♀Susanna (surname unknown)

Susanna (died between 1698 and 1700) was a widow of Bridgewater, in Plymouth County, whose will of 7 September 1698 promised freedom to a maid and a man named Tom whom she held in slavery. She was the ninth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her daughter Susanna Byram (died 1741/42).

Marriage and family

She was probably married to Nicholas Byram by late 1638, and their six children, a son, Nicholas, and five daughters, Abigail, Deliverance, Experience, Susanna and Mary, were most likely all born at Weymouth. In 1660 Nicholas bought land rights in Bridgewater, in Plymouth Colony^W, and the family is said to have moved there soon after. Nicholas died about 1688, and Susanna lived on at Bridgewater as a widow for at least ten more years.

Her will

On 7 September 1698 she made her will, speaking of “my deceased husband” and of “my daughter Susanna Edson”, and named her son Nicholas executor. To “my Negro maid” she gave “her freedome at my decease & one home made hood”. Tom was to have ten shillings and his freedom at her death if he was thirty years old; if not, he was to “serve with my son Nicholas Byram till he is thirty years of age”. The will does not give the ages of either.

She died at Bridgewater some time after making it. The will was proved at Plymouth on 18 December 1700 (a history of Weymouth gives 18 December 1699), when she was called “late of Bridgewater … Widdow Deceased”.

Lines of descent

Nicholas and Susanna are ancestors of Nancy Jane Blanchard twice over, both times through their daughter Susanna, who married Samuel Edson. One line runs through Susanna’s daughter Elisabeth Edson (1684–1716), who married Samuel Packard, down to Joseph Knapp (1763–1839); the other runs through her son Samuel Edson (1689–1771) 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

Maiden name

Her will and her husband’s papers give only her first name. Nahum Mitchell’s History of the Early Settlement of Bridgewater (1840) calls her “Susanna, D. of Abraham Shaw of Dedham”, and George Walter Chamberlain’s History of Weymouth (1923) agrees, citing Thomas Lechford’s notebook, where Abraham Shaw’s will of about November 1638 mentions “his son-in-law Nicholas Byram” (Chamberlain’s wording). A Joseph Shaw witnessed her will of 1698. Until a record of her own gives it, her surname is left blank.

Marriage and children

The year of the marriage is not known; Chamberlain places it before October 1638. The children’s names, their births at Weymouth and the family’s move to Bridgewater come from Mitchell and Chamberlain; Chamberlain dates the move to 1662. Mitchell writes that “she d. a. 1698”.

The probate record

The will is entered in the Plymouth County probate records, volume 1, page 332. The record of its proof gives 18 December 1700; Chamberlain prints 18 December 1699.