In the month of May, 1638, eighteen (18) years after the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth Rock, Edward Gilman, with his wife, three (3) sons and two (2) daughters and three (3) servants, landed at Hingham, Massachuseetts within Boston Harbor. They ame from Caston, County Norfolk, England. this family with others numbering one hundred and thrity-three (133) in all, came in a ship named "Diligent" out of Ipswich, England, commanded by Captain John Martin.

Edward Gilman was admitted a free man on 13 December 1638. In 1641a tract of land, eight (8) miles square, then called Seekonk, after Rehoboth, was granted to him and others by the Plymouth colony. In 1643 his estate was valued at 300 English poinds. His name does not appear on the records of that town after 1646, but in 1647 his name appears in Ipswich, Massachusestts.

On 18 September 1648, Edward Gilman, Jr. sold to his father the farm given to him by his father-in-law, Richard Smith of Ipswich. Edward Jr. had just lost his wife and he left his infant son named Edward, in care of hs parents. Edward Jr. then went to Exeter, NH and engaged in the mill business, being the first settler by the name of Gilman to locate in New Hampshire and one of the first, if not the first to engatge in manufacturing. In 1657 he was lost at sea while on a trip to england to purchase dditional machinery for his mill.

His father and the other two sons, John and Moses, immediately repaired to Exeter with the young son Edward Jr., and here established themselves.

Thus, from Edward Gilman, Sr., through his three sons, John, Edward Jr., and Moses, most of the families of the name Gilman in New Hampshire and all probability in the United States have descended.