♂Nathaniel Dudley

Nathaniel Dudley (25 November 1763 – 8 May 1844) was a New Hampshire-born settler of Mount Vernon, in the District of Maine^W, who spent his last decades at Kingfield and Freeman in the upper Kennebec country. He was the fourth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Sarah Dudley (1795–1839).

Early life

He was born at Exeter, New Hampshire, on 25 November 1763, a son of John Dudley (1725–1805), afterwards a New Hampshire judge^W, and Elizabeth Gilman. Most of what is known of his life comes from two books: a history of Raymond, New Hampshire, published in 1875, and a family history published in 1886 by his grandson Dean Dudley, who drew on Nathaniel’s own papers, among them a journal of his travels, a letter home from the army and the day-book of his store.

Raymond and the Revolution

The family moved from Exeter to the young town of Raymond in 1766, when he was about three. The family history records that in August 1778, at fifteen, he marched with a New Hampshire militia company to Rhode Island, in the campaign against the British at Newport that ended in the Battle of Rhode Island^W. His letter to his parents, dated 19 August 1778, told of the batteries about to open and of the hope “to drive these Blood-Hounds” off the island; after twelve days in camp the company was discharged, and he was home by the end of the month. The history of Raymond lists him among the town’s soldiers of the Revolution. According to the family history, he spent the rest of the war mostly running the family farm while his father was away on public business, apart from a journey in 1780 to take cattle to New Jersey for the American army.

Nathaniel Dudley and Anna Smith married when he was about twenty; a history of Raymond, New Hampshire, published in 1875, gives the year as 1783.

Lines of descent

According to the published family history and genealogical dictionary, he and Anna were third cousins: her mother, Mary Leavitt, was a great-granddaughter of Samuel Dudley (1608–1683) through his daughter Dorothy and Moses Leavitt of Exeter.

Life at Raymond

The same book says he built a house opposite the Harriman place in Raymond. In 1785 the town chose him as one of its selectmen and named him to a committee to decide where a new meeting house should stand. The family history adds that John Langdon^W commissioned him that year as a justice of the peace for Rockingham County and a lieutenant of militia, and that he declined the justice’s commission.

Mount Vernon

In August 1788, according to the family history, he moved to a large farm in the town then called Washington, later Mount Vernon, in what was then Lincoln County, on land his father deeded to him that year. The Mount Vernon town records list eleven children of Nathaniel and Anna born between 1784 and 1806, among them Sarah on 25 June 1795; three died in early childhood. The three eldest are entered there with the rest, although the family history places their births at Raymond, before the move.

The family history describes him as a leading man of the town who served in turn as selectman, town clerk and assessor, was its first county magistrate, and kept a country store as well as the farm. Both books record that he represented his town in the Massachusetts General Court^W; the family history says he was first elected in 1800, as a Jeffersonian Republican^W, and returned four years running. It goes on to say that he then signed the bond of a sheriff who defaulted, that the bondsmen were sued and their property sold at auction, and that the store and the farm were both lost. By his own account, as his grandson reports it, he turned to drink for three or four years before giving it up for good, and he later wrote at length in favor of total abstinence.

Kingfield and Freeman

At the invitation of William King^W, who with partners had bought a township far up the Kennebec near Mount Abraham, he moved there and acted as King’s agent in selling farms to new settlers. A grandson’s recollection of 1858, printed in the Maine Historical and Genealogical Recorder in 1884, calls him one of the early settlers of the governor’s township, coming from Mount Vernon. Two letters from King, written at Bath on 24 and 26 February 1813 and addressed to him as “Nathaniel Dudley, Esq., No. 3”, concern his mills and a petition from the settlers complaining that two men, Trask and Otis, had sought to take advantage of newcomers to the town.

The history of Raymond places him at Kingfield some twenty-two years after the move to Maine, and the family history gives the birth of the youngest child, William King Dudley, at Kingfield in 1810. Anna died on 18 September 1825, aged 61, as their shared gravestone records, and in January 1826 Nathaniel married his second wife, Harriet Pullen, a widow, at Kingfield. The family history says that most of his children married and settled around him.

In religion he was a Universalist^W who rejected the doctrine of endless punishment, and his grandson recalled that his daughters opposed him on the point without moving him. He was blind in his last years and lived in part of his son John G. Dudley’s house at North Freeman, where neighbors came to read to him. He died at Freeman on 8 May 1844 and was buried at Riverside Cemetery in Kingfield, under a slate tablet he shares with his first wife, Anna. About 1855, with Dean Dudley’s help, his widow obtained a warrant for 160 acres of government land on account of his service in the Revolutionary War.

Notes

Three dates for his death are given. The family history gives 7 May 1844, while the gravestone gives 8 May 1844, the date used in the text above. A Find a Grave listing for the shared gravestone at Riverside Cemetery, Kingfield, gives 8 May 1844 for his death and 18 September 1825 for Anna’s. A Portland newspaper of 22 May 1844 printed a death notice reading “In Freeman, 9th inst., Nathaniel Dudley, Esq., aged 81.”