The name is interchangably spelled Bayley and Bailey. The branch of the family that settled in Weymouth, Massachusetts, most often used Bayley. This is a direct line with siblings genealogy. Major secondary sources, where much more information can be found, include:

• Ellsworth, Abbie F. "Account of John Bailey of Salisbury: and some of his descendants." Bailey Genealogy: James, John, and Thomas and Their Descendants. Hollis R. Bailey, editor. Somerville, Massachusetts: The Citizen Company, 1899.
• Chamberlain, George Walter. History of Weymouth, Massachusetts. Boston, Massachusetts: Weymouth Historical Society, 1923. Vol 3, pp. 61-65.

JOHN¹ BAYLEY was born at England about 1585 and died at Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts, on 2 November 1651.^[1] The identity of his wife is not known.

John Bayley, a weaver from Chippenham, Wiltshire, England, came to New England in 1635, when he was about fifty years old. He was accompanied by his son, John, age twenty-two. They departed from Bristol, Gloucestershire, England, on the Angel Gabriel on 22 June 1635. They were shpwrecked on the coast of Maine on 15 August. The History of Newbury, written in 1845, described it this way:

John Bailey came to New England in the ship called the 'Angel Gabriel' which was cast away in the terrible storm of August 1635, at Pemaquid. He was so frightened by the dangers he had encountered, that he never again dared to cross the Atlantic. As his wife was equally unwilling to come to New England, they never met.

Though he escaped from the wreck unhurt, his mind was deeply affected by his narrow escape, and he wrote to his wife such a doleful account of the storm and shipwreck, that she never could be persuaded to undertake the voyage, even to join her husband. And he was too timid to risk himself again on the stormy Atlantic, they remained separate the rest of their lives.

When the ship sailed, Bailey said farewell to his wife, planning to send for her as soon as he was established in New England. After he was wrecked on Pemaquid Point, he wrote a long letter back home telling of the fury of the great storm. The letter was so vivid and realistic in its portrayal of the terrible shipwreck that when his wife read the communication, she was afraid to make the journey across the Atlantic as had been planned. He, in turn, had been so impressed with the shipwreck's terrors that he did not dare to brave the Atlantic again, staying on in America without returning to her. And so the years went by, she in England, he in America, each hoping and praying that the other would make the journey across the water. Neither ever did, however, and they never saw each other again.

The anchors failed to hold when the ship reached a point directly off the shore, and the Angel Gabriel crashed high on the rocks where now stands Pemaquid Point Light. Johnston tells us that there were only five drowned in the disaster, but that all the possessions of the one hundred passengers was lost.

A good story deserves to be told and retold, and may sometimes grow in the retelling. I don't believe anyone has seen the alleged letter. This kind of marital separation did not sit well in Puritan New England, and the courts directed him to make some kind of reconciliation. In 1649 the court decreed that he "having used sufficient means to procure his wife over from England, and she utterly refusing to come, " should not be constrained to go over to her, but should still keep trying. In 1651 the court had a change of heart, and sentenced him to return to England by the next vessel or send for his wife to come over to him.^[5] However this order was not carriedout, as he soon died.

In his will, written on 28 October 1651, John Bailey left bequests to his sons John and Robert. Son John, executor, was to pay his mother £ 6 a year, his brother Robert £ 15, and his sisters £ 10 a piece (one time grants), but only on condition that they come to New England. Otherwise they would each receive only 5 s.^[6]

Upon arrival John Bayley and son settled in the newly established town of Newbury. However, according to the Bailey Genealogy:

Newbury had been settled two years, when in 1637, the venturesome and wandering spirit of John Bailey, Sr., induced him to plunge further into the forest, and establish a solitary home beyond the Merrimac, near the mouth of the Powow River. Here he built his log cabin and taking with him William Scholar as help, settled in solitude and began to fish and cultivate the soil.

John Bayley had the following children:^[8]

1. JOHN² BAYLEY b. at England about 1613.
2. JOHANNA² BAYLEY m. at New England about 1640 WILLIAM HUNTINGTON.
3. ROBERT² BAYLEY.
4. (second daughter)² BAYLEY.
5. (third daughter)² BAYLEY.

JOHN² BAYLEY (John¹) was born at England about 1613 a son of John Bayley. He died at Newbury on March 1691. He married ELEANOR EMERY. She was baptized at Romsey, Hampshire, England, on 7 November 1625, a daughter of John and Alice (Grantham) Emery. She died at Newbury on 1700.^[9]

John Bayley and Eleanor Emery both came to New England with their families is 1635 and settled first in Newbury. John was twenty-two years old, Eleanor was ten. Eleanor came with her parents and three siblings; John came with his father alone.

