Given an unforgettable and unique Puritan name (Old Testament priest, mis-treated politically), this Abiathar French was the first of three Abiathar Frenches "in a row". He was:
**Baptized on the Fourth of July,
Near Paul Revere and all the rest, their family's different generations had attended three town-authorized churches, experiments in local democracy showing what not to do when democracy was tried nationally, that a balance of powers was needed. With the mother Braintree allowing one new church-town combo one every generation or two, their attendance areas slowly divided old mother Braintree into parts, now suburban, south of Boston, MA. As the old mother town broke into daughter towns, Quincy formed first, to the northwest of the modern remnant still called Braintree today. Quincy had the oldest church, next to what is called Hancock Cemetery. Going south and east from Quincy's high spot at Mt. Wollaston, one reaches modern Braintree, it second church and burying ground on Elm Street, upriver of Weymouth's its saltier tidal river, on the freshwater Monatiquot R. The third precinct's church was created last, uphill, up river and thus southmost, became Randolph, named post-Revolution (Central Cemetery and the church near it).
Great-grandmother Grace French was buried outside the 1st,even though greatly inconvenient for them and others with occupations that put them southward. Grandfather Dependence French was of a committee, circa 1718, that finalized the purchase of the burying ground for the far more convenient second church, with aunts and uncles buried there, surely he was as well. The acquired pasture became the front of Elm Street Cem. Assumed made desperate by the emerging emergency, the committee allowed contract terms that let the owner continue using the land as pasture, said a consultant for the city circa 2010. The continued use as pasture, back then, and aggressive lawn mowing, later, caused the front of Elm now to appear empty, so many of its stones are missing.
Mother Braintree was in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a British province. It would become the state of Massachusetts before this Abiathar died. His distant cousins were up in the Republic of Vermont, to delay becoming the 14th state until 1790, waiting until strong, amendable Constitution with its Bill of Rights among the amendments, had replaced the confederation paperwork. Thus, he and those cousins were born British citizens, but would all die American ones.
i**Pre-Revolution Days, no Fourth of July yet./i
Abiathar and family left the Braintree area pre-Revolution. Well before then, he and his wife Margaret Niles were both baptized at the second church, where Margaret's distant cousin, Rev. Niles, had held funerals for aunts and uncles (his grandfather Dependence surviving). Much of that generation died in sickness years running maybe 1718-1723, a sickness that almost killed Rev. Niles, did kill his servant Cesar, written about in Niles' diary.
Their own children's baptisms were discovered at the third church, by a family historian, Waldo Sprague, researching the records, mid-1800s. Before Abiathar's family left, a ten-day contagion caused burials of multiple of Margaret's Niles close relatives at Central.
Having fewer alive, to say good-bye to, did that make it easier to say good-bye?
Decades later, long after they'd left, Holbrook separated from Randolph. The complaints of going to church turning Sunday into a day of labor, not rest, had been long-lived, encouraged authorizing the second and then the third church. For an idea of the danger involved in crossing rivers, weakly ice-covered, to get to church, read about Gideon Thayer, younger brother of that Anna Thayer who had married one of multiple called Dependence French. (An uncle to Abiathar, he, in turn, was son of the very first Dependence French, grandfather to Abiathar.)
Holbrook was east of modern Randolph's east boundary, along the Cochato R.
Holbrook was south of modern Braintree's south boundary, along the Monatiquot R.
Village-like hamlets alongside and named for the two waterways kept their native names, at first. For future Holbrook, cross the wide-enough Cochato let them get to the third-authorized church at/near Cochato, future Randolph. Earlier, they'd had to cross the even wider and more dangerous Monatiquot, to get to the second-authorized church, near the modern Elm Street Cem.
Crossing that larger river? In-law Gilbert Thayer had died. How many others?
i**Seeing the last Braintree farmland "running out"/i
Abiathar was of the generation reaching maturity as "the last empty land ran out". Future Randolph? Not do-able. Twinned brothers John and Dependence French, almost 20 years older, had managed to find one of the last decent spots, not in, just outside what became Randolph.
Modern Avon keeps an old sketch map showing the twins' names on opposite sides of a country lane with very few neighbors, just outside Randolph's west bounds. The cottage-like former farmhouse of twin John French was advertised for sale in 2008. The ad listed a house construction date of 1748, Abiathar then about 16 , as the twins pushed past their 35th birthdays. (See cottage photos at FrenchFamilyAssoc.com, aka FFA, a very useful site, begun in 2007 by an unrelated Marla French.)
2008 was before a modern male French, still in the Braintree area, had a DNA test that finally proved a key thing. Long argued and debated, some said different Frenches must be related, given the same surname and the same too common firstname. Instead, in 2014,the Braintree John French, farmer, south of Boston, with wife Grace d1680, was proven unrelated to Freedom Kingsley's John French, tailor, distant from Boston. The Braintree set was Haplogroup I, not the same as the other set's Haplogroup G.
Their different Frenches were among over 20 sets, overall, with surname French unrelated (test markers beyond Haplogroup needed to find relatives). Haplogroup G, with women named Riddlesdale and Kingsley, had its early geography north of Boston, in Ipswich, some then moving to the Conn. River towns, with their distant cousins in Billerica . Many unrelated early sets were of the common Haplogroup R, early places scattered, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia/Kentucky, one set in a part of NY with Tory Loyalist kin off to Canada at Revolution time.
Paths taken by people with different DNAs did not cross much until about 1750, when more left their home towns to "go west". There were even more crossings when people left small towns for big cities. The accumulated testers, thus far (2023) are viewable in a "surname study" at FamilyTreeDna.com, a "colorized chart" there sorted into groups and supervised by the FFA. The Braintree-related testers are put into Group 25, the Ipswich-related ones into Group 6).
**Father of seven children,
His children were known to have married in western Mass, after having moved there with him and wife Margaret Niles, to Hampshire County. It's in the west third of the state, on the west side of the Connecticut River, easier to reach New York state (west), Connecticut (south) and Vermont (north) from there, back then, than to travel Boston (east). His children were:
Sons, by age-- first, Abiathar (the junior, m. Alvord), then Jonathan French (m. Barker).
Only Abiathar the junior 's family left Mass., waiting to do that until after Abiathar III had died, with the other children at or near marriage age at the time.
Daughters, by age-- first, Rhoda (m. Pitzinger/Pittsinger), then Mary C. (m. Chilson), Dorothy (m. Alvord), and maybe one more, older than Mary C..
Was there another daughter, a Rebecca French? Like her sister Mary, as she also married a Chilson? Presented in some family trees as Rhoda's twin, both she and Rhoda were then listed as eldest daughters, born before sister Mary C. When presented as a non-twins, Mary C was second, after Rhoda, Rebecca last, youngest.
