Ancestors

Jemima Towne

Jemima Towne was born at Topsfield on 20 May 1724, the eldest child of Nathaniel Towne and Jemima Perkins, who had married in the town nine months before. The Topsfield book enters her with her brother and sisters under the heading Nathl Town and Jemima Town his wife.

She bore two children outside marriage. The first was a son, three days before her twenty first birthday. The entry in the town births reads in full: Stephen, s. Jemima Towne, May 17, 1745, and it is filed among the Perkins births. The second came eight years later, a daughter, and it reads Lois, d. Jemima Towne, Nov. 28, 1753, filed among the Bradstreets.

Two children, two entries of the same shape, two different surnames. Every other birth on those pages names a father. Hers name only her, which is the form the Massachusetts clerks used for a child born outside marriage, and the surname each child was filed under is the surname each child was raised with.

The courts took notice of the second one. At Salem in the spring of 1754 the Court of General Sessions of the Peace issued an estreat of a fine to the King against Jemima Town, 15.00, with the order given on 30 March 1754. That is four months after Lois was born, which is the ordinary interval for a fornication presentment.

Who fathered either child is not recorded. Her son was raised under the surname Perkins, married twice at Topsfield and died there in 1796.

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Cite: Heirology, "Jemima Towne (b. 1724)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/jemima-towne-1724-f6bd5e.