Ancestors

Mary Purchase

Mary Purchase was probably the Mary born at Boston on 3 February 1659/60 to John and Elizabeth Purchase. Her mother died when she was three. Joseph W. Porter, who worked through the Braintree families in 1900, thought she was this child, and her age at death fits it exactly.

On 4 December 1677 she married Increase Niles of Braintree. The ceremony was performed by the governor of the colony, John Leverett: "Increase Niles & Mary Purchass were maried the 10th. mo 4th. '77 by the honoured Governor Mr. John Leverett." Their son John was born at Braintree on 10 October 1678, and a second son, Increase, on 9 March 1680/1. Porter says she and her husband were original members of the second church of Braintree, now North Braintree.

Increase Niles died on 1 September 1693. In 1697 she married Francis Nash, a Braintree farmer and widower. He and her first husband had mustered together in the Braintree file of Captain Johnson's company in December 1675. She bore him two sons, Benjamin in 1700 and James in 1703.

Her son John married Francis Nash's daughter Margaret. So the two households were joined twice, once by her marriage and once by her son's. Francis Nash died in August 1713, naming "wife Mary" and "son-in-law John Niles and his wife Margaret" in his will.

She was a widow for the second time for nearly twenty two years. The town clerk entered her death as "Mary Nash widow aged about 75 years, dyed April 16th. 1735." The Rev. Samuel Niles recorded her burial the next day under her first married name: "Mary Niles the aged buried April 17, 1735."

If Mary Purchase is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Mary Purchase (1659-1735)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/mary-purchase-1659-1735-0832b7.