Nicholas Porter

1672-1773 · Weymouth MA

Born 1672, Weymouth, Massachusetts

Died 1773

Father: Sgt. John Porter

Mother: Deliverance Byram

Children include Esther

Nicholas Porter was born at Weymouth, Massachusetts, on 11 April 1672. He was a son of Sergeant John Porter and his wife Deliverance, a daughter of Ensign Nicholas Byram. The name came from her side: her father and her brother were both Nicholas. The Weymouth clerk entered the birth with the child's name left blank: "____, ch. John and Deliverance, Apr. 11, 1672."

About 1699 he married Bathsheba, written Bashua, a daughter of William and Esther (Thompson) Reed of Weymouth. Through her mother she was a great-granddaughter of Francis Cooke of the Mayflower. Their first two children were entered at Weymouth: Nicholas on 26 October 1700 and William on 19 August 1702. About 1705 the family moved to Abington, the next town south. There Bathsheba was born in 1707, Daniel in 1708, Susannah in 1710, Job in 1713 or 1714, Esther on 20 June 1716, Abner on 27 November 1718 and Sarah on 3 April 1722.

At Abington he lived on his father's land. His father had built the first saw mill in the town, at a place called Little Comfort, in 1693. In 1709 Nicholas appraised the estate of Caleb Chard. He was surveyor of highways for Abington in 1713 and 1714.

His father made his will in February 1715/16 and left "to my Son, Nicholas Porter" the house he was living in, the lot it stood on in Abington, and his part of the mill and the mill lot. He also had the other half of the twenty three acre House Lot.

Bathsheba died before 1725. That year he married the widow Sarah Noyes. In 1739 his sister Ruth, the wife of Nathaniel Willis, left her estate to "her niece Esther Porter, D. of her brother Nicholas Porter of Abington." The next year Esther married Joshua Fobes the younger of Bridgewater.

Late in life he moved to Bridgewater, where he died in 1773, "aged one hundred years, lacking three months." His grandfather Ensign Nicholas Byram had been sold into service in the West Indies as a boy, and his house was the one left standing at Bridgewater in 1676.

Parents

Deliverance Byram d. 1720 Sgt. John Porter d. 1717

Children

Esther Porter b. 1716

Sources

Nahum Mitchell, History of the Early Settlement of Bridgewater (1840; reprint 1897), p. 164, archive.org historyofearlyset00mitcch, leaf 182

Vital Records of Abington, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850 (1912), vol. I, archive.org vitalrecordsofab01abin, p. 172, leaf 184

Vital Records of Weymouth, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850 (1910), vol. I, archive.org vitalrecordsofwe01weym, leaf 225

Vital Records of Weymouth, vol. II (1910), archive.org vitalrecordsofwe02weym, leaf 37

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

Joseph W. Porter, A Genealogy of the Descendants of Richard Porter, who Settled at Weymouth, Mass., 1635 (Bangor, 1878), archive.org genealogyofdesce1878port, p. 11, printing the will from the Suffolk Probate Records, https://archive.org/details/genealogyofdesce1878port/page/n14

Joseph W. Porter, A Genealogy of the Descendants of Richard Porter, who Settled at Weymouth, Mass., 1635 (Bangor, 1878), archive.org genealogyofdesce1878port, pp. 10-13 and 19 (leaves 13-15, 22); Mitchell, History of the Early Settlement of Bridgewater (1840/1897), archive.org historyofearlyset00mitcch, pp. 164, 287, 365; Vital Records of Abington, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850 (1912), vol. I, archive.org vitalrecordsofab01abin; Vital Records of Weymouth, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850 (1910), vol. I, archive.org vitalrecordsofwe01weym; Vital Records of Weymouth, vol. II (1910), archive.org vitalrecordsofwe02weym; Jacob Whittemore Reed, History of the Reed Family in Europe and America (Boston, 1861), archive.org historyofreedfam1861reed, p. 311

If Nicholas Porter is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Nicholas Porter (1672-1773)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/nicholas-porter-1672-1773-5e25d8.