Person:Mercy Hurd (1)

m. Bef 1641
  1. Thomas BrighamAbt 1641 - 1717
  2. John Brigham1644/45 - 1728
  3. Mary BrighamEst 1649 - 1676
  4. Hannah Brigham1650 - 1719
  5. Samuel Brigham1652/53 - 1713
m. 1 Mar 1655
  1. Lydia RiceAbt 1657 - 1717
  2. Ruth Rice1659 - 1742
  • HWilliam Hunt1604/05 - 1667
  • WMercy HurdAbt 1613 - 1693
m. 1664
Facts and Events
Name Mercy Hurd
Alt Name Mary Hurd
Alt Name Mercy Unknown
Gender Female
Birth? Abt 1613 England
Alt Birth? Abt 1618 England
Marriage Bef 1641 Massachusetts Bay ColonyBased on estimated date of birth of eldest known child (Thomas).
to Thomas Brigham
Marriage 1 Mar 1655 Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United Statesto Deacon Edmund Rice
Marriage 1664 Marlborough, Mx, Mato William Hunt
Alt Marriage 1664 to William Hunt
Death[1] 22 Dec 1693 Marlborough, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States

Contents

Origins

On the authority of tradition, her maiden name was Mercy Hurd, and she was 1 or 15 years younger than her husband, and being persecuted in England for nonconformity, she came to New England with her sister... However, Winifred Lovering Holman, in a note printed in Source:American Genealogist (D.L. Jacobus), vol 30, p 175, commented "No record evidence has ever been found that the maiden name of his [William Hunt's] second wife (widow of Rice and Brigham) was Hurd, and her maiden name and parentage are unknown." The editor further added to her note that the "Hurd" identification "was extremely doubtful, and based on the unsupported statement of Abner Morse, an early New England genealogist."

Life in New England

She m. 1st Thomas Brigham; 2d Edmond Rice; 3d William Hunt.

She married for her second husband, 1 March, 1655, Edmund Rice, then of Sudbury, but who removed in 1660 to Marlboro, where he died 3 May, 1663. He was buried in Sudubry and his estate settled by his widow.

On her second marriage she took with her to Sudbury and Marlboro all her children.

Mercy married, 1664, as her third husband, William Hunt, then of Marlboro, but formerly an early settler in Concord. ... His will probated 17 Dec 1667...

As the proprietors of the Indian plantation were in a great measure identical with the inhabitants of the town, and as the history of the plantation from this time forward is, in part, the history of the town, we will give a list of them, which shows who were the principal inhabitants in 1686, when the Ockoocangansett Plantation was practically swallowed up in Marlborough:

  • James Taylor...
  • William Taylor
  • Thomas Brigham...
  • Mercy Hunt
  • William Ward...

Legacy

She died in Marlboro, 23 Dec, 1693, after a third widowhood of 26 years. During this period she saw two bloody Indian wars.[2]

In the 1686 list of proprietors we find the names of all the young Brighams, and their alliances, for the first time set out, viz.:

  • Mercy Hunt (former widow of the Puritan Brigham, who before this time had married her third husband,
  • William Hunt, also then dead),
  • Thomas Brigham
  • John Brigham
  • Samuel Brigham
  • John Fay (husband of Mary Brigham)
  • William Ward (husband of Hannah Brigham)

Sources

  1. Marlborough, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States. Vital Records of Marlborough, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849. (Worcester, Massachusetts: Franklin P. Rice, 1908)
    372.

    "Hunt, Wid. Marcy, Dec. 22, 1693. [She m. 1st Thomas Brigham; 2d Edmond Rice; 3d William Hunt.]"
    [Note: the added comment was printed in the original by the compiler and had a notation indicating that its source was "A. H. Ward record at NEHGS".]

  2. Marlborough Deaths: 1693: HUNT; Wid. Marcy, Dec. 22, 1693.

See also (incorporate into above, as appropriate):

  1. Mass. Vital Records to 1850
  2. History of the Brigham Family, p. 27
  3. History of Cambridge, p. 501
  4. History of Marlborough; page 95