♀Elizabeth Treworgye

Elizabeth Treworgye (about 1639 – 1719) was the wife of John Gilman, a mill owner and public man of Exeter, in the Province of New Hampshire^W. She was the eighth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Sarah Gilman (1667–1713).

A history of the Gilman family published in 1869 gives her birth year as 1639 and names her parents as James and Catherine (Shapleigh) Treworgye. According to the same book, her mother’s father, Alexander Shapleigh, was a merchant and ship-owner who sent goods in his own ships to the early settlements in Maine and New Hampshire and acted as agent for Sir Ferdinando Gorges^W. The Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire has her parents married at Kingsweare, in Devon, on 16 March 1617. The 1869 history says her father died in Newfoundland before 1650 and that her mother then married Edward Hilton, an early settler of Dover and Exeter; it names two of her sisters, Joan and Lucy, as the wives of John Amerideth and Thomas Wills, both of Kittery.

John Gilman and Elizabeth Treworgye were married on 30 June 1657; the Gilman family history of 1869 gives 20 June, while Bell’s History of Exeter and the Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire agree with 30 June. Bell’s history, published in 1888, counts six sons and ten daughters, and traces the local Christian name Trueworthy to her family name; one of her daughter Sarah’s sons by Stephen Dudley was named Trueworthy. The 1869 history suggests that her son Nicholas, later a judge of the Superior Court, was probably named for her mother’s brother, Nicholas Shapleigh. Two printed family histories list sixteen children of the marriage, born between 1658 and 1684. John Gilman’s will of 16 July 1700 named her, and she outlived him by eleven years. She died at Exeter on 8 September 1719, probably at the age of 80, and the Genealogical Dictionary notes a long obituary in The Boston News-Letter^W of 21 September 1719.

Notes

Marriage date, 1657

The marriage is dated 30 June 1657 in the records cited for it, the Probate Records of the Province of New Hampshire, vol. 1, and New Hampshire Marriage and Divorce Records, 1659–1947. The Gilman family history of 1869 gives 20 June; Bell’s History of Exeter and the Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire give 30 June.

Death, 1719

The date, place and age are compiled: the Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire (Noyes, Libby and Davis) gives 8 September 1719 at the age of 80. A New Hampshire death record, as indexed by FamilySearch, gives her age as 80 and calls her a widow (a death card).