On June 23, 2022, I wrote about my ancestors who had birthdays in June. Today, the focus is on my ancestors who had birthdays in July. This was part of a two-year-long project I worked on in 2018-2019, writing about hundreds of my ancestors on their birthdays. It was a ridiculous project, and it about killed me, but I’m glad to have this information available to me.
Fewer of my ancestors were born in July – 10, compared to 24 in June. This will be easier.
July 10: Hannah Hazard (8th great-grandmother, 1636-1685)
Hannah was the third child of Thomas and Martha Potter Hazzard (or Hazard – the name is spelled both ways). Her older sister was born in England, before Thomas and Martha came to Massachusetts, but she and her older brother were both born in Boston. Thomas and Martha soon moved their family to Rhode Island, where Thomas was one of the original proprietors of the town of Newport in 1639.
Hannah married Stephen Wilcox in Rhode Island in 1658. Stephen’s father, Edward Wilcox, is identified as one of the early settlers of Rhode Island as well. Sometime after 1667, Hannah and Stephen moved to Westerly, Rhode Island. When they moved to Westerly, it was a pretty unsettled part of the state, and they, along with many other residents of the area, later moved away from Westerly because of conflicts with the Indians in King Philip’s War in 1675-76.
Hannah and Stephen had nine children, including my 7th great-grandfather, also named Stephen, who was their 6th child. I connect to Hannah through my Arnold family line.
July 14: Zebediah Pease (4th great-grandfather, 1767-1842)
Zebediah was the seventh of ten children born to Prince and Martha Marchant Pease of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The Pease family, including Zebediah’s 3rd great-grandfather John Pease, had first arrived in Martha’s Vineyard in 1634.
By 1790, Zebediah had moved to Lincoln County, Maine (still a province of Massachusetts at this time), where he married Sarah Méservé. Sarah’s 2nd great-grandfather Clement Méservé had emigrated from the Isle of Jersey to New England (first New Hampshire and then Maine) in 1673. Sarah’s parents, Nathaniel and Rebecca Martin Méservé, had moved to Jefferson, Maine, from nearby Appleton, around 1800. Zebediah was a landowner in Maine, but I don’t know anything else about his life there. He and Sarah had 10 children in Maine, including my 3rd great-grandmother Martha Pease.
Zebediah and Sarah moved to Licking County, Ohio, sometime before 1820. Several of their children made the move at the same time, including Martha and her husband Spencer Arnold and their children. Zebediah appears on a list of Licking County residents who objected to the transfer of assets to the National Bank in 1837, one of the major economic crises of the presidency of Andrew Jackson. I connect to Zebediah through my Arnold family line.
July 14: John Marchant (8th great-grandfather, 1625-1692)
John was the third of seven children born to John and Sarah Curtis Marchant on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, after their arrival in the colony sometime before 1624.
There is not much verifiable information about John’s life. Because of the – creative – spelling that was characteristic of the 17th century, the occupation “merchant” was often misspelled “marchant.” Therefore the records of the time are replete with references to “John Marchant” when they may really just refer to someone named John who was a “merchant” in his community. It’s hard to tease out reliable information.
Nonetheless, I can reliably say that John married Sarah Price in Yarmouth, Massachusetts, in 1646. They lived there the rest of their lives, so far as I can tell.
John and Sarah had eight children. My 7th great-grandfather Abishai Marchant was their third child, and my 8th great-grandmother Sarah Marchant was their sixth child. How does this work, you ask? Well, the generations don’t always “move” at the same rate. Without going into detail, the people who came between Abishai and me on one line had children at an average older age than the people who came between Sarah and me on a separate line. Probably. Ancestry doesn’t deal with this well, insisting that both John and his daughter Sarah are my 8th great-grandparents. These two lines connect when Abishai Marchant’s granddaughter Martha Marchant marries Sarah Marchant’s great-grandson Prince Pease on Martha’s Vineyard in 1750. I connect to John through my Arnold family line.
July 14: Annetje (Anna) Smith (6th great-grandmother, 1706-1782)
Annetje was born in New York City and was the only child of Tryntye Wybranstz and Abel Smith. Abel was of English extraction, while Tryntye’s family was Dutch.
I do not know much about Annetje’s lineage; her paternal grandfather was named John Smith, and that doesn’t give me much to work with. Her maternal lineage is Dutch, and the New Yorkers of this lineage invented surnames for their families after 1660, when the English took over the colony of New Amsterdam and insisted that the Dutch settlers follow the English surname system instead of the Dutch patronymic system. It’s very hard to follow.
