Notable Kin - The Progeny of “Witches” and “Wizards”: Some Descendants of Rev. George Burroughs and William and Joanna (Blessing) Towne, Parents of Mary Estey and Rebecca Nurse

This summer Salem, Massachusetts commemorates the 300th anniversary of its witchcraft hysteria, which resulted in the execution of 20 innocent victims six men and 14 women. Five of these twenty (Mrs. Martha [Rich] Corey, third wife of “wizard” Giles Corey below; Mrs. Sarah Solart Poole Good/Goode, widow of Daniel Poole and wife of William Good/Goode; Mrs. Alice Parker; Mrs. Wilmot Reed/Redd, wile of Samuel Reed/Redd; and John Willard) left either no children, no known children, no grandchildren or no known grandchildren. Major new articles and books on the remaining 15 began to appear about a dozen years ago; I have looked for notable descendants of the royally descended Rev. George Burroughs for probably 20 years; and about ten years ago I spoke to the Towne Family Association and have, since that lecture’s preparation, noted various historically interesting descendants of “witches” Mary Estey, Rebecca Nurse and their siblings. This article is a report on the recent literature concerning these 15 “witches” or “wizards,” their parents, wives, and children, plus a summary of my findings on notable Burroughs and Towne descendants. I might first note, however, that three U.S. presidents are descended from one of these victims, or their siblings - Arthur from Mrs. Susanna North Martin and a sister of John Proctor, Jr.; Taft from George Jacobs; and Ford from a brother of Mrs. Mary Ayer Parker. Another witchcraft victim, Samuel Wardwell, married secondly Mrs. Sarah Hooper Hawkes, who survived him. Sarah’s first husband, Adam Hawkes of Saugus, Mass., was an ancestor, by his first wife, Mrs. Ann (probably Brown) Hutchinson, of Presidents John and John Quincy Adams, First Ladies Grace Anna Goodhue Coolidge and Lou Henry Hoover, and The Princess of Wales and her sons.

The leading contemporary scholar of “witch” families is David L. Greene, co-editor of The American Genealogist (TAG), whose articles on Bridget Bishop, George Jacobs, Susannah Martin and the Bray Wilkins progeny (to which belonged the wife of John Willard) all appeared in volumes 57-60 of TAG (1981-84) and who reported J.D. Morrell’s discovery of the 1631 baptism of John Proctor (Jr.), plus the 1630 Groton, Suffolk marriage of his immigrant parents and the 1633 baptism of a sister, in the 1981 Register. Mr. Greene, Glade I. Nelson of the Mormon Family History Library in Salt Lake City, and George Ely Russell, former editor of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly (NGSQ), have all written TAG articles on George Burroughs (Mr. Russell’s showed that Nathaniel Burrough, father of the “wizard,” lived for a while in Calvert Co., Maryland and Roxbury, Massachusetts). Robert Charles Anderson of the NEHGS Great Migration Project reported his discovery of Bridget Bishop’s 1660 first marriage, and the baptism of two children, in TAG 64(1989). Mr. Russell listed all 39 American “witches” in TAG 57:33-34, and Mr. Greene’s plan to cover all Salem “witch” families was discussed in TAG 59:245-46. A forthcoming issue of TAG, moreover, is scheduled to contain an article on the English origins of Susanna Martin’s parents. In addition to these recent TAG and Register items, Proctor genealogies were published in 1979 and 1985, a Wardwell monograph in 1985, Currents of Malice on Mary Esty/Estey and the Townes in 1990, and a Cory genealogy (with only two pages on Giles, however) in 1991.

Among major predecessors of the above-named scholars, Maine genealogist Walter Goodwin Davis, Jr., in three of 16 books covering his entire known American (and much English) ancestry, treated Rebecca Nurse and her siblings and Sarah Wildes. Mary Lovering Holman covered Margaret Scott in her 1919 Scott Genealogy, the parents of Martha Carrier (plus Martha’s sister Mary, wife of accused “wizard” Roger Toothaker, who died in prison) in her 1938 set outlining the full American ancestry of the founders of Pillsbury Flour Co., and the Townes and accused “witch” Sarah Cloyce, sister of Mary Estey and Rebecca Nurse, in the 1948 Stevens-Miller compendium. Mrs. Holman’s daughter, Mrs. Winifred Lovering Holman Dodge, covered Mary Parker in “Andover Ancestry, Volume II” (1936), compiled for Chauncey Devereux Stillman, and mother and daughter compiled Proctor notes as well. When this Davis and Holman work is added to that of David L. Greene and his colleagues, the printed coverage of most “witch” or “wizard” families can indeed answer many questions and provide a solid base for proving many descents. Thus my first offering below is a genealogical bibliography of the best printed sources for the 15 Salem witchcraft victims of 1692 known to have left descendants for several generations.

