♂John Benson

John Benson (about 1608 – 13 January 1678/79) was a landholder of Hull, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W, who left his home lot and its dwelling houses to his son Joseph and the use of his whole estate to his wife, Marah. He was the ninth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son Joseph Benson (died 1705).

Early life

John Benson was probably the “John Binson of Conshamt in Ox:”, a husbandman of thirty, who was entered on the passenger list of the Confidence of London at Southampton on 24 April 1638. He sailed with his wife Mary and two children, John and Mary, both under four years old; his age puts his birth about 1608, and the daughter Mary was born in England about 1636.

Hingham and Hull

In New England he probably settled first at Hingham, where the town’s proprietors granted him land in the fall of 1638. Joseph was born there about 1640, and at least two daughters followed; one of them, Martha, was baptized at Hingham on 3 November 1644. About 1657 John sold his Hingham lands and moved to Hull, where his holdings were among the first entered in the town’s earliest surviving record book, and in 1662 the town chose him as one of its selectmen.

Will and death

By the spring of 1678 he was “but weake”, and on 16 April he made his will, signing it with his mark. His lands, commons and orchard went to his sons John and Joseph together: the home lot he had bought, with its dwelling houses, to Joseph, the other lot to John, while a house plot he had already given by word of mouth to his son-in-law Hall was confirmed. John was to have a double share of the household goods and Joseph a single share, after Marah’s death. His daughters Combs and Hall were left five pounds each, and five pounds went to the children of his daughter Shore, who had died. To “my wife Marah Benson” he left the use of the whole estate, and he named her sole executrix.

John Benson died at Hull on 13 January 1678/79. Thomas Colyer and Robert Goold took his inventory on 20 February 1678/79, valuing the estate at about 295 pounds. When the will was proved in March 1679, Joseph presented the inventory himself, “Affirming that his mother the Exec[utri]x was lame and unable to come abroad.” Marah died before the end of 1681. On 29 December 1681 the administration of the estate was committed to the two sons, John, then of Oxford in Plymouth Colony^W, and Joseph, who gave bond with Joseph Prince of Hull.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his son Joseph, Joseph’s daughter Joanna Benson (died 1735), her son Samuel Hovey (1718–1796), his daughter Sarah Hovey (1747–1805) and her son Nicholas Blanchard (1766–1849). They part with Nicholas’s sons Noah and Alexander and meet again in the marriage of two of his grandchildren, Joseph Knapp Blanchard (1820–1885) and Elizabeth Trueworthy Blanchard (1825–1884). Their son Wesley Blanchard (1844–1908) descended from John Benson through both parents, and from Wesley the descent to Nancy Jane Blanchard runs as one.

Notes

The voyage of 1638

The passenger list is printed in Samuel G. Drake’s Result of Some Researches among the British Archives (The Founders of New England, 1860), p. 59: “John Binson of Conshamt in Ox: husbandman 30”, followed by “Mary Binson his wife” and the children John and Mary, “vnder 4 yeares”. Drake was unsure of the place; Savage, working from a copy that read “Corvsham”, took it to be Caversham. The identification of this passenger with John Benson of Hingham and Hull comes from The Benson Family Records (1920), pp. 13–16; no record yet found ties the two together, though the names of the wife and the two eldest children and the year of the Hingham grant fit.

The years in New England

The Hingham grant (from the town proprietors, fall 1638), Joseph’s birth about 1640, Martha’s baptism by the Rev. Peter Hobart, the move to Hull about 1657, the Hull lands and the selectman’s office in 1662 all come from The Benson Family Records (1920), pp. 14–16, which cites the New England Historical and Genealogical Register and the Hull “Long Book”. A 1938 typescript, A Pioneer Family: Some Records of the Family of John Benson of Hull, gives the same outline. The first volume of the Hull proprietors’ records has been lost, and the Hingham records hold very little on the family.

The will and the estate

The will, the inventory and the 1681 administration are Suffolk County probate records and survive both as register copies and in the original case file. The 1938 typescript dates the will “1677”; the register copy and the original read “Anno 78 Aprill 16”. The inventory gives his death as “the 13 of Ienuary 1678”, which in the modern calendar is 13 January 1679. The family history of 1920 suggests that the deceased daughter Shore was probably the wife of Sampson Shore, Jr., whose land bordered John Benson’s in 1670; the probate records give neither her given name nor her husband’s.

His wife’s name

The records of 1678–1681 call his wife Marah; the 1638 list calls the wife Mary. Marah is a form of Mary, and she is probably the same woman. A family book of 2003 and several online trees give her maiden name as Williams, and that claim rests on those sources alone.