♂Richard Pratt

Richard Pratt (1615 – 1691) was a settler of Malden, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W, where he raised a family of at least seven children and died in 1691. He was the ninth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by three separate lines of descent, all through his daughter Hannah Pratt. His will, which left forty shillings to “my Grand child James Hovey ye son of my Daughter Hannah”, is the record that ties her family to his.

Early life and Malden

Richard was probably the youngest son of John Pratt of Maldon, in Essex, England, and was baptized there on 29 June 1615. He came to New England and lived on the Malden side of Charlestown, the district north of the Mystic River that was set off as the town of Malden in 1649 and named after the Essex town.

Family

He married a woman named Mary, whose surname is not known, and the couple most likely had all seven of his known children, born from 1643 on: Mary, Thomas, Mercy, John, Elizabeth, Martha and Hannah. Mercy, born on 15 June 1650, is not named in her father’s will and probably died young. Of the daughters, Mary married Thomas Skinner, Elizabeth married Gershom Hawkes and Martha married John Pratt, while Hannah married Joseph Hovey and made her home at Hadley, on the Connecticut River.

Will and death

In May 1691 Richard, calling himself “senr of Maldon”, made his will. He left his wife Mary his dwelling house and gave his son Thomas all his housing and lands in Malden. His son John and “my three Daughters now living” - Mary Skinner, Elizabeth Hawkes and Martha Pratt - had forty shillings each, and forty shillings more went to his grandson James Hovey “towards his bringing up”. Hannah is not among the daughters “now living”, so she had most likely died, leaving her son James still a child. Richard named Mary and Thomas his executors. He died at Malden, and the will was proved on 6 October 1691. His house is said to have been valued at £20 and his four acres at £16.

Lines of descent

All three of Nancy Jane Blanchard’s lines to Richard Pratt run through his daughter Hannah and her husband Joseph Hovey. Two pass through their son Ebenezer Hovey (born 1680) and meet again in Wesley Blanchard (1844–1908), whose parents, Joseph Knapp Blanchard (1820–1885) and Elizabeth Trueworthy Blanchard (1825–1884), were both descended from Richard. The third comes down through their son John Hovey (1684–1714) to Anna Walker Merryman (1869–1942). She and Wesley’s son George Wesley Blanchard (1868–1939) were the parents of Kenneth Blanchard (1897–1975), Nancy Jane Blanchard’s father, in whom all three lines meet.

Notes

Origin and baptism

His English origin rests on two printed genealogies. Thomas Bellows Wyman’s The Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown (1879) makes Richard the youngest son of John of Maldon, Essex, baptized 29 June 1615. James Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England gives the same baptism with “it is said”, and makes him the youngest of nine children. Neither prints the parish register entry. Savage places him at Charlestown, living on the Malden side.

The will

The will survives in the Middlesex County probate records. The copy there dates it 6 May 1691; Wyman prints 8 May. It was proved on 6 October 1691, which fixes his death between the two dates. The legacy to “my Grand child James Hovey ye son of my Daughter Hannah” is clear in the register copy, and it settles a link that Savage, without the will, could only give as a “slight report” that Hannah was the wife of a Hovey. Wyman lists Hannah as Richard’s daughter and the wife of Joseph Hovey, and The Hovey Book (1913) calls her a daughter of Richard and Mary Pratt of Malden. The valuation of the house and land is from Wyman’s abstract of the inventory.

The children

The seven children and their order come from Wyman and Savage. Mercy’s birth, as a daughter of Richard, is entered in the Malden town records under 15 June 1650; Savage notes that she died young. Mary’s birth in September 1643 (Savage: 7 or 30 September), Thomas’s on 5 March or 5 May 1646 and John’s in 1655 are from the two genealogies. Savage gives Martha’s birth as 1663 and her marriage to John Pratt as 18 November 1686. Six of the seven are named in the will, Hannah through her son.