MESTERTON, JAMES [SSNE 6696]
- Surname
- MESTERTON, MESTERTOUN, MAISTERTOUN, MAISTERTON, MESTERTHUN, MASTERTON
- First name
- JAMES, JACOB
- Title/rank
- MERCHANT
- Nationality
- SCOT
- Region
- EDINBURGH?
Text source
James Mesterton (1625-1689), was the son of Archibald Mesterton former governor of Edinburgh castle. In the mid 1600s he travelled to Sweden and became a merchant of Stockholm. He appears in the records of St Nicholas Church in 1658 and by 1660 had a farm in Arboga and later owned property in other parts of Sweden. This included Nygränd 2 in Gamla Stan, Stockholm in 1662 (thanks to his wife inheriting it from her late husband). It is presumably this Mesterton who was involved in a case with James Porteous [SSNE 791] regarding a sum of money Porteous owed him. Mesterton had other Scottish connections. On 24 June 1687 he shipped a quantity of iron (worth £6958:32) to the Scottish merchant in Rotterdam, Andrew Russell [SSNE 143], which was consigned by the merchant Patrick Thomson [SSNE 6475] in Stockholm on the ship 'The Mary' owned by John Gib of Bo'ness. Another Scot shipping on the same ship was Alexander Pattillo [SSNE 7241]. Another shipment was made via from Stockholm, but via James Thomson in Norrkoping worth £1697:41 in September the same year. James married twice. Firstly to Kerstin Scrymgeour [some sources say Kerstin Jacobsdotter which do not rule each other out] and secondly to Petronella Scheaij. With these women he had seven children; Sara(1660-), Kristina (1664-), Peter (1671-1774), Jakob (1673-1720) [SSNE 919], Eva Maria (1677-), Petronella (1678-1752), Lucia (1680-). Several of these were baptised in Stockholm's Nikolai Kyrka between 1671 and 1681. The records of Maria Kyrka in Stockholm reveal that James buried several people in the church including a child of Alexander Pattillo [SSNE 7241] on 22 August 1684, and William Smith's child on 23 March 1694.
Sources: In 1684 he co-signed a letter in Stockholm with the British merchants Adam Leyell [SSNE 6493], Henry Leyell [SSNE 3614], John Bower [SSNE 7761], Thomas Lake [SSNE 8343], Johan Geddes (possibly [SSNE 2321]) and John Strother [SSNE 8344]. See https://sok.riksarkivet.se/bildvisning/A0073901_00251#?c=&m=&s=&cv=250&xywh=2859%2C577%2C4757%2C2608
Stockholms Stadsarkivet, Maria Församling, Register över döda, 1681-1700, p.489; Stockholm Stadsarkiv, (Storkyrkan) Nikolai församling dopböker, 1623-1717, I, p.339; National Archives of Scotland, Russell Papers, RH15/106/636, f2. James Thomson to Andrew Russell, 12 September 1687. Also f5. Patrick Thomson to Andrew Russell, Invoice of iron shipped aboard 'The Mary', 24 June 1687; Svenska Riksradets Protokoll, vol. XVIII, pp.104-106; T. Fischer, The Scots in Sweden, (Edinburgh, 1907), p.32; Eric E. Etzel, 'Notes on Swedo-Scottish Families' in Scottish Historical Review, vol. IX (1912), p.271; Steve Murdoch, Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe, 1603-1746 (Brill, Leiden, 2006), pp.161, 193, 245. With thanks to Ossian Mesterton for information from his website on the children of James Mesterton.
Service record
- SWEDEN, STOCKHOLM, ARBOGA
- Arrived 1650-01-01
- Departed 1689-12-31
- Capacity IRON MERCHANT, FARM OWNER, BURGESS?, purpose TRADE, COMMERCE