A possibility? Rebecca and Rhoda could be "baptismal twins", born in adjacent years, baptized on the same day. The elder one's baptism for such "twins" could have been delayed for health issues or due to waiting until some absent relative returned home.
Rebecca's death place and death date are not given in any tree? Nor is her spouse's first name listed, nor are children. Two Chilson men, however, were neighbors of this Abiathar and his son and the others, for their 1790 US Census in Hampshire County. That one named heads of household only, counting everyone inside by age-sex category, including boarders, "hired help:, and visitors, often informative to detect age category of eldest male, then eldest female, which households were packed with the youngest children
By 1790, his son, Abiather the junior, had married neighbor Beriah Alvord. She was of a family long-term in western Mass., along the Conn. River.
Margaret Niles, mother to junior, wife to this senior Abiathar, must have died by then, as the senior married a Naomi Alvord a few months later. Once junior's elder children could be independent in clearing land and preparing a site for the rest to follow, that younger Abiathar's family went to northeast Ohio. They did so before the War of 1812, so very early.
He was...
**Father to the Abiathar Jr. who would move away,
What if someone you knew and loved were sent off to war, not under mature neighbors he trusted, but led by somebody barely 35? What if that person in charge had been promoted to Colonel unexpectedly? Not spending years working his way up, from private, to sergeant, to captain, to major, and then, finally, to colonel, was instead, magically appointed to the top post, merely after serving on a supply committee?
What if small pox were flaring up among that man's troops as your beloved son left? Claimed it was God's will if anyone died, instead of taking proper precautions, given inoculations were available be then and could be self-administered?
Their family had came from Braintree, its first church a daughter to a mother church run by Rev. Richard Mather in Dorchester. One of the Mathers (his son, Cotton?) was said to own a slave (made illegal once Massachusetts could author its own state constitution, no longer obliged to follow British law, where slavery was legal until maybe 1820 or so). That slave remembered a trick from his homeland, how to self-inoculate against small-pox. Knowledge of the trick spread. It was observed that 30% of the un-inoculated died, far fewer of the innoculated.
What if you knew the death rate would be worse in war camps, as that is the nature of things? What if some young soldiers in the regiment decided to inoculate themselves, no doctors around to do it? Their officials had decided not to inoculate, despite Mather's encouragement? Those self-inoculating knew a third of them would get the fever. Then, only a small subset of those would die during their fever, fewer if under good care. Why was no hospital authorized? These could be relevant thoughts about his son Abiathar's life, while of fighting age.
Abiathar the junior would apparently remember two sisters regarded as twin-like. He would name two of his own daughters Rebecca and Rhoda.
His Rhoda would marry Luther Keep, from Longmeadow MA, after both had gone to Ohio. They would move early to the disputed Indiana/Michigan border, thinking their land was totally on the Michigan side, later finding it split between two states (pasture in Michigan, house in Indiana?) The name Luther honored Martin Luther, showing exposure to the Hessians caused at least some of the Puritan-descended to ponder the differences between Luther and Calvin.
His Rebecca would marry, interestingly, a Clapp. One of two Clapps brothers, they travelled with a Spencer Phelps to what became Leroy Twp. in what became Lake County in Ohio. They left western Mass. a year or two ahead of some of her brothers, instead arriving with a future brother-in-law named Charles Keneippe (many spellings), whose father had been a defecting Hessian in the Revolution. His father, called Christian Keneippe, was rewarded for that defection with land promises, took advantage of them by going west (to Indiana? On the Wabash River across near Vincennes?). The trip was made not long before Christian's son-in-law David French died up in Ohio, walking on the road to Newburgh, its ridge above Cleveland, with a Mill Stream leading down and thus mills. A canal was being built, to do down to the Ohio River, ending near where Christian and sons were settling. Some canal workers (drinking? robbery in mind?) had attacked David and he died, several days later.
**Son to Mary Vinton and her John French,
Abiathar the Sr. was a middle son of that John French who wed Mary Vinton. You could not always "get by" on farming alone, so John was also described as a hunter, trapper, miller. (Millers needed water power, making sense of that John French's location on the Cochato River, near Braintree, Ma, in the part that would become Randolph. His father Dependence had had a mill, too? someone commented on his dam made for his mill.)
Abiathar's mother, Mary, was of the iron-working Vintons (iron-forging also needs water, but for cooling). She brought "fresh blood" to town. Liking this new person in town, John would not have to marry a cousin, not even a distant one. However, his whole church would need to learn the meaning of religious tolerance. Mary refused to sign the full covenant of their church, yet desired infant baptisms in that church for her children. Could she sign a half-covenant, not the whole thing? This had not been permitted for her eldest. Eventually, church officials relented, in time for the birth/baptism of her twin sons? We were not told which lines in the covenant she wished to cross out.
**Grandson of long-lived Dependence French and Rebecca Fenno,
When you live the longest, you watch all the others die? Grandfather Dependence had that experience, three of his siblings and two of their spouses taken in a year or two, by a stretched-out epidemic in Rev. Niles first few years at the church.
**Great-grandson of the original John & Grace French.
That first John French of Braintree was declared a Braintree "freeman" around 1644, after granted property there earlier, 1639/1640, the whole process sometimes rounded off to 1640. Clearly of the Puritan era, he was in the area earlier, judging from dates of baptismal records for his eldest three children at the mother church of Dorchester.
Of all of these who preceded Abiathar, one whose old gravemarker still stands? That would John's wife, of the immigrant era, called Grace, maiden name Unknown, Abiathar's great-grandmother. The first John French of Braintree is probably buried beside her, as his second wife is also in the cemetery, buried by her first husband: Grace's stone. The first burying ground (Hancock at Quincy) was near an old trading post, with wide access to the sea and its own harbor, inconvenient as too far from where the family actually lived. Mrs. Grace French's good fortune, however, was to be buried in the same churchyard as relatives of a dead President's family (the Quincys and Adams). Much work has been done to preserve the political families' graves, with many stones near them replaced in the 1800s, including her own. (The dark replacement stone stands near her older original, the original's lettering possibly preserved by being face down in the dirt. )
Grace French, John's wife, some think, possibly was of the Aldens of Plymouth. Arguing against that, no descendants wrote that down until the 1870s or so. Thus, someone may easily have confused her with someone else named French in the local cemeteries, later generation, who had married an Alden. She was of the right age to be the Alden's eldest daughter. However, the number of Alden children was known, all claimed ' none left unclaimed or called Grace.
