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Facts and Events
References
- Stephen Hayward seems to be little noticed other than being the second husband of Mehitable (Rich) Dwinnell. Certainly the poster of this page added nothing. Stearn's History of Ashburnham, p. 742, describes him as the father of Edwin, by all appearances, after interviewing Edwin, based on the details given about Edwin.
Edwin says his father d. 22 Nov 1835. Sutton VRs show the death of "Stephen Howard" on 24 Nov 1835, but add "this death is a mistake in paper", without details saying whether this is what the newspaper said, or if this is the correction to what the newspaper said, or telling exactly what the mistake was (Howard vs. Hayward, 22 Nov vs. 24 Nov, or something else altogether?) So we are left not knowing exactly what we have. This could be Edwin Hayward's father, or it could an unrelated person of Howard descent, and not Hayward descent?
But if we assume that the record in the VRs is the same person as Edwin's father, based on the proximity of the dates and names, then the VRs add the clue "s. Simeon". This suggests the Stephen Hayward who married Mehitable Rich is a descendant of Simeon Hayward and Sarah Hosmer. If he is the son of Simeon, born on 5 Aug 1756, who married first Rachel Snow in 1788, then he is a generation older than Mehitable. That seems unlikely as it would mean Edwin was born when he was 65. But there is no age at death, no death record for Rachel, or anything found after his marriage to Rachel. He could have equally well moved off to a different state.
If he is a grandson of Simeon, son of the son Simeon and his wife Martha, then Stephen's age would be about the same as Mehitable. The 1790 census appears to show several children in Simeon's household, maybe as many as 9, but the only detail about his family that is found is the death of his wife in 1805: no marriage record, no births of children, no list of their names. It is possible this Simeon didn't even have a son named Stephen.
The only two children of Stephen that we know about are Edwin and Lyman. That we have no record of a Stephen, or Simeon, possibly suggests this was not Stephen's first marriage. But there is absolutely no evidence of another, so we can't be sure.
It remains for an interested descendant to do a more exhaustive search using less accessible records.
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