| 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).
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1626 - 1660 (34 years)
