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Family tree▼ Facts and Events
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References
- ↑ There were two families of John and Hannah Chadwick in Watertown, as documented in Source:Bond, Henry. Family Memorials. Genealogies of the Families and Descendants of the Early Settlers of Watertown, Massachusetts, Including Waltham and Weston (1855), and also TAG, p. 31:73-4. There is a pervasive fiction that both families ended up in Worcester, making it difficult to separate the families. This does not appear to be confirmed by any supported facts.
The truth is, outside of what is, by all appearances, a series of typos serving the preconceived notions of the authors, there is no evidence that the family of John Chadwick and Hannah Barstow ended up in Worcester.
There are two probates for John Chadwick in Worcester county, one clearly of this John in 1768 based on the will and the executor being his son David; and one of his son in 1763 based on the names of the widow and children.
Two gravestones are reported in Source:Wall, Caleb A. Reminiscences of Worcester from the Earliest Period, Historical and Genealogical, p. 205:
John Chadwick, Sept. 3, 1763, aged 86; his wife Hannah, May 4, 1752
John Chadwick, Jr., July 17, 1768, age 67; his wife, Dec. 1766, aged 46.
[Unfortunately, alternate sources that give the actual wording of the gravestone have not been found, as the above presentation clearly represents the conclusion of the author, not an inscription.]
Source:Bond, Henry. Family Memorials. Genealogies of the Families and Descendants of the Early Settlers of Watertown, Massachusetts, Including Waltham and Weston (1855) says John Chadwick, s/o John and Sarah, b. 1681, d. Worcester Sept 1768, aged 86 [i.e., not 1763 as in Reminiscences]. It does not give a death date for the other John Chadwick.
TAG, p. 31:73-74, seems to merely reiterate the old stories, saying Hannah Barstow d. May 1732, age 53, her husband John, d. Sep 1786, age 86, and the other John Chadwick d. 17 Jul 1768, age 67. Notice the discrepancy between these dates and those reported from the Old Common Burial Ground in Reminiscences (Hannah 1732 instead of 1752, the older John 1768 instead of 1763).
The immediate problem is the discrepancy in death dates between 1763 and 1768 for the older John Chadwick. It is a problem because the report of two different dates raises doubts, one probably being in error; and of the various reports, Reminiscences is the one that indicates the underlying source, and so probably the most credible; and if 1763 is right, the age of 86 would now be pretty far off, versus "only one year off from being in complete harmony" (as the TAG article says).
Noticing the difference in year is between a 3 and 8, such a mistake, or vice versa, would be a easy misread of a gravestone. But are the Bond/TAG reports independent readings of a gravestone, or misreporting of the same reading, rationalized to fit other data? Given the probate record, I suggest that the truth is that the mistake was made in the original reading, in the age, which should be 36, not 86. Then the gravestone reported in Reminiscences, 1763 aet. 36, aligns perfectly with the son John's probate in 1763, birth in 1727/8, age 35, or in the 36th year of his age. Completing the explanation, the Hannah who died in Worcester in 1752 was the wife of the younger John Chadwick, who then married (2) 1762 Anna (Rankin) Andrews, the second marriage proved by vital records and wills, but not mentioned by any of the secondary sources. Given this, there is absolutely nothing to suggest that the older John Chadwick, last seen in Attleborough when his son Daniel's birth was recorded in early 1716, and his son Michael d. 1724, and his wife Hannah d. 1732, ever came to Worcester.
QED: the inscription for John Jr. transcribed in 1876 has the year 1763, the age 36; for John [not Jr.] is 1768 age 67. I also discovered "Notes on the Origin of the Chadick/Chadwick Family of Worcester, Massachusetts" by Judith Gleason Claassen, Source:Massachusetts Society of Genealogists. Massog, Vol. 25, which provides a more thorough history of how these gravestones have been so badly misreported through the years, resulting in many errors about these two families.
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