♂David Blanchard

David Blanchard (1 January 1731 – 6 March 1788) was a Weymouth man who married twice and died suddenly at the age of 56. He was the fifth great-grand-uncle of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), the brother of Nancy Jane’s fifth great-grandfather Nicholas Blanchard (1736–1801).

Early life

David was born at Weymouth, Suffolk, Massachusetts Bay Colony, on 1 January 1731, the son of John Blanchard (1691–1752) and Elizabeth Gross, whom the town’s records enter as Blancher. His father died in May 1752, when David was twenty-one.

Marriages and family

On 28 December 1758 David married Mary Walker at Weymouth; the church record writes her surname as Woker. A compiled history of Weymouth families says she was perhaps a daughter of John and Silence Walker, gives her death as 19 September 1773, in her thirty-ninth year, and names one child of the marriage, a son David, born on 10 December 1759.

His second marriage was to Ann Humphrey at Weymouth. The intention was entered on 31 August 1777, and the church record gives the wedding as 23 October. The same history makes Ann a daughter of Maj. James Humphrey, born on 6 July 1746, and gives the same day for the wedding of her half-sister Deborah to Capt. Lemuel Gardner of Boston. The same history lists five children of David and Ann, born between 1780 and 1787, and says Ann died a widow on 15 February 1825.

Town offices

A Sons of the American Revolution patriot record lists Weymouth town offices for David in the years of the Revolution: clerk of the market, surveyor of wood, of fencing and of highways, warden, and a member of the town’s committee of correspondence^W, the local body that kept the town in touch with other towns’ resistance to British rule.

Death

David died at Weymouth on 6 March 1788, aged 56. The church record says he died suddenly, and the town’s register of deaths names both his wives.

Notes

Children

The tree holds no child for either marriage. The six children above come from the compiled history of Weymouth families alone.

Military service

The Sons of the American Revolution record also names service in Capt. Joshua Walker’s company, but the roll behind that entry is that of a David Blanchard of Woburn, a different man. The Weymouth rolls list a David Blancher and a David Blancher Jr. in another company in 1776, and which of them was this David is not clear, so no military service is stated here. The town offices rest on the Daughters of the American Revolution volume of Massachusetts town officials that the patriot record cites.