♂Isaac Butterfield

Isaac Butterfield (about 1750 – 12 October 1812) raised a family at Temple and later at Dunstable, New Hampshire, and his two successive wives were both named Ruth. He was the fourth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Ruth Butterfield (1779–1854).

Marriages and family

His parents are not known. The marriage register of Westford, Massachusetts, records that on 3 December 1772 Isaac Butterfield “of Dunstable” married Ruth Spaulding “of Westford”. His family is known from a single page in the town and vital records of Wilton, Franklin County, Maine, headed “The Record of Isaac and Ruth Butterfields Family”. The page was entered in the Wilton town book, although the children on it were born in New Hampshire, most likely after the family had moved to Maine. It lists seven children of Isaac and his first wife Ruth: a son Isaac, born at Dunstable in 1773, and then Solomon, Ruth, Abraham, Joseph, Daniel and Hitty, all born at Temple between 1776 and 1787. The date it gives for Ruth, 18 February 1779, matches the date family trees give for her. A note written above Joseph’s name reads “Died”.

Temple and after

Isaac was at Temple in 1781. Blood’s History of Temple, N.H., published in 1860, lists “Isaac Butterfield, 9s.” among the subscribers to the town’s meeting house on 3 August 1781.

According to the register, “Ruth Wife of Isaac Butterfield Died May 8 1790”. Isaac married again; his second wife was also named Ruth, and the register sets her children apart under the heading “The Children of Isaac Butterfield by His Second Wife Ruth”. They were James and John, born on the same day at Dunstable in 1791, Joseph in 1792 and Aaron in 1794, both also at Dunstable, and a daughter, Hannah. The Wilton register gives neither the date of the second marriage nor the surname of either wife. The printed vital records of Dunstable, Massachusetts (1913) supply the second wife’s: they record the marriage of Ruth Fletcher, of Dunstable, New Hampshire, to Isaac Butterfield “of Temple” on 22 July 1790, and list the births of James and John (twins, 18 March 1791) and Joseph (13 November 1792) to Isaac and Ruth.

Death

The page closes with Isaac’s death. It records that “Isaac Butterfield father of the above family departed this life” on 12 October 1812, aged sixty-one years, eleven months and eleven days, which places his birth about the beginning of November 1750. The register does not say where he died.