♂John Palmer

John Palmer was a man of Rowley, in Essex County, Massachusetts, who married Mary Stickney there in 1709 and had nine recorded children. He was most likely the sixth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Hannah Palmer (born 1719).

Family

John Palmer and Mary Stickney were married at Rowley on 18 November 1709, an entry the town’s printed vital records give as “John (Pallmer), and Mary Stickne”. Over the next twenty years the same records list nine children born there to “John and Mary”: Elizabeth in 1710, Daniell in 1712, Jane in 1714, Mary in 1717, Hannah on 30 December 1719, Sarah in 1722, a second Sarah in 1724, Mehetable in 1727, and John, the last of them, in 1729. The records print no death for the first Sarah, who most likely died before the second was born.

Hannah most likely grew up to marry Gideon Walker of Arundel (now Kennebunkport, Maine) at Rowley on 23 February 1741. The marriage record names no parents for the bride, so her place in this family rests on elimination: the only other Hannah of her age in the Rowley records, a daughter of Francis Palmer baptized in 1718, is recorded at birth as Ann and was most likely the Anne Palmer who married Nathan Brocklebank in 1739-40. A history of Kennebunkport published in 1837 names children of Hannah and Gideon called Mary, John, Daniel and Hannah, all names from John and Mary Palmer’s household, though John and Mary were also the names of Gideon’s own parents. No record yet found names Hannah as John and Mary’s daughter, so the link is probable rather than proved.

Notes

The marriage and the nine births are from the printed Vital Records of Rowley, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849 (1928–31). The Francis Palmer whose daughter is set aside above was most likely the son born in 1694 to Francis Palmer (1657–1733) and his second wife, Ann Jewett. He married Sarah Stickney at Rowley on 30 October 1716; a genealogical history of Maine published in 1909 makes her a younger sister of John’s wife Mary.

Origins

When and where John Palmer was born and when he died are not known. He was most likely the son of Francis Palmer (1657–1733) and Elizabeth Hunt (1661–1689). The Rowley births include two boys named John Palmer of about the same age: the son of Francis and Elizabeth, born 21 June 1689, and a son of Thomas and Hannah, born 19 October 1688 (1686 in one copy). Either could be the John Palmer who married Mary Stickney in 1709, and no record yet known names that groom as Francis’s son. The line through Francis follows an online genealogy (WikiTree) and is not proved. The printed Rowley records hold no death that clearly fits him after 1719, and printed New England genealogies give only other men called John Palmer, in Boston, Marblehead, Scarborough and Connecticut.