No will was left by the Aldens, nor by Grace's parents, if they were not the Aldens. No maiden name was put on her tombstone. It was too early for the later custom of giving the mother's maiden name to the children. (That would be done for cousins in Abiathar's generation, one to be named Wales French.)
This Abiathar's parents and grandparents raised their children in what is now modern Braintree. Before becoming that suburb, their area, after much delay, finally was granted permission for its own church, the second to be town-authorized. Once there was a third church, further upstream, in what began as Cochato, to be Randolph, the second's parish was renamed as "middle precinct". This first Abiathar French most likely married Margaret Niles in the third church, as their children were baptized there, now called the First Congregational of Randolph.
With land inside the old Braintree boundaries all taken, two older brothers of Abiathar had found new land barely outside old Braintree. (His twin brothers, John and Dependence, named for a prior generation of Frenches, found "empty land" in what later became modern Avon and Brockton. Those modern suburbs were then still isolated corners of old Stoughton and old Bridgewater, respectively. Bridgewater was actually in the next county south, called Plymouth. Distant cousins who had left Braintree much earlier were off in Medfield and Mendon, also close-by, instead barely inside the next county west, a huge one called Worcester that never split into parts stretched across the colony's length, going north to south.)
Born very late in the family order, it was too late to find "empty land" for either him or his younger brother Joshua. This senior Abiathar thus moved to a more distant place, Hampshire County, on the remote side of what became Worcester County, while the youngest brother of four, Joshua, stayed behind, at Braintree, south of Boston, to assist their parents. Joshua must have taken over their pre-existing family farm and any remaining businesses that brought income when farming was slack. This perhaps was done by buying out his siblings' inherited shares?
Abiathar the senior was last of record in the Braintree area when about 38, listed in a court record as a yeoman. He moved quite a distance by their standards, news of the western frontier of Massachusetts delivered by those who had served earlier in the French-Indian Wars. That warring, run while Abiathar's people were all still British, made final the taking of lands from French and natives and their mixed population, to be sold or conveyed as bounty to the landless sons of those still British. The British government said it needed to be paid back for sending its soldiers and building the forts, so raised taxes in the colonies without asking those taxed how much to raise, in what manner, or how it should be spent. That set the stage for the American Revolution.
**Widower and neighbor.
His last records before he died in the new place, Hampshire County, on the western end of the Bay Colony? Two named him specifically:
(1)A petition in 1778, to split off, from old Northampton, as Westhampton, as over six miles from the Northampton church. This was signed also by Abiathar the junior and many neighbors who were past and future in-laws. These included Noah Howard/Hayward, who was said to have left the old Braintree area with this Abiathar and Margaret, as his wife was Margaret's sister.
(2) A second marriage in 1789, to a Naomi Alvord.
Two later records, both US Censuses, for 1790 and again in 1800, showed one of the Abiathar Frenches in Westhampton, with unnamed people inside the household. For the 1810 Census, the junior Abiathar had already moved to Ohio, residing just below one of the Great Lakes . +Stray British troops there venturing across from Canada or down from Detroit scared US census-takers away from Ohio, so no census was done, in 1810 even though done for other territories that were not yet full states.
**Patriarch to the many descended of his children
Which children of this senior Abiathar stayed in Hampshire County? Some of his descendants were via them.
Daughter Dorothy stayed, after marrying Jehiel Alvor. (Jehiel's sister Beriah was the one to later marry Dorothy's eldest brother, Abiathar the junior.)
They were in an era when girls "emancipated" at age 12. Dorothy is thought to perhaps have married at a very young age, making it possible to have a larger family. An 1850 US Census would count her son Jehiel Alvord the junior visiting in Ohio at a small hotel or inn run by one of Beriah and Abiathar's grandsons.
Daughter Rhoda instead married a Hessian soldier, called something like Johannes Petzinger back home in Prussia, his name Anglicized here into John Pittsinger. How did a German-speaker come to America so early? Brought here to fight on the British side in the American Revolution, he was captured by the new Americans at Bennington, now in the southwest corner of modern Vermont, in Aug. of 1777. When finished with his punishment (usually indenture, with the sponsoring govt. keeping the money from the sale of the captured Hessians' work contracts), he chose to stay.
Did he stay, because he had fallen in love? Mr. Pittsinger became a farmer well-regarded for his skill.
Also staying in Hampshire County was son Jonathan French, His stone still survives in Westhampton. Jonathan probably took over the family farm.
Who left Hampshire County? We know that the older son, Abiathar Jr., fought in the American Revolution before he married Beriah. He was pardoned for leaving an incompetently-run regiment overrun by small-pox, given he had returned to service by finding a more experienced command. Those from Braintree had been exposed to the varied Reverend Mathers fathered by Richard Mather. Richard Mather's sons were not uniform, varying some in approaches. One of them owned the aforementioned slave who knew, as African "folk medicine", how to stop small pox. Whether the slave was treated well or poorly, whether he was freed or not, we do not know. Again, we don't know Abiathar the junior's role in all of this. A set of the soldiers, maybe including him, maybe not, knowing they were marching into a thicket of smallpox wanted to self-inoculate, choosing to be mildly sick for a short time in order to avoid serious sickness and death. They needed a place and enough days to recover. Certain commanding officers refused to give permission, claiming predestination as a religious excuse, saying, if it was God's will that the young men die of small pox, then people should let the soldiers die of small pox, even though it could be prevented.
Military records said Abiathar the junior was 20 in Feb. 1776, enlisting as the American Revolution began. Again, those in charge of ordering that troops be sent on a small-pox ridden march toward Canada were neither punished nor vilified for their mistaken judgment. We do know he left and found a better commander. The better regiment and company found was that with Maj. Jonathan Clapp in command, not on an easy mission, taking the march to Ticonderaga, NY, in July, 1777.
The young Abiathar remained, after that, in Capt. Oliver Lyman's company, to join still another regiment, for expeditions to Stillwater and Saratoga, NY. The places in NY are worth mentioning, as the marches toward them showed farmland below the Great Lakes was producing better crops than seen at home. Soldiers coming back would have remarked on this to their families, causing moves away from Massachusetts.
Abiathar Jr. would, post-War, return to marry Beriah Alvord. Again, she was already an in-law, due to sister Dorothy's marriage to Jehiel Alvord.
The almost-adult children of young Abiathar would depart for the Lake Erie shoreline of Ohio, did so well before the War of 1812, with their parents (junior and Beriah) and others joining them in 1806. The third Abiathar, left behind in a graveyard, was recorded in a Pittsinger family tree as having died in his early teens.
