♀Joan (surname unknown)

Joan (living in 1667) was the wife of Quinton Pray, a settler of Braintree, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W, and after his death in 1667 the administrator of his estate. She was probably the ninth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her daughter Dorothy Pray (died 1705).

Life

No record gives her maiden name. Quinton Pray and Joan are said to have married by about 1630, and they probably had four children: Richard, John, Hannah and Dorothy. Their daughter Dorothy married Richard Thayer at Braintree on 24 December 1651. Her husband is said to have come from England to work at the colony’s ironworks^W, first at Lynn and later at Braintree.

Widowhood

Quinton Pray died at Braintree on 17 June 1667, without a will. Samuel Bass and William Needham, who took the inventory of his estate, valued it at £74 3s. They listed two young oxen, a cow and three heifers, two colts and eleven swine, corn growing in the ground, gear for a plow and cart, beds and bedding, pewter and brass, three spinning wheels with a store of linen, woolen and cotton yarn, and a gold ring; against this the estate owed £20. On 11 July 1667 Joan swore that the inventory was true “to her best knowledge,” adding that “when shee knowes more she will deliver it,” and the administration^W of the estate was granted to her. When and where she died is not known.

Lines of descent

Dorothy Pray and Richard Thayer were most likely the parents of Nathaniel Thayer (1658–1728), whose son Hezekiah Thayer was the father of Noah Thayer (born 1745); Noah’s daughter was Mary Thayer (1770–1827). Two of Mary’s grandchildren, Joseph Knapp Blanchard (1820–1885) and Elizabeth Trueworthy Blanchard (1825–1884), married each other, so their son Wesley Blanchard (1844–1908) descended from Joan through both parents.

Notes

Her name

The probate record calls her “Joan Pray relict of Quinton Pray” and, in the grant of administration, “Joane his relict”; it gives no maiden name. An online collaborative family tree names her Joan Valliance, a daughter of Richard Valliance and Margaret Peckham; no record connecting her to that family is known.

The marriage and the children

A dictionary of New England marriages lists Quinton Pray (1595–1667) and his wife Joan, of Lynn and Braintree, as married before about 1630; a 1977 family history puts the marriage about 1625. Compiled works from 1900 on, among them an article on the Pray family in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register in 1901, name Richard, John, Hannah and Dorothy as the couple’s children; the probate record names no child. Her husband’s work at the ironworks also rests on compiled works.

The estate

The inventory and the grant of administration are recorded in the Suffolk County probate records and printed in a 1977 family history. Its transcription dates the taking of the inventory “29th: 5: mo: 1667”, which would be 29 July, while Joan’s oath and the grant are dated 11 July 1667; the two dates cannot both be right.