♀Susan Riddlesdale

Susan Riddlesdale (died about 1658) married Thomas French of Assington, in Suffolk, England, and was the mother of eight children, several of whom went ahead of their parents to the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W. She followed them to Ipswich, was widowed there in 1639, and lived on in the town for nineteen years. She was the tenth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Alice French (1610–1666).

Assington

Susan Riddlesdale was baptized at Boxford, Suffolk, England, on 20 April 1584, and married Thomas French at Assington on 5 September 1608. Their eight children, Thomas, Alice, Dorcas, Susan, Anne, Margaret, John and Mary, were all baptized in the Assington church between November 1608 and January 1624/5. In December 1621 the family was living in a farmhouse called “Garland’s“, which belonged to John Gurdon, Esq., of Assington.

The children go first

The elder children left first. Her son Thomas and her daughter Alice probably crossed in 1630 with the Winthrop Fleet^W. On 11 June 1633 Thomas Gostlin wrote from Groton, in Suffolk, to John Winthrop the Younger^W about the maid he had sent over: “she is one of the goodman Frenches daughters of Assington. I have sent 2 of them, one for your father and the other for you.” Two of the French daughters had gone across to serve in the households of the governor, John Winthrop^W, and his son, the elder bound for three years and the younger for four.

Ipswich

Susan, her husband and the younger children followed. Their daughter Margaret was buried at Assington on 25 November 1635. By 25 July 1638 the family had settled at Ipswich, where the younger Thomas had gone with John Winthrop the Younger.

Her husband died at Ipswich before November 1639. On 5 November 1639 administration of his estate was granted to her, with the direction that his land be sold or otherwise disposed of, on the advice of the Ipswich magistrates, “for the maintenance of his wife and the education of his children which are not yet able to provide for themselves.” In 1641 “Widow French” was one of the commoners of Ipswich, those with rights in the town’s common land.

She probably died at Ipswich in August 1658. An inventory of the goods of “Susan French, widow, of Ipswich, deceased” was taken by 10 March 1658/9; it came to £12 11s 6d.

Notes

Sources for her life

Her marriage, the baptisms of her children, the Gurdon will (made 6 December 1621), the 1633 letter, the administration of her husband’s estate, her place among the Ipswich commoners and her inventory come from Walter Goodwin Davis, The Ancestry of Dudley Wildes (1959), pp. 63-64, “French, of Ipswich”. The Assington entries rest on the parish register, which John William Linzee, The History of Peter Parker and Sarah Ruggles (1913), pp. 412-413, prints from certified copies; Linzee also gives Margaret’s burial in 1635 and Susan’s death, “Aug. 1658 Ipswich”, from the court records. That Thomas and Alice came in the Winthrop Fleet, and that the two daughters sent over in 1633 were Dorcas and Susan, is Davis’s judgment.

The date of her death

Davis dates the inventory “before March 10, 1658”. Under the old calendar, in which the year began on 25 March, that March fell in 1658/9, after the August 1658 death that Linzee gives, so the two agree.

Her baptism

The baptism is given in the errata to John B. Threlfall, “Thomas French of Assington, Suffolk, and Ipswich, Massachusetts,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register 142 (1988), p. 393, which corrects pp. 250-252 of the same volume. The errata gives the entry as: “Susan Riddlesdale, wife of Thomas French, was baptized at Boxford, Suffolk, 20 April 1584.” It names no parents.

The England Births and Christenings collection also holds a Susan Riddlesdale christened at Lindsey, Suffolk, on 6 September 1584, with a father named John. The parish and the date differ from the Boxford baptism, so that christening is not taken to be hers.

Her family

Her parents and her exact birthplace are not known. A Dorcas Ridelsdell was a witness in a case at the Ipswich court in March 1647; Davis took her to be an unmarried sister or niece of Susan, who either came over with the family or joined them later.