Henson, Anthony (1788)

Anthony Henson, Sr. signed or was otherwise noted in several Mashpee petitions between October of 1788 and January of 1811, each bringing to the attention of the Massachusetts General Court infringements on the community’s self-governance and religious freedom.   

Anthony Henson, Sr. was former Hessian soldier under the command of General Burgoyne in the British army.  Henson came to live at Mashpee at the close of the Revolutionary War. He had married Martha Pocknet, a Mashpee woman, and lived in the Great Neck portion of the tribal lands, neighbor to a handful of other fellow soldiers of German descent.  Henson was enumerated in a community census in 1793 and by then he and Martha had four or five children in the household, including Christopher (b. 1782), Ophelia (b. 1787), and Anthony, Jr. (b.1789).  It was noted by the enumerator, the Rev. Gideon Hawley, that Anthony's wife was being considered for membership into Hawley's church.1   By 1800 Martha Pocknet Henson had died and Anthony had married another Mashpee woman, who had several children from a previous marriage.  Eight years later, still living at Great Neck, their household contained just one child, although it is unclear whether the child was Henson's youngest, Anthony, Jr., from his first marriage or a child of his second wife.

Remonstrance of Mashpee Proprietors and Others to the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1788.10.31.00; Petition of the Mashpee Indians to the Massachusetts General Court, 1788.12.29.00; Petition and Remonstrance of Ebenezer Queppish and Other Mashpee Indians to the Legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1795.05.20.00; Petition of Moses Pocknet and Other Mashpee Indians to the Legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1811.01.28.00; Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988, Vol. 1, Ancestry; 1793 Mashpee, Autograph File, Houghton Library, Harvard University; 1800 Mashpee Census, Ms. 48: SPG, Account of Indians, Box 2, Folder 16, Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA; 1808 Mashpee Census, Misc. Bound Docs. 1808, MHS, Boston, MA.

• 1. She was admitted to the congregation, but, by 1807 however, Martha Pocknet Henson had left Hawley's congregation for that of the Baptist Preacher, Thomas Jeffrey. (Hawley Compilation, letter 228, dated mashpee 1807, transcribed by RAP.