Person:Catherine Butler (14)

The Roberts Family of Middletown According to Jacobus

An undated (but probably written prior to 1957) typescript in the manuscript files of Donald Lines Jacobus at the Connecticut Historical Society, summarizes the research of "the Dean of American Genealogy" into the origins of Catherine (_____) (Roberts) (Leete) Wetmore, the third wife of Thomas Wetmore of Middletown. Jacobus writes as follows:

Vital Records in Middletown Land Records, vol. 1, p. 25, contain the following entries:

• Sarah wife of Thomas Wetmore died 7 Dec. 1664
• Mary wife of Thomas wettmore died 17 June 1669
• Thomas wettmore Senior and Katterne leeke [?], m. 8 Oct. 1673
• Beniemen son of Thomas & Katterne Wettmer, b. 27 Nov. 1674
• Abigall dau. of thomas & Katteren Wetmore, b. 6 Nov. 1678
• Hana dau of Thomas & Katteren Wetmor, b. 4 Jan 1680
• Thomas Wetmore Senior died 11 Dec. 1681
• Catteren wife of said Thomas Wetmore died 13 Oct. 1695

The spelling of the names is as they appear in my personal verified copy, published in The American Genealogist, vol. 12, p. 213. When I was working in Middletown one time, the late Frank Farnsworth Starr, who specialized in Middletown families, came in, opened the original volume in which the above entries occur, and asked me how I read the name of "Katterne" in the marriage entry. The fourth letter of the name is peculiarly formed, the other letters are quite clear. I said it seemed uncertain to me what name was intended; it might be Leeke, it might be Leete (though the letter does not look like a 't' to me), or it might be Leere (Lear) if the scribe went too high on the 'r.' I understood from Mr. Starr that he took the name to be Leeke, for he mentioned the Leeke family of New Haven; but I got the impression that he had never learned the origin of the Roberts family.

Her will shows that she must have had a Roberts husband, since she had three Roberts sons. Most printed sources give her name as Catherine or Katharine (Leete) Roberts. That of course is impossible, for she married Wetmore under the name of Leeke or Leete, and she would not have resumed her maiden name after having three Roberts sons. Her name at the time she married Wetmore must have been Leeke (or whatever the name is). Hence her maiden name is unknown; she married first a Roberts; she married second a Leeke [?]; and she married third, Thomas Wetmore. Her second husband probably did not long survive, for she had no children by him, though she was still young enough when she married Wetmore, an elderly man, to give him three children.

The Roberts sons doubtless were brought to Middletown by the marriage of their mother to Wetmore of that place. Their births are not recorded there, and no early Roberts family appears there until the three Roberts sons of Catherine were old enough to marry and appear in the records.

The problem boils down to this. Where did Wetmore find this widow (Leeke-Leete-Leere) who had previously been a widow Roberts and who had three sons born somewhere named William, Samuel and John Roberts ? If such a combination of names is found AT THE RIGHT DATE almost ANYWHERE, the problem should quickly be solved. I therefore covered, somewhat hastily, the following general sources where a clue might have been found:

• Index of Conn. probate at the State Library
• Index of Conn. Vital Statistics at the State Library
• New England Roberts families mentioned by Savage
• Boston Vital Records; Roxbury Church Records; Suffolk County Land Records (these three for a quick general survey of the Boston area)
• Early Essex County, Mass., Court and Probate Records
• Complete Indexes of the 34 vols. of The Mayflower Descendant (to cover Plymouth Colony)
• Gen Dict. of Maine and New Hampshire
• My own card index of early records of Long Island towns
• New York (New Amsterdam) Church Records; a port and shipping center where numerous English merchants, mariners, tc., settled
• Earl New Jersey Wills in New Jersey Archives

I failed to turn up a single likely clue in any of the above sources [emphasis added].^[2]

The will of Thomas Wetmore of Middletown ... mentions that he had received of his wife Katharine £20 of her estate, of which he had repaid £6 to her, but nevertheless gives her the entire £20 out of his estate in household stuff, etc. It thus appears that Catherine before she married Wetmore had property of her own, probably from the estate of one or both of her former husbands. It seemed advisable to consult the probate papers, particularly the inventories of Thomas and Catherine Wetmore, to see if they mention any property, especially land, NOT in Middletown, but in some other place, for that might give the clue to Catherine's former residence with her Roberts husband. No such out of town property was mentioned.

