♂Nicholas Blanchard

Nicholas Blanchard (10 April 1736 – 29 January 1801) was a lifelong resident of Weymouth, Massachusetts, whose family appears in the town’s records as Blancher. He was the fifth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son Nicholas Blanchard (1766–1849).

Early life

Nicholas was born at Weymouth on 10 April 1736, the son of John Blanchard (1691–1752), later a deacon of the town, and his wife Elizabeth Gross, whose marriage intention was entered at Weymouth in December 1719. He grew up in a large household: the town’s birth register names eleven children of John and Elizabeth, born between 1721 and 1744. Two of his brothers died as infants.

He was not the first Nicholas in the family. The death register records a Nicholas, son of John and Abigail, who died in January 1733. That child belonged to the previous generation, a son of Nicholas’s grandfather John Blanchard and his first wife Abigail. The Nicholas born in 1736 is the only son of that name recorded for John and Elizabeth.

Marriage and family

The intention of marriage of Nicholas Blancher and Sarah Hovey was entered at Weymouth on 11 August 1764, and they were married there on 6 March 1765. On 27 November 1768 he and his wife Sarah renewed their covenant with the Second Church of Christ in Weymouth, the South Parish, and their son Nicholas was baptized the same day.

The couple had five children, born or baptized between 1766 and 1785. Two of them shared the name Cloe: the first, baptized in 1774, seems to have died young, because the name was given again to a daughter baptized in 1785, who died in October 1802 aged 18. Their son Noah, born in 1777, died in September 1791 in his fifteenth year. The town clerk first entered that death under the name Nicholas and then struck the entry out. Their eldest son, Nicholas, born in July 1766, married Mary Thayer at Weymouth in 1789 and continued the line.

Death

Nicholas died at Weymouth on 29 January 1801 without a will. On 5 February 1801 administration of his estate was granted to his son Nicholas and to Demetrius Thayer of Braintree. The town record gives his age as 65, which agrees with his recorded birth. His gravestone, as transcribed in the published town records, gives the date as 28 January and his age as “in his 64th year”, one year less. The town birth record has been preferred. On 5 April 1803 the court ordered the estate divided, a third to the widow and the rest among the children. His widow Sarah died on 8 August, aged 58. The town’s death register enters her twice, once in 1803 and once in 1805, so the year of her death is uncertain.

Lines of descent

Both lines pass through his son Nicholas (1766–1849) and divide in the next generation, between that Nicholas’s sons Noah (1797–1875) and Alexander (1799–1850). They meet again in Wesley Blanchard (1844–1908), whose parents, Joseph Knapp Blanchard (1820–1885) and Elizabeth Trueworthy Blanchard (1825–1884), were first cousins and both great-grandchildren of this Nicholas.

Notes

The identification of his wife as Sarah Hovey rests on the 1765 marriage, the only marriage of a Nicholas Blancher at Weymouth in that period. The later records call her only “Sarah, wife of Nicholas”. The connection is strong but is an inference. A published town history names a “Mr. Blanchard from Weymouth” as the first settler of Kingfield, Maine, about 1806. That man has not been identified.

Church record

The church book of the Second Church of Christ in Weymouth, as printed in The Genealogical Advertiser (vol. 2, no. 4, December 1899, p. 116), has the entry: “Nicholas Blancher & Wife renewed their Covenant. & their Son Nicholas Baptized Novber. 27. 1768.” Chamberlain’s History of Weymouth (vol. 3, 1923, p. 103) gives the same day. The book does not name the wife. Her name comes from the 1765 marriage, as explained above.

Probate

The letters of administration of 5 February 1801 describe him as a husbandman who died intestate. The order of distribution of 5 April 1803 divides a balance of $657.65: a third to the widow Sarah, and the rest to Nicholas, to Sarah, wife of Demetrius Thayer, and to the administrator of Cloe Blanchard (written Chloe in the record), who had died since her father.