Conversations with a Cousin, Part Four: Family Group Sheet for Samuel Narramore (1706 - 1789)

Father:  Samuel Narramore

• Born:  October 9, 1706 at Lynn, Massachusetts.  
• Parents:  Samuel Narramore and Rachel Paul.
• Married:  August 20, 1727 at Boston, Massachusetts to Lydia Davis.  The Rev. Thomas Cheever, pastor of the church at Rumney Marsh (now Chelsea) performed the ceremony.  Cheever's father, Ezekiel, had for nearly four decades been the master of the country's first public school, Boston Latin, founded in 1635 and still in operation today.  Ezekiel's son of the same name was immortalized in Arthur Miller's The Crucible.
• Died:  February 1789 at Thompson, Connecticut.  On January 1, 1789, Edward Joslin was paid for "keeping Samuel Narramore" for 52 weeks (to the first of January 1789) and for clothing.  At the close of that year, he was paid for keeping Samuel Narramore for five weeks, in addition to being reimbursed for funeral expenses.

Mother:  Lydia Davis

• Born:  unknown.  
• Parents:  unknown.
• Married:  August 20, 1727 at Boston, Massachusetts to Samuel Narramore Jr.
• Died:  early 1781, at Killingly, Connecticut.  On January 10, 1781, Daniel Russell was paid for "keeping Samuel Narramore & wife" from March 6, 1780 to January 8, 1781.  In town records for the following January, Lt. Jacob Converse was paid only for keeping Samuel from March 5, 1781 to January 7, 1782, while Israel Richards was reimbursed for "making a coffin for Samuel Narramore's wife".

 Children

1. Samuel, born April 10, 1730 at Killingly, Connecticut
2. Joseph, born June 18, 1732 at Killingly, Connecticut.  Married at Woodstock, Connecticut on April 23, 1761 Sarah, daughter of Joseph Wright and Abigail Chaffee.  Died at Winchester, New Hampshire on February 20, 1802.
3. John, born May 26, 1735 at Killingly, Connecticut.  Married at Dudley, Massachusetts on April 23, 1760 Tabitha, daughter of Deacon Jonathan Newell and Millicent Mason.  Probably died between 1810 and 1820 at Coeymans, New York.
4. Lydia, born May 3, 1739 at Killingly, Connecticut
5. Joshua Davis, baptized September 4, 1743 at the Congregational Church in the North Society of Killingly (now Thompson).  Probably born at Killingly.  Married at Northampton, Massachusetts on March 4, 1765 Hannah, daughter of Noah Bridgman and Mehitabel Warner.  While "employed in cutting timber, he was unfortunately killed by the falling of a tree" at Pittsfield, Massachusetts on April 1, 1783.
6. Mehitabel, baptized September 16, 1744 per Thompson Congregational Church records.  Probably born at Killingly.  Married (intentions filed) at Pittsfield, Massachusetts on August 6, 1769 Joseph Wright.

Notes & Comments

• Thompson, Connecticut was originally part of Killingly, only becoming a separate town in 1785.
• The Barbour Collection of transcribed Connecticut vital records lists Samuel and "Jason" as sons of "Thomas, Jr & Lydia" while John and Lydia are recorded as children of "Samuel, Jr & Lydia".  No birth records are known to exist for the last two children, Joshua and Mehitabel. 
• "Jason" would have been an extremely unusual name for that time and place.  I am making the assumption that it is a misreading of "Joseph".  Feel free to disagree; not having seen the original record, this is mostly speculation on my part, bolstered only by the lack of correspondence between birth and baptism records of the first four children.
• That "Thomas, Jr" is listed as the father in the birth records for the first two children is interesting.  The notion that there were two different Narramore families - both with the husband a "junior" and the wife named Lydia - living in this area and having children at the same time is simply absurd; moreover, the baptismal records of the Thompson Congregational church make it clear that these are all the same family.  This leaves two possibilities:  (1) that it was a simple transcribing error by Barbour, or (2) that we have evidence here of something that was supposedly very uncommon in those days:  a middle name.  Historians tell us that that middle names were rare among the ordinary sort until the 19th century, and yet we can see from the baptismal record that Samuel and Lydia gave their youngest son Joshua the middle name Davis.  It's possible that the custom wasn't quite as unusual as we might think, but that it was informal and only sparsely documented.  If so, it could well be that both père and fils were Samuel Thomas Narramore.
• Lydia, "wife of S[] Narramore junr" was admitted into full communion in the Thompson Congregational church on January 7, 1739.  The same record indicates a dismissal from the church in Malden.  Given that her first child had been born at Killingly nearly nine years earlier, this seems to be indicative more of a delay in the bookkeeping than anything else.
• I remember at one time coming across a published study of early Windham county court cases and noting that Samuel Narramore (presumably junior, although I don't recall for certain) appeared several times on the receiving end of suits for unpaid debts.  Unfortunately, I can no longer find that work.
• There is no record that Samuel, Jr ever joined the church in Thompson of which his father, sister and wife were members.
• It is curious, to say the least, that Samuel and Rachel left all their property to their daughter and son-in-law, to the complete exclusion of their only son and eldest child.  It is also rather curious that Samuel Jr. and Lydia were left as wards of the town, while the next generation of the family had all departed from Connecticut to New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New York.  Doubtless there is an interesting story here, but one that can't be unraveled at this long remove.