♀Mehitable Chandler

Mehitable Chandler (died 1 July 1768), also recorded as Mehitable Crosby, was born at Andover, Massachusetts, and was twice married, first to Robert Crosby and then to Deacon Andrew Spaulding of Westford. She was the fifth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Ruth Spaulding (1746–1790).

Marriages

The Andover vital records enter her first marriage, to “Robert Crossbee [late of Billerica]”, on 7 February 1731/32. Her second marriage is entered there too: “Mehetable [Crossbey], Mrs., and Dea. Andrew Spaulding of Westford, Nov. 26, 1745”. Andrew was a weaver and deacon of Westford whose first wife had died in 1744. A Spalding family genealogy published in 1897 confirms that her maiden name was Chandler, of Andover, and that she was the widow of Robert Crosby.

Birth

The Andover birth records hold three girls named Mehitable Chandler, born in 1699, 1717 and 1720. The eldest would have been past childbearing by her last child’s birth in 1754, and the youngest would have been eleven at the 1732 marriage. That leaves the daughter of Zebadiah and Sarah Chandler, baptized in October 1717, who would have married at about fourteen. The records do not settle which girl she was.

Children and death

The Westford birth register records her first child by Andrew, a daughter Ruth, born on 15 December 1746, as the daughter of “Andrew Spaulding and Mehittable his wife”. The register names her as the mother of four children by Andrew, born between 1746 and 1754. She died at Westford on 1 July 1768. Her husband’s own death is not on record. Her parents and the date of her birth are not known.

Notes

The date of her death

The printed Westford vital records (1915), p.315, enter “Mehittabel, w. Dea. Andrew, July 1, 1768.” Hodgman’s History of the Town of Westford (1883), p.416, gives “1768. July 1, Mehitable, wife of Dea. Andrew Spalding.” Both put her death on the same day. The register writes “w.” (wife) where a widow would be “wid.”, which suggests that her husband was still living; that is an inference from the wording.

The 1897 Spalding genealogy gives “d. July 1, 1768” for her husband, the day she died, and says that his death and his widow’s are recorded on the Townsend records. No Townsend entry is known to confirm that statement. No death for him appears in the printed Westford or Chelmsford death records or in Hodgman’s death list.