Annetje married Abraham Workman (1709-1749) in Raritan, Somerset County, New Jersey, in 1723. They had nine children in New Jersey and Maryland, where they moved sometime in the 1730s. Their last child was my 5th great-grandfather Jacob Workman (1740-1821). I connect to Annetje through my Workman family line.
July 16: Mary Carter (7th great-grandmother, 1710-1773)
Mary was the first of five children born to Edward and Sarah Cotton Carter in New Hampshire.
Some records show that Mary was born in Connecticut, but this doesn’t make any sense to me. Her parents never lived anywhere other than New Hampshire, and all of her siblings were born there. Her grandparents were from Connecticut, and she moved to Connecticut after she married, so that’s where the confusion might come in.
Mary’s earliest immigrant ancestor was John Cotton, a famous Puritan minister whose grandson, Cotton Mather, was instrumental in bringing charges against those accused of witchcraft in Salem. John Cotton is identified as the most influential theologian of Puritanism. Mary is also descended from Richard Carter, who settled in Boston in 1641.
Mary married William Enoch Manley in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1727. William was the great-grandson of Thomas Hartshorn, who had come to Massachusetts in the 1630s.
Mary and William had six children, including my 6th great-grandfather, also named William, who was their second child. I connect to Mary through my Ellefritz family line.
Here’s part of what the inscription says:
“In memory
of Mrs. Mary,
ye wife of
Deacon William Manley
died ye 10 O 1773”
The rest of the inscription is buried.
July 17: Edward Wheeler (8th great-grandfather, 1669-1733)
Edward was the fourth of 13 children born to John and Sarah Larkin Wheeler in Concord, Massachusetts. Edward’s grandfather, George Wheeler, came to Massachusetts in 1638 and, along with his brothers, occupied a prominent position in the town. He and his brother Timothy co-owned an inn in the town in the location where the Colonial Inn now sits.
Edward’s father, John, served as a soldier for Massachusetts in King Philip’s War in 1675-76, and inherited a good deal of land when his father, George, died in 1687. Edward’s mother, Sarah Larkin, was the daughter of Edward Larkin, who was a turner (someone who worked with wood) and a wheelwright in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He was also a farmer. He had come to Massachusetts in the late 1630s, and in 1657 was named to be a member of the local artillery unit.
Edward married Sarah Merriam in Concord in 1697. Sarah was the granddaughter of George Merriam, who had settled with his two brothers in Concord in 1637.
Edward and Sarah had 13 children, including my 7th great-grandfather Nathan Wheeler, who was their second child. Edward was commonly known as “Deacon” Edward Wheeler, and he was a weaver by trade. I can’t find why he is called “Deacon.” I connect to Edward through my Ellefritz family line.
July 19: Sarah Chatterton (8th great-grandmother, 1661-1745)
Sarah was the first of nine children born to William and Mary Clark Chatterton in New Haven, Connecticut. I don’t know anything about her parents.
Sarah married Samuel Benton in New Haven in 1679. Samuel was the son of Andrew and Hannah Stocking Benton. Andrew was a civic leader in Hartford, where he owned land and held public office.
During the 1670s, Hartford was swept up in the witchcraft hysteria that we most commonly associate with Salem, in neighboring Massachusetts, but this peculiar obsession manifested itself in many other towns in early New England, including Hartford. A woman named Anne Cole was among those accused of witchcraft in the 1660s, a time when several people in Hartford were hanged after being convicted of consorting with Satan and bewitching other residents of the town. Anne Cole was acquitted of these crimes, however, and Andrew married her after the death of his first wife, Hannah Stocking, in 1672. Samuel was 14 years old when his mother died and when his father married Anne; this must have been a strange time in a young boy’s life.
Samuel was an original proprietor of the town of Harwinton, Connecticut, (in the western part of the colony) and served in several public positions, including selectman and constable. Sarah and Samuel had six children, including my 7th great-grandfather Daniel Benton, who was their fifth child. I connect to Sarah through my Ellefritz family line.
July 20: John Packard (9th great-grandfather, 1655-1741)
John was the youngest of 11 children born to Samuel and Elizabeth Stream Packard in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
In the course of researching John’s life, I came across a remarkable publication: “Celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the landing of Samuel Packard in this Country August 10, 1638.” This document was published in 1888 on the occasion of a Packard family reunion in Brockton, Plymouth County, Massachusetts. More than 400 people attended this event, including members of the Packard family from across the country and even from other countries.
