♀Marah Benson

Marah Benson (died 1681) was the wife and executrix of John Benson of Hull, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W, who left her the use of his whole estate in 1678. She was the ninth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son Joseph Benson (died 1705).

Early life and family

Her maiden name and her origins are not known. She was probably the “Mary Binson his wife” who sailed with John Binson, a husbandman of thirty, on the Confidence of London from Southampton in April 1638, bringing two children under four years old, John and Mary. The family most likely settled first at Hingham, where Joseph was born about 1640 and a daughter, Martha, was baptized on 3 November 1644, and moved to Hull about 1657. By 1678 three daughters had married, and the will of that year knows them by their husbands’ surnames, Combs, Hall and Shore; the daughter Shore had died, leaving children.

Widowhood

John Benson made his will on 16 April 1678. To “my wife Marah Benson” he left the use of the whole estate, and he named her sole executrix; the lands themselves were to go to his sons John and Joseph. He died at Hull on 13 January 1678/79. Marah could not see the will through the court herself. 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.” The records do not say what had lamed her.

She did not live to see the estate settled. By 29 December 1681 she was “departed this life”, and on that day the administration of her husband’s 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. She probably died on 14 December 1681. An inventory of her own goods, taken in January 1682 and presented by Joseph, is said to have listed table napkins by the dozen, a silk grass bed, pewter platters and porringers, a gun and a sword, in all about 64 pounds.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her 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 Marah Benson through both parents, and from Wesley the descent to Nancy Jane Blanchard runs as one.

Notes

Her name

The probate records of 1678–1681 call her Marah (once “Marrah”); the passenger list of 24 April 1638, printed in Samuel G. Drake’s Result of Some Researches among the British Archives (1860), p. 59, gives “Mary Binson his wife”. Marah is a form of Mary, and the identification of the 1638 family with John Benson of Hingham and Hull comes from The Benson Family Records (1920), pp. 13–16, which is also the source for the Hingham years, Joseph’s birth about 1640, Martha’s baptism and the move to Hull. A family book of 2003 and several online trees give her maiden name as Williams; that name rests on those books and trees alone.

Joseph’s mother

Joseph’s words at the probate in 1679 make her his mother on record. In the seventeenth century “mother” could also mean a stepmother, but nothing in the records points that way, and the wife of 1638 is a Mary.

Her death and inventory

The administration of 29 December 1681 shows only that she had died by then. The date of 14 December 1681 and the inventory of her goods (taken 3 January 1682, presented 12 January 1682) come from The Benson Family Records (1920), p. 15; neither is in the Suffolk probate case file for her husband’s estate, and no copy of the inventory itself is known.