Person:Samuel Morse (33)

Regarding Source:Morse, Abner. Memorial of the Morses, Robert Charles Anderson (Source:Anderson, Robert Charles. Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, vol. V, p. 176) says, "Abner Morse published a condensed genealogy of Samuel Morse and his descendants, filled with errors" and says that his assertion of a son Samuel of Samuel Morse and Elizabeth Jasper who m. Mary Bullen and died "at the Eastward" is confusion with the mirrored couple Samuel Bullen and Mary Morse. The son of Samuel and Elizabeth Morse died before they left England.

So who is the Samuel Morse, s/o Samuel and Elizabeth, who d. 1688 "at the Eastward" per Medfield VRs? One would suspect it is this Samuel. However, Morse claims their son Samuel was the administrator for his father in 1717-8. This is wrong. The father's will names his son Joshua as executor, also naming daughter Sarah Bullard, children of daughter Elisabeth, children of son Benoni, and grandchild Zipporah Morse, but no mention of son Samuel. [Suffolk probate 3986]

If one assumes this Samuel died in 1688, then the Samuel Morse who married Abigail (Badcock) Barber and had twins John and Samuel, b. 1693 (sadly, both twins and mother all died later the same year) is the father, it being his third marriage. This makes a certain amount of sense, since presuming if he was willing to marry his 2nd wife in 1684, one would think he would still be open to marrying again following her death in 1688. Also if his first son Samuel died in 1688, it would explain why he might name one of his twins Samuel in 1693. It also fits the fact that Abigail's birthdate of 1656 is about 10 years older than the son, making her an unlikely match, and being a widow with children, likely to marry an older man. So she is a much more likely match for the father than the son.

However, nearly every secondary source seems to think the father just had two wives, apparently living the last 30 years of his life unmarried, and that the son married Abigail (Badcock) Barber, a widow 10 years his senior, and secondly, Hannah ---, and his death conveniently went unrecorded, apparently.

The confusion is clearly seen in Source:Tingley, Raymon Meyers. Some Ancestral Lines, p. 447, where the son Samuel is said to have died "Feb. 24, 1688 or Aug. 13, 1725". The first date is, of course, the "at ye Eastward" death referred to, the second date being the death of not Samuel, but "Hannah, w. Samuel", as found in Medfield VRs, p. 224. He then shows Samuel with two marriages, one to Abigail Barber, and then over 30 years after Abigail's death, in 1724 to Hannah Whiting, apparently to match the second marriage claimed by Morse.

An identification that is actually reasonable, it that the Samuel Morse who married in Medfield 1715-6 Sarah Starr, she dying 1722 leaving young children, is probably the same Samuel who married Dedham 1723-4 Hannah Whiting, who d. 1725, thus making him likely the same one who married Abigail Fisher (first child b. 23 Feb 1727/28). He is s/o Jeremy and Elizabeth Morse, b. 1694, d. 1756 as "h. Abigail".

Thus everything attributed to this Samuel, after 1688, appears to belong to other people.

1. ↑ Births, in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States. Vital Records of Medfield, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850. (Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1903)
   p.75.

   MORSE, Samuell, s. Samuell and Elizabeth, [born] Feb. 8, 1665-6.

2. ↑ Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States. Vital Records of Medfield, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850. (Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1903)
   p. 225.

   MORSE, Samuell, s. Samuell and Elizebeth, [died] Feb. 24, 1688, "att ye eastward".