Otis Norcross - The Norcross Family: Genealogical Lineage of A Prominent Son & Relatives

The Norcross Family: Genealogical Lineage of A Prominent Son & Relatives

The Norcross family is a succession of prominent New Englanders in America deriving from All Hallows Bread Street, London, Middlesex, England, whom upon arrival in the colonies (1638), first settled with fellow Puritans in Salem, Massachusetts, then resettling with the new community in Watertown, Massachusetts, whose progenitor Jeremiah Norcross was a landowner within the town in 1642. The patriarch was married to Adrean . The family's patrilineal descent of this specific line includes: the second son, of the immigrant's first three children, Richard Norcross (1621–1708), the great-great-great grandfather of Otis Norcross, Jr., and his son, Richard Norcross, Jr. (1660–1745), great-great grandfather of Otis Norcross, Jr., both of whom served as schoolteachers in the early Watertown colony (see family tree below).

This Norcross blood-line extends further in perpetuity with Otis Norcross' great grandfather Peter Norcross (1710–1777) whose younger brother William Norcross (1715 - ca. 1775), and his wife Lydia (married 6 Nov. 1741), are the great, great grandparents of Otis' third cousin once removed American poet, Emily Dickinson; daughter of Emily and Edward Dickinson; granddaughter of Joel Norcross and Betsey ; and great granddaughter of William and Sarah Norcross.

During the American Revolution, the Norcross family "served the cause," whereby Daniel Norcross (1743–1805), grandfather of Otis Norcross, Jr., served in Captain Samuel Warren's Company of the Massachusetts Militia; and Colonel Joseph Reed's Regiment of Militia, Lexington, Massachusetts He married Abigail, 3 October 1765, a descendant of notable New England families, including those of: Josiah Chapin (1634–1726), Jonathan Thayer (1658), and Henry Adams (ca. 1582/82 - 1646), patriarchs of three distinguished colonial families of Weymouth and Braintree, MA.

Through the Chapin family-line, Otis Norcross is the first cousin fourth removed of the second U.S. President John Adams, and the respective second cousin third removed therefore of the sixth U.S. President John Quincy Adams, as well as, the distant cousin of Brig.-Gen. Sylvanus Thayer, father of the U.S. Military Academy, West Point.

The Hon. Otis Norcross, is the fourth cousin, third removed of Hon. Chester W. Chapin, President of Boston & Albany Railroad, Co. through Chapin pedigree of Deacon Samuel Chapin.

Otis Norcross, Sr. (1785–1827), married Mary Cunningham, January 8, 1809, parents of Otis Norcross, Jr. (their second child), and siblings including: Mary Homer Norcross (1809–1885), married Oct. 1830 Stephen Gore Bass, Caroline A., married in 1834 Jonathan D. Wheeler, Esq., Adelaide Norcross (1816–1885), married Nov. 1844 John Warren White Bass, Samuel Dow Norcross (1818–1839), Joseph Addison Norcross (1820–1849), Jane Eliza Norcross (1823–1840), Laura Olivia Norcross (1825–1834), and Daniel Webster Norcross (noted below).

Mary Cunningham Norcross was the elder sister of Charles Savage Homer; father of American artist Winslow Homer. With this, Otis and his siblings were first cousins of the artist. The Homer family, stems from Ettingshall, Warwick Co., England and dates from 1690 in America, having originally settled in Yarmouth, Massachusetts, later removing to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mary Cunningham Norcross was the third born of fourteen children to Eleazer and Mary Homer.