♂Peter Folsom

Peter Folsom (April 1649 – before 5 March 1717/18) was a landowner, mill-owner and militia lieutenant of Exeter, in New Hampshire. He was the seventh great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Susanna Folsom. In April 1673 his father made him his attorney and, by a deed of gift, handed him the house, buildings and about fifty acres he still owned at Hingham, in the English county of Norfolk, across the ocean from the son who received them.

Early life

He was born at Hingham, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W, the son of John Folsom (died 1681) and Mary Gilman, and is said to have been baptized there on 8 April 1649. His parents had come from the older Hingham in Norfolk, and in the 1650s the family moved north to Exeter.

According to the family’s history, Exeter granted Peter his first ten acres on 10 October 1664, when he was fifteen, and further grants of thirty acres in 1670, a hundred in 1680 and another hundred in 1700. In November 1670 he bought a quarter share in a saw mill at Exeter, and on 10 March 1672 he was formally admitted an inhabitant of the town.

In April 1673 his father, John Folsom senior, named “my trustie & wellbeloved Son Peter ffulsham of Exeter” his attorney. By a deed of gift made “in respect of ye paternall love & affection”, John passed to Peter his house, buildings and some fifty acres in Hingham, Norfolk, “near Norrald”. The power of attorney was entered in the Norfolk County deeds on 28 April 1673.

Exeter

Peter served his town for more than thirty years. He sat on a committee of three in 1678 to settle the town’s debts, served as a juror in 1677, 1694 and 1698 and as a grand juror six times between 1678 and 1699, surveyed the town’s highways, and in 1701 was chosen constable as “Leftt peter foulsham”. His house stood on the Hampton road east of the village, and in 1704 the road to Kensington was laid out through his field.

He is said to have served in King Philip’s War^W, and was credited for military service on 24 October 1676. He was an ensign by 1692 and afterwards a lieutenant, and from 5 March to 2 April 1696 he served in Captain Kinsley Hall’s first company of the Exeter militia.

He also took his part in the province’s quarrels. He signed the petition against Governor Edward Cranfield^W, and was named a juror for the trial of Edward Gove, whose armed rising against Cranfield’s government in 1683 is known as Gove’s Rebellion^W. When the proprietor Robert Tufton Mason^W went to law to recover the lands of the province, Peter was among the Exeter men he sued, but none of the family’s land is known to have passed to Mason.

Marriage and family

Peter Folsom and Susanna, the widow of Isaac Cousins of Wells, in Maine, were married at Exeter, probably on 6 May 1678. Isaac Cousins is said to have been killed by Indians at Wells in 1675, in the first year of King Philip’s War. Susanna was a daughter of Mary Wadleigh and probably of Thomas Mills of Wells, and in 1685 and 1689 Peter bought and sold shares of the farm at Wells that had belonged to her grandfather John Wadleigh.

They had six children: Elizabeth, Susanna, Mary, Peter, John and Benjamin, who was born in 1696.

Death and estate

Peter Folsom died at Exeter before 5 March 1717/18, without a will. On 4 March Susanna declined the administration and asked that their son John be appointed, and on 5 March it was granted to him. The inventory of the estate of “Lieut. Peter Folsom of Exeter”, taken on 18 April 1718, came to £974 3s 3d.

Their son Peter died in 1718 as well, leaving young children, and the estate took two years to divide. On 20 July 1720 the widow and the heirs, with John Gilman acting as guardian of the younger Peter’s children, signed an agreement. Susanna kept her widow’s third, valued at £289 6s 8d: the house, barn and orchard with part of the home lot, ten acres by the meadow, twenty-three and a half acres of salt marsh at Hampton and a sixteenth share of a saw mill on the Lamprey River, with land over the cove to make up the sum.

The rest of the estate, including the home place, a hundred acres south of the cove, the “Indian field” and three hundred acres “up countrey”, was shared among the children. John gave up his claim to the Indian field and the up-country land in exchange for the farm his father had already given him by deed. A second agreement among the heirs followed on 16 April 1737.

Notes

Sources for his life

The 1673 power of attorney and deed of gift are in the old Norfolk County deeds of Massachusetts, page 439. The administration of 5 March 1717/18, the inventory of 18 April 1718 and the agreements of 20 July 1720 and 16 April 1737 are abstracted in the probate records of New Hampshire (Provincial and State Papers, volume 32, pages 19–26); Susanna’s renunciation of 4 March 1717/18 and the details of the widow’s third come from the same estate file as printed in Elizabeth Knowles Folsom’s Genealogy of the Folsom Family (1938).

The family’s move to Exeter is dated about 1655 in the Folsom genealogy of 1882 and to 1659 in the Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire. His baptism on 8 April 1649 comes from the diary of the Hingham minister Peter Hobart, as given in the Folsom genealogies of 1882 and 1938; a birth index gives only April 1649. The town grants, the saw-mill share of 1670, his offices, his militia service, the Cranfield petition, the Gove jury and the Mason suit come from the 1938 Folsom genealogy, which quotes the Exeter town records, the old Norfolk County deeds and George Madison Bodge’s Soldiers in King Philip’s War. The Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire agrees on his service in the war, his jury service, his rank as ensign in 1692 and lieutenant, and the administration granted to his son John; it also dates the younger Peter’s administration to 4 June 1718.

Date of the marriage

The Folsom genealogies of 1882 and 1938, James Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England and the Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire all give 6 May 1678. George Thomas Little’s Genealogical and Family History of the State of Maine says that he married Susanna “about 1675”, with a daughter Elizabeth born about 1676.

The name

The records spell the name in many ways: Foulsham, ffulsham, Folsham and ffolsum. He signed an Exeter petition “Petter ffoullsham”, and in 1690 he and Susanna signed an account as “Left Petr ffolsum” and “susanar ffolsum”.