♀Alice Blower

Alice Blower (died 3 November 1690) was an early settler of Boston and Braintree in the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W; she married Richard Brackett, later deacon and militia captain of Braintree, in London in 1634, made her home with him at Boston and then Braintree for more than fifty years, and outlived him by eight months. She was the ninth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), most likely through her daughter Hannah (died 1706).

Early life and marriage

She was probably the Alice Blower baptized at St Gregory’s church in Sudbury, Suffolk, on 30 June 1615, a daughter of Thomas Blower and his wife Alice Frost. Richard Brackett, from the same parish, had already been to New England and came back to England to marry. On 6 January 1633/4 Richard Brackett and Alice Blower were married at St Katherine by the Tower^W, in London. By the end of 1634 they were living in Boston, where their first child, Hannah, was baptized on 4 January 1634/5. Her father is said to have followed them to New England in 1635, but to have died soon afterwards.

Boston and Braintree

Alice was admitted to the Boston church on 8 November 1635. On 5 December 1641 the Boston church recommended Richard and Alice to the church at Braintree, where Richard became a deacon, and Braintree was their home for the rest of their lives. When their son Josiah was born on 8 May 1652, the town’s register, then kept by her husband, entered him as the son “of Richard Brackett and Allis his wiffe”.

Richard and Alice had eight children: four baptized at Boston between 1635 and 1639 (Hannah, then Peter and John on the same day, then Rachel) and four born at Braintree (Mary, James, Josiah and Sarah). Their eldest, Hannah, is most likely the Hannah who married Samuel Kingsley and, after his death in 1662, John Blanchard; Richard’s will gives “my daughter Hannah Blancher twenty shillings in good pay”.

Widowhood and death

Richard’s will, made on 29 January 1688/9, left “my beloved wife Allice Brackett” the use for life of his whole estate in Braintree and the income from his lands at Billerica, and the rest of his movable goods to dispose of as she wished. Richard died at Braintree on 3 March 1689/90, aged 80, and Alice died there on 3 November 1690, aged 76; his will was proved at Boston on 19 December 1690. The town register entered her as “Aliss Brackett wife of Capt Richard Brackett”.

Notes

Sources

Her baptism, her parents, her admission to the Boston church and the recommendation to Braintree are from Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins, volume 1, pp. 205–206; he takes the baptism and parentage from an article in The American Genealogist (volume 52, pp. 73–75), the marriage from the New England Historical and Genealogical Register (volume 127, p. 17), and the church entries from the Boston church records. The marriage also appears in an index of the Middlesex parish registers. Her son’s birth and her death are printed in Samuel A. Bates, ed., Records of the Town of Braintree 1640 to 1793 (1886), where her death reads “Aliss Brackett wife of Capt Richard Brackett died the 3d of November 1690, aged 76”. The will is in the Suffolk probate register (8:9), abstracted by Anderson.

Her age

An age of 76 in November 1690 points to a birth about 1614; the baptism of June 1615 would make her 75.