♀Bathsheba Edson

Bathsheba Edson (about 1742 – 1836) was a woman of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, who married John Carver (1738–1803) there on 18 October 1762. She was the fifth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Eunice Carver (1763–1845).

Marriage and children

The printed Bridgewater vital records enter the marriage twice, once under each surname, as “Bathsheba and Jo[h]n Carver”. A printed Carver family history dates the birth of their daughter Eunice to 16 March 1763 at Bridgewater. A lineage society’s record for her husband lists six children, among them a daughter named Bathsheba. The same Carver history, summarizing John’s will of 1803, names his wife Bathsheba and twelve children; the will’s own wording is not known, and apart from Eunice the children rest on those two compilations.

Parents and birth

Her father was Abel Edson of Bridgewater, yeoman, who in a deed recorded at Plymouth in 1784 gave land to “my beloved Daughter Bathsheba the wife of John Carver”; the deed does not name her mother. Abel’s only recorded wife was Margaret Conant, whom he is said to have married in 1739, so she was probably Bathsheba’s mother, but no record says so.

Her own birth has not been found. The printed Bridgewater birth records list eight children of Abel and “Margrett”, from Rachel on 13 January 1744 to Rufus in 1765, and Bathsheba is not among them; the Edson entries in that volume contain no Bathsheba, and her name appears nowhere among its births. She was therefore born before that run began. A compiled Edson genealogy of the descendants of Samuel Edson gives January 1742 at Bridgewater, names Margaret Conant as her mother and lists her twelve Carver children, but the page seen cites no record. The Edson genealogy of 1903 gives Abel and Margaret’s children from Rachel in 1744 to Rufus in 1765 and does not list her either. She is dated about 1742 here. Family trees give 9 January 1744 at Bridgewater, the date her age at death works out to, but no birth record supports it, and it would put her birth four days before Rachel’s.

Death

Bathsheba was a widow from 3 August 1803, when John died at Bridgewater. She died at Leeds, Maine, on 9 April 1836, where her daughter Eunice’s family had settled by 1792. The state’s death record, a later clerk’s copy of the older entry, names her “Bathsheba (Edison) Carver”, widow of John Carver of Bridgewater, and gives her age as 92 years 3 months. Family trees place her burial in the Knapp Cemetery at Leeds; no record of it has been found. A family chart compiled in 1994 said only that she died after 1803.

A town history of Leeds, published in 1901, records a tradition that she, her daughter Ursula and her son Elezer removed to Woodstock, Vermont. The same history says that Elezer’s family came to Leeds in 1800, landing at Hallowell and carrying everything they owned from there to Leeds in a hand cart. The records found so far do not show when or by what route Bathsheba herself reached Leeds.

Notes

• Her age of 92 years 3 months on 9 April 1836 counts back to about January 1744, which is the date family trees give. The Bridgewater register records Rachel, child of Abel and Margrett, on 13 January 1744, so the two cannot both be that couple’s daughters born in that month. The compiled Edson genealogy gives January 1742; if that is right, the record overstates her age by two years, an error not unusual at so great an age. This page keeps about 1742.
• The record also describes her as “2nd settler in town of Livermore”. Histories of Livermore mention a Mrs. Carver there in 1779 and 1780, but in 1784 Bathsheba was the wife of John Carver of Bridgewater, and John died at Bridgewater in 1803. The phrase is most likely a copyist’s mix-up with that other Mrs. Carver and is not used here.
• The account of the removal to Woodstock rests on tradition alone.