What about Jr's sister Rebecca? The tree showing her as Rhoda's twin was that by the Pitzingers/Pittsingers. People may know their own direct ancestor's birth date. They then guess about siblings when they don't have birth or death records? We don't know this with certainty, but an unwillingness to believe that Dorothy had married at age 12 might have caused Pittsinger descendants to shift others' ages around, having Dorothy appear older at marriage, 15, not 12.
SOURCES---
The following shows names and dates, not stories. These aid in finding his children and grandchildren, via their in-laws:
His Second Marriage. Once a widower, an old book, "The Burke and Alvord Memorial", says he remarried in S. Hadley, to Naomi Alvord of that town, month unstated, but in the year after the second of his two children did marry an Alvord . Who was Naomi Alvord? We don't know exactly. A young Naomi had been born in S. Hadley, to "Gad" Alvord, then married, but not to any Frenches. An older woman, better matched on age, Naomi Rogers, had married an Alvord in S. Hadley, was perhaps a widow by the time of this Abiathar's remarriage. Regardless, the total number of marriages between Frenches and Alvords then reached three. This eldest Abiathar may have gone to live where she preferred, turned his land in what became Westhampton over to his two sons, the junior Abiathar and the mysterious Jonathan
With three more marriages, brought the Alvords' some new in-laws, some named Phelps and Clapp and Bartlett,who would take notice of these new Frenches.
(SIDE NOTE: The Braintree Frenches were new to western Massachusetts (Hampshire County) in the sense of arriving "late", not there fully until 1770, well after the French and Indian wars finished. A John French of Ipswich arrived in Hampshire County a century earlier, in the 1660s. The Ipswich John French had married Freedom Kingsley elsewhere, then followed her brother Enos Kingsley to Hampshire County. Modern testing of the Braintree set in mid-2014 proved Grace's John French of Braintree was of different DNA. Before there was DNA, the astute might notice the two sets generally had different in-laws, except for the Bartletts. While still living in Hampshire County, Abiathar Jr's son Jacob married Abigail Bartlett. Her mother was a Pomeroy, who, in turn, descended on her own mother's side from Freedom Kingsley's youngest son, Jonathan French, via that Jonathan's son, Ebenezer French.
Petition for Westhampton Spin-off. Abiathar's other last record? On June 2, 1778, he and his namesake son, signing as Junr., with both their names correctly spelled, neither as AbiathEr, were 2 of 48 requesting that Westhampton split from Northampton and be separately incorporated as its own town. Their reason? All signers were more than six miles from Northampton's "meeting house" (a combination of church and town hall). The House of Reps. meeting in Boston concurred in Oct. of 1778. They would then have their own church in Westhampton, under Rev. Solomon Williams.
Many names on the petition were related via marriage. These were:
*Current Chilson in-laws (Elihu and Joseph Chilson). They became related via Abiathar senior's daughter Mary C. French marrying a Chilson.
*Future Bartlett in-laws (William, Elihu and Joel Bartlett). These would become related in or around 1801, when one of Abiathar junior's sons, Jacob French, married Abigail Bartlett.
Multiple other surnames were recognizable as Braintree in origin.
*Noah Hayward, aka Howard, who signed immediately below their names, indicating they stood in line together to sign the list. Was the one who married a Niles, the sister of Abiathar's wife? Or related to teh Benjamin Hayward Jr. who had left this Abiathar's older sister Hannah a widow before she married Isaac Allen, back home?
*Jonathan Wales, reminding us that Abiathar's younger brother, Joshua, who stayed behind in Braintree on the family land, had married an Esther Wales.
*Multiple Thayers. This Abiathar's grandfather had been the first Dependence French. Dependence's eldest brother, John, and their sister Elizabeth had both married Thayers. Elizabeth and her first husband followed land-developing Ferdinando Thayer westward, out to Mendon, once the frontier of Worcester County, very early. After her Thayer died, great-aunt Elizabeth had married a Wheelock, not from Braintree.
*A Burke and a Timothy Phelps. Related by marriage to the Alvords, with whom these Frenches intermarried three times, as noted.
Different parts of the Phelps family were involved in early land developments in western NY (on valley land on the east side of the Genesee River, known roughly as Genesee, including the original town named Le Roy) and then later in Ohio. they were also in the Rutland/Barre region of Worcester county, for which bigger towns in Vermont were presumably named A Spencer Phelps would move from Chesterfield in northern Hampshire County MA, to Ohio, a year ahead of Abiathar's sons. Spencer came with two sons of Col. Amasa Clapp, perhaps also of Chesterfield, to clear land and plant some of the land together, before they brought larger families out. Once elderly, the only one left of them all, Spencer Phelps would tell local historians in Ohio the story of their arrival from Mass., defying those who kept saying the first settlers had come from Connecticut or from NY. (These Frenches, Spencer Phelps, and the Clapp sons, Elah and Paul, moved to the mother township of Painesville, accessed by the Grand River, east of baby Cleveland, OH, very early, maybe 1802 or 1803. The part that they all settled in first finished splitting away from that mother township sometime after the 1820 Census, to become the relatively isolated Leroy Twp. Spencer said the males thereafter quickly dispersed into other townships, as he had done the same, gone to Mentor Twp. (It had advantages, being on a major ridge, making road construction and access easier, with a crossroad then going south toward the state capital, then still at Chillicothe.)
Only this Abiathar's granddaughter, Rebecca French Clapp McMillen, stayed in Leroy with her children by Elah Clapp. Elah had died quickly, in 1811. After widowing, she married Wm. McMillen, from Penn., who farmed there.
A descendant of unrelated Freedom Kingsley French named Nathan French moved there much later. He shared the male French ancestors of Abigail Bartlett, so was still distant, but a closer cousin to her than were other "alternative DNA" Frenches descended of Freedom. His family of Frenches is buried in the same cemetery as Rebecca and her children. The cemetery is now called Brakeman, after a later arriving Germanic NY family (Brakeman might be an Anglicizing of Broeckman?) Multiple people named Burke are buried there as well, so many be of the Hampshire County Burkes.)
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Abiathar Sr, Chronology & Sources
Jonathan French, Younger son's stone, in Westhampton MA
Abiathar French Jr., Older son's cenotaph.
The cenotaph is on the stone of granddaughter Rebecca French Clapp McMillen, in Leroy, Ohio. It honored her parents, with Beriah's name mis-written as Maria, while Junior's was mis-spelled, with "-er" at the end. The mistake indicates the current clear lettering was apparently re-carved by a later generation working with faded materials, unable to copy the original spellings exactly. Beriah was merely called "Mrs. French" in an old history recalling the Western Reserve's women, indicating either the original spelling had already faded, or the name was too unusual.
