From the parish record of St. Mary's Church, Ashford, Kent, England: "1615 Thomas son of Comforte Starre baptized 31 December."
Thomas came to New England with his father on the Hercules in 1634/1635.
The date and place of Thomas' marriage to Rachel is not known; it was probably about 1639. Nor are the dates and places of birth of their first two children known. There were ten children in all.
Thomas served from the Bay Colony during the Pequot War of 1637. With Dr. Thomas Starr as surgeon, Captain Patrick's company of forty or fifty men appears to have started overland for Providence in the Narragansett country. From Providence, Captain Patrick sent a messenger to Captain Mason, who had come by boat from the Connecticut River to the so-called "King's Province" on the west shore of Narraganset Bay, asking Mason not to proceed on the expedition until he arrived. Mason received the message but disregarded it. He left his boats, and with Captain Underhill and his twenty men from Saybrook Fort, and his Indian allies, marched overland to the Mystic stronghold of Sassacus, the Pequot sachem. Dr. Thomas Starr and Captain Patrick's Company boarded Mason's vessels and sailed for the Pequot River.
On 26 May 1637, the English surprised the Indian fort and ruthlessly slaughtered the warriors and their fleeing squaws. The Pequots lost 600-700. Captain Patrick's company helped rescue Mason's men from 300 Pequots, and the English losses were only two killed and about 20 wounded. After some three months service, Dr. Thomas Starr returned to Boston. Of some 3,000 Indians in the Pequot region in 1636, after the war only about 200 remained. Pay due for services in the Pequot War was in arrears, and there were some complaints.
At Quarter Court held at Newtowne 6 March 1637/1638 it is recorded: "Thomas Starr being accused for speiking against the orders of Court about swine & the same pved that hee said the law was against god's law, and hee would not obey it; so hee was comited & enjoyned to acknowledg his fault the 14th at the Gen'all Court, & was fined £20, & to give security for his fine, or pay the same before his releasement." On 19 March 1637/1638 the court record reads: "The fine of Thomas Starr was moderated to £5, wch is to bee discounted out of his wages for the voyage against the Pequots." But apparently his protest was effective, for on 6 September 1638 the Court "repealed the obnoxious law about swine, but did not abate the fine of £5."
The descendants of Dr. Thomas Starr were granted 400 acres of land for his services in the war. Newtowne was chosen as the location of the College, and on 2 May 1638 the town was renamed Cambridge.
Thomas Starr was one of the first proprietors of Yarmouth. One of the earliest deeds involving Thomas is in 1639: "Thomas Starr of Duxborrow doth acknowledg that for the sume of tenn pounds Sterl paid by Andrew Hellet of Plymouth hath freely & absolutely bargained and sold unto said Hellet (Hallett) One frame of a house...in Yarmouth in the place appoynted and seventeen acres of upland in two divisions and twelve acres of Marsh & meddow unto the said house... the frame of said house is to be made & set up with a chymney to be thacked (thatched) studded and latched by Willm Chase who was agreed withal and payd for the doing thereof by the said Thomas Starr before the bargaine was made with Mr. Hellett..."
The Second Boat says that a William Chase, carpenter, lived in Boxbury in the 1630's. In the Roxbury church records, Rev. John Eliot states Mary Chase, wife of William Chase, had paralysis 4-1/2 years "But it pleasd God to raise her againe, & she bore children after it." Years later Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes discussed this historic case in the Boston Medical Journal. They raise the question: could Dr. Starr have been the physician treating Mary Chase, and the building of the house a payment of the bill?
Thomas does not appear as grantor or grantee on of land in Duxbury or in the Plymouth Colony before the date of the purchase from Hallett. Presumably he had been living at Duxbury with his father or on real estate owned by his father.
By 1 September 1640, Dr. Thomas Starr had moved to Yarmouth, for Plymouth Colony Records show that William Chase of Yarmouth was censured and required to find sureties for his good behavior until the General Court met in March; Thomas Starr, chirurgeon, of Yarmouth and Andrew Hellot of Plymouth, gent. provided those sureties in the sum of £20 each.
