♂Samuel Kingsley

Samuel Kingsley (6 August 1662 – 17 December 1713) was a colonist of Braintree^W, Bridgewater and Taunton North Purchase in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the husband of Mary Washburn, a great-granddaughter of the Mayflower passenger Francis Cooke. He was the seventh great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Susanna Kingsley (1702–1775).

Early life and marriage

He was born at Braintree on 6 August 1662. A Mayflower genealogy of the Cooke family names his parents as Samuel and Hannah (Brackett) Kingsley.

He married Mary Washburn (1662–1740), a daughter of John Washburn (died 1686) and Elizabeth Mitchell (about 1629–1684) of Bridgewater, before 28 July 1690. She had been born a few weeks before him, in the summer of 1662. The couple were living at Bridgewater in 1694, when on 10 September Samuel Kingsley joined his wife’s brothers and sisters and their husbands, “all of Bridgewater”, in selling “a Parcell of Land left unwilled by our Father & ffather in law John Washburne Deceased” - land that his father-in-law’s will had not disposed of, which therefore fell to all his heirs together.

Taunton North Purchase

The family later moved to Taunton North Purchase, the part of Taunton later set off as the town of Easton^W. Their younger son was born there on 16 May 1701, and the division of Samuel Kingsley’s estate names eight children in all: two sons and six daughters, born between about 1690 and about 1706. Susanna, the fourth daughter, was born about 1702.

He died on 17 December 1713, probably at Taunton North Purchase, at about fifty-one, leaving several children under age. The inventory of the estate of “Samuel Kingsley Senr of Taunton North Purchase”, taken on 19 February 1713/14, gives the date of his death. On 8 July 1714 his widow petitioned the court to appoint their eldest son, also named Samuel, as administrator. The real estate was not divided until 5 October 1722, nine years after his death, when it was shared among the widow and all eight children; by then the eldest son had also been appointed guardian of the two youngest daughters, who were still minors. His widow died at Easton on 28 February 1740.

Notes

The Braintree record writes his birth as “6.6.1662”. Under the calendar then in use in New England the year began in March, so the sixth month was August; the date has sometimes been misread as 6 June. No record of the marriage itself has been found; the Mayflower genealogy dates it before 28 July 1690 from a published index of New England marriages, and adds that it must in any case have taken place by about 1692, since the eldest son was of age to administer his father’s estate in July 1714.