John and Sarah Post in Early Ware

 

By Doreen Dolleman

 

I feel it is important to reconsider the validity of accepted info from the Red Book, which gives the death date of Thankful, wife of Capt. Jabez as 20 March 1745. No source is given for that date and it is not in Ware vital records. However, the death date of Sarah, wife of John Post, is in Ware records as 20 March 1745. It has always been my opinion that Sarah Post was the sister of Capt. Jabez.

 

In "History of Hampshire County" there are 2 paragraphs about the family of Capt. Jabez under the heading of "The First Settlers". The 3rd paragraph is about John Post - it says that he was a relative of Olmsttead and lived on the Lathrop farm, which was part of Olmstead's purchase. [Note by COH: The Ware plat in the first issue of the Newsletter shows that the Post property was adjacent to the Olmstead property.] The very next sentence says, "His wife's death is recorded March 20, 1745." That was referring to John Post's wife, not Jabez Olmstead's wife.

 

 I believe it is very likely that long ago someone misinterpreted that sentence to mean the death date of Thankful, rather than Sarah and it was printed in the Red Book and now is accepted as fact. It does not seem likely that both women died on the same date, although it would not be impossible. I am suspicious because there is no source for Thankful's death date and she is not recorded in Ware VR's. My guess would be that she died closer to 1748 shortly before Jabez remarried.

 

[Note by COH: The article on the early history of Ware in the November 2000 Newsletter contains the petition that the early settlers made to the General Court in 1744. John Post was one of the signers of that Petition. He was frequently elected clark, assessor, moderator and assessor in the early Ware Town meetings.]