♀Elisabeth Edson

Elisabeth Edson (29 August 1684 – 19 June 1716) was the wife of Samuel Packard of Bridgewater, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. She was the seventh great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her son Samuel Packard (1707–1774).

Parents

She was born at Bridgewater on 29 August 1684, entered in the town’s records as a child of Samuel and Susanna. Her father was Samuel Edson Senior of Bridgewater. His will of 3 December 1717 names “my Son in Law Samuel Packard”, and it names his grandchildren Samuel, Paul, Job and Bethiah Packard. His wife, Susanna, was her mother. The will he made on 16 March 1718/19, the one proved after his death, repeats the bequests to the Packard grandchildren.

Marriage and death

The printed vital records of Bridgewater give the marriage of Samuel and Elisabeth Edson on 24 May 1705, and record the death of “Elisabeth, w. Samuel” on 19 June 1716. She is entered only as Elisabeth in the town’s births of her children.

Family

The same records list a son Samuel, born on 16 September 1707, and a daughter Bethiah, whose entry gives no date but stands between births of 1707 and 1714, followed by sons Paul in 1714 and Job in 1716. The son Samuel married Susanna Kingsley at Bridgewater in 1729 and spent his life in the town.

Notes

Parentage in compiled sources

A Mayflower genealogy, tracing the family of the younger Samuel’s wife, calls him a son of Samuel and Elizabeth (Lathrop) Packard, citing an index of marriages. The town’s records name his mother Elisabeth, enter her 1705 marriage under the name Edson and record her death on 19 June 1716 as “Elisabeth, w. Samuel”. The Lathrop name belongs a generation further back: a compiled genealogy of Mayflower descendants names a Samuel and Elizabeth (Lothrop) Packard as the parents of a Daniel Packard who married at Bridgewater in 1713. The will’s link runs through her husband: it names “my Son in Law Samuel Packard”, and the town’s records give her marriage to Samuel Packard on 24 May 1705. A Bridgewater birth entry of 29 August 1684 for an Elizabeth, child of Samuel and Susanna Edson, is hers: the same entry names her parents, Samuel and Susanna. The compiled 1903 Edson genealogy gives her mother’s surname as Byram.