♀Abigail Warren

Abigail Warren (23 January 1682/83 – 12 May 1768) was the wife of Deacon Andrew Spaulding of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, and the mother of twelve children. She was the sixth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her son Andrew Spaulding (1701–1768).

Birth and parentage

The Chelmsford town book records her birth: “Abigail the daughter of Jacob and Abigaill warren was borne the 23 Janewary 1682”, a date that falls in 1683 by the modern reckoning, since the year then began in March. The entry names her father as Jacob Warren. A note by the copyist says that this entry and the one before it were among the marriages, with ink lines drawn through them, and the entry is missing from the printed Chelmsford vital records of 1914.

The town book writes her mother’s name as Abigaill, but Jacob Warren’s wife at that time was Mary Hildreth, whom he had married at Chelmsford on 21 June 1667. She had borne his children since 1670 and was still his wife in 1689/90, when the register enters the birth of a daughter Sarah to “Jacob and Marah”. The only other Warren couple in Chelmsford with a wife named Abigail, Arthur Warren and his wife, had ended in 1671: Arthur’s estate is in the Middlesex County probate index for that year, and a compiled Warren genealogy says his wife died that June. The most likely reading is that the clerk wrote Abigail where he meant Mary, and Abigail’s mother is taken to be Mary Hildreth on that footing.

Jacob and Mary had five other children, born between 1670 and 1690, and he and a second wife, Sarah, had three more, born between 1691 and 1696. A compiled genealogy traces him to Weymouth, Massachusetts, where the town records enter the birth of a “Jacob, s. Arthur” in 1642; the link between that boy and the Chelmsford man is the compiler’s and has not been confirmed from a record.

Marriage and family

On 5 February 1701 she married Andrew Spaulding at Chelmsford; the register writes her name “Abbigall Waring”. She and Andrew had twelve children, born between 1701 and 1723: Andrew, the eldest, on 8 December 1701, then Jacob and Henry, twins, in 1703, Josiah, Ephraim, Isaac, the twins Abigail and Johanna in 1712, James, David, Benjamin and Sarah. Two of her births were of twins. The printed Chelmsford register enters eleven of the births; Ephraim, whom the 1897 genealogy gives as born on 8 August 1708, is missing from it, but his father’s will names him. Benjamin, the youngest son, is the one child the will leaves out, and the same genealogy says he died on 18 December 1737.

Later life and death

A Spalding family genealogy published in 1897 records that she joined her husband in conveying land in Londonderry, New Hampshire, by a deed dated at Dunstable on 2 September 1726. In his will, as that genealogy prints it, dated 19 February 1741/2, he left her the use of all his lands, buildings, stock and household goods for her lifetime.

Her husband died on 7 November 1753. The Chelmsford death register records “Abigail, wid. Dea. Andrew” on 12 May 1768, and the church record gives her age as 85, which agrees with the birth entry.