♀Susanna (surname unknown)

Susanna (about 1618 – 20 February 1698/99) lived at Bridgewater, in Plymouth Colony^W, where her husband Samuel Edson, one of the town’s early settlers, named her executrix of his will; she outlived him by nearly seven years. She was the ninth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son Samuel Edson (1645–1719).

Family

Her family name is not on record; she is said to have been born Susanna Orcutt. She and Samuel lived first at Salem, where their son Samuel was probably born in 1645, and then moved to Bridgewater, where her husband is said to have built the town’s first mill.

Samuel and Susanna had three sons, Samuel, Joseph and Josiah, and five daughters, Elizabeth, Susanna, Sarah, Mary and Bethiah, all eight named in Samuel’s will. Their daughter Susanna is said to have married James Keith, Bridgewater’s first minister.

Widowhood

In his will of 15 January 1688/89 Samuel left the rest of his estate to “my loving wife Susanna Edson” for her life, after which the lands were to pass to their three sons and the household goods to their five daughters. He named her executrix, with the sons Samuel and Josiah as executors. He died at Bridgewater on 20 July 1692, and the will was proved at Plymouth on 20 September 1692.

Susanna died at Bridgewater on 20 February 1698/99, aged 81. Samuel and Susanna were buried together in the old graveyard at West Bridgewater, under a single slab of natural granite lettered with both their deaths; when it was set up, and by whom, is not known.

Lines of descent

Both of Nancy Jane Blanchard’s lines from Samuel and Susanna run through their son Samuel Edson (1645–1719). One continues through his daughter Elisabeth Edson (1684–1716), who married Samuel Packard, down to Joseph Knapp (1763–1839); the other through his son Samuel Edson (1689–1771), the father of Abel Edson (born 1718), down to Eunice Carver (1763–1845). Joseph Knapp and Eunice Carver married, and the two lines meet in their daughter Polly Knapp (1798–1863).

Notes

Her name

No record gives her maiden name. Nahum Mitchell’s History of the Early Settlement of Bridgewater (1840) begins its Edson register: “Dea. Samuel Edson and his wife, Susanna Orcutt, came from Salem.” Later family compilations repeat the name Orcutt, but no record behind it is known, so the page leaves her surname blank.

Birth and death

No record of her birth is known. The year about 1618 is reckoned from her age at death: the printed vital records of Bridgewater, from the church record, enter “Susannah, w. Samuel 1st, Feb. 20, 1699, a. 81”. Her gravestone, as Williams Latham’s Epitaphs in Old Bridgewater (1882) prints it, also gives her death on 20 February, aged 81.

Salem, the mill and the daughters

Salem as the couple’s earlier home and the mill come from Mitchell (1840); the son’s birthplace, Salem, is from the 1903 Edson genealogy. The daughter Susanna’s marriage to the Rev. James Keith is Mitchell’s; the James Keith whom Samuel named as an overseer of his will was most likely this son-in-law.

The will

Samuel’s will is recorded in the Plymouth County probate records, vol. 1, p. 143. The witnesses John Ames and Samuel Kinsley swore to it before the court at Plymouth on 20 September 1692.