William WENTWORTH

Family/Spouse: Susannah CARTER. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Name:
An entry in the journal of Rev. John Pike, pastor of his church, reads as follows:

March 16, 96/7, Elder Wentworth deceased a few days after he was taken speechles with a sudden shivering.

The entry on the return made by appraisers, however, says that he died on the fifteenth. If this be so, he died on the eighty-first anniversary of the day of his baptism.


The nearest approach we can make to the date of Elder Williams first marriage is from the birth of his son Samuel, believed to be his eldest Child. According to his tombstone, he "died March ye 25th, 1690, in the 50th year of his age." The year was 1690/1, as the date of his Will proves: and he must therefore have been born in the year 1641. At that time Elder William was twenty-four years of age. If he came to this country in 1637, it is hardly probable that he had married in England, as he would have been but twenty years old when he left England. But there is nothing whatever to show when or where he married his first wife, except that it must have been as early as 1640.

It is also difficult even to conjecture when the first wife died, and when he married his second wife. There is not record of the births of his children; but if we suppose that each son was put upon the taxlist as he came of age, then John (the second) was born about 1647; Gershom, 1649; Ezekiel, 1651; and Elizabeth, by record, 1653. Paul, Sylvanus, and timothy, according to tradition, were also children of the first wife; and while neither name is on the tax-lists, there is nothing in dates which prove them to have come of age to oppose this tradition. The place of Sarah (whom we consider his daughter) is uncertain; but Ephraim and Benjamin must both be regarded, from tradition and age, as children of the second wife. The dates agree with this, and the tradition that these children were born after som of the Elder's grandchildren (the first of whom, Samuel, son of Samuel, was born 9 April 1666) place their birth after that date. The second marriage can easily be supposed to be anywhere from 1665 to 1670, or even later, his later children being born thirty years after he was first a father.

There can be no question that one wife of Elder William was Elizabeth Kenny. The Canadian record already quoted is exact. It is also clear that she was the mother of Elizabeth, who was born in 1653. If this date is correct, it seems clear that Elizabeth Kenny must have been the fist wife. The Elder was not "advanced in years" if he married her in 1652, being only thirty-five years old; and other children, who have always been regarded as children of the first wife must of necessity have been born later than 1653.

Family/Spouse: Elizabeth KENNY. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: ? UNKNOWN. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]