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(1) Of the multiple Levi Frenches, he was the one who, circa 1764, married Amy/Amie Packard. (2) His last and only US Census was the 1790, so he was still living then. (3) Their recollected nine children, born possibly through 1781, were: Lemuel, Levi French the junior, Samuel, Ruhama "Amy" French, twins Dependence and Rebecca French, Hannah, Sylvanus, and Isaac. (4) Daughter Ruhama married a Pratt (Barnabus); Rebecca, a Curtis (Theophilus). Daughter Hannah, married, first, a young widower, George Monk the junior, secondly, Luther Swan. (5) His children's mother, Amy, once widowed by Levi, married Hannah's likely...
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(1) Of the multiple Levi Frenches, he was the one who, circa 1764, married Amy/Amie Packard. (2) His last and only US Census was the 1790, so he was still living then. (3) Their recollected nine children, born possibly through 1781, were: Lemuel, Levi French the junior, Samuel, Ruhama "Amy" French, twins Dependence and Rebecca French, Hannah, Sylvanus, and Isaac. (4) Daughter Ruhama married a Pratt (Barnabus); Rebecca, a Curtis (Theophilus). Daughter Hannah, married, first, a young widower, George Monk the junior, secondly, Luther Swan. (5) His children's mother, Amy, once widowed by Levi, married Hannah's likely father-in-law, George Monk the senior. That was in mid-1798, after the elder George's first wife had died that January. (4) George's intent to marry Amy was announced first, in George's town of Easton, in Bristol County. Both Georges now lie buried in Easton. Levi's daughter Hannah and her mother most likely moved there ater marrying their respective Georges. (6) The burial place of wife Amy Packard French Monk has not been found with certainty by this writer. Burial in Easton, by George is possible, as is burial in Plymouth County, with Levi. Ashland Cem. seems likely, many stones missing there, not just Levi's, but his parents, who died not long after him (1801 and 1803), plus a sister. Proposed also is burial at the more modern, huge Melrose Cemetery, with a son who died decades earlier. Despite its greater age, the son's stone still stands. Why not Levi's and Amy's?
Details follow.
BIRTH. Levi's birth/baptism is found in the "Records of the Town of Braintree, 1640-1793". It lists him as son to a twin, that one of the multiple Dependence Frenches, b. 1714, who married Mary Linfield.
Without paperwork or a stone from this Levi's era, any death year shown at Findagrave for him will be an estimate. The year should be sometime after the birth of his last child, but before his widowed wife's remarriage. A round number signals estimation. (NOTE: 1795 was the last round year before his wife's remarriage in July of 1798. 1795 will put him in or near the correct generation in a sorting of names. To do better, a dated will or land transaction or tax record might be found, paid by his estate, not by him? )
TWINS. The twins, Levi's father and uncle, Dependence and John, were born together (or, maybe simply baptized together) on Christmas Day, 1714. They stayed together, thereafter, both moving, a mere five years apart, to what became Avon, putting them just north of the current ridgetop that separated Norfolk County from its southern neighbor, Plymouth County.
Levi's father was unique among the Dependence Frenches as he stayed very close to a natural or baptismal twin. They lived a town or two away from their parents, John French of old Braintree, who had married newcomer Mary Vinton, then had a large family. The twin's oldest sister, another Mary, remained in Braintree by marrying a cousin. Their younger brothers, Abiathar (and Joshua?), were forced to move west, if wanting to farm, as the twins and others had already taken the best of the local "fringe land".
Their first farms were literally across the road from each other.
They stayed close to parents and cousins, by living barely outside that part of old Braintree which became Randolph. This situation is seen on an old hand-drawn map. (It is, at this writing, viewable at the Avon, Mass. website, history section.) The old map showed their two farms and the few other neighbors first to Avon (again, not yet called that), giving dates and names.
Both twins may have had land elsewhere. If so, that allowed them to attend church outside what became Avon. That would put them in later records wherever their other land lay, perhaps Randolph for twin John, definitely the part of old Bridgewater that became North Bridgewater, for this Levi's father, twin Dependence.
This Levi would have grown up in the Avon area, though born in old Braintree. Note that, at that time of the twins' moves out of old Braintree, Avon was still inside a corner of its mother town, Stoughton, so Levi's has records kept in modern Stoughton. Note further, that his marriage place, the North Parish of Bridgewater, later became modern Brockton in Plymouth County.
Again, the twins were barely inside Norfolk County, just north of Plymouth. Their old address changed, from Stoughton to East Stoughton to Avon, as newer parishes and then full-blown towns split apart from older. Levi's church and town, as an adult, on the Plymouth County side. His address, Bridgewater's North Parish, indicating a church attendance area, not a proper town, would turn into Brockton. (Splittings with new town names were caused by populations growing and overwhelming the earlier-built local church and town hall.)