In two earlier “Notable Kin” columns (NEXUS 3[1986]:178-80 and 7[1990]:208-12)1 outlined the Burroughs descent of Walt[er Elias] Disney, the cartoonist, [109] producer, and founder of Disney Studios, Disneyland, etc., and the Towne descent, via Sarah Cloyce and the Bridges and Barton families, of Red Cross founder Clarissa Harlowe “Clara” Barton. We might also note Disney’s brother and partner Roy Oliver Disney and son-in-law (and former Disney CEO) Ronald William Miller, husband of Diane Marie Disney, Walt’s daughter by Lillian Marie Bounds. Two further Burroughs descendants and eight Towne descendants are covered below. The former are Isaiah Thomas, the colonial printer, and a great-granddaughter of Isaiah who married a U.S. attorney general and secretary of state. Three of the latter eight are descendants of Mary Estey - Mrs. David Gouverneur Burnet, whose husband was Sam Houston’s predecessor as (first) president of the Republic of Texas, and her great-great nephew, diplomat David Kirkpatrick Este Bruce; and Joan Bennett Kennedy, former wife of Senator Edward Moore Kennedy and mother of Rhode Island legislator Patrick [Joseph] Kennedy’ [II] (b. 1967). Mrs. Burnet’s paternal grandfather, himself a grandson of Mary Estey, moved from Topsfield, Massachusetts to Morristown, New Jersey; Mrs. Burnet’s father, whose descendants are usually called Este, married a sister of New Jersey jurist Andrew Kirkpatrick. Ambassador Bruce married firstly Ailsa Mellon, daughter of Pittsburgh industrialist, financier and art collector Andrew William Mellon, also secretary of the treasury, 1921-32, and sister of art collector and philanthropist Paul Mellon. Audrey Bruce, only child of David and Ailsa, married Stephen Currier; their three children (Lavinia, Michael and Andrea) are included in the 1990 and 1991 “Forbes 400.” Patrick Kennedy, whose considerable “Old Yankee” ancestry is derived through a great-grandfather, Henry Wiggin Bennett (born Alton Bay, New Hampshire 6 Feb. 1866), is, of course, a nephew of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Senator Robert Francis Kennedy, a grandson of financier and diplomat Joseph Patrick Kennedy, and a first cousin of Congressman Joseph Patrick Kennedy (III) and television reporter Maria Owings Shriver Schwarzenegger.

Of the five remaining Towne descendants treated below, only the above-named Walter Goodwin Davis, Jr., one of the giants of mid-twentieth century genealogy, was a descendant of Rebecca Nurse/Nourse (as well as of two of her brothers), and only Pillsbury president and board chairman Philip Winston Pillsbury (son of the Mrs. Pillsbury who sponsored much of the best genealogical work of the Holmans above) was a descendant of Sarah Cloyce. Ithiel Town, architect of two of the three churches on the New Haven Green, near Yale, and of state capitols in North Carolina and Indiana, was descended from Joseph Towne, youngest brother of the witchcraft victims; First Lady Grace Coolidge was descended from Edmund Towne, the eldest brother; and Robert Maynard Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago and a major leader of “progressive” education, was descended from Jacob Towne, next oldest brother of Mary Estey. These eight figures are associated with three “tycoon” fortunes and dynasties - Mellons, Kennedys and Pillsburys - and with Texas (Burnet), Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia (Bruce), Minneapolis (Pillsbury) and Chicago (Hutchins). The Towne progeny, and probably also the descendants of other “witches” and “wizards,” are typical, it seems, of the “New England family” overall.

