♀Meribah Curtis

Meribah Curtis (10 March 1674 – 15 January 1684, by compiled dates) was the eldest child of Joseph Curtis (1644–1683) and Mercy, of Wethersfield in the Connecticut Colony^W, and, on compiled dates, died about two weeks after her father. She was the sixth great-grand-aunt of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), the sister of Thomas Curtis (1680–1752), Roger’s sixth great-grandfather.

Her parents had been married at Wethersfield on 8 February 1673/74, and she was the first of the six children the town book enters to them. Her mother was Mercy, whom later compilations give as Mercy Deming (1651–1714). The Barbour transcription of the town records gives her birth, under the spelling “Merebah”, as 10 March 1673/4, to “Joseph & Marcy”. The year is the Old Style one, in which the new year began on 25 March; in the modern count it is 1674.

Her father died on 31 December 1683. The Barbour transcription dates her death to 15 January 1683 Old Style, which is 1684 in the modern count, when she was about ten. The entry itself reads “Meriba, d. Joseph”, “ae about 10 y.” It gives no cause. The inventory of her father’s estate, dated the day he died and sworn to by her mother on 6 March 1683/84, names five children as heirs: Joseph, Mary, Sarah, Thomas and David. Meribah is not among them, and the division of the land in 1699 names the same five.

Notes

The birth date falls a month after the marriage date, and the records do not explain the interval. The Barbour entry for her birth names her mother “Marcy”, as the town book does for several of the children; the Deming parentage of Mercy rests on later compilations, as the page on Mercy Deming explains.