♂Benjamin Royce

Benjamin Royce (died about 1775) was one of the first settlers of Hanover, New Hampshire, arriving in 1766 when the town on the upper Connecticut River was still wilderness, and his daughter Lydia, born in June 1767, was the second child born in the new town. He was the fifth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Lydia Royce (1767–1851).

Settling Hanover

The town’s historian, Frederick Chase, writing in 1891 from the early town records, names him as “Benjamin Royce (or Rice), probably from Coventry”, Connecticut, one of a handful of families who joined the first settlers in the spring of 1766; within another year ten or twelve more families had come. Hammond’s town history of 1883 instead has Benjamin Rice coming to Hanover in 1766 from Mansfield, Connecticut, the year after Col. Edmond Freeman, also of Mansfield, made a settlement there. Chase records that the first child born in Hanover was Otis Freeman, on 25 May 1767, and that “the second was a child of Benjamin Royce, born two weeks later, June 6th”. The New Hampshire record of births names that child as Lydia, daughter of Benjamin Royce and his wife Seble, and records a second daughter, Naomi, born at Hanover on 20 July 1769.

Death and family

Chase reports that Benjamin Royce was released from his rates in 1773 and died in 1775. The history does not say why he was released. His daughter Lydia had married Uriah Howard, a Continental soldier, at Dorchester, New Hampshire, on 20 May 1783, and Uriah was living at Lyme, the next town up the river, in 1790. Two later records may name the same man. On 2 March 1781 a Benjamin Rice, written “Benjn Rise”, signed a petition of the inhabitants of Cockermouth, Dorchester, Lyme and other towns, and in 1790 a Benjamin Rice headed a household at Lyme of one man and three women. If they are the same man, Chase’s 1775 death date is wrong, and no record after 1769 names his wife or a daughter with him.

Notes

His parents and birthplace are not known. Chase’s “probably from Coventry” is a guess by the historian; a Jehiel Royse of Coventry hosted a meeting of the Hanover proprietors in 1764. A Benjamin Royce born at Willington, Connecticut, on 17 March 1738, a son of Daniel and Lydia Royce, is of about the right age, but no record has been found that ties him to Hanover. The Sons of the American Revolution record him as a private in a Connecticut company who died at Boston on 17 June 1775, but the roll that it cites names a Benjamin Rist of Ashford, a different man.

Three things point towards the Willington man without proving the link. His mother was named Lydia and he had a younger sister Naomi, born at Willington in 1752; the Hanover settler’s only two recorded children were Lydia and Naomi, and Naomi was not a common name. Willington borders Mansfield, and Chase has Royce arriving in 1766 alongside a settler “from Mansfield”. Willington’s land records also hold Royce deeds from 1763 to 1767, the years just before the move to Hanover, although the parties to them are not yet identified. The Windham probate court, which then served Mansfield and Coventry, records no Royce estate between 1755 and 1760. Its only near match is a Daniel Ross “late of Coventry”, whose estate was inventoried in November 1755 and whose heirs are not named there. Online family trees give Benjamin a death in Maine; no record supports it, and Chase places his death in 1775.