Mendon Massachusetts

Biographical Sketch of Abel C. Wilder

Abel C. Wilder, prominent in the free-soil movements of Kansas Territory, in the establishment of the republican party within its limits and the founding of the commonwealth, was born at Mendon, Massachusetts, March 18, 1828. With little book learning, he early became identified with business at Rochester, New York, and did much to found its public library. While still a resident of the East, the Kansas question enlisted his deep interest and sympathy, and he came to the territory at his first opportunity in March, 1857. Engaging in the land business at Leavenworth, he at once became prominent in that … Read more

Ancestry of Charles Oliver Emerson of Brockton and Rockland, Massachusetts

Charles Oliver Emerson, treasurer of the Emerson Shoe Company, of Rockland, Mass., one who has been prominently identified with the shoe manufacturing industry for a number of years, is a native of what at the time of his birth, July 14, 1856, was known as the town of North Bridgewater, now the city of Brockton, Mass., where he resides. He is a son of the late John Oliver Emerson and his wife, Caroline Augusta Packard, and is descended from historic old New England ancestry on both the paternal and maternal sides.

Narrative of the Captivity of Nehemiah How

Fort Dummer

A Narrative of the captivity of Nehemiah How, who was taken by the Indians at the Great Meadow Fort above Fort Dummer, where he was an inhabitant, October 11th, 1745. Giving an account of what he met with in his traveling to Canada, and while he was in prison there. Together with an account of Mr. How’s death at Canada. Exceedingly valuable for the many items of exact intelligence therein recorded, relative to so many of the present inhabitants of New England, through those friends who endured the hardships of captivity in the mountain deserts and the damps of loathsome prisons. Had the author lived to have returned, and published his narrative himself, he doubtless would have made it far more valuable, but he was cut off while a prisoner, by the prison fever, in the fifty-fifth year of his age, after a captivity of one year, seven months, and fifteen days. He died May 25th, 1747, in the hospital at Quebec, after a sickness of about ten days. He was a husband and father, and greatly beloved by all who knew him.

Free Massachusetts Vital Records

Vital Records of Bellingham Massachusetts to 1850

This is a collection of free vital records books, otherwise known as “Tan Books” for Massachusetts towns. Generally, these records go up to 1849/1850 at which, the genealogist can use the census records to assist in identifying the family connections further. Included with this article is an account of why and how these manuscripts were published along with links to all 198 books which can be freely read or downloaded.

Biography of Henry W. Corbett

The writer who seeks to portray the life and advancement of a people-no matter how far he may be under the control of theories pointing otherwise-must at last come to the individual and seek his best material in the lives and records of those by whom the works he would describe have been performed. Thus biography becomes not merely a side light to history, but the very essence and vitality of history itself. In the story of the man of affairs you tell that of his times as well. Viewed thus, it does not need be said that the true … Read more

Ancestors of John Richardson Bronson of Attleboro, MA

J. R. Bronson

JOHN RICHARDSON BRONSON, M. D., who for over half a century was one of the best known practitioners of medicine in southern Massachusetts and part of Rhode Island, and who for upward of fifty years was a resident of Attleboro, was a native of Connecticut, born in the town of Middlebury, New Haven county, June 5, 1829, son of Garry and Maria (Richardson) Bronson.

The Bronson family was early planted in the New World. John Bronson (early of record as Brownson and Brunson) was early at Hartford. He is believed, though not certainly known, to have been one of the company who came in 1636 with Mr. Hooker, of whose church he was a member. He was a soldier in the Pequot battle of 1637. He is not named among the proprietors of Hartford in the land division of 1639; but is mentioned in the same year in the list of settlers, who by the “towne’s courtesie” had liberty “to fetch woods and keepe swine or cowes on the common.” His house lot was in the “soldiers’ field,” so called, in the north part of the old village of Hartford, on the “Neck Road” (supposed to have been given for service in the Pequot war), where he lived in 1640. He moved, about 1641 to Tunxis (Farmington) He was deputy from Farmington in May, 1651, and at several subsequent sessions, and the “constable of Farmington” in 1652. He was one of the seven pillars at the organization of the Farmington Church in 1652. His name is on the list of freemen of Farmington in 1669. He died Nov. 28, 1680.

Biographical Sketch of Noah Aldrich

(IV) Noah, son of Jacob (2) Aldrich, was born in Mendon about 1720. He deeded lands in Mendon in 1772. He appears to have moved soon afterward to New Salem, Massachusetts, of which he was a soldier in the revolution in 1775 in Captain John King’s company, Colonel Benjamin Ruggles Woodbridge’s regiment. In 1790, according to the first federal census, he was living in Adams, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, and had one son over sixteen and four females -in his family. He married Rachel.

