Ancestors
Benjamin Nurse
1666-1748
Born 1666, Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts
Died 1748
Father: Francis Nurse
Mother: Rebecca Nurse
Children include William
Benjamin Nurse was the youngest of Francis and Rebecca Nurse's eight children, born at Salem on 26 January 1666. He grew up on the Bishop farm at Salem Village that his father bought in 1678, and married Tamesin Smith at Salem in February 1688. Their first child, Tamesin, was born at Salem in November 1691.
He was twenty six the summer his mother was tried and hanged. In the spring of 1693 he left Salem Village with a group of families who had suffered in the witchcraft, among them his aunt Sarah Cloyce, who had been accused with his mother, and her husband Peter Cloyce, and her sons Benjamin and Caleb Bridges. They settled together on the western side of the Danforth lands, in the plantation that became Framingham, and the neighbourhood they made was called Salem End.
He built a house on Salem plain, south of Stoney brook. The land was held at first under a lease running 999 years from March 1693, and in February 1707 he bought it outright from Joseph Buckminster: his house, a home lot of twelve acres south of the brook, fifty acres north of it and thirty eight acres by Coller's meadow. At the town meeting of 3 March 1701 he was chosen a tithingman, and in October that year he was one of the eighteen members who formed the first church there. He served the town as a selectman. In May 1709 he signed, with his brothers Samuel and John, the address that asked the General Court to clear the names of those executed in 1692.
Tamesin bore him eight children and died before February 1714, when he married Elizabeth (Sawtelle) Morse, the widow of Joseph Morse of Watertown. He farmed at Salem End for the rest of his life and made a will in 1735 that provided for a son too weak to shift for himself, on condition he pay the others their portions. He died in 1747 or early 1748.
Children
William Nurse (1696-1779)
Sources
The three generations above Daniel Nurse come from WALTER GOODWIN DAVIS, The Ancestry of Sarah Johnson, wife of Joseph Neal of Litchfield, Me. (1960), which sets them out from the probate files and cites MIDDLESEX COUNTY PROBATE 16093 and WORCESTER PROBATE, SERIES A 43954.
WILLIAM NURSE, born 8 MARCH 1696 at Framingham. "m. in Shrewsbury on Dec. 12, 1723, [Re]becca Fay of Westborough; both d. in Westborough, she on June 22, 1776, and he on April 15, 1779. William Nurse was of Shrewsbury when he made his will on Jan. 3, 1758, but of Westborough when he died, the will being proved on June 7, 1779."
AND HIS WILL NAMES THE SHREWSBURY CHILDREN BACK. "To his wife Rebekah, all of his household goods and part of house... To son Daniel, all his lands in Shrewsbury and elsewhere, reserving house-room for daughters Lydia and Rebekah as long as they remain single and in such a weakly condition. To son Daniel, all quick stock, husbandry tools, one-half of clothes, and his money bonds. To second son Benjamin, all cooper's tools and one-half of clothing. To daughters Mary, Lydia, Rebekah and Zerviah. All my Books of Divinity shall be Equally Divided among all my children. Executors: wife Rebekah and eldest son Daniel." Every one of those names is in the Shrewsbury town book as a child of William Nurse and Rebekah, and DANIEL is the eldest son in both. The will and the town book are the same household read from two ends.
HIS FATHER. "5. BENJAMIN NURSE [Francis] was born in Salem on January 26, 1666. He married Tamesin Smith on February 21, 1688, in Salem. She died before February 16, 1713/4, when he married in Framingham widow Elizabeth (Sawtelle) Morse of Watertown. Benjamin Nurse of Framingham, yeoman, made his will August 1, 1735. It was proved February 13, 1748." The will leaves legacies "to his son William" among the five eldest children, and the eight children are listed as born at Framingham, William third among them. All eight fall before the first wife's death, so TAMESIN SMITH is William's mother.
AND THAT BENJAMIN IS REBECCA NURSE'S YOUNGEST SON. Francis and Rebecca Nurse of Salem Village had eight children, the last of them Benjamin, born 1665 or 1666. This Benjamin was born in Salem on 26 January 1666 and Davis brackets his father as Francis. REBECCA NURSE was tried for witchcraft in the summer of 1692, acquitted by the jury, had the verdict sent back by the court, and was hanged on Gallows Hill on 19 JULY 1692. She was seventy one. Her son Benjamin left Salem for Framingham, his son William went west again to Shrewsbury, and William's son Daniel to Westborough.
WHAT IS PRIMARY HERE AND WHAT IS NOT. The two lowest links are town clerks' entries read directly: Perssela to Daniel in 1764, and Daniel to William in 1729. The three above them are a published genealogy citing probate files, which is a serious source and is not the same thing as reading the file. And Davis was read in a Towne Family Association newsletter's reprint rather than in the book itself. The probate references are given above so the chain can be walked properly whenever somebody wants to. Charles W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft; with an Account of Salem Village (Boston, 1867), volume I, pages 79 to 92, on the Bishop farm, the terms of the sale and the Endicott suit, with the deposition of Hugh Jones and Alexius Reynolds (archive.org salemwitchcraftw01upha_0); volume II, pages 57 to 63, on Rebecca Nurse, printing the statement of Israel Porter, Elizabeth Porter, Daniel Andrew and Peter Cloyse and the record of the examination of 24 March 1692 (archive.org salemwitchcraft01uphagoog).
"On the 29th of April, 1678, Allen sold the Bishop farm to Francis Nurse, of the town of Salem, for four hundred pounds. Nurse was an early settler, and, before this purchase, had lived, for some forty years, 'near Skerry's,' on the North River ... He is described as a 'tray-maker.'" "He was then fifty-eight years of age. His wife Rebecca was fifty-seven years of age."
Salem Witchcraft Papers, the verbatim transcription by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum (1977), revised, Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive, University of Virginia, salem.lib.virginia.edu, SWP No. 94 (Rebecca Nurse), No. 171 (officials' accounts, 1692), No. 172.5 and 172.10 (petitions of 2 March 1703 and 25 May 1709, Massachusetts Archives vol. 135), No. 173.35, 173.47 and 173.48 (Samuel Nurse's petition of 13 September 1710, the act of 17 October 1711, the order for payment of 17 December 1711).
Josiah H. Temple, History of Framingham, Massachusetts, early known as Danforth's Farms, 1640-1880 (Framingham, 1887), pages 70, 124 to 125, 139, 150, 154, 170 and the genealogical register, NURSE (archive.org historyofframing00temp).
Josiah H. Temple, History of Framingham, Massachusetts (1887), pages 124 to 125, 139, 150, 170 and the genealogical register, Nurse family (archive.org historyofframing00temp). Salem Witchcraft Papers, the verbatim transcription by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum (1977), revised, Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive, University of Virginia, salem.lib.virginia.edu, SWP No. 172.10 (address of 25 May 1709, Massachusetts Archives vol. 135).
If Benjamin Nurse is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "Benjamin Nurse (1666-1748)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/benjamin-nurse-1666-1748-e2722f.