John married Sarah WARRINER on 22 Dec 1715. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Edward STEBBINS was born on 26 Sep 1729 in Springfield, Hampden, MA; died on 10 Apr 1816.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Death: 1 Oct 1712, Springfield, Hampden, MA

Edward married Sarah GRAVES on 12 Apr 1679 in Springfield, Hampden, MA. Sarah (daughter of John GRAVES and Mary SMITH) was born in 1660 in Hatfield, Hampshire, MA; died on 2 Jun 1700 in Springfield, Hampden, MA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Death: 5 Sep 1683

Notes:

Death:
Alternate death date.

Lt. married Hannah WRIGHT on 16 Nov 1645 in Springfield, Hampden, MA. Hannah was born in Aug 1626 in Springfield, Hampden, MA; died on 16 Oct 1660. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Death: 26 Oct 1660, Springfield, Hampden, MA

Notes:

Note:
Ellen Baker forwarded your query about the references for Deacon Samuel Wright and his children. Unfortunately, we have yet to find any vital statistic records for any of the Deacon's children except James, Judah and the infant Helped who died shortly after birth. The births of these last three children are recorded in the early Agawam (Springfield) MA. records which are located at the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum's Archive library in the Quadrangle area of downtown Springfield.

That Samuel Wright Jr. (or Sgt. Samuel Wright as he was known) was the Deacon's son there can also be no doubt. The Deacon was forced to acknowledge this son in official documents to the Springfield courts of those days for some misdeeds. (See Pynchon Court Records in "Families of the Pioneer Valley," Regional Publications, West Springfield, MA 2000).

Evidence of the relationship to the Deacon for the girls, Margaret, Hester (Ester), Lydia, and Mary is most strongly established by the wills left by the Deacon and his wife. All are named in both wills. And, although for Margaret and Lydia there are also Springfield VR for their marriages (Lydia married four times!) and other records for Margaret (See NEHGR Vol IX, p. 200), there is nothing for Hester or Mary in the official records,and we know of their marriages via mention in wills and death records.

So I source the wills first. The original handwritten wills, or shall I say officially transcribed wills, for the Deacon and Margaret are in the First Records Book of the Town of Northampton, MA. This record book is very fragile and is currently archived in the Hampshire County Clerk's office in Northampton, MA. It may be viewed by special request made to the County Clerk at the time of your visit. With their kind assistance, I have made a copy of all the pertinent Wright ancestry documents in it, including the two wills. I translated and transcribed both wills in their entirety for my publication.

In these wills, the Deacon makes mention of each of his children, Samuel, Margaret, Hester, Lydia, Mary, James and Judah. Margaret, his wife, does much the same in her will mentioning also Hester's husband, Samuel Marshfield, and son James' daughter, Helped, to whom she bequeathed her bed.

What is notable about these two wills is that neither the Deacon nor Margaret mention anything about Benjamin Wright or Hannah (Wright) Stebbins of Springfield who have been often assigned by previous researchers as his eldest children. What I think is most important is that there is no mention made of any of the children of Benjamin or Hannah (Wright) Stebbins, either. It is true that Hannah had died in 1661, prior to the Deacon (1665), and might not have been mentioned in his will (prepared 1663) for that reason. But Hannah's children were alive and husband, Thomas Stebbins, did not remarry until 7 years after the Deacon's death. So, if the Deacon was so diligent in bequeathing to each of his other children, and since he would have known at the time of making his will in 1663 that Hannah was dead, he would have known he had to make provisions for Hannah's portion to go to her children. Therefore, I think it is certain he would have named them in his will if they were his grandchildren. On the basis that neither he nor Margaret mention these potential grandchildren in their wills, I believe Benjamin and Hannah were not his children.

Nevertheless, Benjamin and Hannah have often been assigned as the eldest children of the Deacon, and thought I do not believe this is the case, I do believe they may have been niece and nephew to the Deacon or some other relation. Certainly I believe they were some member of the large Wright clan to which the Deacon belonged (originating from Sir John Wright of Kelvedon Hatch, Co. Essex, England).

Died:
Alternate death date.

John married Mary SMITH. Mary (daughter of Lieut. Lieut. Samuel SMITH and Elizabeth SMITH) was born on 9 Oct 1628 in Hadleigh, Suffolk, ENGLAND; died on 16 Dec 1665. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Immigratn: 1634, Bocking, Essex, ENGLAND

Notes:

Immigratn:
Rowland Stebbins immigrated aboard the "Francis" from Bocking, Essex, ENGLAND.

