Before the publication of Charles Banks, History of Martha’s Vineyard in 1911 one of the two leading suggestions for the father of immigrant Henry Luce was Thomas Luce, of Charlestown. The other leading suggestion was Harke Luse.
These two men were and remain attractive candidates because their surname matches and they lived in the same general area a generation before Henry Luce. That is, either of them could have been Henry Luce’s father. We would not be surprised there is no surviving record.
Wilford Litchfield, writing in 1901 says Remember Litchfield married about 1670 “Henry Luce (sometimes Lucy), who may have been a son of Thomas Luce of Charlestown [Massachusetts]” (Wilford J. Litchfield, The Litchfield Family in America 1630-1900 (1901), 34). Litchfield himself was the first to identify Remember, the wife of Henry Luce, as Remember Litchfield.
Here, Litchfield seems to be taking a clue from Savage, who identifies immigrant Henry as “Henry Luce or Lucy.” Savage, citing Farmer, names a Thomas Luce at Charleston, whose son Samuel was born in 1644 [at Charlestown] (James Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England (1861), 3:127). This entry repeats the information in Farmer, without adding anything new (John Farmer, A Genealogical Register of the First Settlers of New England (1829), 184).
Banks says, “It is probable that this [Thomas Luce] was Lewis” (Banks (1911), 2:55n.2). Banks seems to dismiss the clue, not for any inherent improbality, but only because he building a case for Henry’s origin at Horton, Gloucestershire.
In the absence of any firm evidence, Thomas Luce remains an attractive candidate. Henry Luce’s birth has been estimated about 1640, based on a 1644 birthdate for his wife Remember. If Thomas had a son Samuel born in 1644, he could conceivably have had a son Henry who would have been the right age to be our Henry Luce.
Unfortunately, we find no other record of this Thomas Luce. Savage says he “probably rem[oved] soon.” We have been unable to find a record of a Thomas or a Samuel corresponding to Farmer’s information. Savage notes “One Lucy, at Portsmouth [New Hampshire], m. Mary, d. of William Brooking, and had Benjamin. This man has also remained elusive.
A word of caution: many Internet sources have turned Wilford Litchfield’s information into a fictional tree, where Henry Luce was a merchant and farmer born 1630 in Gloucester to Thomas Luce (1600-1670?) and Sally Monson.