♂Francis Palmer

Francis Palmer (born 4 December 1657) was a man of Rowley, in Essex County, Massachusetts. He was the son of Sergeant John Palmer, married Elizabeth Hunt in 1682, lost her in 1689 less than three weeks after the birth of their son John, and later inherited his father’s house and lands. He was most likely the seventh great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his son John Palmer.

Marriage

Francis was born at Rowley on 4 December 1657, the son of John Palmer and his second wife, Margaret Northend. On 3 December 1682 he married Elizabeth Hunt at Rowley. She was the only daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth Hunt of Ipswich, and the match came with a written bargain. His father, “Goodman John Palmer, Sergt. at Rowley”, promised his son “one third of his lands at Rowly” and “a farm of one hundred acres at Merimack”. In return, Samuel Hunt agreed to pay Elizabeth the legacy her grandfather Joseph Redding had left her in his will.

A daughter, Elizabeth, came first. A son John was born in July 1687 and buried six weeks later. A second John followed on 21 June 1689, and his mother died on 9 July, less than three weeks after his birth.

Widower

Francis married again within a year: on 10 June 1690 he wed Ann Jewett at Rowley. They had a daughter, Sarah, in 1691 and a son, Francis, in 1694. Meanwhile the Hunt legacy had not come to him. In 1693 Francis went to court against his late wife’s family. He told the court that Elizabeth had borne him two children, and that her father, mother and brothers were keeping from him and the children the estate that belonged to them. He asked that her mother, the executrix of Joseph Redding’s will, be called to account. On 28 March 1693 the elder Elizabeth Hunt divided her father’s estate. Her late daughter’s share, the division recorded, had been paid “all in household goods, pewter, brass, etc., which belonged to her grandfather and grandmother.”

Later life

In August 1693 his father made his will. Margaret was to keep the east end of the house, provided she took no one to live with her “Except my sone francis”. The rest of the housing and lands went to Francis, on condition that he “maintain my beloved wife comfortably and honourably during her natural Life”, and Francis was named sole executor. John Palmer died at Rowley on 17 June 1695, and Margaret lived on until February 1705/6.

Francis is said to have died at Rowley on 19 April 1733. His son John was most likely the John Palmer who married Mary Stickney at Rowley in 1709.

Notes

Sources

His birth (“4: 10m: 1657”, the tenth month being December in the old calendar), his parents, both marriages, the births of his children, the burial of the first John and Elizabeth’s death are in the printed Vital Records of Rowley, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849 (1928–31). Mary Lovering Holman’s Ancestry of Charles Stinson Pillsbury and John Sargent Pillsbury (1938), vol. 2, pp. 913–915, gives the same birth date, parents and first wife. It also quotes the marriage agreement, the 1693 petition and the division of the Redding estate from the printed Essex County probate records, and gives John Palmer’s will (dated 23 August 1693, proved 1 July 1695). David W. Hoyt’s Old Families of Salisbury and Amesbury gives Elizabeth Hunt’s birth at Ipswich on 29 May 1661.

The Rowley records give the daughter Elizabeth both a baptism on 21 December 1684 and a birth on 20 December 1685 (3 December in one copy). The first John’s birth is entered as 1 July 1687, and as 1688 in a copy, but his burial on 10 August 1687 fixes the year.

His death

The date 19 April 1733 comes from an online genealogy (WikiTree). The printed Rowley records hold no death for him. Their later Francis Palmer deaths, “Francies, jr.” on 19 August 1773 and “Francies” on 29 May 1778 “in his 84th y.”, are younger men.

Two men named Francis

The Francis Palmer who married Sarah Stickney at Rowley on 30 October 1716, and Elisabeth Brocklebank there in 1725, was most likely this Francis’s son, born in 1694. His age at death in 1778 fits a birth in 1694.

His son John

The Rowley records hold two boys named John Palmer of about the same age: the son of Francis and Elizabeth, born 21 June 1689, and a son of Thomas and Hannah, born 19 October 1688 (1686 in one copy). Either could be the John who married Mary Stickney in 1709. Francis’s 1693 petition speaks of two living children by Elizabeth, so the younger John was most likely still alive then. No record yet known names the groom of 1709 as Francis’s son. The line through Francis follows an online genealogy (WikiTree) and is not proved.