Ancestors

Zachariah Paddock

Son of Robert Paddock the Duxbury smith, born at Plymouth on 20 March 1636 by the colony record, and married in 1659 to Deborah Sears of Yarmouth, where he then spent the rest of a very long life. He was a deputy in 1706, 1707 and 1708, sat on the committee for seating people in the meeting house in 1717, and in 1697 was appointed with Major Thacher to run the line between Yarmouth and the purchasers of Harwich. The town's school circuit is described by his house: the second squadron begins at John Godfrey's and takes in all Nobscusset and Zachariah Paddock's, from the fourth of January to the tenth of April.

He died on 1 May 1727 and the newspaper printed a notice, which is unusual for a Cape Cod farmer. It counts the descendants, forty eight grandchildren and thirty eight great grandchildren, thirty of the latter from the second son alone. It says he kept his reason to an uncommon degree until an illness of a few days. And it records a domestic arrangement: he, his wife, one of his sons and that son's wife lived a considerable time in a house by themselves, without any other person, when their ages computed together amounted to over three hundred years.

His own age is the one thing about him that will not settle. The obituary says he was in his eighty eighth year and born at the beginning of 1640. The Plymouth record says 20 March 1636, which would make him ninety one, and the county history prints ninety one. His own genealogist offers the only explanation that fits both, that there were two Zacharys and the first died an infant.

If Zachariah Paddock is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Zachariah Paddock (1636-1727)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/zachariah-paddock-1636-1727-fb5e08.