♂Joseph Goss Webster

Joseph Goss Webster (31 December 1769 – 3 November 1831) was a native of New Hampshire who settled at Wilton, Maine, where children of both his marriages were born. He was the third great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his son Benjamin Webster (1802–1884).

Origins

A memorial of the Webster family compiled in 1904 gives his birth as 31 December 1769 at Plaistow, New Hampshire. The death registration of his son Abel, made at Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1889, also gives the father’s birthplace as Plaistow, and in the census of 1880 his son Benjamin gave his father’s birthplace as New Hampshire.

His parents were most likely Joseph Webster and Maria; the link is not certain. The memorial calls him “son of Joseph and Maria”, and family trees identify them as Joseph Webster (1724–1810) and Maria Goss, who are said to have married at Kingston, New Hampshire, in 1747; no record of that marriage is known. Four births indexed at Kingston and East Kingston to a Joseph Webster and his wife, written Mariah in the records, fall between 1749 and 1757. They do not include him, although that list is not complete; a Maria baptized at Kingston in 1760 may belong to the same family.

Two families

The memorial records his first marriage, on 24 November 1790, to Betsey Walker, born at Dunstable, New Hampshire, and four children of that marriage: Betsey, Hannah, Polly and Joseph, born between 1791 and 1800. When Polly, by then the widow Polly Wood, died at Wilton in 1892, her death record named her father as Joseph Webster and gave her mother’s maiden name as Walker, both born in New Hampshire, although it calls the mother Hannah rather than Betsey.

He married secondly Ruth Butterfield (1779–1854) at Farmington, Maine, on 27 November 1800; the town clerk had issued the certificate on 24 November, the date family trees give for the wedding. The memorial names seven children of this marriage, born between 1802 and 1818, of whom Benjamin was the eldest. The Wilton town records give nine, born between 1802 and 1820. They add an Abigail, born in 1804 and dead at three in 1807, and Lovinda, born in 1820, who was the youngest. Abel’s marriage at Lawrence in 1873 and his death there in 1889 were both registered with his parents named as Joseph and Ruth and his own birthplace as Wilton, Maine. The 1889 record gives Ruth’s birthplace as Temple.

Family trees give his death as 3 November 1831 at Wilton. The memorial says that he “lived and died in Wilton, Me.” and was buried in the family burying ground on the old homestead. It records that Ruth died on 30 December 1854 and was buried in the old cemetery at Concord, New Hampshire.

Notes

His birthplace is also given as Weare, New Hampshire, a town in a different county. No record supports it; the memorial names Weare only as the burial place of the elder Joseph Webster it gives as his father. The middle name Goss comes from family trees; the memorial and the records call him simply Joseph Webster. A notice of the insolvent estate of a Joseph G. Webster, printed in a Vermont newspaper in December 1831, concerns a different man, of Fairfax, Vermont, whose widow was named Anna.

Parents

The Webster family memorial printed in 1904 names his father as the Joseph Webster who was born at Kingston in 1724 and was buried at Weare. William Little’s History of Weare (1888) gives a Joseph Webster of the east part of Weare four sons, Joseph, John, Abel and Cotton, with perhaps other children. On the page before, it lists John and Abigail Webster of the west part of Weare, with a son Joseph born 3 December 1769. The New Hampshire birth records give that 3 December birth too, against the memorial’s 31 December. DNA matches between a descendant of Joseph Goss Webster and descendants of John, Abel and Cotton Webster favor Joseph and Maria, and no suggested DNA line runs through the other children of John and Abigail. At this distance DNA could not separate the two Weare households if they were close kin.

The Kingston births

The Kingston and East Kingston entries record the births of Hannah on 22 February 1749, Rachel on 10 June 1751, Abigail on 1 January 1755 and Cotton on 10 August 1757, all to a Joseph Webster and his wife Mariah (also indexed as Moriah). One copy of the entries gives Rachel’s year as 1754. The entries give the mother’s name without a surname. A Maria baptized at Kingston on 20 April 1760, daughter of a Joseph Webster, may belong to the same family.