John Bayley was a weaver; Eleanor was a midwife. He moved several times in his younger years. First settling in Newbury, he had moved by 1640 to the newer town of Salisbury, where he received land. By 1650 he was back in Newbury. From 1654 to at least 1658 he was among ther first settlers of the new town of Amesbury. By 1661 he was back in Newbury, and there he stayed.^[10]

John Bayley served the town of Newbury as Selectman in 1663, and Constable in 1673 and 1674.^[11]

John and Eleanor Bayley had eleven children, however only seven of them lived to adulthood. One son, Joseph, moved to Maine.

John Bayley and his wife Eleanor Emery had the following children:^[12]

1. REBECCA³ BAYLEY b. at Salisbury on 24 November 1641; m. there on 22 August 1661 ISAAC BROWN.
2. JOHN³ BAYLEY b. at Salisbury on 18 May 1643; d. at Newbury on 22 July 1663.
3. SARAH³ BAYLEY b. at Newbury on 17 August 1644; d. on 26 October 1714; m. at Newbury on 8 October 1665 DANIEL CHENEY, d. at Newbury on 10 September 1694.
4. JOSHUA³ BAYLEY d. at Newbury on 7 April 1652.
5. JOSEPH³ BAYLEY b. at Newbury on 4 April 1648; d. at Kennebunk, York County, Maine, on 23 October 1723; m(1). before 1675 PRISCILLA PUTNAM, b. about 1657, d. at Salem, Essex County, on 16 November 1704; Joseph m(2). at Newbury on 27 November 1707 SARAH POORE b. at Newbury on 5 June 1655. Sarah had m(1). at Newbury on 16 February 1675 JOHN SAWYER b. at Newbury on 24 August 1645.
6. JAMES³ BAYLEY b. at Newbury on 12 September 1650.
7. JOSHUA³ BAYLEY b. at Newbury on 17 February 1652/3; d. on 1663.
8. ISAAC³ BAYLEY b. at Newbury on 22 July 1654; d. on 26 April 1740; m(1). at Newbury on 13 June 1683 SARAH EMERY, b. at Newbury on 25 February 1660, d. there on 1 April 1694, child of John Emery, Jr., and Mary Emery; Isaac m(2) at Newbury on 5 September 1700 REBECCA BARTLETT b. at Newbury on 23 May 1661.
9. JOSHUA³ BAYLEY b. at Newbury on 20 April 1757; d. between 15 June and 6 August 1722; m. ELIZABETH PUTNAM.
10. RACHEL³ BAYLEY b. at Newbury on 19 October 1662; m. at Newbury on 16 February 1679/80 SAMUEL POOR Jr, b. at Newbury on 14 October 1653.
11. JUDITH³ BAYLEY b. at Newbury on 13 August 1665; d. there on 20 September 1668.

JAMES³ BAYLEY (John ^2-1) was born at Newbury on 12 September 1659, a son of John Bayley and Eleanor Emery. He died at Roxbury, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, on 20 January 1706/7. He married first at Newbury on 17 September 1672 MARY CARR. She was born at Salisbury on 24 February 1651/2, a daughter of George and Elizabeth (Dexter) Carr. She died at Killingworth, New Haven County, Connecticut, on 28 October 1688. James married second MARY ________, who was born about 1645-6 and died at Roxbury on 23 October 1717.^[13]

James Bayley grew up in Newbury, with the exception of a few years in Amesbury, the sixth of eleven children. Mary Carr grew up in Salisbury, the sixth of ten children. Together they would have eight children, four of whom lived to adulthood.

James Bayley graduated from Harvard College, at Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in 1669, at the age of nineteen. He was pastor of the community of Salem Village, Essex County, from 1671 to 1680. This requires some explanation. The rural northern part of the town of Salem was called Salem Village. They requested permission to have their own church. This required government approval, as the minister was paid by an assesment on the property tax. A boundary had to be created and taxes assessed. However, the church was not formally organized, which meant they could not ordain their minister, and congregants would have to go to Salem for communion. So James Bayley was not formally ordained.^[14]

The first pastor of Salem Village (now called Danvers) was James Bayley, 1671-80. He was followed by George Burroughs, 1680-83, Deodat Lawson, 1684-87, and Samuel Parris, the village's first ordained minister, 1689-96. This was a highly contentious congregation. Bayley and Burroughs both left because they were not paid. Under Parris' ministry the witch trials broke out; twenty people were executed as witches, including former pastor Burroughs.