Miss Sophia B. Packard gave a speech, one line of which struck me: “There is nothing like being born well.” Miss Packard went on to say that she and some friends and family used their “privilege” (as we would call it today) to go to Atlanta, Georgia, and establish schools for colored girls. They started with 11 girls in the basement of a colored church, and their 1888 enrollment was 650. The point of her speech was contained in this statement: “If you care for the country, you must care for the women and the girls. . . . the colored no less than the white, but far more.” I like this. In 1888, the South was recovering from the Civil War; Reconstruction had ended, and with it the hope for racial equality in the South. The era of Jim Crow had begun, and the speaker was right: this initiative was needed.
So get this. A little more research revealed that Packard Hall in Atlanta is one of the main buildings of Spelman College, a historically black women’s college that grew out of the efforts of Sophia Packard and the woman described as her “partner and long-time companion Harriet Giles. Go, cousin Sophia! As a side note, the partnership between Sophia and Harriet is featured in a 2017 blog post by Mary Lynn Bernard, aka “Riese,” who writes about feminism, sexuality, and power. Her blog post was titled "16 Lesbian Power Couples From History who Got Shit Done, Together." I couldn’t have said it better myself.
The praise lavished on Samuel Packard at this gathering was fulsome. Samuel was described as a farmer and a tavern-keeper, well-educated and civic-minded. With 12 children, 10 of whom lived long enough to have children themselves, Samuel and Elizabeth populated their village in Plymouth and provided descendants who were significant in the town for generations. One attendee at the 1888 event commented that there were more Packards in Brockton than there were Smiths – testimony to both the fertility and longevity of the members of this family.
When John was born, the Packard home was full of young children. Although John’s oldest sister, Elizabeth, had come to Massachusetts with her parents in 1638, the rest of the children were born in Plymouth. His older siblings included 2 sets of twins (age 9 and 3 when John was born) and three other children under the age of 10.
John married Judith Winslow in 1671. Judith may be the daughter of John and Mary Chilton Winslow. John came to Plymouth on the ship Fortune in 1621, and Mary was a passenger on the Mayflower. I’m not entirely sure about this, however; the official records of the Mayflower Society don’t show Judith as the daughter of John and Mary. She may be the daughter of one of John’s brothers (he had three brothers who lived in Plymouth), or of some other Winslow family. Other genealogists have tried to prove this connection, to no avail. I have had no better success.
John and Judith had seven children, including my 8th great-grandmother Mary Packard, who was their third child. I can’t find out anything specific about the lives that John and Judith lived in Plymouth. I connect to John through my Ellefritz family line.
July 29: Elizabeth Carr (7th great-grandmother, 1691-1764)
Elizabeth was the second of eight children born to Ezek and Susannah Brownell Carr in Little Compton, Newport, Rhode Island. Elizabeth’s paternal grandfather, Robert Carr, came to New England in 1635 on the Elizabeth and Ann and soon settled in Little Compton, Rhode Island, where he was a tailor. Her maternal grandfather, Thomas Brownell, died after a fall from a horse when Elizabeth’s mother was only 10 years old.
I don’t know much about Elizabeth’s father Ezek except that he owned land in Newport and was probably a farmer.
Elizabeth married Samuel Wilbore in Little Compton in 1713. Samuel’s great-grandfather John Wilbore came to Massachusetts in 1633. Samuel’s family was prominent in Little Compton.
Elizabeth and Samuel had 13 children, including my 6th great-grandmother Susannah Wilbore, who was their third child. I connect to Elizabeth through my Ellefritz family line.
It’s not appropriate to wish these people a “Happy Birthday,” because they’re, like, dead, and I don’t believe in things like “happy heavenly birthday.” (I also don’t think that there is a “rainbow bridge” where our dead pets somehow pass into a heaven that I don’t believe in, either, but that’s another essay). But as I researched and wrote the short biographical sketches that made up my original book, I committed to thinking about my ancestors and saying their names. David Eagleman, a neuroscientist and author of Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlife, wrote something that stuck with me as I did this research:
“There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.”
When I say these names, I ensure that these people do not die their third death. If you read their names aloud, you also help them stay alive. Make a point of saying the names of your friends and family – both immediate and distant – so that they don’t die that third death either.
A very interesting piece, Karen. Cheers to cousin Sophia! And the Scotchford-Wheeler House is a beauty. My husband and I lived in Bedford for a couple of years. That’s the next town over from Concord. We LOVE Concord! The Colonial Inn is still charming and sitting on the shores of Walden Pond is one of the best ways, ever, to spend an afternoon. Your last few paragraphs are a perfect ending to a beautiful piece. I am making sure my friends and family will not die a third death. Thanks, Karen! 😎
Awesome. I’m still dealing with 1820 relatives making their way to the Northwest Territory. I have real doubts about them in the 1600’s. Love the Concord, Mass., house! Beautiful.