Below, then, is a bibliography of the families of these 15 witchcraft victims, with asterisks denoting “first- generation immigrants” (whose parents cannot now be proved to have lived here), followed, in the usual format of this column, by the ten notable Burroughs or Towne descendants and sources that document these descents. Following a figure’s name, birth and death years, and a brief career description, plus parenthesis and the name of his wife if the treated ancestry is hers, are his or her parents, a set of grand parents, great-grand parents, etc., backwards to Burroughs, Mary (Towne) Estey, Rebecca (Towne) Nurse, Sarah (Towne) (Bridges) Cloyce or William Towne and Joanna Blessing. As always, semicolons separate generations, and commas separate couples in the same generation.

*1. Mrs. Bridget Playfer Wasselbe Oliver Bishop, widow of Samuel Wasselbe and Thomas Oliver, wife of Edward Bishop: TAG 57(1981 ):1 29-38, 64(1989): 207 (D. L. Greene and R. C. Anderson).

2. Rev. George Burroughs: TAG 48(1972):l40-46, 56 (1980)43-45, 60(1984): 140-42 (G. I. Nelson, D. L. Greene and G. E. Russell); F. L. Weis and W. L. Sheppard, Jr., Ancestral Roots of Sixty Colonists, 6th ed. (1988), lines 2(X), 257, 11 and, with David Faris, Magna Carta Surties, 4th ed. (1991), line 74; Joseph James Muskett, Suffolk Manorial Families, vol. 1 (1900), pp. 311 (Burrough), 354 (Drury); Sybil Noyes, C. T. Libby and W. G. Davis, Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire (1928-39, rep. 1972, henceforth GDMNH), pp. 122, 783.

3. Mrs. Martha Allen Carrier, wife of Thomas Carrier alias Morgan: Mary Lovering Holman, Ancestry of Charles Stinson Pillsbury and John Sargent Pillsbury, vol. 2 (1938, henceforth PA2), pp. 1013-15 (Allen) and Philomene Jenkins, Waters-Law and Allied Families (1929), pp. 48-50 (Carrier).

*4. Giles Corey: NGSQ 11(1922):2-7; Sidney Perley, The History of Salem, Massachusetts, vol. 2, 1638-1670 (1926, henceforth PS2), p. 193; The Essex Genealogist 5(1985): 11-14; A. B. Cory, Cory's of America, Ancestors and Descendants (1991), Book 4, pp. 2-3 (Mr. Greene’s monograph on this family is eagerly awaited).

5-6. Mrs. Mary Towne Estey and her sister Mrs. Rebecca Towne Nurse, wives respectively of Isaac Estey and Francis Nurse: Walter Goodwin Davis, The Ancestry of Lieut. Amos Towne (1927, henceforth Amos Towne), pp. 3-15, The Ancestry of Dudley Wildes (1959, henceforth DW), pp. 111-25, and The Ancestry of Sarah Johnson (1960, henceforth SJ), pp. 13-43; E. E. Towne, The Descendants of William Towne (1901, henceforth Towne); Essex Institute Historical Collections (EIHC) 36(1900): 129-40 (Esty); G. E. Russell, Descendants of [Nurse son-in-law] William Russell of Salem, Mass., 1674 (1989); Persis W. McMillen, Currents of Malice: Mary Towne Esty and Her Family in Salem Witchcraft (1990).

[110]

7. Mrs. Elizabeth Jackson How/Howe, wife of James How/Howe, Jr.: D. W. and G. B. Howe, Howe Genealogies, vol.2 (1929), pp. 158-59, 162, 169, 8, 14-15, etc. and G. B. Blodgette & A. E. Jewett, Early Settlers of Rowley, Massachusetts (1933, rep. 1981, henceforth ESR), p. 166. See also the sometimes unreliable R. M. Tingley, Some Ancestral Lines. ..Tingley...Meyers (1935), pp. 144-47, 158-59.

*8. George Jacobs: TAG 58(1982):65-76 (D. L. Greene).

9. Mrs. Susanna North Martin, widow of George Martin: TAG 58(1982):193-204, 59(1983):11-22 (D. L. Greene).

10. Mrs. Mary Ayer Parker, widow of Nathan Parker:W. L. Holman, “Andover Ancestry, Volume II” (mss. at NEHGS, 1936), Parker and Ayer sections; see also PA2, pp. 1085-87.

