Person:Hannah Dickerman (1)

Who was William Ives' Wife?: Part One

Prelude:

The identity of the wife of William Ives is controversial in most Ives, Dicerkman, and Bassett genealogies. Many claim that she is Hannah Dickerman. However she is, Goodwife Ives played an important role in the start of New Haven. Goodwife Ives had four children by each of her two husbands, William Ives and William Bassett; She became the matriarch of two large New Haven families. The Ives and Bassett families continued to grow, and between 1647 and 1754 there were seventy-six births recorded in the New Haven records for the Bassett family and sixty-eight births for the Ives family (5). This places them as numbers twenty-two and twenty-six in the list of families with the most births recorded in New Haven, The male descendents of these two families accounted for between two and three percent of the children born during this time period.

I looked very carefully in to this issue and it includes the most thorough genealogy research in this blog. I examined documents for English churches I received from the Mormon genealogy service and looked at every primary evidence i could find through the New England Genealogical Society but I am sure there is more out there. What follows is a report of my findings. I welcome comments and am very eager to receive corrections that are supported by fact and primary evidence. I have seen many references to her name but they mostly end up just referring to other second hand information. I do not pretend to have the final answers. I am only reporting what I found so far to add to the conversation on this issue.

I want to note that since I wrote this report I have seen some very interesting work by David Allen Lower that adds an additional perspective. His work makes it more plausible the Hannah Dickerman was the daughter of Thomas Dickerman by a marriage prior to Ellen Whittington and would have been the right age to marry William Ives. However, there is no conclusive evidence to support this. Here is a link to Dickerman Ancestry, Additum for Thomas (___-1657) Part One - by David Allen Lower and to my summary in Updates on Thomas Dickerman (1597? – 1657).

Finding Hannah Dickerman: the Nexus of Three New Haven Families

Goodwife Ives was seated at the March 10, 1646 New Haven general court on the opposite side as her husband, William Ives (1 - see references below). In 1648 she became Goodwife Bassett, following the death of William Ives and she is mentioned a number of other times in the early New Haven town, probate, and church records from 1644 to 1662 (2). Unfortunately, as was common then, her first and/or maiden names are not listed in any of these records. This occurs, in part, because of the dominance of male names in the early records even in such traditional female roles as child birth, e. g., “John Bassett the son of William Bassett was born the 24th day of December 1652” (3). In other cases, we have the misfortune of her of her name being absent even when female names are given, such as the record of her admission to the First Church of Christ, New Haven in 1644 as simply the wife of William Ives (4). These circumstances set the stage for a genealogical guessing game that continues today.

As I wrote in the prelude Goodwife Ives was the matriarch of two large New Haven families. Some members of both the Ives and Bassett families families moved to other locations during this period, so the total of births within these two families is greater. It approximately doubles when the families of female descendents are included. By the 1790 US Census there had been more migration, but there were still seventeen Bassett households and twenty-six Ives households in the New Haven vicinity. This article traces the attempts to find a name for the matriarch of these two families. In this process it examines the relevant early connections of a third family, the Dickermans, with the Ives and Bassett families. Before we explore these attempts to find her name, her two husbands will be briefly profiled to provide context in the next posts. (Continued)

References:

1. Hoadly, Charles J. Records of the Colony and Plantation of New Haven from 1638 to 1649 (Hartford: Case, Tiffany & Company, 1857), p 304.

2. Records of the Colony and Plantation of New Haven from 1638 to 1649 410, 431, 441; Dexter, Franklin (Ed.), New Haven Town Records from 1649 to 1662, (New Haven: Haven Colony Historical Society, 1917), p. 109, 527-528; Dexter, Franklin (Ed.), New Haven Town Records 1662-1684 (New Haven: Haven Colony Historical Society, 1919), p. 1; Alcorn, Mrs. Winfred S., Abstracts of the Early Probate Records of New Haven, Book 1, Part 1, 1647-1687, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. 81, p. 121-122; Dexter, Franklin, Historical Catalogue of the Members of the First Church of Christ in New Haven Connecticut A. D. 1639-1914, (New Haven , 1914), p. 10. In her last recorded appearance before the New Haven court of August 5, 1662, she apologized to the court for her “sin in meddling with that which did not concern her,” the execution of William Potter, and breaking the fourth commandment. New Haven Town Records 1662-1684, p. 1. William Potter was the father-in-law of her first daughter by William Ives, Phebe, so this may have given her reason to feel connected to the event. Jacobus, Donald Lines, Families of Ancient New Haven, vols. 1-9. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1923), p. 1458.

3. Vital Records of New Haven 1649-1850 (Hartford: The Connecticut Society of the Founders and Patriots of America, 1917) p. 9.

4. Historical Catalogue of the Members of the First Church of Christ in New Haven Connecticut A. D. 1639-1914, p. 10.

5. Dickerman, Edward Dwight, & Dickerman, George Sherwood, Families of Dickerman Ancestry: Descendents of Thomas Dickerman. (Tuttle, Morehouse, & Taylor Press, 1897, updated 1922), p. 279.

Posted at 08:55 PM in Controversy over William Ives' Wife | Permalink

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Friedlander, Mary Banning. The American Ancestors of Huldah Jackson: Wife of Tryal Tanner of Cornwall, CT. Connecticut Nutmegger (Connecticut Society of Genealogists). (Sep 1999)
   32:200-01.
2. ↑ ^2.0 2.1 Hannah Dickerman Bassett, in Find A Grave.