Jonas Pinsent: 1645 – xxxx DRO0110
1) Mary Whittyer: xxxx – 1689
Married: 1688: Exeter, Devon
2) Phillipa Weekes: xxxx – 1726
Married: 1690: Exeter, Devon
Family Branch: Combe
PinsentID: DRO0110
Jonas Pinsent is inferred to be one of the (at least) two sons of Jonas Pinsent of Bovey Tracey by his second wife, Grace (née Langdon). I have yet to find his baptismal record and I know very little about his early life, However, he was probably born in around 1645. There was a Jonas baptized in Bovey Tracey in 1650, however, the parish register clearly shows that his father was John. Perhaps this is a mistake. Documentary evidence shows that our Jonas had brother, Richard, who may have been a few year’s younger.
Jonas and Richard’s grandfather, Richard Langdon “late of Bigbury” died in around 1660. He was a wealthy man who appointed John Aishford and Richard Luke to be his executors, to manage his estate and act as guardians to his two young grandsons until they came “off age.” The will is missing; however, Olive Moger’s review of Exeter’s Ecclesiastical Court documents shows that the boys reached maturity in the early 1670s and that they then sued their grandfather’s executors, for “subtraction of legacy.” The date is unclear; however it was said to be a few years after their mother died (Moger Abstracts: Dean and Chapter Bundles: Series I & II).
Richard Langdon had stated that: “I bequeath to said Grace Pinsent, Jonas Pinsent and Richard Pinsent, her sons, all my lands and tenements in Bigbury called outer Hexdowne, from my death …” however, because they were minors there were terms and conditions attached. Grace and Jonas were to have all the household and plough stuff in the first instance, but the executors were to have the tillage rights for ten years. Grace and Jonas were to have the household goods and plough stuff until Jonas reached the age of twenty-one years, which, the documents suggest, occurred around the time that Grace died “four years ago” (1666 – by construction). Richard would then get the land in Bigbury and the tillage rights.
It was a significant case as Grace had valued her father’s estate at L.1,000. It is not clear but Richard’s land probably went to Richard as Jonas would likely have inherited their father’s estate in Bovey Tracey when he came “off age.”.
The executors for their part claimed that the money had been dispersed over time and that they had no more to give! They provided an inventory, and a list of costs incurred between 1660 and 1666. These include large and small sums paid to maintain Outer Hexdowne and for the education and welfare of the two boys, such as: “To Mr. Waltham for schooling and diet of Mrs. Pinsent’s sons: £25.” Another item reads: “Sent to him at Oxford Midsummer 1664 and other sums to him Mich. 1666.” This almost certainly refers to the Richard, who matriculated at University College in Oxford, aged 17, in 1664 (Alumni Oxonienses: Vol 4).
There were also the executors own (doubtless reasonable) expenses, and the cost of Grace’s funeral and her heriot (£13s 4d) to be taken into consideration. The executors made begrudging acknowledgement “For money found in Mrs. Grace Pinsent’s trunk after her death, £27” but they felt they could not account for “Goods which Mrs. Grace Pinsent and Mr. Jonas Pinsent carried away from Hexdowne to his house in Bovey Tracey.” The boys would have lived and grown up on Henstreete with their parents and Jonas would, logically, have inherited his father’s estate, including the family home on Henstreete (subject to his mother’s widow’s rights), in 1658. As he was a minor, it would have been held for him “in trust” until he reached maturity.
Jonas was to become a wealthy man and, when testifying in Chancery in 1693, (C5/106/53-24865. Pinsent v Battishill) he admitted to controlling land in Bovey Tracey including “Henstreete” (value £50 per annum); “Hore’s” tenement (£30 per annum); “Hart’s” tenement (£30 per annum) and lesser properties in Bovey Tracey, and also land in Dartmouth (£20 per annum). Interestingly, there is no mention of Will’s tenement.
The Dartmouth property may have been the one his father had testified about in 1658, shortly before he died (see elsewhere). He had admitted to being present at the signing and sealing of documents concerning a deal made between Walter Diamond, Alexander Colens and two of his relatives, William and Tristam Langdon regarding a tenement and garden in Clifton, Dartmouth (C21/B87/33). He said that his father retained the documents.
Jonas, “being a single man and minding to travel into France and other places beyond the seas” in the early 1670s, was persuaded to ask his uncle (Thomas Pynsent of Woodland) “with whose daughter (viz) Elizabeth …. your executor had designed to marry as soon as he returned” to look after his estate. He signed over his lands to his uncle and agreed that, should he die while abroad, the properties were to pass to Thomas and then to his (Thomas’s) daughter – his cousin, Elizabeth. Jonas then gave his uncle all the relevant documents. Crucially, he seems to have forgot to retain or lost the counterpart of the transfer document, so he was later to have no prove of the terms of the agreement!
