year and they paid for four hearths when the taxman called for the Heath Tax in 1671.
In 1660, Ambrose Wills, rather belatedly one might have thought, sued Jonas – sometime around the time he married – claiming that the land his brothers had sold to Jonas’s grandfather (yet another Jonas) in 1630 had been entailed, and that they had had no right to sell it as it prejudiced his right to it by descent. Ambrose had disputed the validity of the original sale and had refused to sign the original transfer documents. He disputed Jonas’ ownership of the property. Note that the depositions in this case clearly refer to Jonas as being the grandson of the original purchaser. However, Jonas had three grandsons of that name, (Jonas the son of Jonas, born around 1645; Jonas the son of Edward, born in 1637, and Jonas the son of Ellis, born in 1657) and it is NOT entirely clear which is being referred to.
However, when the first named (Jonas son of Jonas) listed his properties in a case he brought against John Battishill in 1693 (C5/106/53 – see elsewhere) he makes no mention of the Will’s tenement. The second Jonas is a more likely candidate as he better fits the description of being “of the City of Exeter, gent.” The third grandson Jonas also came from Exeter; however, he could only have been sued through trustees as he would only have been three years old in 1660 (see elsewhere). He would never have been referred to as “gent.” and is very unlikely. Instead, I think the land must have passed down to the second Jonas through his father, Edward. Regarding the Court Case, Jonas, predictably, asked the Court of Chancery for a subpoena to force Ambrose and his wife to appear and justify their claim to what he still considered to be his property (C8/316/116; C5/538/98).
Jonas was involved in another Chancery case (C10/472/151) in 1668. It was over the marriage settlement that he (or his father) had negotiated with his father-in-law, John Wills. Evidently, John had agreed to transfer half of his household goods, messuages and tenements in Exeter, Bovey Tracey and Plymouth to his daughter and son-in-law after their marriage, but had failed to do so, and he was said to have sold some of his assets. This spat may be related to the other squabble the Pinsents had with the Wills family. “Anna” Pinsent, Jonas’s wife, was a legatee in the will of William Wills of Exminster and she accused his executor, another William Wills, of “subtraction of legacy” – by withholding some of her share, in 1665. The case, which was brought before the Ecclesiastical Court, is mentioned by Olive Moger in one of her Dean and Chapter Abstracts (Series I: #101).
Jonas Pinsent of Exeter probably died around 1675 as that was the year his executors applied to the Archdeaconry Court in Exeter for Letters of Administration for his estate. He left his widow with a young family but there is nothing to suggest that she remarried. Agnes seems to have stayed on in the family home in St. Edmunds parish. She signed an indenture with Philip Tamblyn, a felt maker, in 1698, concerning two messuages (houses) “on the bridge of Exeter, in the Parish of St. Edmund, now in the possession of Agnes Pinsent but previously held by Edward Varley.”
The Poor Rate records for 1699 refer to “Widdow Pinsent or the Occupier of her house, 3d,” so Agnes may have died the following year. Interestingly, or perhaps disturbingly, I have not been able to identify any of her five children. What happened to them is, as yet, not yet known.
Family Tree
Grandparents
Grandfather: Jonas Pinsent: 1575 – 1637
Grandmother: Elizabeth Unknown: xxxx – xxxx
Parents
Father: Edward Pinsent: 1611 – 1652
Mother: Amy Bennett: xxxx – xxxx
Father’s Siblings (Aunts, Uncles)
Jonas Pinsent: 1609 – 1658
Edward Pinsent: 1611 – 1652
Amy Pinsent: 1613 – 1615
Thomas Pinsent: 1615 – 1690
Elizabeth Pinsent: 1616 – 1693
Ellis Pinsent: 1619 – 1681
John Pinsent: 1622 – 1648
Johanna Pinsent: xxxx – xxxx
Male Siblings (Brothers)
Jonas Pinsent: 1637 – xxxx
Edward Pinsent: 1640 – xxxx
Thomas Pinsent: 1643 – xxxx
John Pinsent: 1646 – 1705
Ellis Pinsent: 1648 – 1672
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