GenMassachusetts-L Archives

From: Susan Taylor <>
Subject: [GM-L] WASHBURN: Hannah (WASHBURN) DAVIS (c1718 Bridgetown, MA?-bef 1750 Middletown, CT?)
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 17:35:48 -0600

Has there been any newly discovered evidence supporting the belief that
Joseph/4 and Hannah (JOHNSON) WASHBURN - md. 1716 Bridgewater, MA - were
the parents of Hannah (WASHBURN) DAVIS (c1718 prob. Bridgetown, MA - before
1750 Middletown, CT) who md. 1737 Bridgewater Thomas DAVIS?

About every 5 years I take ol' Hannah out for an airing to see what's the
latest condition of her ancestry. A little background.....

No direct evidence has been found like her birth record to prove her as a
daughter of Joseph/4 and Hannah (JOHNSON) WASHBURN. Also Joseph's will
doesn't mention a daughter Hannah. There is a preponderance of evidence
(several "pieces of indirect evidence, and their cumulative force" per
Donald Lines Jacobus) to have convinced Jacobus and Charles Thornton Libbey
(noted genealogists); author Mary Bates Woods author of Genealogy of Sarai
Stow Ellis, A Direct Descendant of John Stowe of Roxbury, Mass; Edward J.
Paul author of The Ancestry of Katharine Choate Paul, Now Mrs. William J.
Young, Jr. and the Mayflower Society (Mayflower Ancestral Index, Vol. I and
Mayflower Index: Revised Edition of the Two Volumes of the Mayflower Index)
that she was their daughter.

Indirect evidence per Jacobus, etc...:

1. The marriage of Thomas DAVIS and Hannah WASHBURN, 2 Jun 1737 in
Bridgewater, MA was recorded so know her maiden name was WASHBURN and that
she was located with the Bridgewater WASHBURNS. [Bates per Jacobus, Libbey]
2. No place for her has been found in other WASHBURN families. [Bates per
Jacobus]
3. Joseph/4 wife and mother both were named Hannah. [Bates per Jacobus]
4. "The dates harmonize with the supposition that she was the first child
of Joseph Washburn Jr. and Hannah Johnson." There were no recorded births
for children born to Joseph/4 and Hannah (JOHNSON) during the 1st 7 years
of their marriage except for their son Joseph in 1720. [Bates per Jacobus
5. Land Records:
a. "Joseph Washburn bought several parcels of land in 1732, most of which
he sold 11 Dec. 1738, the rest being sold by Thomas Davis on 16 Jan.
1738/9. The very fact that the deed from Washburn to Davis was not recorded
favors the belief that it was a family transaction. The marriage of Davis
having occurred between the date of purchase by Washburn and the date of
sale by Washburn and Davis, makes it probably that the part of the land
sold by Davis was his wife's portion from her father. It was common thing
for daughters to be 'portioned off' at marriage." [Bates per Jacobus -
Source of Land records: Paul Genealogy]
2. "two deeds of sale given by Washburn and Davis, although drawn on
different dates, were both acknowledged on the same day. 19 May 1738/9."
[Bates]
3. Both families "made their early purchases [of land] in Middletown from
the same man." [Bates - Source: Middletown Land Records]
6. Both families migrated to Middletown, CT in the same year - 1738.
7. Hannah and Joseph/4 and Hannah (JOHNSON) WASHBURN were admitted to the
1st Cong. Church East Middletown on the same day. [Bates - original church
records]
8. Joseph/4 and Hannah (JOHNSON) WASHBURN removed to Leicester, MA in 1745
and in that same year one of the daughters of Hannah (WASHBURN) DAVIS and
Thomas moved to Leicester also. This daughter and her husband later moved
on to VT - Thomas and Anna (DAVIS) WICKER. They probably were following her
grandparents.
9. Family tradition: the grandchildren of Hannah (WASHBURN) DAVIS always
claimed their grandmother was sister of Col. Seth WASHBURN of Revolutionary
fame. Col. Seth WASHBURN was the 3rd son of Joseph/4 and Hannah (JOHNSON)
WASHBURN. [Bates, Jacobus, etc...]

The sources I have personally researched:

1. Mary Wood Bates, comp., Genealogy of Sarai Stow Ellis, A Direct
Descendant of John Stowe of Roxbury, Mass(Evanston, IL: s.p., 1935),
Repository: NEHGS, pp. 83, 85-95, 96, 129, 130, 132. [Sources on Hannah's
parents: The Ancestry of Katharine Choate Paul, pp. 153-6; correspondence
with Donald Lines Jacobus; correspondence with Charles Thornton Libbey and
his article in Boston Transcript May 1929; Original church records at CT
Hist. Library, Hartford, CT; Mayflower Index,
II:785].

2. Milton E. Terry, Ph.D. and Anne Borden Harding, comps., Mayflower
Ancestral Index, Vol. I (Plymouth, MA: General Society of Mayflower
Descendants, 1981), p. 660, #36929; p. 661, #36957.

3. Lewis Edwin Neff, comp., ed., Mayflower Index: Revised Edition of the
Two Volumes of the Mayflower Index which was compiled by the late William
Alexander McAuslan(Boston: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1960),
p. 785; Hannah #36,603, Joseph #36,669.

4. Robert M. Sherman & Verle D. Vincent, Mayflower Families Through Five
Generations, Descendants of the Pilgrims Who landed at Plymouth, Mass.
December 1620, Families: James Chilton, Richard Moore, Thomas Rogers, Vol.
Two (Chilton section) (Plymouth, MA: General Society of Mayflower
Descendants, 1978), p. 76, "no evidence was found to substantiate a
daughter Hannah proposed in Washburn Desc." and in footnote "*The Mayflower
Society has accepted lineages based on a purported daughter Hannah, for
whom no substantiating evidence was found."

5. George T. Washburn, Ebenezer Washburn, His Ancestors and Descendants
with some Connected Families: A Family Story of 700 Years (Pasumalai, South
India: s. pub., 1913), p. 54, does not list her as a child of Joseph and
Hannah.

6. Mabel Hacher Rosemary Washburn, Washburn Family Foundations in Normandy,
England and America (Greenfield, IN: s.p., 1953), does not list Hannah as a
child of Joseph and Hannah.

7. Vital Records of Bridgewater, MA to the year 1850, Vol. I, Births, no
birth listed for her.

8. Henry Edwards Scott, Edit., Vital Records of Bridgewater, Massachusetts
to the Year 1850: Marriages & Deaths, Vol. II - Marriages & Deaths (Boston:
The New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1916), p. 386.

9. "Barbour Collection: Connecticut Vital Records, Middletown,
Births-Marriages-Deaths, 1651-1854," compiled in 1923 under the supervision
of Lucius Barbour, Connecticut Examiner of Public Records from 1911-1934,
original MS collection in custody of the Connecticut State Library,
Hartford, CT (FHL microfilm 0002983; Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society
of Utah, 1949).

10. Robert S. Wakefield, FASG. and Ralph Van Wood, Jr., Mayflower Families
in Progress Francis Cook of the Mayflower and His Descendants for Four
Generations (3rd Ed.; Plymouth, MA: General Society of Mayflower
Descendants, 1994).

and sources such as SAVAGE, POPE, etc...

TIA.

--- Susan

My Genealogy Website - sgt
http://home.att.net/~SGTAYLOR1/
-----------------------------------------------
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• [GM-L] WASHBURN: Hannah (WASHBURN) DAVIS (c1718 Bridgetown, MA?-bef 1750 Middletown, CT?) by Susan Taylor <>