Thursday, March 13, 2014

Treasure Chest Thursday - Post 205: Death Record for Jeremiah Knowlton (1745-1785)

It's Treasure Chest Thursday - time to look in my digital image files to see what treasures I can find for my family history and genealogy musings.

The treasure today is the Death Record for Jeremiah Knowlton (1745-1785) in Weston, Massachusetts:


The page from the Weston town vital records book says:

"Jeremiah Knowlton, d. June 11, 1785.  His widow, Hannah, and family were removed to Concord."

I just found this last night after years of searching town records.  I don't know how I missed it.  This family resided in Lincoln, a nearby town, in the 1770s and early 1780s, with several children recorded there.  

There is also a clue for further research - the family removed to Concord, another nearby town.  

The source citation for this entry in the Weston town vital record book is:

Mary Frances Peirce, Town of Weston. Births, Deaths and Marriages, 1707-1850. Gravestones, 1703-1900. Church Records, 1709-1825 (Boston, Mass. : McIndoe Bros., Printers, 1901), page 563, Jeremiah Knowlton entry.

In the process of searching for Jeremiah last night, I also found the death record for his second wife in Concord in 1797, and birth/baptism records for three children by his second wife in Lincoln which I did not have.

Jeremiah Knowlton is my 5th great-grandfather, and father of Abigail Knowlton (1774-1855), who married Nathan Gates in 1790 in Westminster, Massachusetts.  I've been trying to figure out why Abigail would leave her home and marry someone fairly far away from where she grew up at age 16.  One hypothesis is that she may have had a guardian (another item for the to-do list) who moved to the Westminster area after her father died.  Abigail's mother, Abigail (Pierce) Knowlton, died in 1776, so Abigail (Knowlton) Gates grew up with a step-mother, Hannah (Goffe) Knowlton.  

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver

1 comment:

Geolover said...

Abigail would not have had a guardian appointed for her after her mother's death unless ~ad litem~ if there were some litigation regarding her mother's property -- if and only if there were substantial inherited property to be divided among at least 2 heirs.

She could have been indentured to learn a trade (say, spinning), or if her father had some wealth she could have been sent to board with a family and attend a female school or academy to learn needlework and housekeeping skills.

The pupils in such schools produced a lot of the now-pricey samplers. There are books about these samplers. Some scholars have been able to attribute groups of them to particular teachers.