♀Mary Stickney

Mary Stickney (born 1 March 1686) was a woman of Rowley, in Essex County, Massachusetts, who married John Palmer there in 1709 and had nine recorded children. She was most likely the sixth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her 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.

Origins

Mary was born at Rowley on 1 March 1686, the third of the seven children of Lieutenant John Stickney and his wife Hannah Brocklebank, who had married there on 9 June 1680. John was born at Rowley in 1640 and Hannah, the daughter of Samuel Brocklebank, in 1659. Mary had two older sisters, Hannah and Elizabeth, and four younger brothers and sisters, Samuel, Sarah, Jane and John, the youngest born in 1699 or 1700. The town’s printed records give her own birth year as 1686, though the town’s own copy of the entry reads 1687.

That this Mary is John Palmer’s wife is probable rather than proved. She is the only Mary Stickney born at Rowley old enough to have married in 1709; the next, a daughter of Benjamin Stickney, was born in 1711. A genealogical history of Maine published in 1909 lists her among the seven children of Lieutenant John Stickney and says she “married John Palmer”. The same account has her younger sister Sarah marrying Francis Palmer, and Rowley’s records do show Francis Palmer marrying Sarah Stickney there on 30 October 1716.

The first document that names her as his daughter is the division of Lieutenant John Stickney’s real estate among his widow and children, dated 13 October 1712 and printed in The Stickney Family (1869). It sets out six acres of land near Long Hill “To Mary Palmer”, alongside the shares of her brothers and sisters. The document is known only through that book’s transcript.

The 1909 history describes her father as a Rowley carpenter who had fought in King Philip’s War^W. When Mary died is not known.

Notes

Mary’s birth, her parents’ marriage and the births of her siblings are from the printed Vital Records of Rowley, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849 (1928–31), as are her own marriage and the nine births to John and Mary Palmer. The 1909 history was compiled from sketches supplied by the families it describes; its seven children for John and Hannah Stickney match the seven births in the Rowley records. John Stickney’s and Hannah Brocklebank’s own births are likewise from the Rowley records. The Stickney Family (1869) is a printed genealogy, and its transcript of the 1712 division is the only evidence here that names Mary Palmer as John Stickney’s daughter.