♀Dorothy Dudley

Dorothy Dudley (died before 31 December 1730) was a daughter of Samuel Dudley (1608–1683), minister of Exeter, New Hampshire, and his third wife, Elizabeth, and the wife of Moses Leavitt^W of Exeter. She was the seventh great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her son Stephen Leavitt.

Family

A family history of the Dudleys published in 1886 lists her among the eight children of Samuel Dudley’s third marriage, Stephen Dudley among them, and so makes her a granddaughter of Thomas Dudley^W, governor of Massachusetts Bay; neither it nor Savage’s genealogical dictionary of 1860 gives her date of birth. Moses Leavitt and Dorothy Dudley were married at Exeter on 26 October 1681, as the town records printed in a history of Exeter published in 1888 show. According to the Dudley family history, her brother Samuel Dudley conveyed land to her husband in 1689, and her widowed mother, Elizabeth, was living with Dorothy and Moses in 1702. Savage’s volume of 1861 names five of their sons, John, Dudley, Daniel, Stephen and Joseph, and says the names of seven more children were not known to him; the Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire (1928–1939) names the sons Moses, Timothy, Stephen, Joseph, John and Dudley and the daughters Dorothy, Elizabeth, Sarah, Hannah and Mary.

Her husband’s will, made on 31 December 1730 and proved on 6 June 1731, confirms that list and shows her dead before him. It names eleven children, Mary among the dead, and no Daniel. Three daughters appear under other surnames, Elizabeth Fifield, Sarah Liford and Hannah Gillman; the dictionary calls Hannah unmarried in 1730, and the will contradicts it. Moses left “her mothers and her sister maryes Cloths” to their daughter Dorothy, who was also to have a room in the house for life. No record of her death or burial is known.

Lines of descent

Through their son Stephen, Moses and Dorothy were the great-grandparents of Anna Smith, who married Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844), a great-great-grandson of Samuel Dudley through Dorothy’s brother Stephen Dudley. As the Dudley family history and Savage’s dictionary show the lines, Nathaniel and Anna were both great-great-grandchildren of Samuel Dudley, and so third cousins.