Holbrook line: John Stannard of Suffield, Connecticut and Sheffield and New Marlborough Massachusetts

 After writing 902 blog posts, I'm finding that many of the remaining ancestors I want to write about have great big question marks around their names.  John Stannard is one of them.  He is reported to have been born anywhere from 1720 to 1729, and there is a good deal of discussion about the identification of his mother.  The problem is that Suffield, Connecticut, where John may or may not have been born, contained more than one, possibly as many as three, men by the name of John Stannard.  

Our John was the son of John Stannard, which still doesn't narrow the field down by much.  Most trees give his mother as Rachel Conklin, but, although I don't have proof yet, I currently believe his mother was Hannah Jordan, widow of Samuel Bate.  This couple was married in 1717 in "Old Saybrook", Connecticut.  There is an article in the 2019 Connecticut Nutmegger which I am unable to access, which may very well straighten this out.  

Assuming that John and Hannah were his parents, John would have had at least three sisters.  One was born about 1718, one about 1721 and one about 1725.  John could have fit into either of those times between daughters, or he may have been born after the last one.  We don't know why records of his birth haven't been located.  New England records are good, but not perfect!

John's parents moved to Suffield, Connecticut at some point, and that is where this John married Hannah Hanchett, daughter of John and Lydia Hayward Hanchett, on November 9, 1748.  He may have just returned from military duty, because there is record of a John Stannard of Suffield, Ct. in 1747, in "Colonial Officers and Soldiers in New England 1620-1775". He is listed as a private on 6/23/1747.  But there were other John Stannards of the right age to have served then, so I am only saying this is a possibility, not a given.  This was likely connected to King George's war, which was an uprising by native Americans against the colonists and the British, primarily in what is now Maine.  Again, this is just a guess, and there were other campaigns in eastern New York that may have been the area that John Stannard, whoever he was, participated in.

John and Hannah's children were apparently all born in Suffield.  Their family is quite recognizable because they chose just a few family names for their eleven children.  The majority were given names going back to Roman days, such as Libbeus, Claudius, and Pliny, as well as unusual Biblical names such as Jehiel, and Greek names such as Chloe.  We needn't speculate about the education of this family; the parents were certainly literate and familiar with the classics.

Here's where it gets even more complicated.  Most trees say that John died in Suffield, Connecticut in 1807 and indeed there is a will for John Stannard with that date.  However, none of the names of the children, or of the wife, match with what we know of John's family.  I don't think this is our John Stannard.

I would like to find someone who has researched this man, and learn whether there is support for John having moved to Sheffield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts.  A man by that name died there in 1772.  His widow's name was Hannah, later Hannah Huxley.  He died without a will and the case file contains about 32 pages in his estate file, but I didn't locate the name of any of his children in the file.  His estate didn't cover his debts, so although the widow got her one third share, the rest of the estate seems to have gone to his creditors, of whom there were many.  Sheffield caught my eye because Ethan Allen had some connections in that place, and Libbeus Stannard was one of Allen's  "Green Mountain Boys" during the Revolutionary War. Actually, John is referred to as being from New Marlborough, which wasn't incorporated until 1775.  At the time John died, it would still have officially been Sheffield.

I hope to do more research regarding John.  If he died in Massachusetts in 1772, then there should be guardianship records for the children.  There should be marriage records for Hannah's second marriage, and there may be records in Mr. Huxley's file that relate to the children, possibly including land records.  And there's that tantalizing article in the Connecticut Nutmegger, which I must track down.  I will try to update this post when I learn more.

The line of descent is:

John Stannard-Hannah Hanchett

Libbeus Stannard-Eunice Pomeroy

Libbeus Stanard-Luceba Fay

Hiram Stanard-Susan Eddy

Louis Stanard-Mary Alice Hetrick

Etta Stanard-Loren Holbrook

Gladys Holbrook-Richard Allen

Their descendants