Read Family of Massachusetts

Alex. Read

(I) John Read, supposed son of William and Lucy (Henage) Read, was born in 1598, and it is said came to America with the great fleet in 1630. He is of record in 1637 in Weymouth, was in Dorchester the next year, and went from there to that part of Braintree now Quincy. In 1643 or 1644 he accompanied Rev. Mr. Newman and his church society to Rehoboth, where his name appears the third on the list of purchasers of the town. He was a man of large property for those times, and held the office of constable, which was … Read more

Biograhical Sketch of Jacob Aldrich

(III) Jacob (2), son of Jacob (1) Aldrich, was born at Mendon, May z8, 1676, died about 1750. His will was dated May 5, 1748, and his property was divided August 23, 1753. He was a Quaker. He married Mary . Children: Jacob, his executor; Noah, mentioned elsewhere; Mary, married Israel Taft, of Upton; Hannah, married John Harwood; Experience, married Benjamin Craging; Margery, married Ichabod Amidon, of Mendon; Bethia, married Abraham Fletcher, of Mendon.

Staples Family of Taunton, MA

Herbert M Staples

STAPLES (Taunton family). The Staples name is one of long and honorable standing in New England and the country. The family has been a continuous one in the Bay State for two hundred and seventy and more years, and at Taunton, in this Commonwealth, have lived generation after generation of the name down to the present – a worthy race, one representative of the best type of citizenship. Such men in more recent generations as the two Sylvanus Staples, father and son, and the latter’s son Sylvanus Nelson Staples, and the two Ebenezer Staples and Abiel B. Staples – all … Read more

Biographical Sketch of George Aldrich

(I) George Aldrich was born in Derbyshire, England, about 1605. He married, in England, November 3, 1629, Katherine Seald, and came to New England in 1631 with his wife. She was born about 1610, according to her deposition made June 18, 1670, when she was sixty years old. He was a tailor by trade. He settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and belonged to the church there about 1636. He was admitted a freeman, December 7, 1636. In 1663 he was one of, the first seven persons to arrive in the township of Mendon, Massachusetts. He sold his land in Braintree to … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Jacob Aldrich

(II) Jacob, son of George Aldrich, was born in Braintree, February 28, 1653. He settled in Mendon, and was a farmer there on the homestead all his life. He died October 22, 1695. He married, November 3, 1675, Huldah Thayer. Children, born at Mendon: Jacob, May 28, 1676, mentioned elsewhere; Abel, January 27, 1677; Seth, July 6, 1699; Huldah, 1680; Rachel, 1682, died young; Sarah, 1683; David, May 23, 1685; Peter, October 17, 1686; John, November 17, 1688; Moses, April 1, 1691 ; Mercy, February 17, 1692, died same year; Rachel, December 27, 1694.

Biographical Sketch of Nathan Aldrich

(V) Nathan, son of Noah Aldrich, was born about 1760-65, probably in Mendon. In 1789 he was living with his father in Adams and came to the town of Victor, Ontario county, New York, among the first settlers. He sowed the first wheat sowed in that town, and after preparing his home returned to his old home in the Berkshires. In the spring of 1790 he came with his family and later he built the first frame house in Victor. He had sons: John, born in Victor, October 30, 1790, married Leonora Aldrich, formerly of Massachusetts; Willis, mentioned elsewhere.

Descendants of William Sturdy of Attleboro MA and Slatersville RI

John F. Sturdy

William Sturdy, as he was thenceforth known, then shipped on an American schooner lying at Leghorn, and bound for the United States. He finally landed at Beverly, Mass., June 9, 1809. From the port of Beverly he made several voyages as mate of American schooners, but finally abandoned the seas. He married in Beverly Clarissa Whittemore, who was born in that town Jan. 28, 1794. After their marriage they settled in Attleboro, Bristol county, where Mr. Sturdy bought land lying on the west shore of the Falls pond and engaged in farming until 1827. Here ten of his fourteen children were born. About that time, 1827, “the initial efforts in cotton manufacturing on the Blackstone had opened the way for the employment of minors,” and Mr. Sturdy availed himself of this opportunity because it had become impossible for him to procure a proper subsistence for his large family from his farm. In that year he sold out and removed to the Blackstone Valley, locating at Slatersville, town of North Smithfield, R. I., where he and his children found employment in the cotton mills. He later settled in Blackstone, Mass., where he died Oct. 16, 1834. He was a hardworking man, honest and upright in his dealings, and his large family of fourteen children reflected great credit on their home training. The wife and mother died Feb. 13, 1856.