♀Katharine Elmes

Katharine Elmes (born 22 March 1698) was a woman of Plymouth County, Massachusetts, born at Scituate and married at Middleborough, whose children were born at Middleborough and Bridgewater between 1720 and 1738. She was the sixth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her son John Carver (1738–1803).

Early life

Katharine was born at Scituate on 22 March 1698, the daughter of Rodolphus Elmes and Bithiah Dodson, whose marriage the printed Scituate vital records enter on 20 February 1696. The town’s register of births records her as “Katharine, d. Rodalphus”, in the same block as her elder sister Mary, born in 1696, and her brother Rodolphus, born in 1700. The family later moved to Middleborough, where further Elmes children, among them a Bithiah, were born.

Marriage and family

On 2 December 1719 she married Eleazer Carver at Middleborough. The Reverend Peter Thacher entered the marriage in his own record: “Eleazer Carver and Katherine Elmes both of middleboro. were married Decem : 2 : 1719 by me Peter Thacher”. Their first child, Timothy, was born at Middleborough on 21 September 1720, ten months after the wedding.

By 1722 the family had moved to Bridgewater, where the town’s register of births enters seven children under both parents’ names, from Mary, born on 6 November 1722, to John, born on 30 November 1738. The Carver Family of New England also lists a daughter Mercy and a second son named Timothy, whose birth its compiler himself doubted; its list ends in 1735 and leaves out John. Taken together, the town books and the family history account for at least eight children.

Of those seven, Mary married Abraham Perkins in 1743. Their son Eleazer, born in 1724, married Hepzibah Perkins at Bridgewater in 1746, held a lieutenant’s rank, and died on 15 May 1755 in his thirty-first year. Their daughter Bethiah, born in 1732, died in 1753 in her twenty-second year, and their son Rodulphus, born in 1735, married Abigail Bowman of Bedford at Lexington in 1763. The Bridgewater marriage records hold none for their daughters Katharine, born in 1726, and Mercy, born in 1730. John, born in 1738, was the youngest. The names of Bethiah and Rodulphus repeat those of her mother and her father, Rodulphus being a rare given name, and they tie the Bridgewater family to the Elmes household at Scituate.

No record of her death has been found.

Notes

The printed Bridgewater registers call her only “Katharine” and give no family name, and the couple’s marriage is not in them. Her surname comes from the Middleborough marriage entry and the Scituate birth register, and the naming of her children agrees with both.

The Carver Family of New England calls her “probably” a daughter of Rhodolphus Elmes Jr., of Middleborough, formerly of Scituate, and a granddaughter of Rhodolphus Elmes of Scituate. The Scituate register names her father only as Rodalphus. His will settles it: Rodolphus Elmes of Middleborough, writing on 25 June 1744, named his wife Bethyah, his sons Rodulphus and Ignatius, and “my three Daughters Mary Washburn Katharine Carver and Bethyah Barden”, recalling the forty pounds he had given Katharine at her marriage. The will was proved on 25 January 1748/9, and it shows Katharine still living in 1744. The same book’s list of the couple’s children ends in 1735 and omits her son John, whose birth the Bridgewater register records under both parents’ names.

A March date in a New England record of this period may be in the old style, in which the year began on 25 March; the register prints 1698 and the date is given here as it stands.

The printed Bridgewater deaths include an unnamed wife of an Eleazer Carver who died on 26 November 1776; one private record calls her the wife of Lt. Carver, which points to the lieutenant’s widow, and she is not taken to be Katharine. Bethiah’s death is printed as 6 October 1758 with the editors’ “sic”, and two private records give 1753, the year used here; the register’s entry for Mercy has her name written above a crossed-out word.