Plymouth Colony Records, Court Orders 2:20 dated 17 June 1641 names Thomas Starr as one of 7 men "exempted" from rates assessed. That same day he was granted two acres of land in some convenient place [in Yarmouth] in exchange for one acre of his land given to the town "to gett clay upon." [Court Orders 2:21] On 3 March 1644/1645 the Court ordered that Mr. Thomas Starr have laid forth for him at Yarmouth 50 acres of upland, either next to Elder Hroes or Mr. Howes lands at Seshewit, on which side he will, so it adjoin one of them, and six acres of meadow at Nobscusset Meadows, and 4 acres more of meadow on the south side of the plantation towards the South Sea.
In the "History of Barnstable County" it is stated that Dr. Thomas Starr and others at Yarmouth, dissatisfied with Rev. Marmaduke Matthews, wished to establish another society, with Rev. Joseph Hull of Barnstable as the minister. Mr. Matthews induced the court to interdict the move, but the interdiction was removed in 1646 and Mr. Matthews removed to Malden.
On 20 October 1646, upon complaint of Thomas Starr of Yarmouth about fees of Court in a case presented at Yarmouth against Samuel Hincly, the Court ordered that the jury repay what they have received from said Thomas Starr as their fees in that case, and that Hincly pay to the clerk of the court .
On 15 May 1648 Mr. Starr, Wm. Nichorsone and Rt [Robert] Dennis were appointed a committee for the division of lands in Yarmouth; on any issue they could not resolve, they should consult Captain Standish.
Dr. Comfort Starr, and a little later his son Dr. Thomas Starr removed to practice medicine in more populous centers, Boston and Charlestown, respectively.
Dr. Thomas Starr, on his return from Yarmouth in the Plymouth Colony, lived with his wife Rachel and their children across the Charlestown Ferry from his father, Dr. Comfort Starr's Boston home, on the main street in Charlestown. His Charlestown home was bounded on the north by the main or "towne street", on the south by John Burrage, and on the northwest by Giles Fifield. The index of early Middlesex deeds leaves the date of the purchase in doubt, but on 25 December 1655 Dr. Thomas Starr, surgeon oof Charlestown, testified in the case of Cole vs. Shipper. And on 1 March 1657/1658, the division of wood in Charlestown and commons on Mistick side [Malden}, as drawn by lot, No. 78 is entered in the name of Thomas Starr as 26 acres and 4-1/2 Commons.
In addition to his medical practice at Charlestown, Thomas Starr served as clerk of the writs; a specimen of his handwriting has been preserved in the Court Files of Middlesex County on a document written and signed 26, 9 mo. [November], 1658.
Dr. Thomas Starr of Charlestown, eldest son of Dr. Comfort Starr, died 26 Nov 1658 leaving a widow, Rachel Starr and a family of eight children. Apparently his death was unexpected -- he was only 43 years old -- for he left only a nuncupative will, written by the famous Richard Brown as witness, who was then of Charlestown, but had formerly been at Watertown: "The Last will of Mr. Thomas Starr of Charlestowne Deceased the 26 of: 9 mo. 1658. 1 ffirst hee willde that his wife should bee soull executrix. 2. hee wild that his eldest Sunn shold have a dobell portion. 3. that his Sonn ... should have his Bookes nott naming any Sunn butt him that foloed his Caling. wittnis to this Richard Brown."
Dr. Comfort Starr wrote below on the will: "First I understand by Bookes, that my Son meant only Phisical & Chirurgical Bookes. 2d According to my remembrance his wife should have the one halfe of his estate."
Inventory was taken on 10, 10 mo. 1658 by Dr. Comfort Starr, Samuel Adams and Edward Burt, and presented to the Court by Dr. Thomas Starr's widow, Rachel Starr, on 28 December 1658. The inventory includes "Severall Bookes in his Study' valued at £30.10s.1d; drugs, chirurgical instruments, salves, bottles of syrups, in addition to household goods, the Charlestown homestead valued at £35, for a total of £134.2s.1d.
Samuel Starr, Thomas Starr, Comfort Starr, Elizabeth Starr, Benjamin Starr, Jehosaphat Starr, John Starr and William Starr, children of Thomas Starr deceased, were mentioned in the will of Jehosaphat Starr of Canterbury dated 2 February 1659.