11. John Proctor (Jr.): Register 135(1981):285-86 (repr. In English Origins of New England Families, 2nd ser. 119851, 2:12-13; D. L. Greene citing discoveries by John Dorrance Morrell); R. C. Stevens, Ancestry of the Children of Robert Croll Stevens and Jane Eleanor (Knauss) Stevens, vol. 1 (1982), Section 44 and sources cited therein, esp. Proctor mss. notes by W. L. and M. L. Holman, now at NEHGS, and A. Carlton Proctor, Proctor Genealogy (1979), pp. 267-356; Leland H. Procter, John Proctor of Ipswich and Some of His Descendants (1985), pp. 6-44,70-89.

(*?)12 Mrs. Ann ___ Greenslade Pudeator, widow of Thomas Greenslade and Jacob Pudeator: P52, p. 398; GDMNH, p. 289 (meager coverage).

(*?)13. Mrs. Margaret Stephenson Scott, widow of Benjamin Scott: M. L. Holman, The Scott Genealogy (1919), pp. 325-41 and ESR, pp. 329-33.

14. Samuel Wardwell: S.D. Byles and Marjorie Wardwell Otten, Samuel Wardwell of Andover and a Line of His Descendants(1985).

15. Mrs. Sarah Averill Wildes, wife of John Wildes: DW, pp. 3-49.

Among items on the five victims who left no known later descendants note especially TAG 60(1984): 14-18, 111-13 (DL. Greene on the wife of John Willard, almost certainly Margaret³ Wilkins [Thomas², Bray¹).

Burroughs or Towne Descendants:

1. Isaiah Thomas, 1749-1831, colonial printer, historian, and founder of the American Antiquarian Society; Moses Thomas & Fidelity Grant; Peter Thomas & Elizabeth Burroughs; Rev. George Burroughs & (prob.) Hannah ___.

2. Richard Olney, 1835-1917, lawyer, U.S. attorney general and secretary of state under Cleveland (wife, Agnes Park Thomas; Benjamin Franklin Thomas & Mary Anne Park; Isaiah Thomas, Jr. & Mary Weld; Isaiah Thomas, the printer, above, & Mary Dill).

3. Ithiel Town, 1784-1844, architect; Archelaus Towne, Jr. & Martha Johnson; Archelaus Towne & Sarah Brown; Joseph Towne (III) & Jemima Bixby; Joseph Towne, Jr. & Margaret Case; Joseph Towne & Phebe Perkins; William Towne & Joanna Blessing.

4. David GouverneurBurnet, 1788-1870, first president of the Republic of Texas in 1836 (wife, Hannah Este; Moses Este, Jr. & Anne Kirkpatrick; Moses Estey & Eunice Pengilly; Isaac Estey, Jr. & Abigail Kimball; Isaac Estey & Mary Towne).

5. (John) Calvin Coolidge (Jr.), 1872-1933, 30th U.S. president (wife, Grace Anna Goodhue; Andrew Issachar Goodhue & Lemira A. Barrett; Benjamin Goodhue & Caroline Andrews; Ebenezer Goodhue, Jr. & Mehitable Knight; Benjamin Knight, Jr. & Lydia Lake; Elizur Lake, Jr. & Sarah Perkins; Robert Perkins & Elizabeth Towne; Samuel Towne& Elizabeth Knight; Edmund Towne & Mary Browning; William Towne & Joanna Blessing).

6. Edward Moore Kennedy, b. 1932, U.S. senator from Massachusetts since 1962 (1st wife, [Virginia] Joan Bennett; Harry Wiggin Bennett, Jr. & Virginia Joan Stead; Harry Wiggin Bennett & Agnes Pattie Smith; Seth C. Bennett & May Belle Wiggin; Samuel Lamson Wiggin & Harriet S. Bruce; Samuel Wiggin & Susan Fisher; Joseph Wiggin & Lydia Lamson; Benjamin Lam-son & Sarah Cummings; Joseph Cummings & Sarah Estey; Isaac Estey, Jr. & Abigail Kimball, see #4 above).

7. David Kirkpatrick Este Bruce, 1898-1977, diplomat (U.S. ambassador to France, West Germany and Great Britain); William Cabell Bruce, U.S. senator, & Louise Este Fisher; William Alexander Fisher & Louise Este; David Kirkpatrick Este & Louise Miller; Moses Este, Jr. & Anne Kirkpatrick, see #4 above.