Given an unforgettable and unique Puritan name (Old Testament priest, mis-treated politically), this Abiathar French was the first of three Abiathar Frenches "in a row". He was:
**Baptized on the Fourth of July,
Near Paul Revere and all the rest, their family's different generations had attended three town-authorized churches, experiments in local democracy showing what not to do when democracy was tried nationally, that a balance of powers was needed. With the mother Braintree allowing one new church-town combo one every generation or two, their attendance areas slowly divided old mother Braintree into parts, now suburban, south of Boston, MA. As the old mother town broke into daughter towns, Quincy formed first, to the northwest of the modern remnant still called Braintree today. Quincy had the oldest church, next to what is called Hancock Cemetery. Going south and east from Quincy's high spot at Mt. Wollaston, one reaches modern Braintree, it second church and burying ground on Elm Street, upriver of Weymouth's its saltier tidal river, on the freshwater Monatiquot R. The third precinct's church was created last, uphill, up river and thus southmost, became Randolph, named post-Revolution (Central Cemetery and the church near it).
Great-grandmother Grace French was buried outside the 1st,even though greatly inconvenient for them and others with occupations that put them southward. Grandfather Dependence French was of a committee, circa 1718, that finalized the purchase of the burying ground for the far more convenient second church, with aunts and uncles buried there, surely he was as well. The acquired pasture became the front of Elm Street Cem. Assumed made desperate by the emerging emergency, the committee allowed contract terms that let the owner continue using the land as pasture, said a consultant for the city circa 2010. The continued use as pasture, back then, and aggressive lawn mowing, later, caused the front of Elm now to appear empty, so many of its stones are missing.
Mother Braintree was in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a British province. It would become the state of Massachusetts before this Abiathar died. His distant cousins were up in the Republic of Vermont, to delay becoming the 14th state until 1790, waiting until strong, amendable Constitution with its Bill of Rights among the amendments, had replaced the confederation paperwork. Thus, he and those cousins were born British citizens, but would all die American ones.
i**Pre-Revolution Days, no Fourth of July yet./i
Abiathar and family left the Braintree area pre-Revolution. Well before then, he and his wife Margaret Niles were both baptized at the second church, where Margaret's distant cousin, Rev. Niles, had held funerals for aunts and uncles (his grandfather Dependence surviving). Much of that generation died in sickness years running maybe 1718-1723, a sickness that almost killed Rev. Niles, did kill his servant Cesar, written about in Niles' diary.
Their own children's baptisms were discovered at the third church, by a family historian, Waldo Sprague, researching the records, mid-1800s. Before Abiathar's family left, a ten-day contagion caused burials of multiple of Margaret's Niles close relatives at Central.
Having fewer alive, to say good-bye to, did that make it easier to say good-bye?
Decades later, long after they'd left, Holbrook separated from Randolph. The complaints of going to church turning Sunday into a day of labor, not rest, had been long-lived, encouraged authorizing the second and then the third church. For an idea of the danger involved in crossing rivers, weakly ice-covered, to get to church, read about Gideon Thayer, younger brother of that Anna Thayer who had married one of multiple called Dependence French. (An uncle to Abiathar, he, in turn, was son of the very first Dependence French, grandfather to Abiathar.)
Holbrook was east of modern Randolph's east boundary, along the Cochato R.
Holbrook was south of modern Braintree's south boundary, along the Monatiquot R.
Village-like hamlets alongside and named for the two waterways kept their native names, at first. For future Holbrook, cross the wide-enough Cochato let them get to the third-authorized church at/near Cochato, future Randolph. Earlier, they'd had to cross the even wider and more dangerous Monatiquot, to get to the second-authorized church, near the modern Elm Street Cem.
Crossing that larger river? In-law Gilbert Thayer had died. How many others?
i**Seeing the last Braintree farmland "running out"/i
Abiathar was of the generation reaching maturity as "the last empty land ran out". Future Randolph? Not do-able. Twinned brothers John and Dependence French, almost 20 years older, had managed to find one of the last decent spots, not in, just outside what became Randolph.
Modern Avon keeps an old sketch map showing the twins' names on opposite sides of a country lane with very few neighbors, just outside Randolph's west bounds. The cottage-like former farmhouse of twin John French was advertised for sale in 2008. The ad listed a house construction date of 1748, Abiathar then about 16 , as the twins pushed past their 35th birthdays. (See cottage photos at FrenchFamilyAssoc.com, aka FFA, a very useful site, begun in 2007 by an unrelated Marla French.)
2008 was before a modern male French, still in the Braintree area, had a DNA test that finally proved a key thing. Long argued and debated, some said different Frenches must be related, given the same surname and the same too common firstname. Instead, in 2014,the Braintree John French, farmer, south of Boston, with wife Grace d1680, was proven unrelated to Freedom Kingsley's John French, tailor, distant from Boston. The Braintree set was Haplogroup I, not the same as the other set's Haplogroup G.
Their different Frenches were among over 20 sets, overall, with surname French unrelated (test markers beyond Haplogroup needed to find relatives). Haplogroup G, with women named Riddlesdale and Kingsley, had its early geography north of Boston, in Ipswich, some then moving to the Conn. River towns, with their distant cousins in Billerica . Many unrelated early sets were of the common Haplogroup R, early places scattered, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia/Kentucky, one set in a part of NY with Tory Loyalist kin off to Canada at Revolution time.
Paths taken by people with different DNAs did not cross much until about 1750, when more left their home towns to "go west". There were even more crossings when people left small towns for big cities. The accumulated testers, thus far (2023) are viewable in a "surname study" at FamilyTreeDna.com, a "colorized chart" there sorted into groups and supervised by the FFA. The Braintree-related testers are put into Group 25, the Ipswich-related ones into Group 6).
**Father of seven children,
His children were known to have married in western Mass, after having moved there with him and wife Margaret Niles, to Hampshire County. It's in the west third of the state, on the west side of the Connecticut River, easier to reach New York state (west), Connecticut (south) and Vermont (north) from there, back then, than to travel Boston (east). His children were:
Sons, by age-- first, Abiathar (the junior, m. Alvord), then Jonathan French (m. Barker).
Only Abiathar the junior 's family left Mass., waiting to do that until after Abiathar III had died, with the other children at or near marriage age at the time.
Daughters, by age-- first, Rhoda (m. Pitzinger/Pittsinger), then Mary C. (m. Chilson), Dorothy (m. Alvord), and maybe one more, older than Mary C..
Was there another daughter, a Rebecca French? Like her sister Mary, as she also married a Chilson? Presented in some family trees as Rhoda's twin, both she and Rhoda were then listed as eldest daughters, born before sister Mary C. When presented as a non-twins, Mary C was second, after Rhoda, Rebecca last, youngest.
