MEMOIR

OF

JOHN NOBLE

BY ROBERT S. RANTOUL.

JOHN NOBLE, a Resident Member of this Society from March, 1899, until his death, will live in memory for his balanced and attractive character, and through the monumental labor he accomplished in preserving and arranging and opening up to general use the Colonial and Provincial Records of the Courts of the Commonwealth. Not since Dr. Palfrey's day has any one made a more substantial contribution to the annals of our State. For this rare work he was specially fitted by his New England extraction, by his strong antiquarian leanings, and by his finished education. His family-tree struck its roots deep in our native soil. A paternal ancestor was probably at Marblehead as early as 1678. One of his maternal ancestors was, in the first Boston decade, the owner of Copp's Hill, and a brother of John Noble, the eminent Boston educator, George Washington Copp Noble, perpetuates in his name the family association with that historic spot. The first American generations of the Nobles of the Sea-Shore were seafaring folk, affecting Bible names. The Nobles seem also to have had a habitat in Western Massachusetts. A Lazarus Noble was in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as early as 1696,- possibly a son of Christopher Noble who was in Portsmouth in 1684, and who was thought to have been in Marblehead in 1678. Moses, the son of this Lazarus, was, with his wife, who was Mary Staples, at Portsmouth in 1731, where their son Moses was born, and where he died in 1796. There was a Lazarus Noble of a later generation, who experienced, in 1753-1755, the unutterable horrors of Indian captivity, — both he and his family, — and, es