We can be grateful that James Bayley got out of Salem Village alive. After leaving that church, he returned to his family home in Newbury briefly, then from 1682 to 1691 lived in Killingworth, where he preached at the [Congregational] church. He then, at the age of forty-one, moved to Roxbury, where he lived and practiced medicine for the remainder of his life.^[15]

James Bayley and his first wife Mary Carr had the following children:^[16]

1. MARY⁴ BAYLEY b. at Newbury on 6 July 1673; d. on 10 August 1673.
2. JAMES⁴ BAYLEY b. at Salem on 12 April 1675.
3. JOHN⁴ BAYLEY b. at Salem on 29 September 1676; d. there on 29 Decembver 1677.
4. JOHN⁴ BAYLEY b. at Salem on 10 May 1678; m. at Salem on 15 April 1703 ABIGAIL LOZIER.
5. SAMUEL⁴ BAYLEY b. at Salem on 2 March 1679/80.
6. ISAAC⁴ BAYLEY b. at Newbury on 2 October 1681; at Lebanon, New London County, on 23 August 1711; m. MERCY SAXTON.
7. SARAH⁴ BAYLEY b. on 3 September 1683, d. between 4 September and 31 December 1683.
8. JOSHUA⁴ BAYLEY b. on 1685; d. at Newbury on 6 October 1762; m. at Newbury on 25 April 1715 ELIZABETH JOHNSON.

JAMES⁴ BAYLEY (James³, John^2-1) was born at Salem on 12 April 1675, a son of James Bayley and Mary Carr. He died at Roxbury on 24 October 1714. He married at Roxbury on 3 June 1697 ELIZABETH RUGGLES. She was born at Roxbury on 1 May 1677, a daughter of Samuel Ruggles and Ann Bright. She died on 1733.^[17]

James Bayley, the oldest surviving child in his family, was born at Salem, and spent the first five years of his life in Salem Village, where his father was a minister. After a brief interlude in Newbury, James' family moved to Killingworth, where his father preached. When James was about sixteen years old, his family moved to Roxbury. James remained in Roxbury the rest of his life, working as a saddler. Elizabeth Ruggles lived all her life in Roxbury.

James and Elizabeth had eight children. Mary died at sixteen months, a second Mary lived only two and a half months, Hulda lived almost a year, Joshua died before the age of twenty. Four of their children lived to adulthood.

James Bayley died at the age of forty, leaving Eleanor with children ages 2, 7, 10, 12, and 17. Eleanor continued to live in Roxbury another eighteen years, and never remarried.

James Bayley and his wife Elizabeth Ruggles had the following children:^[18]

1. JAMES⁵ BAYLEY b. at Roxbury on 22 March 1697/8.
2. MARY⁵ BAYLEY b. at Roxbury on 8 August 1699 ; d. there on 14 December 1700.
3. ELIZABETH⁵ BAYLEY b. at Roxbury on 29 December 1702; m. JOHN BENNET.
4. SAMUEL⁵ BAYLEY b. at Roxbury on 1 February 1704/5; m. at Roxbury on 17 December 1730 ANNA RICHARDSON, b. on 11 May 1710.
5. MARY⁵ BAYLEY b. at Roxbury on 16 March 1706/7; d. there on 1 June 1707.
6. ANNA⁵ BAYLEY b. at Roxbury on 7 January 1708/9; m. at Roxbury on 11 October 1728 JOHN PRENTICE, b. at on, d. at on, child of .
7. HULDA⁵ BAYLEY b. at Roxbury on 10 July 1810; d. there on 3 July 1711.
8. JOSHUA⁵ BAYLEY b. at Roxbury on 26 August 1713; d. before 1733.

