♀Elizabeth Walton

Elizabeth Walton (born 27 October 1629) was the wife of Lot Conant of Marblehead and Beverly, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the mother of his ten children. When he died in 1674 his will left the whole estate in her hands, unbroken, to bring the children up until they came of age; eight years later she married again, at Lynn. She was the ninth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her son Nathaniel Conant (1650–1732).

Early life

By her family’s own register she was born at Seaton, in Devon, on 27 October 1629, a daughter of William Walton and Elizabeth Cooke, who had married at Dorchester, in Dorset, in 1627. Her father, a Cambridge graduate who had been vicar of Seaton, emigrated to New England about 1635 and settled at Marblehead, where he is said to have served as minister among the fishermen until his death in 1668.

Marriage

Lot and Elizabeth were probably married about 1649, for their eldest son, Nathaniel, was born on 28 July 1650. They had ten children in all between 1650 and 1671, among them twins, Sarah and William, born on 19 February 1666/7. Their four eldest children were baptized together at the First Church of Salem on 26 May 1662; Martha and the twins followed there in 1664 and 1667.

By 1671 the family was living at Beverly, on land Lot’s father, Roger Conant^W, had given him. When Lot sold their house at Marblehead in March 1669/70, it was with Elizabeth’s consent, and she signed with him in 1671, when “Lott Conant of Beverly, yeoman” sold another house there.

In June 1673 her brother Josiah was brought in from sea wounded by lightning. Dying, he declared his will by word of mouth, a nuncupative will^W: his estate was to go to their mother for her life, and then in equal parts to his brothers Nathaniel and Samuel and his “three sisters, Martha Munjoy, Elizabeth Conant and Mary Bartlett”, on condition that the land should not “go out of ye name of ye Waltoms”.

Widowhood

Lot made his will on 24 September 1674, “sick and weak”, and died within the next five days. He made Elizabeth executrix, gave her the house and orchard for her life, and left the whole estate in her hands “for the bringing up of the children” until each came of age or married; his brother Exercise, the minister John Hale^W and Captain Lathrop were to help her. She swore to the inventory, valued at £782 16s, at the Salem court on 26 November 1674, when the will was proved. Her youngest child, Rebecca, was then three.

On 10 January 1681/2, at Lynn, Elizabeth married Andrew Mansfield. She was his third wife, and by the family genealogy’s account two of his daughters had already married two of her sons: Bithiah married John in 1678, and Hannah married Nathaniel, so that Andrew became stepfather to his own sons-in-law. Andrew was dead by November 1683, when, by the same account, his will was proved. The records do not show when or where Elizabeth died.

Notes

Birth and parents

Her birth comes from a register of the Walton family’s births filed among the Essex County court papers and printed in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, which enters her “at Seaton in Devon 8m 27d 1629”, the eighth month being October in the reckoning of the time. The Great Migration Begins and the 1887 Conant genealogy treat the date as her baptism. Her father’s degree, his living at Seaton, his emigration and his ministry at Marblehead are from Venn’s Alumni Cantabrigienses, which gives his burial at Marblehead on 9 November 1668. Her brother Josiah’s nuncupative will of 1673, printed in Dow’s Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, volume 5, names her as “Elizabeth Conant” and his mother as “Mother Walthom”.

Marriage date

No record of her first marriage is known. A compiled history of Maine families gives about 1649, which fits the birth of Nathaniel in July 1650.

The Mansfield marriage

The marriage at Lynn is entered in the printed Lynn records. That she was Andrew Mansfield’s third wife, that his daughters Bithiah and Hannah were the wives of her sons John and Nathaniel, and the proving of his will on 25 November 1683 come from A History and Genealogy of the Conant Family (1887) and The Great Migration Begins. The genealogy quotes his will, which divides a share of a sloop among his “two sons and four daughters Andrew and Daniel Mansfield, Hannah and Bethia Conant, Lydia and Deborah Mansfield”.

Sources for the Conant years

Lot’s will and inventory are printed by Dow, volume 5, pages 431-432. The children’s births are in the printed Beverly town records and the baptisms in the records of the First Church of Salem. The deeds of 1669/70 and 1671, the gift of land from Roger Conant and Elizabeth’s oath to the inventory are known from transcriptions in the 1887 genealogy. The printed Lynn and Beverly records have no entry for her death.