Levi stayed put, but its not clear what occupation let him do that, not follow his cousins moving west. Was his farmwork augmented by something "urban" in some way, such as bricklayer or blacksmith?
It would be natural for some of Levi's children to be found in the same places "out west" (Hampshire County, Mass, then, later, NY and/or Ohio). However, this has not been deeply researched by this writer, except to verify "co-location" of his cousins occurred first in western Massachusetts, hidden in records after locations with growing populations split apart, making it appear the co-located had not been together..
More is known of Levi's children than about Levi.
LEVI'S FEW KNOWN FACTS. The only signs of many old graves at the older Ashland and newer Melrose Cem. (both now in modern Brockton) and at Braintree's Elm Tree (Norfolk County) may be what? Depressions that catch water when it rains?
What we know: Before he was 25, this Levi French had married. His "intention" to marry Amy Packard was announced in Stoughton, Levi's former address, courtesy of his parents' future Avon still being inside Stoughton. I
It was customary to marry where the bride lived. Amy Packward was born nearby, but in Plymouth County. This caused his intent and her marriage to be in different counties.
Their marriage, not the same as his "intent to marry", is listed in a diferent place, "Vital Records of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, to the year 1850", p. 141. The marriage date was Nov. 29, 1764. Amy Packard was said to be "b. 1741, Bridgewater".
Note that old Bridgewater's town and church kept no official paperwork of the marriage. Levi and Amy's family instead submitted a personal record of the marriage when the church records were re-compiled decades after their deaths. (Some ministers regarded church records as their property, not their church's, so took the official records away when leaving. Church records then had to be reconstructed after such a minister left. There were also "common law" marriages not of official record, their dates remembered by family only. Bibles were not mass-published until the 1830's. too late to be a "parking place" for what was remembered or guessed about him
.
When did he die? Levi's stone is gone, as are stones for the twin's parents, most aunts and uncles, and their grandparents.
The Bridgewater records show only one French death, highly incomplete that way, for the Bridgewater/Brockton Frenches. His death date is not in any easily found and official county record online, nor is it reported as an afterthought in the main bible known for the Bridgewater Frenches.
That means we have a range for his death date, 1790 to 1798, narrow enough to put him in the correct generation, with his sister Mary Beals.The range narrows to 1792 or 1793, looking at his last children's likely birth years.
Why 1790? Levi's1790 US Census would be both the first and the last census listing him.
Why 1798? That was when his widow remarried.
The Dependence who was Levi's brother, b. 1739, died first, pre-Revolution. Unlike sister Mary, the brother is buried at Melrose. Miraculously, he still has a stone standing. If this Levi were buried decades later, later, why is his stone not standing? Was his brother's black stone of extra-durable material? In a better maintained cemetery? Replaced with a replicate? Why his stone, and not Levi's newer one? Sister Mary's stone at Ashland is also missing.
Levi's father was grandson to, and named for, the first Dependence French of old Braintree. Levi's mother was that man's second wife, Rebecca Fenno. Those two, Dependence and Rebecca, children of immigrants, were thus great-grandparents to Levi, on his father's male side.
What's worth noting? Great-grandpa Dependence French was on the committee to buy the cow pasture with the grave of the minister's wife. There was an epidemic of sorts that had nearly killed the minister, so the committee's mission to buy the pasture became urgent, allowed the prior owner to keep pasturing cows there. To be the church-wide burying ground, it is now at the front of the larger Elm Street cemetary. As he was on the Committee, he would surely be buried there. His younger brother Thomas French, an epidemic death, was listed in the diary of Rev. Niles as one of the first burials (diary page photocopied by the anthropologist making the modern report to the town). He was also surely buried there. Yet neither stone stands.
The front of the Elm Street Cemetery, in modern Braintree, looks half-empty. In fact, it is so full, that for many decades, it allowed no new full-body burials. Once upkeep money ran out, the church turned upkeep over to the town. Damage by cow kicks and pig rootings and overworked lawnmowing workers collecting footstones (with first names) into a pile? Those were blamed as causes of missing stone records by the anthropologist working for the modern suburb of Braintree (date circa 2012?)
Widow Amy's remarried, to George Monk, on July 15, 1798. Her record of marriage to George gave her name as "Amie" French. Her second marriage was shown in the same "Vital Records" book that recorded Lev and Amy's marriage date, but on p. 204. She, thus, had not moved away from where she and Levi had married. (She may have then gone to George's home in Easton.)
Not finding him located elsewhere, we conclude Levi had not moved before 1798 either. He had died where they married.