After an examination of the probate files of Thomas and Catherine Wetmore, Jacobus concludes his comments on Catherine by writing, "Every avenue pursued has ended in a blind alley. I have spent too much time on this, but the mystery annoys me, and I would like to solve it."

Jacobus evidently missed one possible clue, as Frank Farnsworth Starr, the Middletown genealogist, reported in reply to an inquiry that Catherine was "admitted to membership in the First Congregational Church here [Middletown] on the 20th of the 7th month 1674 ... from the church in Saybrook. Unfortunately the records of the Saybrook church are not extant until long after 1700."^[3]

A Possible Answer to the Origins of Catherine (Roberts) (Leete) Wetmore

In a brief article on Walter Butler of Greenwich, Connecticut in The American Genealogist,"^[4] Jacobus, notes that "of incidental interest is the fact that William Penoyer gave £5 to 'Katherine Butler alias Roberts, sister of the aforesaid Evan Butler ... [and] it is therefore suggestive to find this Katherine Buller, in 1670 a widow Roberts (in the case of other female relatives, the will specifies the husband;s name), who had near relatives in Connecticut. Although the time element is short, it would have been entirely possible for Katherine to have married a second husband later in 1670, to have lost him within a year or so, and to have been available in New England to marry Wetmore in 1673. This is pure hypothesis, but the possibility is presented as a basis for research to those interested in the origin of the second [actually, the third] Mrs. Wetmore. [Emphasis added]"

If Catherine the wife of Thomas Wetmore is this Katherine (Butler) Roberts, her English ancestry is presented in an article by Peter Wilson Coleman in The National Genealogical Society Quarterly,"^[5] but without further proof this must remain, as Jacobus suggests, pure hypothesis.

1.   Middletown (Connecticut) Land Records,
   1: 25, 1957.

   Volume 1 is now at the Connecticut State Library, Hartford

2. ↑ Donald Lines Jacobus, "Roberts of Middletown;" Roberts box, Jacobus folder, Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford Connecticut
   Dec. 1972.
3. ↑ Frank Farnsworth Starr, copy of letter dated Sept. 17, 1923, to a Mrs. Chatfield, Wetmore file, Starr archives, Middlesex County Historical Society, Middletown, Connecticut.
4. ↑ Donald Lines Jacobus, "Walter Butler, Penoyer and Reynolds", in The American genealogist : a monthly magazine of genealogy and local history. (Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1958)
   33:51.
5. ↑ Peter Wilson Coldham, "English Ancestry of Robert Pennoyer and Walter Butler of Connecticut", in National Genealogical Society quarterly. (Washington, District of Columbia: National Genealogical Society)
   60: 243-249.
6.   Manwaring, Charles W. A Digest of the Early Connecticut Probate Records. (Hartford, Conn.: R. S. Peck & Co., 1904-06)
   v1m o 518.

   Whitmore, Catorn (Katharine), Middletown. Invt. £108-01-00. Taken 20 October, 1693.
   "I give to my son William Robords £10, to Samuel Robords £10, to my son John Robords £10. I give to my son Benjamin Whetmore £6, which is besides that he has by his Father's Will, and to my two loving daughters, Abigail and Hannah, they having ten pounds apiece by their Father Thomas Whetmore. If my Estate is more than sufficient to pay my debts & Legacies, the remainder to be Equally divided amoung all my sons & daughters. I request my son-in-law, Beriah Wetmore, to be Overseer."