¹Walter Goodwin Davis, Massachusetts and Maine Families: in the Ancestry of Walter Goodwin Davis (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1996), v. 1, p. 65. Vital Records of Newbury, Massachusetts: to the End of the Year 1849 (Salem, Massachusetts: Essex Institute, 1911), v. 2, p. 547.
²Joshua Coffin, The History of Newbury, Newburyport, and West Newbury: from 1635 to 1845 (Boston, Massachusetts: Samuel G. Drake, 1845), p. 387.
³J. Henry Cartland, Ten Year at Pemaquid: Sketches of Its History and Its Ruins (Penaquid Beach, Maine: n.p., 1899), 60.
⁴Edward Rowe Snow, Great Storms and Famous Shipwrecks of the New England Coast (Boston, Massachusetts: Yankee Publishing Co., 1943), 45-46.
⁵Abbie F. Ellsworth, "Account of John Bailey of Salisbury: and some of his descendants," Bailey Genealogy: James, John, and Thomas and Their Descendants, Hollis R. Bailey, editor (Somerville, Massachusetts: The Citizen Company, 1899), 156. Davis, Massachusetts and Maine Families, v. 1, p. 65.
⁶Davis, Massachusetts and Maine Families, v. 1, p. 65.
⁷Ellsworth, "Account of John Bailey of Salisbury", 155.
⁸Ellsworth, "Account of John Bailey of Salisbury", 158.
⁹Ellsworth, "Account of John Bailey of Salisbury", 157. Davis, Massachusetts and Maine Families, v. 1, pp. 66, 68. Robert Charles Anderson George F. Sanborn, Jr., and Melinde Lutz Sanborn, The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635 (Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1999–2009), v. 2, p. 449. Walter Goodwin Davis, "Notes: Emery Records from the Parish Registers of Romsey, England," New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 89 (1935): 376.
¹⁰Davis, Massachusetts and Maine Families, v. 1, p. 66. Ellsworth, "Account of John Bailey of Salisbury", 157.
¹¹Davis, Massachusetts and Maine Families, v. 1, p. 66.
¹²Vital Records of Salisbury, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849 (Topsfield, Mass.: Topsfield Historical Society, 1915), 21. Vital Records of Newbury, Massachusetts, v. 1, pp. 34,43,51,161,427,464; v. 2, pp. 27-28,41,428,441,542-43,565. Ellsworth, "Account of John Bailey of Salisbury", pp. 157,159-61. Vital Records of Salem, Massachusetts: to the Year 1849 (Salem, Massachusetts: Essex Institute, 1918), v. 5, p. 64 (gravestone record, Wadsworth Cemetery, Danvers). Davis, Massachusetts and Maine Families, v. 1, p. 67.
¹³Vital Records of Newbury, Massachusetts, v. 1, p. 51; v. 2, p. 28. Vital Records of Roxbury, Massachusetts: to the end of the year 1849 (Salem, Massachusetts: Essex Institute, 1926), v. 2, p. 463. Vital Records of Salisbury, Massachusetts, , 42. Ellsworth, "Account of John Bailey of Salisbury", 160.
¹⁴Ellsworth, "Account of John Bailey of Salisbury", 160.
¹⁵Ibid.
¹⁶Vital Records of Newbury, Massachusetts, v. 1, p. 34; v. 2, pp. 27,547 (gravestone record, Bridge Street Cemetery, West Newbury). Ellsworth, "Account of John Bailey of Salisbury", pp. 161,166. Vital Records of Salem, Massachusetts, v. 1, p. 61 (court record, Essex County Quarterly Court); v. 3, p. 71; v. 5, p. 64
¹⁷Vital Records of Salem, Massachusetts, v. 1, p. 61 (court record, Essex County Quarterly Court). Vital Records of Roxbury, Massachusetts, v. 1, p. 301; v. 2, p. 463. Ellsworth, "Account of John Bailey of Salisbury", 165.
¹⁸Vital Records of Roxbury, Massachusetts, v. 1, pp. 18,23; v. 2, pp. 26,463. Ellsworth, "Account of John Bailey of Salisbury", pp. 165,175.

Anderson, Robert Charles George F. Sanborn, Jr., and Melinde Lutz Sanborn. The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635. Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1999–2009.

Cartland, J. Henry. Ten Year at Pemaquid: Sketches of Its History and Its Ruins. Penaquid Beach, Maine: n.p., 1899.

Coffin, Joshua. The History of Newbury, Newburyport, and West Newbury: from 1635 to 1845. Boston, Massachusetts: Samuel G. Drake, 1845.

Davis, Walter Goodwin. Massachusetts and Maine Families: in the Ancestry of Walter Goodwin Davis. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1996.

________. "Notes: Emery Records from the Parish Registers of Romsey, England." New England Historical and Genealogical Register 89 (1935): 376-77.

Ellsworth, Abbie F. "Account of John Bailey of Salisbury: and some of his descendants." Bailey Genealogy: James, John, and Thomas and Their Descendants. Hollis R. Bailey, editor. Somerville, Massachusetts: The Citizen Company, 1899.

Vital Records of Newbury, Massachusetts: to the End of the Year 1849. Salem, Massachusetts: Essex Institute, 1911.

Vital Records of Roxbury, Massachusetts: to the end of the year 1849. Salem, Massachusetts: Essex Institute, 1926.

Vital Records of Salem, Massachusetts: to the Year 1849. Salem, Massachusetts: Essex Institute, 1918.