| Battle: | 3 Sep 1650, Battle of Dunbar, at Dunbar, East Lothian, Scotland |
| Ship/Arrival: | Unity; Dec 1650, MA Bay Colony |
| Prisoner and List: | James Grant/Graunt (2), #34 on George S. Stewart’s Captured at Dunbar list |
| Name Variations: | Grant, Graunt, |
| Residences: | Kittery and York, Maine |
| Other SPOW Associations: | Peter Grant |
Published: 03 Dec 2016, Updated: 5 Sep 2020
Page contributors: Dr. Andrew Millard, Teresa Rust
Editor: Teresa Rust
IMPORTANT UPDATE! (July 2018)
According to, Christopher Gerrard, Pam Graves, Andrew Millard, Richard Annis, and Anwen Caffell, Lost Lives, New Voices: Unlocking the Stories of the Scottish Soldiers at the Battle of Dunbar 1650, (England: Oxbow Books, 2018), on page 249, James is categorized as:
Probable [that he is a Dunbar prisoner transported on the Unity]
Appears: 1660. D.1663. Associated with Peter Grant. Indicted for not returning home to his wife in Scotland. [Exiles; DR; BCS; SPOWS; Ch.7 & 8]
For explanations of the category, abbreviations and references see List of Dunbar prisoners from Lost Lives, New Voices.
First Generation in the New World
1. JAMES¹ GRANT (2), “the Scotchman,” died 1663. He married at York County, Maine about 1660, JOAN/[JOANNA] (_____). (She later married Peter Grant in 1664.)
Biographical Notes:
“James Grant signed a petition from York in 1660. He and Peter Grant were presented at court in 1661 for not going home to their wives.” See more: Stackpole, Everett S., Old Kittery and Her Families. (Kittery, Maine: Press of Lewiston journal Company, 1903), page 471.
Children of James and Joan/Joanna (_____) Grant:
2. ELIZABETH GRANT, born probably at Kittery between 1658 and 1663. She married, WILLIAM EARL, Sr., of Berwick.
Sources and Notes:
A founding member of the Scots Charitable Society on 6 Jan 1657 [OS].
SOURCE: Scots Charitable Society, ed., The Constitution and By-laws, of the Scots Charitable Society of Boston, (Boston: Farrington Printing Co., 1896), 10.
On 24 Jul 2013 Paula Sieple, wrote, “The Unity” James Grant, locally known in Maine as “The Scotchman”, was in Maine with Peter Grant (from “The Unity” and Lynn Iron Works). James, married to someone named Joan and with a daughter Elizabeth, died in 1663 in Maine Peter Grant married the widow Joan 28 Nov 1664 in Old Kittery, Maine. Peter is my 7x maternal great grandfather. James, Peter, and Alexander Grant were founding members of the Scots Charitable Society of Boston in 1657. Reference OLD KITTERY AND HER FAMILIES, Everett Stackpole Pg. 471ff: “James Grant is said in an old manuscript to have been ‘taken in arms for Charles I’ and to have been banished by Cromwell. He is called in old records The Scotchman.”