A possibility? Rebecca and Rhoda could be "baptismal twins", born in adjacent years, baptized on the same day. The elder one's baptism for such "twins" could have been delayed for health issues or due to waiting until some absent relative returned home.
Rebecca's death place and death date are not given in any tree? Nor is her spouse's first name listed, nor are children. Two Chilson men, however, were neighbors of this Abiathar and his son and the others, for their 1790 US Census in Hampshire County. That one named heads of household only, counting everyone inside by age-sex category, including boarders, "hired help:, and visitors, often informative to detect age category of eldest male, then eldest female, which households were packed with the youngest children
By 1790, his son, Abiather the junior, had married neighbor Beriah Alvord. She was of a family long-term in western Mass., along the Conn. River.
Margaret Niles, mother to junior, wife to this senior Abiathar, must have died by then, as the senior married a Naomi Alvord a few months later. Once junior's elder children could be independent in clearing land and preparing a site for the rest to follow, that younger Abiathar's family went to northeast Ohio. They did so before the War of 1812, so very early.
He was...
**Father to the Abiathar Jr. who would move away,
What if someone you knew and loved were sent off to war, not under mature neighbors he trusted, but led by somebody barely 35? What if that person in charge had been promoted to Colonel unexpectedly? Not spending years working his way up, from private, to sergeant, to captain, to major, and then, finally, to colonel, was instead, magically appointed to the top post, merely after serving on a supply committee?
What if small pox were flaring up among that man's troops as your beloved son left? Claimed it was God's will if anyone died, instead of taking proper precautions, given inoculations were available be then and could be self-administered?
Their family had came from Braintree, its first church a daughter to a mother church run by Rev. Richard Mather in Dorchester. One of the Mathers (his son, Cotton?) was said to own a slave (made illegal once Massachusetts could author its own state constitution, no longer obliged to follow British law, where slavery was legal until maybe 1820 or so). That slave remembered a trick from his homeland, how to self-inoculate against small-pox. Knowledge of the trick spread. It was observed that 30% of the un-inoculated died, far fewer of the innoculated.
What if you knew the death rate would be worse in war camps, as that is the nature of things? What if some young soldiers in the regiment decided to inoculate themselves, no doctors around to do it? Their officials had decided not to inoculate, despite Mather's encouragement? Those self-inoculating knew a third of them would get the fever. Then, only a small subset of those would die during their fever, fewer if under good care. Why was no hospital authorized? These could be relevant thoughts about his son Abiathar's life, while of fighting age.
Abiathar the junior would apparently remember two sisters regarded as twin-like. He would name two of his own daughters Rebecca and Rhoda.
His Rhoda would marry Luther Keep, from Longmeadow MA, after both had gone to Ohio. They would move early to the disputed Indiana/Michigan border, thinking their land was totally on the Michigan side, later finding it split between two states (pasture in Michigan, house in Indiana?) The name Luther honored Martin Luther, showing exposure to the Hessians caused at least some of the Puritan-descended to ponder the differences between Luther and Calvin.
His Rebecca would marry, interestingly, a Clapp. One of two Clapps brothers, they travelled with a Spencer Phelps to what became Leroy Twp. in what became Lake County in Ohio. They left western Mass. a year or two ahead of some of her brothers, instead arriving with a future brother-in-law named Charles Keneippe (many spellings), whose father had been a defecting Hessian in the Revolution. His father, called Christian Keneippe, was rewarded for that defection with land promises, took advantage of them by going west (to Indiana? On the Wabash River across near Vincennes?). The trip was made not long before Christian's son-in-law David French died up in Ohio, walking on the road to Newburgh, its ridge above Cleveland, with a Mill Stream leading down and thus mills. A canal was being built, to do down to the Ohio River, ending near where Christian and sons were settling. Some canal workers (drinking? robbery in mind?) had attacked David and he died, several days later.
**Son to Mary Vinton and her John French,
Abiathar the Sr. was a middle son of that John French who wed Mary Vinton. You could not always "get by" on farming alone, so John was also described as a hunter, trapper, miller. (Millers needed water power, making sense of that John French's location on the Cochato River, near Braintree, Ma, in the part that would become Randolph. His father Dependence had had a mill, too? someone commented on his dam made for his mill.)
Abiathar's mother, Mary, was of the iron-working Vintons (iron-forging also needs water, but for cooling). She brought "fresh blood" to town. Liking this new person in town, John would not have to marry a cousin, not even a distant one. However, his whole church would need to learn the meaning of religious tolerance. Mary refused to sign the full covenant of their church, yet desired infant baptisms in that church for her children. Could she sign a half-covenant, not the whole thing? This had not been permitted for her eldest. Eventually, church officials relented, in time for the birth/baptism of her twin sons? We were not told which lines in the covenant she wished to cross out.
**Grandson of long-lived Dependence French and Rebecca Fenno,
When you live the longest, you watch all the others die? Grandfather Dependence had that experience, three of his siblings and two of their spouses taken in a year or two, by a stretched-out epidemic in Rev. Niles first few years at the church.
**Great-grandson of the original John & Grace French.
That first John French of Braintree was declared a Braintree "freeman" around 1644, after granted property there earlier, 1639/1640, the whole process sometimes rounded off to 1640. Clearly of the Puritan era, he was in the area earlier, judging from dates of baptismal records for his eldest three children at the mother church of Dorchester.
Of all of these who preceded Abiathar, one whose old gravemarker still stands? That would John's wife, of the immigrant era, called Grace, maiden name Unknown, Abiathar's great-grandmother. The first John French of Braintree is probably buried beside her, as his second wife is also in the cemetery, buried by her first husband: Grace's stone. The first burying ground (Hancock at Quincy) was near an old trading post, with wide access to the sea and its own harbor, inconvenient as too far from where the family actually lived. Mrs. Grace French's good fortune, however, was to be buried in the same churchyard as relatives of a dead President's family (the Quincys and Adams). Much work has been done to preserve the political families' graves, with many stones near them replaced in the 1800s, including her own. (The dark replacement stone stands near her older original, the original's lettering possibly preserved by being face down in the dirt. )
Grace French, John's wife, some think, possibly was of the Aldens of Plymouth. Arguing against that, no descendants wrote that down until the 1870s or so. Thus, someone may easily have confused her with someone else named French in the local cemeteries, later generation, who had married an Alden. She was of the right age to be the Alden's eldest daughter. However, the number of Alden children was known, all claimed ' none left unclaimed or called Grace.
