Person:Benjamin Edwards (23)

In Essex Probate Records, Book 307, pp 133-5, dated 18 Apr 1681, there is an agreement between Rice Edwards and his son Benjamin, where the son agrees to take care of his father in consideration of receiving a greater share of his father's estate. After Rice Edwards' death, his other children make another agreement with Benjamin to exclude the movable furniture from the contract between Benjamin and his father. That document is dated 15 Jun 1683. It is signed by John Edwards, Thomas Edwards, Benjamin Edwards, and John Knowlton, John Leach, John Coy, William Cleaves and Richard Lee on behalf of Rice Edwards' daughters.^S1

All of Benjamin's children in Wenham are recorded as children of Benjamin and Mary. "John Gaines of Ipswich and his wife Mary (Treadwell) had daughters, Mary, b. 1660, and Martha, b. 1661. Benjamin may have married Mary Gaines as a second wife, though there is no proof that he did not marry some other Mary."^S1

It is also possible, since only one marriage is recorded for Benjamin Edwards, that the name on the record is in error and that he married Mary Gaines to begin with. Because Wenham records are notoriously incomplete during this time period, the actual situation may never be clear.

1. ↑ Mills, William Stowell, "The Edwards Family of Wenham prior to 1715, in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society)
   Vol 56 p. 60-61.

   Benjamin Edwards is 18 in 1680 when he is a witness in a court case.

2. ↑ Edwards, in Wenham, Essex, Massachusetts, United States. Vital records of Wenham, Massachusetts, to the end of the year 1849. (Salem, Massachusetts: Essex Institute, 1904)
   Deaths, p. 195.

   Benjamin [Sergt. C. R.], Sept. 29, 1723. (Church record)