♀Esther Eggleston

Esther Eggleston (14 March 1682/83 – after 7 July 1761) was a woman of Windsor, Connecticut, the wife of Josiah Filley and the mother of nine children. She was the sixth great-grandmother of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through her son William Filley (1709–1756).

Early life

Esther was probably born at Windsor on 14 March 1682/83. The town records enter her as both Ester and Hester, daughter of John. She was the eldest child of John Eggleston (1659–1731) and Esther (or Hester) Mills, who had married at Windsor on 1 June 1682. Ten more children followed between 1683 and 1708. One sister, Deliverance, died in 1715 aged twenty. Her grandfather James Eggleston and great-grandfather Begat Eggleston were among the early settlers of Windsor.

Her father’s will, dated 17 June 1730 and proved in August 1731, confirms her parentage. It left “to my daughter Esther Filley, besides what I have already given her,” two shillings and sixpence. The rest of the estate went to her mother, her three brothers and her six surviving sisters. The small sum implies that Esther had already received her portion, most likely at her marriage.

Marriage and family

Esther married Josiah Filley (1675–1750) of Windsor in December 1703. They had four sons and five daughters, born between 1704 and 1725, and all nine are named in their father’s will of October 1748. That will described one son, Erasmus, as “often disturbed in his brain”, the plain language of the time for a mental illness that came and went, and made another son, William, sole executor. Josiah died before his estate was inventoried on 14 April 1750. Esther died at Windsor after 7 July 1761.

Notes

Birth

The date of 14 March 1682/83 comes from the Barbour Collection, a compiled transcription of the Windsor vital records.

The marriage date

The town record enters the marriage twice, once on 9 December and once on 29 December 1703, and the town’s history gives 20 December.

Death

The date of Esther’s death is not known. When Josiah’s estate was finally distributed on 7 July 1761, the first share went “to Mrs. Esther Filley, widow”, so she was apparently still living then, and her death is placed after that date, on the strength of volume III of Manwaring’s Digest of the Early Connecticut Probate Records. An earlier, unsourced date of 1 July 1761 looks like a misreading of that distribution, and a date of 1753 given in some compiled trees is contradicted by the same record. No church or town record of her death or burial is known.