Burch, John. Manuscript indenture, granting Noddle's Island to John Burch of Barbados, 1656

Property from Joseph Rubinfine, American Historical Autographs

BURCH, JOHN

MANUSCRIPT INDENTURE, GRANTING NODDLE'S ISLAND TO JOHN BURCH OF BARBADOS, 1656

1 page (15 x 12 in.; 382 x 305 mm). Accomplished in clerical hand, signed by John Burch, Margrett Butch, and Thomas Gibbes ("Tho: Gibbes"), countersigned by Deputy Secretary Edward Bowdon, witnessed and signed by John Sayes and two others, way seals; one or two stray spots, chips to margins, a few pinholes, one small hole costing a letter or two. Matted, glazed, and framed; not examined out of framed. 

Noddle's Island was one of the Boston Harbor Islands. William Noddle, for whom the island was named, settled there it in the 1620s, before Boston was established by the Puritans. The island was primarily used for grazing livestock, and there was a fortified structure on it. Noddle, a resident of Salem, died in 1632 when his canoe overturned on the South River. Around this same time, Rev. Samuel Maverick, an Anglican clergyman, became the owner of the island through his wife's inheritance. The First Baptist Church of Boston met secretly on the island in the 17th century to avoid persecution by the Puritan state.

The possession of Noddle's Island passed from the Maverick family in 1656, and, as the present document shows, to Colonel John Burch in that same year.  John Burch was an English military officer, and Speaker of the House of Assembly of Barbados. Burch did not retain ownership of the island for long, however. In 1657 Thomas Broughton gave orders to Mr. Richard Leader, then at Barbados, to purchase it from Burch in his name and for his own use. 

The land that once constituted Noddle's Island now makes up the southern part of the neighborhood of East Boston. The original contours of Noddle's Island were largely erased by the construction of Logan International Airport, which filled the tidal flats around it and other Harbor Islands.