Person:Susanna Unknown (5)

According to the well researched "The Great Migration Begins", "the identity of Susannah _____ is one of the perennial mysteries of the period. Several authors have suggested that Susannah's maiden name was Haddon, given that Colby and Garrett Haddon were neighbors and associates. Others have suggested that she was the daughter of William Sargent, and others that she was a Nutting, all without support. Her identity is currently unknown. Among other defects to be found in the literature regarding Colby and his family, there is no obvious reason why Savage said there were four children earlier than Isaac and no support has been found for Sarah's birthdate given by Waterman."

Living but infirmed with age Sept 1682, listed as a widow.Extract from The Americn Genealogist, Whole Number 202, Vol. 51, No. 2, April 1975, Anthony Colby's Purported Ancestry, by Glade Ian Nelson:

From GMB: Near the end of her life, Susannah Whittredge was described by the selectmen of Amesbury as an ancient and helpless widow belonging to the town of Amesbury ... notwithstanding a comfortable and competent maintenance being allowed unto her out of the estate of her former deceased husband Anthony Coleby ... yet she being a woman attended with many infirmities both of body and mind, is utterly incapable of doing anything that may contribute to her livelihood or comfortable subsistence ... she living alone, wanting such help and attendance as may be convenient, continually laboring under such infirm ities of body as usually attend old age often times sick and many times destitute of divers necessaries and always of the conveniences of life, any otherwise than she is supplied by one or two of her children, whose families in the meantime want the same at home, and very much defective and decayed in her understanding ..., September Term 1682 [ EQC 8:388].

The court ordered that her sons, Samuel, Isaac and Thomas Colby, provide for her and sell what land was necessary to maintain her from the Colby estate [ EQC 8:388]. The inventory of the estate of "the widow Susannah Whitridge who deceased July the 8th or thereabouts in the year of Grace 1689" was taken 9 September 1691 and totalled £151 15s. including real estate valued at £143: "5 acres of tillage"; "half the ferry meadow"; "a lot in the division called the great farms"; "a lot of upland in a division called [illegible]"; "a lot in the ox pasture division"; "a lot near the north meadow"; "a lot in Bugsmore division"; and "a lot in the great swamp" [ EPR 304:400].

The final division of the estate of Susannah Whitridge on 5 August 1700 allowed a double portion to "Samll Coleby Eldest [surviving] Son" £1. 12s. 6d., and equal shares of 16s. 3d. to: "the children of John Colby..."; "the children of Isaac Colby..."; "the children of Thomas Colby..."; "the children of Sarah Colby..."; "the children of Rebeckah Colby..."; and "the children of Mary Colby..." [ EPR 307:176-77].

Extract from The Americn Genealogist, Whole Number 202, Vol. 51, No. 2, April 1975, Anthony Colby's Purported Ancestry, by Glade Ian Nelson: Although as early as 1939, information concerning the identity of Anthony Colby's wife was printed by Donald Lines Jacobus, (4) many errors have since been printed concerning her. Mr. Jacobus clearly pointed out that Anthony Colby married after coming to New England, probably between 1630 and 1632, the widow Susannah Waterman of Boston, Mass. She married, thirdly, about 1663-4, William Whitridge, a carpenter from Gloucester who died 5 Dec. 1668, leaving her a widow for the third time. Susannah died 8 July 1689 in Salisbury, Mass. Various accounts state her maiden name to have been Haddon and make her either a sister or daughter of William Sargent, and still others ascribe her to her the name Nutting. None of these claims, however, is substantiated by documented evidence, leaving her maiden name unknown.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3} Anthony Colby, in Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995).