Holbrook line: Jonathan Thayer 1658-1690

A life cut short...Jonathan Thayer was one of the several children of Fernando or Ferdinando and Huldah Hayward Thayer.  He was born January 1, 1658 and he died sometime in 1690.  He lived just 32 years.  That is probably why I can find so little information about him. 

He married Elizabeth French, daughter of John and Freedom French, on June 22, 1679, and that is where he and Elizabeth raised their family. Four children, Huldah, Grace, Deborah and Jonathan, were born to the couple, and our Jonathan also had an illegitimate child with Sarah Darling, Hezekiah Thayer, who died young. (This last was born in 1687). It would be interesting to find the court records for that situation.  Jonathan probably had to pay some kind of support for the young child, and Sarah could very well have been jailed and whipped.   

That is as much as I can tell you, and honestly, I don't have a source for the Hezekiah story.  It's on Find a Grave, so take it for whatever it's worth.

Now, I'm going to speculate for a couple of sentences.  Huldah, Jonathan's mother, died in 1690.  1690 was a horrible year for smallpox in the Boston area (Mendon was near enough for this purpose to be counted as Boston.)  Did both of them die of smallpox?  Jonathan apparently died before September 14, 1690 (date of inventory)  and his mother died in September,   Had one of them been caring for the other?

We can't tell much about Jonathan from the inventory, which was taken September 14, 1690.  The inventory included 10 acres of land, a dwelling and out (housing, laying, not sure what it says), two cows, three yearlings, and one calf, ten swine, 2 horses, a cart, arms and ammunition, a debt from his father, and a few household goods such as beds and a chest.  It's a pretty meager inventory. 

Elizabeth went on to marry Benjamin Wheelock in 1692, and her daughter Huldah, our ancestor, married his son Benjamin, also our ancestor.  It's nice to think that something good happened out of these tragedies. 

The line of descent is:

Jonathan Thayer-Elizabeth French
Huldah Thayer-Benjamin Wheelock
Mary Wheelock-Ebenezer Thayer
Abigail Thayer-Jesse Holbrook
Amariah Holbrook-Molly Wright
Nahum Holbrook=Susanna Rockwood
Joseph Holbrook-Mary Elizabeth Whittemore
Fremont Holbrook-Phoebe Brown
Loren Holbrook-Etta Stanard
Gladys Holbrook-Richard Allen