Most of the very early immigrants to Colonial New England came from Eastern England, often from the coastal counties of Suffolk and Essex. Those counties may be where the families of Isaac Cummings had lived for generations prior to his departure for Massachusetts with his wife and children about 1635 from the Essex village of Mistley. Arriving only fifteen years after the Mayflower Pilgrims, the Cummings family lived in several Massachusetts locations, including Watertown, part of today’s Waltham about 10 miles west of Boston, Ipswich and Topsfield, adjacent towns about 20 miles north of Boston. It is believed that Isaac and other Cummings family members are buried in Topsfield where he lived the longest and until his death. While his descendants remained largely in Massachusetts during early generations, by the time of the American Revolution they had spread throughout New England and soon headed west as the country opened to expansion.

* An article with a map showing where Isaac and his family lived in England is available in the 2018 Cummings Chronicles newsletter: