♂Elisha Perkins

Elisha Perkins (about 1656 – 18 February 1741) was a farmer and town officer of Topsfield, Massachusetts, who served the town as selectman, fence viewer and grand juryman over two decades. In 1692, when his wife’s aunt Mary Estey was hanged as a witch, his own brother Thomas sat on a jury at the Salem witchcraft trials, and later signed the jurors’ declaration of regret. He was the seventh great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his son Thomas Perkins (1681–1761).

Early life

He was born at Topsfield about 1656; no record of the birth has been found, and the year is the estimate of George A. Perkins’s The Family of John Perkins of Ipswich (1889). That genealogy makes him a son of Deacon Thomas Perkins of Topsfield and his wife Phebe. Deacon Thomas, a selectman of the town and a deacon of its church from about 1677, died in 1686, and the genealogy prints his will. It left the farm to three sons, Thomas, Elisha and Timothy, with Elisha taking the northwest end of it beside a spring at his own field, two steers, and a quarter of the orchard’s income once his brothers divided the rest. Elisha already had a house of his own there: the will told Thomas to pay most of the cost of building their brother Timothy “an house of the same bigness as his brother Elisha’s House”, and it left “my son Elisha’s son Thomas one calf” - a bequest to the grandson who would later settle at Cape Porpoise in Maine.

Marriage and family

On 23 February 1680 he married “Kathrone” Towne at Topsfield, as the town’s vital records give her name. The 1889 genealogy names her as Katherine, daughter of Jacob and Katherine (Symonds) Towne, born in 1662. Her father’s sisters included Rebecca Nurse and Mary Estey, both hanged at Salem as witches in 1692, and Sarah Cloyse, who was accused and escaped; the 1889 genealogy records that Elisha’s brother Thomas sat on a jury at Salem during the witchcraft trials and afterwards signed the jurors’ declaration of regret.

The genealogy lists nine children, born or baptised between 1681 and 1702: Thomas, Elisha, John, Katherine, Phebe, Jacob, Ruth, Mary and Joseph. The town records enter the first three as children of Elisha, the second and third of “Elisha and Katherine”. Thomas went to Cape Porpoise, later Arundel, where he became the town’s clerk; John married a Mary Easty.

Katherine died on 2 July 1714, by the genealogy’s account. On 4 April 1715 Elisha married Elizabeth (Knight) Towne, the widow of Samuel Towne, whom the genealogy calls Katherine’s uncle; the town history lists a Samuel Towne among her cousins instead, so the relationship is not certain. She outlived him and died in 1752.

Public life

The genealogy describes him as a farmer on his part of his father’s homestead who held many offices of the town and county. He was clerk of the selectmen in 1705, 1706 and 1708; a fence viewer, the town officer who inspected boundary fences and settled disputes over them, in 1708, 1711, 1717, 1720 and 1723; a grand juryman for the county in 1708, 1709, 1715, 1718, 1721 and 1725; a selectman in 1710, 1712, 1716 and 1724; and a surveyor of highways in 1717.

He died at Topsfield on 18 February 1741, as the town’s vital records give it.

Notes

His birth year, his parents, his wife’s death and his second marriage rest on the 1889 genealogy and have not been checked against the original town and probate records. The Topsfield vital records confirm his first marriage, the births of his first three children and his death.