8. Robert Maynard Hutchins, 1899-1977, educator, president of the University of Chicago and the Center for the Study of Democratic institutions; William James Hutchins & Anna Laura Murch; Robert Grosvenor Hutchins & Harriet Palmer James; Isaac Thompson Hutchins & Abelena Howe Grosvenor, William James & Abigail Watson Davis; Robert Grosvenor & Abelena Howe, Isaac Davis & Mary Watson; Samson Howe & Huldah Davis, Simon Davis & Zeruiah Knight; Daniel Davis & Tamar Towne (parents of Huldah & Simon); Jonathan Towne & Catherine ___; John Towne & Mary Smith; Jacob Towne & Katherine Symonds; William Towne & Joanna Blessing.

9. Philip Winston Pillsbury, 1903-1984, president (1940-52) and chairman of the board (1952-65), Pillsbury (Flour) Co.; Charles Stinson Pillsbury & Helen Pendleton Winston; Philip Bickerton Winston & Katharine Deborah Stevens; John Harrington Stevens & Frances Helen Miller; Gardner Stevens & Deborah Harrington; John Harrington & Deborah Wakefield; Joshua Harming-ton & Betty Read; Ebenezer Harrington & Hepzibah Cloyce; Peter Cloyce & Sarah Towne.

10. Walter Goodwin Davis, Jr., 1885-1966, genealogist; Walter Goodwin Davis & Mary Howard Wildes; William Goodwin Davis & Rhoda Neal, Asa Waldo Wildes, Jr. & Jane Merrill Patten; Joseph Neal, Jr. & Hannah Spear, Asa Waldo Wildes & Eliza Ann Lunt, Johnson Patten & Lucy Towne; Joseph Neal & Sarah Johnson, Dudley Wildes & Bethia Harris, Amos Towne, Jr. & Sarah Miller; Adam Johnson, Jr. & Mary Hutcherson, Amos Wildes & Hannah Perkins, Amos Towne & Mary Smith; Adam Johnston & Abigail Nurse, John Wildes & Phebe Perkins, Joseph Towne & Amy Smith; [111] George Nurse & Lydia Hutchinson, Elisha Perkins & Katherine Towne, Edmund Towne & Mary Browning; Samuel Nurse & Mary Smith, Jacob Towne & Katherine Symonds (parents of Katherine), William Towne & Joanna Blessing (parents of Edmund, Jacob and Rebecca); Francis Nurse & Rebecca Towne.

Sources:

1-2. Isaiah Thomas, Mrs. Olney: Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, new ser., 30(1920): 264-68, 271, 274.

3. Ithiel Town: Towne, pp. 21-22,25-26,32-33,50-51,86.

4,7. Mrs. Burnet, Bruce: F. A. Virkus, The Abridged Compendium of American Genealogy, vol. 1 (1925, repr. 1987), p. 506 (an unreliable work, correct in this descent) (Bruce); E. N. Clopper, An American Family (1950), passim, esp. pp. 147-51, 213, 461-69, 61 2-14 and W. C. Armstrong, Capt. John Kirkpatrick of New Jersey, 1739-1822 (1927), p. 38 (Mrs. Burnet). See also, to confirm Virkus, Alice Mead, The Meads and Their Relatives (1930), p. 205, Alexander Brown, ‘The Cabells and Their Kin (1895, rev. ed. 1939), p. 368, The Biographical Cyclopaedia and Portrait Gallery with an Historical Sketch of the State of Ohio, vol. 3(1884), pp 755-56 (David K. Este), plus the DAR Patriot Index entry for Moses Este and EIHC 36:135.

5. Mrs. Coolidge: Burke’s Presidential Families of the U.S.A., 2nd ed. (1981), p. 465; J. E. Goodhue, History and Genealogy of the Goodhue Family (1891), pp. 50, 101-2, 205; W.W. Hayward, The History of Hancock, New Hampshire, 1764-1889 (1889), pp. 605-6 (Goodhue); C. S. Tibbetts, “The Knight Family’ (mss. at NEHGS, 1941), Part IV, p. 11; G. A. Perkins, The Family of John Perkins of Ipswich, Massachusetts, Part 11(1889), pp. 18, 29-30; Towne, pp. 21-22, 24.

