After the first issue, I received the following
query from Lynne (Mrs. Thomas, Jr.) Keasling, 870 Yankee Way SW, Corydon, IN
47112-5317:
My ancestor, Nathan
Hamilton, son of Joseph and Sarah Woodham, born 1739 in Brookfield, MA, married
an Abigail Olmsted, 1 Jan 1771 in Brookfield. She was Nathan’s second wife and
their children were: Nathan Jr.; Abigail (called Nabby); Thurza; Esther;
Simeon; Dorothy; Tilley (a male‑my ancestor) and Serepta. Nathan Jr. died
in 1819 and my ancestor Tilley made a claim for his father's Revolutionary War
Pension. In that, he said that his mother, Abigail, died in 1838 in the Poor
House in Brookfield. Tilley was living in New York at this time.
What I would like to know is
whose daughter Abigail was; Jeremiah (?) who is listed in the Olmsted Family
Genealogy as having a daughter Abigail born ca 1740 to 1749. She would seem to
fit as she had children from 1774 to 1790.
I would like to know more
about her family and will gladly share any information that I have. The Hamilton
family later moved to Wisconsin.
I cannot find an Abigail
Olmsted born between 1740 and 1749. There is an Abigail (9093), listed in OFA
as the daughter of Jeremiah (9071) and Elizabeth Litten, but born March 24,
1731. This Abigail (9093) is listed in the OFA as being married to Nathan
Hamilton, and the names of the children stated by Mrs. Keasling are as listed
in the OFA. The marriage date is as in the OFA and in the Brookfield Records
(BVR). All the children’s births are listed in the BVR.
However, there is no record
that Jeremiah and Elizabeth had a daughter named Abigail. First, neither the
BVR or Ware Vital Records (WVR) mention her. Second, in the listing of
Jeremiah’s and Elizabeth’s children in OFA, Abigail is out of chronological
order. She is listed as the sixth child, but she was born first (1731). The OFA
lists Jabez (9088) as born first in 1735 and his birth date is confirmed in
both BVR and WVR. Finally, I know the marriage date (1734) of Jeremiah and
Elizabeth is correct, because I copied the original handwritten record of their
marriage, in the Brookfield Town Hall.
Abigail’s birth date, 1731,
three years before the marriage of her parents (1734), would have not gone
unnoticed then in a New England town, such as Brookfield. Indeed, Roy, in
“History of East Brookfield” relates that in 1695, William Barnes (brother of
Thankful Barnes, wife of Jabez) was the subject of a court settlement in
Brookfield for fathering an illegitimate child on Captivity Jennings, and was
fined 2s 3p per week for child “maintenance”.
There are additional
problems. If Abigail was born in 1731, then she was 43 years old when her first
child, Nathan, was born in 1774, and 59 when the last (eighth) child, Sarepta,
was born in 1790. This is unlikely. And Mrs. Keasling has documentation that
Abigail died in 1838, when she would have been age 107. This too is unlikely.
The death date is also recorded in the BVR as 1833 or 1838 (dual date means the
last digit was illegible).
This is complicated by the
record of an another Abigail Olmsted (9078), d. of Jabez and Thankful Barnes,
born March 24, 1731. She is listed in the OFA, and is in both the BVR and WVR.
BUT THAT’S THE SAME BIRTH DATE AS THE OTHER ONE! Could father and son both have
had daughters born on the same day, and given the same first name? But even if the Abigail that married
Hamilton was the daughter of Jabez, and not of Jeremiah, that still leaves a
woman having a first child at age 43, and continuing to have seven more, until
age 59. And then dying at age 107.
Another kicker. Temple, in
“History of North Brookfield”, says that Abigail Olmsted, daughter of Jabez
Olmsted, married Nathan Hamilton in 1771. This would mean that she was married
twice, first to Benoni Smith (before 1752), and then to Hamilton. But the BVR
show a marriage of Abigail Olmsted, not Abigail Smith, in 1771. Would the Vital
Records list a marriage under the widow’s maiden name? No, it would read
Abigail Smith, wid, for “widow”, in such a case.
So we have a mystery. Who
was the Abigail Olmsted who married Nathan Hamilton?
I can think of four possible
answers:
Jeremiah and Elizabeth had
an unrecorded daughter, born about 1745, in the four year gap between Martha
(1743) and Gideon (Tilton) (1747). That puts Abigail’s first child born at age
31, the last at age 45, and her death at age 93. These ages are reasonable.
Another of Jabez’s sons had
an unrecorded daughter named Abigail.
Abigail Olmsted, d. of
Jabez, b. in 1731, married Nathan Hamilton in 1771, and died. He remarried
someone named Abigail, as his third wife, and some or all of the eight children
were hers.
There are Abigail Olmsted’s
of the Hartford Branch that have appropriate birth dates, and no marriage or
death listed: Abigail (4044), b. after 1737, and Abigail (4169), b. 1743. But
there is no evidence that the two branches knew of each other that early.
Do
any of our readers have a suggestion?