Family:John Wright and Sarah Unknown (3)

Source:Hodgman, Edwin R. History of the Town of Westford in the County of Middlesex, Massachusetts, 1659-1883, p. 482, shows two men named John Wright of an appropriate age to be the husband of Mary Kendall.

• One [#13] married a wife named Sarah and had children from 1755 to 1777. Hodgman identifies this John as son of Jacob and Abigail, b. 1723.
• One [#14] married Mary Kendall in 1747 and had children from 1748 to 1762. Hodgman provides no identification of him.

As is typical in most secondary sources, no explanation is given how it is determined which John was the son of Jacob. Neither couple appears to have named a child either Jacob or Abigail.

There is doubt whether Hodgman got it right. The John Wright who married Mary Kendall had a son Zebedee. Because of the rarity of this name it is easy to spot Zebedee dying in Tyngsborough. In the same set of VRs, we also find the death of John Wright in 1816, in his 93d year. Hence the husband of Mary Kendall was born about 1723-24, so is a good match for the son of Jacob. However, as explained on Family:John Wright and Mary Kendall (1), there is another John Wright who was born in Charlestown in 1723, s/o Robert and Alice, so this is not sufficient. Neither couple named a child either Robert or Alice.

In the Westford VRs, there is a death record for a John Wright in 1802, age 68. This would be a birth about 1733-4, old enough to be the John Wright who married Sarah by 1755, but not old enough to have married Mary Kendall in 1747.

Given the commonness of the name John Wright, it is impossible with this limited evidence to credibly identify which John Wright married which woman.