"The parentage of Dorcas Bellows has not been ascertained, although much effort has been made. Her maiden name is believed to have been Dorcas Cutler, as given in the Lancaster record of her marriage to Henry Willard in 1689. 'The Cutler Family,' by Rev. Abner Morse, p. 41-42, and 'The Cutler Memorial,' by Nahum S. Cutler, p. 506-513, both state that at the time of her marriage to Willard she was the widow of Samuel Cutler, of Charlestown, who died Aug. 15, 1688, and that her maiden name was Dorothy Bell, daughter of Abraham Bell, of Charlestown. Aside from the improbability of the change of name from 'Dorothy' to 'Dorcas,' and of the marriage of Benjamin Bellows to a widow about sixteen years his senior, there is the positive statement of Thomas Bellows Wyman in 'The Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown in the County of Middlesex and State of Massachusetts,' under 'Cutler,' that Dorothy, daughter of Abraham Bell and widow of Samuel Cutler, was married, second, to Josiah Treadway, Feb. 8, 1697-98, died Oct 9, 1740, and was buried in the Granary burying ground in Boston. It seems probable, therefore, that the historians Morse and Cutler were misled by the similarity of the names of Dorcas and Dorothy Cutler. The parentage of Dorcas Bellows thus remains as much of a mystery as ever."