6. Mrs. Kennedy: Register 139(1985):223-24 (repr. in The Irish in New England [1985], pp. 37-38); Who’s Who in America, 1976-77, p.²35 (H. W. Bennett, Jr.) and Who’s Who in New York City and State, 3rd ed. (1907), p. 115 (H. W. Bennett, Sr.); Boston Transcript genealogical column, 5 June 1907, #981, Part IV, last paragraph (Bennett); A. C. Wiggin, A. P. Bartlett and Alexander Lincoln, “Wiggin Genealogy, Vol. 1, Seven Generations” (typescript, ca. 1960), pp. 32, 77, 160-61, its mss. continuation at the N. H. Historical Society, #2684 (Mrs. Seth C. Bennett) and A. B. Wiggin mss. collection at NEHGS (SG WIG 10), nos. 1189, 1199; W. J. Lamson, Descendants of William Lamson of Ipswich, Mass., 1634-1917 (1917), pp. 53-54; Rev. George Mooar, The Cummings Memorial (1903), pp. 29-33.

8. Hutchins: M. C. Hutchins, Nicholas Hutchins of Lynn and Groton, Massachusetts, and His Descendants (1989), pp. 59-60, 116-17, 162, 207-10; C. W. Bowen, The History of Woodstock, Connecticut: Genealogies of Woodstock Families, vols. 4 (1932), pp. 465-66,6 (1935), pp. 289, 311, 336, 361, 374 (Davis, Howe, Hutchins); G. L. Davis, Samuel Davis of Oxford, Mass. and Joseph Davis of Dudley, Mass., and Their Descendants (1884), pp. 12-13, 49-52, 135-36, 147, 319-20, 449-50; Towne, pp. 21-22, 24-25, 30.

9. Pillsbury: M. L. Holman, Ancestry of Colonel John Harrington Stevens and His Wife Frances Helen Miller, vol. 1 (1948), pp. 20-27, 155-60, 166-72.

10. W. G. Davis: Danny D. Smith, Walter Goodwin Davis: A Scholar’s Unique Contribution to New England Genealogy, with an index to the Principal Surnames in His Works (Maine Genealogical Society, Special Publication No. 1, 1985), pp. 53-72 (Ahnentafel for Davis), plus SJ, DW, Amos Towne and W. G. Davis, Ancestry of Nicholas Davis (1956), pp.45-50, Ancestry of Joseph Neal (1945), pp. 11-17, Ancestry of James Patten (1941), pp. 70-72.

11. General: For the “witch” or “wizard” ancestry of Presidents Arthur, Taft, and Ford, plus the Hawkes descent of the Adamses, Mrs. Coolidge, and The Princess of Wales and her sons, see G. B. Roberts, Ancestors of American Presidents, preliminary edition revised (1989), pp. 3-5, 39-40, 4 & 52, 84-88, 106-7, 116-7, 119-20, 128-30, 277, and various sources cited therein. For Adam Hawkes and the Hawkes descent of The Princess of Wales and Mrs. Hoover see Ethel Farrington Smith, Adam Hawkes of Saugus, Mass., 1605-1672 (1980), pp. 22-31 esp.; G. B. Roberts and W. A. Reitwiesner, American Ancestors and Cousins of The Princess of Wales (1984), pp. 21-31 esp.; and NEXUS 8(1991):29, 31 and sources cited therein. See also, among recent works with genealogical data on families involved in the 1692 trials, Enders A. Robinson, Salem Witchcraft and Hawthorne’s House of the Seven Gables (1992), esp. for Mrs. Carrier, Mrs. Howe, Mrs. Parker, Mrs. Scott, and Wardwell and their families.

Members interested in the Salem witchcraft delusion of 1692, or descended from its victims, may wish to attend a tercentennial genealogical seminar at the Essex Institute Thurs.-Fri., 1-2 Oct. 1992. Seminar participants can attend lectures enjoy the Essex Institute and its exhibition on 1692 Salem, tour the city and meet other descendants of witch-trial victims. For more details contact Jane Ward, Essex Institute, 132 Essex Street, Salem, MA 01970, (508) 744-3390.