Andrew Alger

Wife: Agnes

11 Children: John Alger (abt 1639, died at birth) John Alger (1641-1717) Matthew Alger Andrew Alger (daughter) (died young) Elizabeth Alger (died at birth) Elizabeth Alger (daughter, m. John Austin) Matthew Alger (1654-?) Agnice Alger (1655-1680) Joanna Alger

Father: Richard Alger Mother: Margaret Show Pedigree

Andrew Alger was born in 1618 in Dunstan, Devon, England, as was his father Richard Alger and grandfather Thomas Alger. He set sail for the New World by his early teens. In 1634, at age 16, he married a 14-year-old girl named Agnes in Scarboro, Maine. At that time, those were common ages for youth to marry. He became a surveyor, and there is record of his surveying in Saco, York County, Maine as early as 1640, when he would have been 22 years of age.

The next year, in 1641, their second son, John was born in Scarborough, Cumberland County, Maine, which was apparently their residence. John was baptized that year in Saco, which was only ten miles away. Their first son was also named John, but he had died at birth. It was common to keep naming children the same name until one lived past infancy. They also had two daughters named Elizabeth, the first one also having died at birth. The fact that they insisted on naming a son John, which was a new name in the family, was important because that child grew up to have a son, grandson, great-grandson, and great-great-great-grandson named John Alger. Andrew and Agnes had 11 children, of whom 8 survived infancy.

In 1644 and 1645 Andrew had a company of men on Stratton's Island engaged in the fisheries. In 1651, he and his brother Arthur purchased a thousand acres of land from Jane Uphannum, lying within the limits of Scarborough. The brothers named this tract of land Dunstan, in memory of their homeland in England, and the suburb is said to still bear that name today. Arthur was older than Andrew and was constable of Scarboro. Arthur was killed by Indians in 1675, after which his wife Anna, daughter of Giles Roberts, remarried to Samuel Walker.

In 1674 Andrew was at Cape Porpoise, Maine, where he was fined for swearing. At the outbreak of the Indian hostilities in 1690, which left him destitute, he relocated with Agnes to Newbury, Mass. In 1692 he executed a conveyance of his estate at Cape Porpoise to Joseph Bayley. He died in August, 1694, at Newbury. After his death, Agnes remarried, at about age 75, to Samuel Walker whose deceased wife Anna had been the wife of Andrew's brother Arthur. Samuel and Agnes moved to Boston.