Ancestors
Esther Porter
b. 1716 · Abington MA
Born 1716, Abington, Massachusetts
Father: Nicholas Porter
Mother: Bathsheba Reed
Children include Caleb
Esther Porter was born at Abington, Massachusetts, on 20 June 1716. The town clerk entered her as "Ester, d. Nicholas and Bathsheba, June 20, 1716", and the church record has her too. She was the seventh of the nine children of Nicholas Porter and his wife Bathsheba. Her brothers and sisters were Nicholas, William, Bathsheba, Daniel, Susannah, Job, Abner and Sarah. The family had come from Weymouth, the next town north, between 1702 and 1707.
Her father's sister Ruth had married Nathaniel Willis. In 1739 Ruth made her will and, by Mitchell's abstract of it, "made her will 1739, and gave her estate to her niece Esther Porter, D. of her brother Nicholas Porter of Abington". Esther was twenty three, and unmarried.
In 1740 she married Joshua Fobes the younger of Bridgewater. Mitchell puts it plainly: "Joshua (s. of Joshua 5) m. Esther D. of Nicholas Porter." Their children were entered in the Bridgewater book as children of "Joshua Jr. and Esther": Azariah in January 1741, Daniel in February 1742, Abigail in May 1747 and Caleb on 24 August 1750. Mitchell adds Ruth, a second Joshua, Robert and Solomon. She named a daughter Ruth. Her death is not given.
Her grandparents on her father's side were Sergeant John Porter and Deliverance Byram of Weymouth. Deliverance was a daughter of Ensign Nicholas Byram, whose house was the one spared at Bridgewater in 1676. Her mother, Bathsheba Reed, was a great-granddaughter of Francis Cooke of the Mayflower.
Sources
Nahum Mitchell, History of the Early Settlement of Bridgewater (1840; reprint 1897), p. 164, archive.org historyofearlyset00mitcch, leaf 182
Vital Records of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850, vol. I, births (1916), Fobes births, archive.org vitalrecordsofbr01bost, leaf 117
Vital Records of Abington, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850 (1912), vol. I, archive.org vitalrecordsofab01abin, p. 172, leaf 184
Mitchell, History of the Early Settlement of Bridgewater (1840/1897), archive.org historyofearlyset00mitcch, p. 365, leaf 383
Joseph W. Porter, A Genealogy of the Descendants of Richard Porter, who Settled at Weymouth, Mass., 1635 (Bangor, 1878), archive.org genealogyofdesce1878port, p. 19, https://archive.org/details/genealogyofdesce1878port/page/n22
Mitchell, History of the Early Settlement of Bridgewater (1840/1897), archive.org historyofearlyset00mitcch, p. 164, entry 11; Vital Records of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850, vol. I, births (1916), archive.org vitalrecordsofbr01bost; Vital Records of Abington, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850 (1912), vol. I, archive.org vitalrecordsofab01abin, p. 172; Vital Records of Weymouth, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850 (1910), vol. I, archive.org vitalrecordsofwe01weym; Mitchell, History of the Early Settlement of Bridgewater (1840/1897), archive.org historyofearlyset00mitcch, pp. 164, 365; Mitchell p. 164; Mitchell p. 365; Joseph W. Porter, A Genealogy of the Descendants of Richard Porter, who Settled at Weymouth, Mass., 1635 (Bangor, 1878), archive.org genealogyofdesce1878port, p. 19
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Cite: Heirology, "Esther Porter (b. 1716)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/esther-porter-1716-ab8aad.