Molly Wright Holbrook: I found her!

All right.  Molly is playing with me.  She has haunted my dreams for years and now that I've found her, three times my almost finished blog post has completely disappeared from my screen.  She seems to want her privacy, but after spending years, probably dozens and perhaps hundreds of hours, and $376.90 looking for her, I am going to tell what I've learned of her family, whether Molly likes it or not.  (Just kidding, but why would this blog post keep disappearing?)

Molly has been the ancestor I've most wanted to find.  She was probably incredibly feisty, since she raised nine children after her husband, Amariah Holbrook, died in 1797.  She was unusual for the time in that she did not remarry, although remarriage would have given her some security for her family.  But she has also been hidden, despite all the time and money I've spent looking for her, and I was beginning to think I'd never be able to identify her.  I am so glad I was wrong!   

I learned from searching the new database on American Ancestors, Norfolk County, Massachusetts probate files 1793-1877, that Jonathan Wright's estate was probated in April of 1797.  He was from Franklin, Norfolk County, so I had hopes that he was some sort of relation to Molly, since that was her home before her marriage.

Imagine my joy to learn that Jonathan was Molly's father, and the relationship was clearly spelled out in the administration papers.  More than that, three other children, siblings to Molly, were named.  Seth was the sole surviving son and there was also Esther Aldis and Suzannah Wright, as well as a family I haven't yet identified.  There seems to be a relationship but the wording is not specific so I'll need to research that. 

 I have learned that Jonathan married Rebecca )Rebecah) Willson or Wilson in 1741 in Wrentham, and the first three children were born during the early 1740s.  Seth, in fact, was born about four months after the marriage.  Molly wasn't born until 1759, and I still don't have a birth record for her so I don't know whether or not Rebecca is her mother.  There was plenty of time between son Jonathan's birth in 1749 and Molly's in 1759 for Rebecca to have died and Jonathan to have remarried.  Or perhaps they simply left the area for a time and then moved back. There is no mention of a wife in the estate packet, unless this other family somehow fits in there. 

The main thing I learned about Molly from this discovery is that 1797 was a very hard year for this feisty woman.  Son Lyman was born in February of 1797.  Her father died before April 4, 1797, and  her husband, Amariah, died September 7, 1797.  On top of that, it became apparent that her father's estate was insolvent, so there would be no inheritance.  Molly would soon start fighting for a pension for Amariah's Revolutionary War service, but I don't know what else she did to support herself.  Spinning and weaving may have been one of the money making ventures.

Simply knowing that Molly did have a family, that she wasn't dropped from an alien space ship after all, is a joy.  I hope to research Jonathan and Rebecca as time allows over the next weeks and months, but for now, I am content to leave Molly with her father, a yeoman of very little monetary worth when he died. But he's precious to me.  He must have been a good father, to have given Molly the tools she needed to survive in this world.  Oh, one other thing:  In the probate papers, Amariah and Molly were the only two people to sign their names.  The other children made their mark.

The line of descent is:

Molly Wright-Amariah Holbrook
Nahum Holbrook-Susanna Rockwood
Joseph Holbrook-Mary Elizabeth Whittemore
Fremont Holbrook-Phoebe Brown
Loren Holbrook-Etta Stanard
Gladys Holbrook-Richard Allen
Their descendants