Rowland married Sarah WHITING on 30 Nov 1618 in St. Mary's Church, Bocking, Essex, ENGLAND. Sarah was born in 1591 in ENGLAND; died on 4 Oct 1649. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Occupation: Fellmongerer, A Dealer In Furs And Hides, A Tanner.

Notes:

Note:
April 3, 1634, sailed aboard ship 'Elizabeth.'He built and was part owner of the 'Tryal' the first ship builtin Connecticut.

Note:
Article from The American Genealogist, Vol. 32, p. 195.
THE WIFE OF LT. SAMUEL SMITH OF WETHERSFIELD
By Paul W. Prindle, B.S., of New York, N.Y.
The wife of Lieutenant Samuel Smith of Wethersfield, Corin., has often been named erroneously as Elizabeth Chileab. The following article appeared in abbreviated form in "The Hartford Times, " 8 Jan 1956.
About one year after their arrival from England, Lt. Samuel Smith's wife gave birth to a son,1 to whom they gave the unusual name of Chileab. Someone, possibly Stiles (he must at least be charged with responsibility for passing on the fiction in his "History of Ancient Wethersfield 2:646), assumed that this unusual name must have been the surname of the mother. It is unfortunate that Stiles failed to consult his Bible concordance. Had he done so, he would have learned that Lt. Smith, a devout man who made a bequest of a Bible in his will to each of his grandchildren gave biblical names to each one of his other sons, - Samuel, Philip and John, - and Chileab was no exception; the original Chileab was the son of King David by Abigail (II Samuel, 111;3). According to Rev. William Jenks, "Comprehensive Commentary on the Holy Bible" (1836), Chiliab signifies "like his father, or the father's picture." Due to the unusual circumstances of Chileab's birth, Abigail being the lawful wife of Nabal the Carmelite, we may reasonable ascribe the touching choice of the babe's name to Abigail rather than to David. In any event in the 7 Oct. 1929 issue of "The Boston Evening Transcript," one C.D.A. wrote, in answer to query 8072-15. If Lieutenant Smith had named the child Chedorlaomer, Jaazaniah, Yephibosneth, or Maher-shalal-hash-baz ( all biblical masculine names), there would have been as much ground for assuming the selected name was.the family name of Elizabeth as there was that it was Chileab."
The identity of Elizabeth, wife of Lt. Samuel Smith, has been determined within the bounds of probability acceptable to careful genealogists. As long ago as 14Aug1943, the late Dr. Ray G. Hulbert, in his answer to query A-2442-(6) in "The Hartford Times," gave the facts, which have been repeated on a number of occasions, once at least by the present contributor. Nevertheless, to bring all the known facts together, perhaps for the first time the following account is presented to lay the ghost of Elizabeth Chileab.
The parish registers of St. Margarets's, Whatfield, Co.,Suffolk, England, show the Oct 6, 1624 marriage of Samuel Smyth to Elizabeth Smyth, and the baptism of their son Samuel on Feb 8, 1625 (1625/6?). The young couple next appear at Hadleigh, Co. Suffolk, three miles south of Whatfield where, at the church of St. Mary the Virgin, they baptized Elizabeth on Jan 28, 1627 (probably New Style); Mary, Oct. 9, 1628 and Philip, November1632.
The Smith, Smyth, Smithe (all interchangeable, of course) family embarked "the last of Aprill, 1634, for New England, in the "Elizabeth," from Ipswich, Mr. Wm. Andrews, "Master" (New England Hist. and Gen. Register, 14:329; Hotten' s "Original Lists," pp. 280, 282; Pope's "Pioneers of Massachusetts"; James William Hook , "Lieut. Samuel Smith (1953), p. 1. The ship's list shows the following ages for the members of the Smith family:"Samuell Smithe,"; 32; "Elizabeth his wife," 32; and children of "Sam. Smith:" Samuel, 9; Elizabeth, 7; Mary, 4; Philip, 1. The ages of the children Samuel, Elizabeth, and Philip exactly correspond with their respective dates of baptism. Mary, however, was 5, not 4. Actually, this record represents a high degree of accuracy. Most ages taken from ships' lists (and from gravestones and census records as well) are questionable unless confirmed by other contemporary records.
There remains little room for doubt that the baptismal records shown above taken from the parish registers in Whatfield and Hadleigh, are of the children who sailed on the "Elizabeth" from Ipswich only ten miles east of Hadleigh, Co. Suffolk and that Elizabeth, wife of Lt. Samuel Smith, was a Smith before her marriage.

