Person talk:Sarah Pray (7)

death date [17 December 2012]

Joseph Brown's will names children attributable to two wives: Sarah Pray and Hannah Lapham. The second one he married in 1751. Thus,the article "Chad Browne or Providence, R.I.", printed in NEHGR in 1926 has removed any marriage to Abijah Whitman on 17 Jun 1728 as given in Source:Austin, John Osborne. Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island. Austin appeared to conflate two different Joseph Browns, and the NEHGR article appears to straighten this out. The marriage to Abijah Whitman appears to be a different Joseph Brown, since they had two daughters, who are not mentioned in this Joseph Brown's 1764 will, but are referred to in the 1742 probate of the other Joseph Brown, according to the NEHGR article. I assume the former need to explain a remarriage in 1728 is part of what lead to speculation of Sarah's death in 1728.

Confronted with an unsourced death date for Sarah Pray of 4 Jan 1728, I am struggling to find the basis for it. It is not so given even by Austin. However, I am struck by the fact that Abijah Whitman's birth date is 4 Jan 1708, a very similar date except for one digit, and by the fact that the format used by Austin's book may have caused somebody to misread his data. Namely, that he uses small print, and that the birth of Abijah is immediately underneath the blank death date of Sarah. So, I am assuming this is merely that, a misreading of Austin and removing the death date.

Since there is no evidence of a wife other than Sarah until Hannah in 1751, I see no reason to believe Sarah died until the late 1740's or so. There is no death record in Attleboro where the children's births are recorded. She had a child in early 1727. I see on her father's page she was mentioned in her father's will of 1726, but there is no mention there of receipts or other probate documents from after her father's death in 1733 that might show she was still alive later than 1726. It would be nice to find something positive to confirm there was no intermediate wife in the 24 years between her last child and the 1751 remarriage. --Jrich 10:07, 17 December 2012 (EST)