♂John Hayden

John Hayden (about 1635 – 29 May 1718) was a man of Braintree, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W, who was married in 1660 by the colony’s governor, John Endecott^W, and lived to the age of 83. He was the eighth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Hannah Hayden.

Life

He was most likely the eldest son of John Hayden and his wife Susanna, who had settled at Dorchester by 1632 and moved to Braintree by 1640.

On 6 April 1660, at Braintree, John Hayden married Hannah Ames. The town clerk wrote that “John Hoidon & Hannah Ames were maryed the 2 mo. 6th. 1660 by Mr. Endicote Governor”. Marriage in the colony was a civil contract made before a magistrate, not a minister, and the magistrate at this wedding was the governor himself.

Their children were Hannah, John, Joseph, Josiah, Elizabeth, Lydia and Abigail. Josiah was born at Braintree on 19 June 1669. Hannah married Nathaniel Thayer at Braintree on 27 May 1679. His wife Hannah is said to have died in 1689.

Death

John Hayden made his will on 25 May 1718 and died at Braintree four days later, on 29 May 1718, aged 83. The will left five shillings each to his sons John and Josiah and to his daughters “Hannah Thayer”, Elizabeth Pray, Lydia Vinton and “Abigail Thayer”, and gave the homestead to his son Joseph, whom he named executor. It was proved at Boston on 23 June 1718.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his daughter Hannah Hayden and her son Hezekiah Thayer, whose son Noah Thayer (born 1745) was the father of 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 John Hayden through both parents.

Notes

Which John Hayden

Two John Haydens lived at Braintree, father and son. The town records enter children born there from 1640 to 1647 to “John Hoidon and Susanna his wiffe”. A compiled study of the early New England settlers gives the elder John’s eldest child as a son John, born about 1634, who married Hannah Ames at Braintree on 6 April 1660; that study is the source for his parents, and no record names them. The elder John was dead by February 1681/2, so the John Hayden who died in 1718 and named a daughter “Hannah Thayer” in his will is the son. His age at death points to a birth about 1635, the year a compiled index of early New England marriages also gives.

His wife’s death

The year 1689 for Hannah’s death comes from that compiled marriage index; the Braintree town records enter no death for her.