Lieut. married Elizabeth SMITH on 6 Oct 1624 in Whatfield, Suffolk, ENGLAND. Elizabeth was born in 1602 in ENGLAND; died on 16 Mar 1686 in Hadley, Hampshire, MA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Note:
Article from The American Genealogist, Vol. 32, p. 195.
THE WIFE OF LT. SAMUEL SMITH OF WETHERSFIELD
By Paul W. Prindle, B.S., of New York, N.Y.
The wife of Lieutenant Samuel Smith of Wethersfield, Corin., has often been named erroneously as Elizabeth Chileab. The following article appeared in abbreviated form in "The Hartford Times, " 8 Jan 1956.
About one year after their arrival from England, Lt. Samuel Smith's wife gave birth to a son,1 to whom they gave the unusual name of Chileab. Someone, possibly Stiles (he must at least be charged with responsibility for passing on the fiction in his "History of Ancient Wethersfield 2:646), assumed that this unusual name must have been the surname of the mother. It is unfortunate that Stiles failed to consult his Bible concordance. Had he done so, he would have learned that Lt. Smith, a devout man who made a bequest of a Bible in his will to each of his grandchildren gave biblical names to each one of his other sons, - Samuel, Philip and John, - and Chileab was no exception; the original Chileab was the son of King David by Abigail (II Samuel, 111;3). According to Rev. William Jenks, "Comprehensive Commentary on the Holy Bible" (1836), Chiliab signifies "like his father, or the father's picture." Due to the unusual circumstances of Chileab's birth, Abigail being the lawful wife of Nabal the Carmelite, we may reasonable ascribe the touching choice of the babe's name to Abigail rather than to David. In any event in the 7 Oct. 1929 issue of "The Boston Evening Transcript," one C.D.A. wrote, in answer to query 8072-15. If Lieutenant Smith had named the child Chedorlaomer, Jaazaniah, Yephibosneth, or Maher-shalal-hash-baz ( all biblical masculine names), there would have been as much ground for assuming the selected name was.the family name of Elizabeth as there was that it was Chileab."
The identity of Elizabeth, wife of Lt. Samuel Smith, has been determined within the bounds of probability acceptable to careful genealogists. As long ago as 14Aug1943, the late Dr. Ray G. Hulbert, in his answer to query A-2442-(6) in "The Hartford Times," gave the facts, which have been repeated on a number of occasions, once at least by the present contributor. Nevertheless, to bring all the known facts together, perhaps for the first time the following account is presented to lay the ghost of Elizabeth Chileab.
The parish registers of St. Margarets's, Whatfield, Co.,Suffolk, England, show the Oct 6, 1624 marriage of Samuel Smyth to Elizabeth Smyth, and the baptism of their son Samuel on Feb 8, 1625 (1625/6?). The young couple next appear at Hadleigh, Co. Suffolk, three miles south of Whatfield where, at the church of St. Mary the Virgin, they baptized Elizabeth on Jan 28, 1627 (probably New Style); Mary, Oct. 9, 1628 and Philip, November1632.
The Smith, Smyth, Smithe (all interchangeable, of course) family embarked "the last of Aprill, 1634, for New England, in the "Elizabeth," from Ipswich, Mr. Wm. Andrews, "Master" (New England Hist. and Gen. Register, 14:329; Hotten' s "Original Lists," pp. 280, 282; Pope's "Pioneers of Massachusetts"; James William Hook , "Lieut. Samuel Smith (1953), p. 1. The ship's list shows the following ages for the members of the Smith family:"Samuell Smithe,"; 32; "Elizabeth his wife," 32; and children of "Sam. Smith:" Samuel, 9; Elizabeth, 7; Mary, 4; Philip, 1. The ages of the children Samuel, Elizabeth, and Philip exactly correspond with their respective dates of baptism. Mary, however, was 5, not 4. Actually, this record represents a high degree of accuracy. Most ages taken from ships' lists (and from gravestones and census records as well) are questionable unless confirmed by other contemporary records.
There remains little room for doubt that the baptismal records shown above taken from the parish registers in Whatfield and Hadleigh, are of the children who sailed on the "Elizabeth" from Ipswich only ten miles east of Hadleigh, Co. Suffolk and that Elizabeth, wife of Lt. Samuel Smith, was a Smith before her marriage.