"The first of the Welch who was a passenger from the north of Ireland on the ship Goodfellow, in 1654, when sixteen years old.
"Philip Welch was a servant of Samuel Symonds, gentleman, of Eswich, Massachusetts. In 1661 he absolutely refused to serve his master, and brought suit in court to be freed. At that time he had served seven years, and was about twenty-three years old. He was stolen from his home in Ireland by an English sea captain and brought to America and sold to Symonds. George Dell, shipmaster of the ship Goodfellow, says 'Two Irish youth I brought over by order of State of England, one William Dalton, the other Philip Welch, and sold to serve nine years in consideration of corn or live cattle before the end of October,' (Essex County Quarterly Court Records). Philip said to his master: 'We will go away and leave you before your face.' The jury brought in a verdict that the boys would have to serve full time, if the contract that the Sea captain made with Mr Symonds was legal. Other records of Philip Welch whose records have already been mentioned at length are herewith given: Philip married in Ipswich in 1665, Hannah, daughter of Henry Haggert of Wenham, Mass, and settled in Portsmouth, New Hampshire." (1)
Philip Welch
m. Hannah Haggert
Children:
1) Philip Welch Jr., b. 27 Dec 1668
2) Samuel Welch
3) Benjamin Welch, in 1711 with nine others was before the court for being riotous in Portsmouth town meeting; in 1714 he had a case in court, and another in 1715. He probably is the Benjmain who went to Berwick in 1719 and later to Kittery, Maine, and married Mary Hill
4) Moses Welch, b. 25 Nov 1685. He lived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire
(1) Donald Everett Pray, Early Welch Descendants of New England (East Lebanon, Maine: Lionside Business Services, 1996).
(2) David Cressy, Coming Over: Migration and Communication Between England and New England in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 62.
(3) Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts, Vol. II 1656-1662 (Salem, Massachusetts: Essex Institute, 1912), 294-297.