No will was left by the Aldens, nor by Grace's parents, if they were not the Aldens. No maiden name was put on her tombstone. It was too early for the later custom of giving the mother's maiden name to the children. (That would be done for cousins in Abiathar's generation, one to be named Wales French.)
This Abiathar's parents and grandparents raised their children in what is now modern Braintree. Before becoming that suburb, their area, after much delay, finally was granted permission for its own church, the second to be town-authorized. Once there was a third church, further upstream, in what began as Cochato, to be Randolph, the second's parish was renamed as "middle precinct". This first Abiathar French most likely married Margaret Niles in the third church, as their children were baptized there, now called the First Congregational of Randolph.
With land inside the old Braintree boundaries all taken, two older brothers of Abiathar had found new land barely outside old Braintree. (His twin brothers, John and Dependence, named for a prior generation of Frenches, found "empty land" in what later became modern Avon and Brockton. Those modern suburbs were then still isolated corners of old Stoughton and old Bridgewater, respectively. Bridgewater was actually in the next county south, called Plymouth. Distant cousins who had left Braintree much earlier were off in Medfield and Mendon, also close-by, instead barely inside the next county west, a huge one called Worcester that never split into parts stretched across the colony's length, going north to south.)
Born very late in the family order, it was too late to find "empty land" for either him or his younger brother Joshua. This senior Abiathar thus moved to a more distant place, Hampshire County, on the remote side of what became Worcester County, while the youngest brother of four, Joshua, stayed behind, at Braintree, south of Boston, to assist their parents. Joshua must have taken over their pre-existing family farm and any remaining businesses that brought income when farming was slack. This perhaps was done by buying out his siblings' inherited shares?
Abiathar the senior was last of record in the Braintree area when about 38, listed in a court record as a yeoman. He moved quite a distance by their standards, news of the western frontier of Massachusetts delivered by those who had served earlier in the French-Indian Wars. That warring, run while Abiathar's people were all still British, made final the taking of lands from French and natives and their mixed population, to be sold or conveyed as bounty to the landless sons of those still British. The British government said it needed to be paid back for sending its soldiers and building the forts, so raised taxes in the colonies without asking those taxed how much to raise, in what manner, or how it should be spent. That set the stage for the American Revolution.
**Widower and neighbor.
His last records before he died in the new place, Hampshire County, on the western end of the Bay Colony? Two named him specifically:
(1)A petition in 1778, to split off, from old Northampton, as Westhampton, as over six miles from the Northampton church. This was signed also by Abiathar the junior and many neighbors who were past and future in-laws. These included Noah Howard/Hayward, who was said to have left the old Braintree area with this Abiathar and Margaret, as his wife was Margaret's sister.
(2) A second marriage in 1789, to a Naomi Alvord.
Two later records, both US Censuses, for 1790 and again in 1800, showed one of the Abiathar Frenches in Westhampton, with unnamed people inside the household. For the 1810 Census, the junior Abiathar had already moved to Ohio, residing just below one of the Great Lakes . +Stray British troops there venturing across from Canada or down from Detroit scared US census-takers away from Ohio, so no census was done, in 1810 even though done for other territories that were not yet full states.
**Patriarch to the many descended of his children
Which children of this senior Abiathar stayed in Hampshire County? Some of his descendants were via them.
Daughter Dorothy stayed, after marrying Jehiel Alvor. (Jehiel's sister Beriah was the one to later marry Dorothy's eldest brother, Abiathar the junior.)
They were in an era when girls "emancipated" at age 12. Dorothy is thought to perhaps have married at a very young age, making it possible to have a larger family. An 1850 US Census would count her son Jehiel Alvord the junior visiting in Ohio at a small hotel or inn run by one of Beriah and Abiathar's grandsons.
Daughter Rhoda instead married a Hessian soldier, called something like Johannes Petzinger back home in Prussia, his name Anglicized here into John Pittsinger. How did a German-speaker come to America so early? Brought here to fight on the British side in the American Revolution, he was captured by the new Americans at Bennington, now in the southwest corner of modern Vermont, in Aug. of 1777. When finished with his punishment (usually indenture, with the sponsoring govt. keeping the money from the sale of the captured Hessians' work contracts), he chose to stay.
Did he stay, because he had fallen in love? Mr. Pittsinger became a farmer well-regarded for his skill.
Also staying in Hampshire County was son Jonathan French, His stone still survives in Westhampton. Jonathan probably took over the family farm.
Who left Hampshire County? We know that the older son, Abiathar Jr., fought in the American Revolution before he married Beriah. He was pardoned for leaving an incompetently-run regiment overrun by small-pox, given he had returned to service by finding a more experienced command. Those from Braintree had been exposed to the varied Reverend Mathers fathered by Richard Mather. Richard Mather's sons were not uniform, varying some in approaches. One of them owned the aforementioned slave who knew, as African "folk medicine", how to stop small pox. Whether the slave was treated well or poorly, whether he was freed or not, we do not know. Again, we don't know Abiathar the junior's role in all of this. A set of the soldiers, maybe including him, maybe not, knowing they were marching into a thicket of smallpox wanted to self-inoculate, choosing to be mildly sick for a short time in order to avoid serious sickness and death. They needed a place and enough days to recover. Certain commanding officers refused to give permission, claiming predestination as a religious excuse, saying, if it was God's will that the young men die of small pox, then people should let the soldiers die of small pox, even though it could be prevented.
Military records said Abiathar the junior was 20 in Feb. 1776, enlisting as the American Revolution began. Again, those in charge of ordering that troops be sent on a small-pox ridden march toward Canada were neither punished nor vilified for their mistaken judgment. We do know he left and found a better commander. The better regiment and company found was that with Maj. Jonathan Clapp in command, not on an easy mission, taking the march to Ticonderaga, NY, in July, 1777.
The young Abiathar remained, after that, in Capt. Oliver Lyman's company, to join still another regiment, for expeditions to Stillwater and Saratoga, NY. The places in NY are worth mentioning, as the marches toward them showed farmland below the Great Lakes was producing better crops than seen at home. Soldiers coming back would have remarked on this to their families, causing moves away from Massachusetts.
Abiathar Jr. would, post-War, return to marry Beriah Alvord. Again, she was already an in-law, due to sister Dorothy's marriage to Jehiel Alvord.
The almost-adult children of young Abiathar would depart for the Lake Erie shoreline of Ohio, did so well before the War of 1812, with their parents (junior and Beriah) and others joining them in 1806. The third Abiathar, left behind in a graveyard, was recorded in a Pittsinger family tree as having died in his early teens.
