♀Johanna Blessing

Johanna Blessing (born about 1595, died by January 1683) was the wife of William Towne of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk and later of Salem and Topsfield, Massachusetts, and the mother of Rebecca Nurse, Mary Esty and Sarah Cloyce, the three sisters accused of witchcraft at Salem in 1692. She was the ninth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her son Jacob Towne (died 1704).

Great Yarmouth

The register of St Nicholas, Great Yarmouth, records the marriage of William Towne and Jone Blessing on 25 April 1620. The index of the same registers of the Great Yarmouth registers lists children of “Wm. Towne” and “Joane” christened there between 1625 and 1634, among them Jacob in February 1631/32 and Marie, the future Mary Esty, in August 1634. The family had crossed to New England by 1640, when William was at Salem.

Massachusetts

Between 1648 and 1650 she was admitted to the First Church in Salem. In 1663 she and William reportedly gave their son Joseph two-thirds of their house and lands at Topsfield, on his intended marriage to Phebe Perkins. On 19 June 1664 the Salem church dismissed her to the church at Topsfield.

On 1 March 1668/9 she made her mark, together with William, Joseph and Phebe Towne, surrendering their claim to a Topsfield lot that had been sold to John Gould. On 3 May 1670, at about seventy-five, she gave sworn evidence at Ipswich for the Topsfield minister Thomas Gilbert, swearing that he had given the sacrament and had been temperate at dinner, with her sitting beside him. She was sworn again for him on 18 April 1671.

When her husband died without a will, the court granted her administration of his estate on 24 June 1673. She kept the small estate undivided for the rest of her life. In January 1682/3 her children petitioned for its division, saying that it had been left “in the hands of their mother who was appointed administratrix” and had “remained unsettled until her death”; she had therefore died at Topsfield by then.

The petition names her six children: Edmond, Jacob and Joseph, and Rebecka, Mary and Sarah.

Notes

The Massachusetts court papers call her only Johana Towne. Her maiden name comes from the Yarmouth marriage register. The published index of English marriages dates the wedding 28 April 1620, and a compiled genealogy 25 March 1620; the register itself has 25 April, and it records no marriages at all in March that year.

Birth and death

The birth year rests on her own deposition of 3 May 1670, where the record gives her as “aged about seventy-five years”, so it is an estimate. A printed Bridges family genealogy gives her death at Topsfield in 1682; the probate petition of January 1682/3 shows only that she had died by then.

The church record

Her name stands in the block of admissions printed for 1648 to 1650, so that is the range the record allows. The entry calls her “Goodwife Towne”, and her children Joseph and Sarah are baptized as “children of Sister Towne”; Davis’s 1927 genealogy dates those baptisms 3 September 1648. Her dismissal to Topsfield, with Margaret Reddington, is recorded as “4 moneth-19 day” in 1664, which is 19 June.

The 1663 deed

The deed is known from an abstract printed in the Essex Institute Historical Collections, volume 22 (1885), page 108. That abstract is a compiled source, so the body hedges the gift.

The surrender and the depositions

The surrender is dated 1 March 1668/9 in double form. It concerns a lot that Edmund Bridges sold to John Gould, and a copy of that deed was filed at the Salem court in November 1670. Her mark is written “Johanah”. Both depositions are in George Francis Dow’s edition of the Quarterly Courts records: the first, on 3 May 1670, was taken at Ipswich by adjournment; the second, on 18 April 1671, calls her “Old Johannah Towne”.