Two of my known direct ancestral couples were married during the second week of December:
maternal 6X great grandparents Moses Cooper and Mary Mathewson were wed in Glocester, Rhode Island, on December 10, 1732; and maternal great grandparents Lewis Logan Slater and Rufina Tomlinson in Severy, Kansas, on December 13, 1885.
The following two couples also married during the second week of December but I'm less certain of my relationship to them: paternal 10X great grandparents Thomas Ford and his first wife Joan Way wed in England on December 13, 1610*; and maternal 5X great grandparents William White and Jemima Wright were married on December 13, 1781 in Adams, Massachusetts, by my 6X great grandfather Elder Peter Worden.**
*This is a line that I haven't looked at in years and so I'm not certain of my connection. In any case, I would be descended from his second wife Elizabeth Charde.
**This couple's relationship to me is entirely speculative and not to be relied on. If it's true they are the grandparents of Hannah Leonard, the wife of Porter Worden (my 3X great grandparents)
Although there's general agreement that her father was John Field, one of the earliest settlers in Providence, Rhode Island,* there are those who believe that Hannah Field's mother was Ruth Fairbanks. But the only Ruth Fairbanks I've found in the records was a woman who married Robert Field in 1624 and moved to New York. Torrey** isn't even certain that the given name of Hannah's mother was Ruth.
[Torrey's New England Marriages to 1700, Volume 1, Page: 539 via New England Historical Genealogical Society's wedsite americanancestors.org]
Hannah, my eighth maternal great grandmother, was probably born about 1640 in Providence and appears to be the oldest child of John and ?Ruth, followed by at least three brothers and a sister.
The next record I've found for Hannah is that of her marriage to James Mathewson (once again from Torrey) and the newlyweds continued living in Providence.
[Torrey's New England Marriages to 1700, Volume 2, Page: 1014 via New England Historical Genealogical Society's wedsite americanancestors.org]
The couple had nine children during the twenty years of their marriage and Hannah was pregnant with the last one, my direct ancestor Daniel, when James made his will about four month before he died, on December 3, 1682. Daniel was born nearly two months after his father's death.***
Original from Cornell University via HathiTrust Digital Books]
Unfortunately I wasn't able to locate a scan of James Mathewson's will but here is a transcription that retains the antiquated spelling:****
"I James Mathewson of ye Towne of Providence being weake of body yet haveing my perfect Memory, Doe make my last will & testament as followeth,
First I Comett my body to ye dust & my Spirit to God that gave it.
Secondly I give to my son James six score acres of land with all ye Comonage betweene ye seven mile line & ye foure.
Thirdly I give to my son Thomas Twenty one acrs of land which I bought of Daniell Browne, with Twenty acres which I had of ye Towne.
Fourthly, I give to all my sons Equall alike all my share of land beyond ye seven mile line.
Fifthly, I Give to my son Zachariah, & ye Child unborne, if it be a son; my house & land, & three five acre Lotts lieing up Naspatuckett River with the land at ye Round Cove, But if it be a daughter, then it all remaines to my son Zachariah.
Lastly I make my beloved wife Hannah Sole Exsecutrix of all my mooveables of household goodes, & Cattells what so Ever to despose to my Daughters as shee shall see cause. This being my last will & teastement, Jn wittnesse hereof I sett to my hand & seale this twenty foure day of August 1682:
Signed & sealed in ye James Mathewson presence of
William Hopkins his X marke
Eward London"
In 1687 Hannah was taxed as the widow of James Mathewson but sometime after that she married Henry Brown***** whom she survived, although she declined to act as his executor, ceding that chore to her stepsons.
And after that, Hannah Field Mathewson Brown disappears from the records. It's presumed that she died and is buried in Providence where she had lived her whole life.
I've included a video about Roger Williams (1603-1683) the most famous of the founders of Rhode Island and the founder of the first Baptist Church in America. He would have been a familiar figure to my ancestors.
[C-SPAN Cities Tour - Providence: Roger Williams & the First Baptist Church]
*John Field's mark is on the Providence civil compact of that year.
**Torrey’s New England Marriages Prior to 1700 by Clarence Almon Torrey (1869-1962). There's a video about using this important source here.
***On January 28th. During this period of time, the British were using a calendar year that began on March 25th, not January 1st.
****I found this version on the MathewsonDonald1 tree on Ancestry.com and compared it with another, modernized transcription on a different tree, Ten Generations of Mathewson's.
*****Hannah and Henry didn't have any children together.
Moses Cooper, my maternal 6th great grandfather, was a life-long resident of Glocester in the county of Providence, Rhode Island. On December 10, 1732, he and Mary Mathewson were married by a justice of the peace. They had ten children that we know of--I am descended from their daughter Ruth through her natural child Mercy Phillips.
Most of what I know about this ancestor comes from a 1991 Pulitzer Prize-winning book written by Gordon S. Wood titled The Radicalism of the American Revolution in which the author refers to him in a paragraph on page 172:
"Take, for example, the lifelong struggle of farmer and sawmill owner Moses Cooper of Glocester, Rhode Island, to rise from virtual insignificance to become the richest man in the town. In 1767-68, at the age of sixty, Cooper was finally able to hire sufficient slaves and workers to do all his manual labor; he became a gentleman and justice of the peace, and appended 'Esq.' to his name. Cooper...had made his money from lumber. Yet at the same time Cooper knew only too well the precariousness of his wealth and position and naturally feared what Britain's mercantile restrictions might mean for his lumber sales to the West Indies. What had risen so high could as readily fall: not surprisingly, he became an enthusiastic patriot leader of his tiny town of Glocester."
However, in March of 1788 he was among the freemen who voted against Rhode Island's adoption of the new Constitution.
My ancestor Ruth is one of the 3 free white females in his household in the 1790 U.S. Census. (His name appears about half way down the left hand column.)
[Ancestry.com. 1790 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: First Census of the United States, 1790 (NARA microfilm publication M637, 12 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National]
As his will dated 1802 describes "my daughter Ruth who lives with me" she's undoubtedly the other person living with him in the 1800 U.S. Census.
[Ancestry.com. 1800 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Second Census of the United States, 1800. NARA microfilm publication M32 (52 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National]
His death in 1805 was reported not only in the Providence Gazette but also in the Boston Commercial Gazette.