What about Jr's sister Rebecca? The tree showing her as Rhoda's twin was that by the Pitzingers/Pittsingers. People may know their own direct ancestor's birth date. They then guess about siblings when they don't have birth or death records? We don't know this with certainty, but an unwillingness to believe that Dorothy had married at age 12 might have caused Pittsinger descendants to shift others' ages around, having Dorothy appear older at marriage, 15, not 12.
SOURCES---
The following shows names and dates, not stories. These aid in finding his children and grandchildren, via their in-laws:
His Second Marriage. Once a widower, an old book, "The Burke and Alvord Memorial", says he remarried in S. Hadley, to Naomi Alvord of that town, month unstated, but in the year after the second of his two children did marry an Alvord . Who was Naomi Alvord? We don't know exactly. A young Naomi had been born in S. Hadley, to "Gad" Alvord, then married, but not to any Frenches. An older woman, better matched on age, Naomi Rogers, had married an Alvord in S. Hadley, was perhaps a widow by the time of this Abiathar's remarriage. Regardless, the total number of marriages between Frenches and Alvords then reached three. This eldest Abiathar may have gone to live where she preferred, turned his land in what became Westhampton over to his two sons, the junior Abiathar and the mysterious Jonathan
With three more marriages, brought the Alvords' some new in-laws, some named Phelps and Clapp and Bartlett,who would take notice of these new Frenches.
(SIDE NOTE: The Braintree Frenches were new to western Massachusetts (Hampshire County) in the sense of arriving "late", not there fully until 1770, well after the French and Indian wars finished. A John French of Ipswich arrived in Hampshire County a century earlier, in the 1660s. The Ipswich John French had married Freedom Kingsley elsewhere, then followed her brother Enos Kingsley to Hampshire County. Modern testing of the Braintree set in mid-2014 proved Grace's John French of Braintree was of different DNA. Before there was DNA, the astute might notice the two sets generally had different in-laws, except for the Bartletts. While still living in Hampshire County, Abiathar Jr's son Jacob married Abigail Bartlett. Her mother was a Pomeroy, who, in turn, descended on her own mother's side from Freedom Kingsley's youngest son, Jonathan French, via that Jonathan's son, Ebenezer French.
Petition for Westhampton Spin-off. Abiathar's other last record? On June 2, 1778, he and his namesake son, signing as Junr., with both their names correctly spelled, neither as AbiathEr, were 2 of 48 requesting that Westhampton split from Northampton and be separately incorporated as its own town. Their reason? All signers were more than six miles from Northampton's "meeting house" (a combination of church and town hall). The House of Reps. meeting in Boston concurred in Oct. of 1778. They would then have their own church in Westhampton, under Rev. Solomon Williams.
Many names on the petition were related via marriage. These were:
*Current Chilson in-laws (Elihu and Joseph Chilson). They became related via Abiathar senior's daughter Mary C. French marrying a Chilson.
*Future Bartlett in-laws (William, Elihu and Joel Bartlett). These would become related in or around 1801, when one of Abiathar junior's sons, Jacob French, married Abigail Bartlett.
Multiple other surnames were recognizable as Braintree in origin.
*Noah Hayward, aka Howard, who signed immediately below their names, indicating they stood in line together to sign the list. Was the one who married a Niles, the sister of Abiathar's wife? Or related to teh Benjamin Hayward Jr. who had left this Abiathar's older sister Hannah a widow before she married Isaac Allen, back home?
*Jonathan Wales, reminding us that Abiathar's younger brother, Joshua, who stayed behind in Braintree on the family land, had married an Esther Wales.
*Multiple Thayers. This Abiathar's grandfather had been the first Dependence French. Dependence's eldest brother, John, and their sister Elizabeth had both married Thayers. Elizabeth and her first husband followed land-developing Ferdinando Thayer westward, out to Mendon, once the frontier of Worcester County, very early. After her Thayer died, great-aunt Elizabeth had married a Wheelock, not from Braintree.
*A Burke and a Timothy Phelps. Related by marriage to the Alvords, with whom these Frenches intermarried three times, as noted.
Different parts of the Phelps family were involved in early land developments in western NY (on valley land on the east side of the Genesee River, known roughly as Genesee, including the original town named Le Roy) and then later in Ohio. they were also in the Rutland/Barre region of Worcester county, for which bigger towns in Vermont were presumably named A Spencer Phelps would move from Chesterfield in northern Hampshire County MA, to Ohio, a year ahead of Abiathar's sons. Spencer came with two sons of Col. Amasa Clapp, perhaps also of Chesterfield, to clear land and plant some of the land together, before they brought larger families out. Once elderly, the only one left of them all, Spencer Phelps would tell local historians in Ohio the story of their arrival from Mass., defying those who kept saying the first settlers had come from Connecticut or from NY. (These Frenches, Spencer Phelps, and the Clapp sons, Elah and Paul, moved to the mother township of Painesville, accessed by the Grand River, east of baby Cleveland, OH, very early, maybe 1802 or 1803. The part that they all settled in first finished splitting away from that mother township sometime after the 1820 Census, to become the relatively isolated Leroy Twp. Spencer said the males thereafter quickly dispersed into other townships, as he had done the same, gone to Mentor Twp. (It had advantages, being on a major ridge, making road construction and access easier, with a crossroad then going south toward the state capital, then still at Chillicothe.)
Only this Abiathar's granddaughter, Rebecca French Clapp McMillen, stayed in Leroy with her children by Elah Clapp. Elah had died quickly, in 1811. After widowing, she married Wm. McMillen, from Penn., who farmed there.
A descendant of unrelated Freedom Kingsley French named Nathan French moved there much later. He shared the male French ancestors of Abigail Bartlett, so was still distant, but a closer cousin to her than were other "alternative DNA" Frenches descended of Freedom. His family of Frenches is buried in the same cemetery as Rebecca and her children. The cemetery is now called Brakeman, after a later arriving Germanic NY family (Brakeman might be an Anglicizing of Broeckman?) Multiple people named Burke are buried there as well, so many be of the Hampshire County Burkes.)
========================================================
Abiathar Sr, Chronology & Sources
Jonathan French, Younger son's stone, in Westhampton MA
Abiathar French Jr., Older son's cenotaph.
The cenotaph is on the stone of granddaughter Rebecca French Clapp McMillen, in Leroy, Ohio. It honored her parents, with Beriah's name mis-written as Maria, while Junior's was mis-spelled, with "-er" at the end. The mistake indicates the current clear lettering was apparently re-carved by a later generation working with faded materials, unable to copy the original spellings exactly. Beriah was merely called "Mrs. French" in an old history recalling the Western Reserve's women, indicating either the original spelling had already faded, or the name was too unusual.
Family Members
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