On the death of Dr. Thomas Starr, "the 26 of 9 mo. 1658," the General Court in Boston voted: "Whereas Mr. Thomas Starre, deceased, having left a desolat widdow and eight smale children, was ye chirurgeon of one of the companies yt went against the Pequotts, in ansr to the request of severall gentn on yt behalfe, the Court judgeth it meete to graunt fower hundred acres of land to the sajd widow & children, & doe heereby impower ye Tresurer [Mr. Richard Russell of Charlestown] & Capt. Norton to make sale or otherwise to dispose of the sajd lands as may best conduce to ye benefit of the widdow & children as they shall see meete." [Mass. Bay Records, vol. 4, p5. 1, p. 355] Nothing came of it while that generation lived. While Thomas' sons and grandsons became large landowners in Connecticut, there is no evidence that their titles rested on any grant of Pequot lands for Dr. Starr's services in 1637. Finally Comfort Starr of Danbury CT, a son of Capt. Josiah Starr and grandson of Dr. Thomas, appears to have petitioned the General Court of the Bay Colony to revive the grant. At first he was unsuccessful. But the Secretary of the Colony certified he found no record of a location in the Bay Colony of the 400 acres granted in 1658.
Then Benjamin Starr of New London CT (1679-1753), son of Dr. Thomas Starr's son Comfort of Middletown CT and Marah (Weld) [not son of Samuel and Hannah (Brewster) Starr as erroneously stated in Miss Caulkins' "History of New London"], revived the attempt, and on his petition the General Court of the Bay Colony, convened in Boston 19 Oct 1733, ordered the 400 acres to be surveyed and laid out.
The lands were surveyed by Joseph Wilder, located in the plantation called Dorchester-Canada, in the new County of Worcester (formed in 1731), which in 1765 was incorporated as the town of Ashburnham. The grant extended along the Nashua River. Worcester Deeds record many of the other heirs selling their portion to Benjamin Starr.
On 28 September 1734 the five heirs of Dr. Thomas Starr's oldest son, Samuel Starr (Jonathan, James and Thomas Starr, John Chester and Mary (Starr) his wife, and Daniel Denison and Rachel (Starr) his wife sold for £40. On 20 October 1734 William Peabody and his wife Jerusha (Starr) of Little Compton, then in the Bay Colony and later in Rhode Island, sold to Benjamin Starr. So also did Joseph Ranney of Middleton CT who had married Benjamin Starr's sister Mary; and John Sage of Middletown, who had married Benjamin's sister Hannah. On 5 November 1733, Mrs. Hannah (Starr) Greenfield, wife of Archibald Greenfield, formerly of Newport RI but then of Lyme, New London Co. CT sold for £3. On 12 November 1734 Mrs. Greenfield's sister, Mrs. Elizabeth (Starr) (Browell) Ward, widow, of Middletown CT sold to Benjamin. These sisters were daughters of Dr. Thomas Starr Jr., not Jehoshaphat Starr as stated by Burgis Pratt Starr. Deeds are also recorded from Comfort Starr of Danbury CT dated 20 December 1734 for £40, the largest amount paid any one of the eleven heirs named as grantors in their own right. Benjamin Starr eventually sold the shares to Thomas Green for £200, and he sold them to Joseph Wilder Jr., son of the surveyor.
Marriage 1 Rachel b: ABT 1615
* Married: BEF 1640
Children
1. Samuel STARR b: 1640/1644 in Duxbury or Yarmouth, Plymouth Colony, MA
2. Thomas STARR b: ABT 1642
3. Comfort STARR b: 1644 in Scituate, Plymouth Colony, MA c: 7 JUN 1646 in Second Church, Scituate, MA
4. Elizabeth STARR b: 1646 in Scituate, Plymouth Colony, MA c: 7 JUN 1646 in Second Church, Scituate, MA
5. Benjamin STARR b: 6 FEB 1647/1648 in Yarmouth, Plymouth Colony, MA
6. Jehosaphat STARR b: 12 JAN 1649/1650 in Yarmouth, Plymouth Colony, MA
7. Constant STARR b: 1652 in Charlestown, Suffolk County, MA
8. William STARR b: 18 MAR 1654/1655 in Charlestown, Suffolk County, MA
9. Josiah STARR b: 1 SEP 1657 in Charlestown, Suffolk County, MA
10. John STARR b: 1658
Dr Thomas Starr 
- d.<19 Jan 1594 in New Romney, Kent, England