How long he was away for and where he went is unclear; however, he was away too long for Elizabeth, she married John Battishill in Woodland in 1672. Perhaps the family had given him us as dead by then and his uncle rather liked running his estate. When the prodigal nephew did return he found that his uncle Thomas and another trustee, William Dyer were unwilling to surrender the land ownership documents and the deed that gave them control of his estate. They, rather weakly, claimed they Jonas had either given them, or they had purchased the properties. They even agreed to pay his debts – which then amounted to around £300 0s 0d, if he would drop his claim. The issue came to a head after Thomas died 1691.
It is not clear what Jonas was up to in the late 1670s and 1680s. However, he seems to have settled in Ashburton. Nevertheless, it was Jonas Pinsent “of Woodland” who married a widow, Mary Whittyer, in Exeter, in 1688. Whether this was his first marriage, I do not know. She died the following year, and he appears to have tried again; it was likely this Jonas who married Philippa Weekes in 1690.
Thomas Pinsent died in 1690 and three years later, Jonas Pinsent “of Ashburton” sued his brother-in-law John Battishill and his wife Elizabeth and others for the return of some of his documents. Why he took so long, I do not know. He had probably recovered the ownership documents by then but he may well have been concerned about the clause in the transfer document that referred to “Elizabeth and her heirs” eventually inheriting his property! Jonas asked the Chancery Court to issue a subpoena and force John Battishill and his wife to explain themselves and return his documents (C5/106/53).
Jonas Pinsent seems to have recovered his property, as Jonas “of Henstreet, in Bovey Tracey,” took Thomas Hart, gent., his wife, Anne and their son, John, to court in 1691 over their disputed ownership of Hart’s tenement. Jonas claimed that he purchased the property from the Harts in 1675 for £155 0s 0d. The issue was whether Thomas Hart had previously sold the property to John Berryman – or had sold it to him sometime later and backdated the deeds so as to establish his ownership. Once again, Jonas sought clarification through the High Court of Chancery (C2/CHAS/P1/62-26131).
I do not know when Jonas died but it was probably after 1701 as the Woodland Deeds show that a Jonas Pinsent, along with Worthington Brice, John Mawry and Mary and Joan Tothill, signed a deed that year by which William Cullinge bought fifty acres of land in Woodland. William Cullinge was probably a relation by marriage. He had married Jonas’s aunt Elizabeth Pinsent in 1650. However, as noted below, there were other Jonas’s around and one of them could have signed the document.
A case in Chancery in 1702 (C6/409/22) suggests that Jonas Pinsent “of Ashburton” gent., and Samuel and/or Abraham Lure were sureties for a bond of £50 (penal amount £100) borrowed from Samuel Cabell in 1689. After Samuel Cabell died, his executors focused on the Lures when trying to recover the money as “Jonas Pinsent had been in prison for debt for some time.” Samuel Lure deposed that: “they believe that Jonas Pinsent was in prison but do not believe he is insolvent. They say that Jonas had a considerable estate and could easily have paid the debt before he got into his current predicament. They believe he is in prison to avoid and defraud his creditors and not because he was sued by Samual Cabell”. Is this our Jonas?
There were at least three cousins named Jonas around at that time. One was the son of the Rev. Edward Pinsent of Loddiswell who was born in 1637. His mother moved to Woodland after his father died, and he could, of course, be the Jonas referred to with respect to the Woodland document mentioned above; however, I believe he lived in Exeter. Another Jonas was the son of Ellis Pinsent, an Exeter merchant, who was born in 1657 and served in the army in Ireland before returning to deal with his father’s estate (C6/373/10). He was busy trying to sort out his father’s estate in the 1690s, so perhaps he was the one who got into financial trouble. Life gets complicated and there is still some unraveling to do. Their lives are discussed elsewhere.
Jonas’s widow, Philippa, appears to have died in 1726. There is nothing to suggest that he ever had children. What happened to his land is unclear. Some of it may have passed to the Battishill family!
Family Tree
Grandparents
Father: Jonas Pinsent: 1575 – 1637
Mother: Elizabeth Unknown: xxxx – xxxx
Parents
Father: Jonas Pinsent: 1609 – 1658
Mother: Grace Langdon: xxxx – 1670
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: 1649 – xxxx
Richard Pinsent: 1642 – xxxx
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