Francis Nash
Francis Nash was a farmer of Braintree in Massachusetts. He owned and lived on land that is now on Liberty Street. Where he came from is not known. Joseph W. Porter, who wrote up the family in 1900, said only that he "may have been a nephew of James Nash of Weymouth." He offered nothing to support it, and Francis does not appear in the printed Weymouth vital records. His birth is not recorded. His first child was born about 1673.
He first appears in December 1675, in King Philip's War. On 10 December a list was made at Dedham of the men of Captain Isaac Johnson's company, one of the Massachusetts companies raised for the expedition against the Narragansett. The men were written down by town. The Braintree file reads: "Ebenezer Owen, Sam. Basse, Wm Sable, Tho: Holbrook, Rich Thayer, Martin Saunders, Francis Nash, Increase Niles, Henry Bartlet, Tho: Copeland, James Atkins, Jonathan Pitcher." Nine days later the company went into the Great Swamp Fight, where Captain Johnson was killed. The list proves that Francis Nash mustered. It does not say whether he was in the fight. On 24 June 1676 he was credited for his service "Under Capt Johnson" with 2 pounds 14 shillings, the same sum as most of the men on the page.
The man written next to him, Increase Niles, was another Braintree farmer. The two families would be joined twice.
By 1677 Francis was married to a woman named Elizabeth. The Braintree register enters their children: a son whose name is torn from the page, about 1673; Elizabeth, on 9 November 1677; Samuel; Thomas, in April 1681; John; and Margaret, on 8 March 1683/4, entered as "Margaret daughter of Ffrancis Nash and Elizabeth his wife." Elizabeth died some time before 1697. No death entry for her has been found.
On 4 March 1693 he bought 100 acres in Braintree from Samuel White and his wife, of Weymouth, for 100 pounds. That September Increase Niles died. In 1697 Francis married his widow, Mary (Purchase) Niles. Porter gives the day as 2 May, though his page prints the year as 1797. A Nash family book of the 1950s gives 5 April. The marriage is not in the Braintree book. Mary bore him two more sons, Benjamin on 25 June 1700 and James on 6 October 1703.
Mary already had a son of her own, John Niles, born in 1678. John married Francis's daughter Margaret. The two were stepbrother and stepsister, and Porter says so in as many words: "She married her step-brother, John Niles of Braintree."
Francis Nash died at Braintree on 3 August 1713. The clerk wrote him "Frances Nash." His will, dated 10 June and proved 24 August 1713, named his wife Mary; his eldest son Samuel and Samuel's wife Susannah; his son Thomas, who got five acres of land where his house then stood; his sons Benjamin and James, both minors; his daughter Elisabeth; and his "son-in-law John Niles and his wife Margaret." The estate was appraised on 25 August at 345 pounds 15 shillings. It was a house, a barn, arable land, meadow, pasture and an orchard. Porter says he was buried in the Old Cemetery at Braintree. His widow lived another twenty two years.
Children
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Cite: Heirology, "Francis Nash (d. 1713)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/francis-nash-1713-7e965b.