Ancestors

Grissell Fletcher

1618-1669 · England
Born 1618, probably England
Died 1669
Father: Robert Fletcher
Children include Grisell

Grissell Fletcher was a daughter of Robert Fletcher of Concord, Massachusetts, and a sister of William Fletcher of Chelmsford. She was probably born in England about 1618. A genealogist who wrote her life in 1933 called the article "Grissell of the Many Marriages". Her name is also spelled Grizzell and Grisel.

About 1640 she married Thomas Jewell of Braintree as his second wife. He already had a son, Thomas. She bore him four children: Joseph in 1642, Nathaniel in 1643, Grissell in 1652 and Mercy in 1653. Thomas died in the spring of 1654 and left her the estate while she remained a widow.

On 1 November 1655 she married Humphry Griggs of Braintree. He died within two years, and she was made administratrix of his estate on 18 August 1657. There were no children.

On 8 October 1657, at Dorchester, she became the second wife of Henry Kibby, whose first wife Rachel had died that July. Their son Sherebiah Kibby was born at Dorchester on 2 December 1659. Henry Kibby died on 10 August 1661.

Two months later, on 12 November 1661, Peter Brackett of Braintree married her to John Gurney Sr., a tailor of that town. He died in the winter of 1662 to 1663, and his inventory was filed on 16 March 1663. They had no children.

The 1933 article thinks that, with dower rights in four husbands' estates, she was probably a fairly prosperous widow. On 3 July 1667, at Chelmsford, where her brother William lived, she married John Burge as his third wife. He came from Weymouth and had buried two wives. There were no children.

In May 1668 her daughter Grissell, sixteen, married her nephew Joshua Fletcher at Chelmsford, after a court case over the two of them in the minister's house. In June 1669 her father, old and blind, petitioned the court for mercy on Joshua. She died at Chelmsford three weeks later, on 9 July 1669, aged about fifty one.

John Burge married a fourth wife in 1677 and died at Dorchester in October 1678.

Sources

Mary Lovering Holman, "Grissell of the Many Marriages", The American Genealogist 10 (October 1933), p. 70; archive.org sim_american-genealogist_1933-10_10_2
Mary Lovering Holman, "Grissell of the Many Marriages", The American Genealogist 10 (October 1933), p. 71, citing New England Historical and Genealogical Register 5:304; archive.org sim_american-genealogist_1933-10_10_2
Mary Lovering Holman, "Grissell of the Many Marriages", The American Genealogist 10 (October 1933), p. 72; archive.org sim_american-genealogist_1933-10_10_2
Mary Lovering Holman, "Grissell of the Many Marriages", The American Genealogist 10 (October 1933), p. 73, printing Annals of Mendon, p. 61; archive.org sim_american-genealogist_1933-10_10_2
Mary Lovering Holman, "Grissell of the Many Marriages", The American Genealogist 10 (October 1933), pp. 70-73, archive.org sim_american-genealogist_1933-10_10_2; Winifred Lovering Holman, Robert Fletcher of Concord (typescript, 1930), archive.org robertfletcherof00holm; Annals of Mendon, p. 61; New England Historical and Genealogical Register 5:304

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Cite: Heirology, "Grissell Fletcher (1618-1669)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/grissell-fletcher-1618-1669-6be87c.