♀Elisabeth Hains

Elisabeth Hains (died 27 February 1757) was a woman of Bridgewater, in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, who married Nathanael Conant there on 17 December 1716 and bore him four children. She was the seventh great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Margaret Conant (born 1722).

Marriage and family

The records found do not name her parents or say where she came from, and a Conant family genealogy published in 1887 was unsure even of her surname, writing it “Hains (or Hinds?)”. When she married him, Nathanael already had three children by an earlier wife, Margret, born at Bridgewater between 1704 and 1709. Four children were born to Nathanael and Elisabeth at Bridgewater between 1720 and 1727: Jeremiah, Margaret, John and Elisabeth. Their daughter Margaret married Abel Edson of Bridgewater; the Conant genealogy, following Mitchell’s history of Bridgewater, puts the marriage in 1739.

Widowhood

The Conant genealogy says that on 20 November 1741 Nathanael sold land to three of his sons, the house he lived in going to the youngest, John. It gives his death as 8 September 1745 and hers as 27 February 1757, so she outlived him by eleven years.

Notes

• The printed Bridgewater birth records call her Nathanael’s “second w.”, while the Conant genealogy makes her his third wife, after Mary and Margaret Laughton.
• The Conant genealogy writes her name “Elizabeth Hains (or Hinds?)”; the Bridgewater marriage record writes it Elisabeth Hains.
• The printed Bridgewater birth records give Margaret’s birth as 3 January 1722. The Conant genealogy gives 3 June 1722; for every other child its dates agree with those records, and this page follows them.