CHILDREN. Levi's youngest child was said to be Hannah. Her next-older brother, Sylvanus, was born circa 1790, census-time. If she was born the typical two years later, then that was 1792-93. If he died soon after, he died as as young as age 52. If Levi's death instead waited until just before his wife remarried, July, 1798, then he was only 58.
Note that Levi was still living for the marriage of another "Amie" French, to Barnabas Pratt. Found dated 1787, it was on the same page of "the Vitals" as was the 1798 French-Monk marriage.
Barnabas' wife preferred a nickname of "Amie", but was born as as Ruhama French. Ruhama was a most uncommon name, given locally only to a daughter of Levi's uncle, twin John French. a cousin who married someone else, not Barnabas Pratt. By the process of elimination, Benjamin Pratt's Ruhama was thus the daughter of Amy Packard and this Levi, though we lack an official birth record naming her parents.
A book by Barnstable County, done in 1912, over a century after Levi's death, gathered together reports of "Representative Men and Old Families of Southeastern Massachusetts". (Levi's family was on pages 1493-94.)
Its dates and names agreed with the more official "Vital Records" for Bridgewater, but, went beyond. The Report named 9 children, the first-born, Levi Jr. An easy-to-find Sylvanus French was the eighth child, the one covered (only?) by Barnstable County's report of 1912, with a ninth child named as Hannah, no birth date for her.
The Report gave Sylvanus and his son Samuel French their own biographies. Sylvanus was a farmer-shoemaker and deacon for the "South Congregational Church". Samuel was a cattle drover whose route went up to Canada, with a street called French Avenue eventually named for them in the "Campello" area.
There's no birth date for Sylvanus, but the 1912 book says he died March 12, 1856, at age 75. Counting backwards that many years would give a birth year up to and including March 12, 1781, so Sylvanus was a teen when Levi's widowed wife Amy remarried in 1798.
The 1850 US Census for Sylvanus French is easily found at the FamilySearch.org website. He was still or again living in "North Bridgewater", age 69, wife Jane, age 57. The place not yet renamed to Brockton, but the potato famine Irish had arrived. Old Puritan names such as Mehitable Reynolds still lived nearby, with varied Haydens and Howards (earlier spelling sometimes as Haywards) on the next pages. They again lived on a line, this time, the gradual shift between shrinking country and growing town. Farmers were on the pages before. On the pages next, were many whose only occupation was to make boots and shoes, what would be called "cottage industries" if done out of the home, predecessors to factories where work was away from the home.
Levi's grandson Samuel was 34, on the same census page as son Sylvanus, but in a heighboring house, with wife Amanda, little children, Charles, age 4 and Ann M., 2 months. The 1850 survey date was handwritten as August 2, letting birth year be calculated by subtracting ages from that date. (Image archived at www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-XX89-NRF, log-in required, free, no fees.)
Another of his sons with Amy was yet another Dependence French, b. 1771. He married Hannah Harris and is buried out southward in Bristol County, almost in Rhode island, closer to Providence than to Boston. Levi's sister, Elizabeth French, married Seth Bryan while all were still in the Bridgewater area. They moved with other of the Frenches out west to Hampshire County, closer to the Hudson River Valley in New York than to Boston .
NOTE: Again, all of Amy and Levi's children are listed on p. 1493 of the 1912 book "Representative Men and Old Families of Southeastern Massachusetts", complied by clerk J.H. Beers. That last source gives a beginning for the family founder, John French of Braintree, as from "Thorndic, Scotland", based on the research of a possibly unrelated Aaron Weld French, a minister's son who visited England late in the 1800s, looking for roots. However, no verifiable records from John French's own era existed in Braintree to match these Frenches to that part of Scotland. Nor has there been any y-DNA test submitted from a male French in that part of Scotland, to the French surname study at FamilyTreeDNA, to see if it matches the Braintree set of males.
Some New England male descendants of the Braintree Frenches have already taken tests, though distant branches need to contribute DNA samples to make sure the deep parts of the tree are correct, meaning especially those whose migrations reached down into Michigan and out to the Pacific NW and California. The records in some lines believed to descend from the John French who married Grace encounter "dry spells", whereby parents were not listed for multiple decades, depending on the state or county. The Braintree Frenches tested so far are Group 25, one among over 50 unique groups of unrelated male DNAs with surname French, done at FamilyTreeDNA.com. The testing is supervised by the FrenchFamilyAssoc.com, essentially a club of people researching family trees with surname French of any DNA. They post trees as given to them, try to detect which small trees can be grouped together based upon matching y-DNA, versus which too-large trees have wrong DNAs lingering in the tree after mistaken name-matchings.
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