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Saturday, October 1, 2011

Surname Saturday – Caverly


CAVERLY
Charles and Comfort Caverly Family and Cat
by Joseph H. Davis, ink and watercolor, 1836
(See the UPDATE below dated 3 August 2018)

The first Caverly in New Hampshire was William Caverly, who left a will naming his wife, sons and daughter.    His marriage was unrecorded in town records, but we know his wife’s name from his father-in-law’s will (Walter Abbott), which called her Mary Caverly.   The Caverly family has descendants with the name still in New Hampshire.  Many still meet up every two years at the Caverly Family Reunion at the historic Bow Lake Grange Hall in Strafford.  

William Caverly’s origins are unknown, although he married a wife whose ancestry went back to the first settlers in New Hampshire. There are other Caverly families in the USA, who have different DNA from our branch.

Generation 1.  William Caverly, born about 1650, died before 1732 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire when his will was proved; married about 1696 to Mary Abbott, daughter of Walter Abbott and Sarah Steward, born about 1652 in New Hampshire.  Four Caverly children.  Mary married first to Thomas Guptill about 1672, and he was lost at sea in 1686 after having five children.  Mary married third on 4 November 1707 in Boston, Massachusetts to Leonard Drown (1646 – 1729), a ship builder in Portsmouth and in Boston, and her sister's widowed husband.  Leonard Drown had nine children with his first wife Elizabeth Abbott, and one daughter, Mary Drown, married James Kettle of Charlestown, Massachusetts, the son of my 8x great grandparents, Jonathan Kettle and Abigail Converse (but that's a different story to tell another time!). 
            1. Nathaniel married Jane Fitzgerald
            2. Moses, born about 1694; married Margaret Cotton
            3. Elizabeth, born about 1696; married Thomas Wilkinson
            4. Thomas, no further information

Generation 2. Elizabeth Caverly, born about 1696 in Portsmouth; married  first in August 1715 in Portsmouth to Thomas Wilkinson, immigrant from London, born about 1690, died before 1739.  Two known sons, James born about 1730 and William born 17 October 1736 in Portsmouth.  Probably more children.   Married second on 27 November 1739 in Portsmouth to Phillip Jewell, born in Yanton, Biddeford, England.  No known children with Jewell.   For more information see my Surname Saturday post on Wilkinson here at this link: http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/09/surname-saturday-wilkinson.html

Generation 3. James Wilkinson (b.abt 1730) m. Hannah Mead (1730 – bef. 1759)
Generation 4. William Wilkinson (d. aft. 1840) m. Mercy Nason
Generation 5. Aaron Wilkinson (1802- 1879) m. Mercy F. Wilson (1803- 1883)
Generation 6. Robert Wilson Wilkinson (1830 – 1874) m. Phebe Cross Munroe (1830 – 1895)
Generation 7. Albert Munroe Wilkinson (1860 – 1908) m. Isabella Lyons Bill
Generation 8. Donald Munroe Wilkinson (1895 - 1977) m. Bertha Louise Roberts (1897 - 1990) My grandparents.

The Caverly family was written up by Robert Boodey Caverly in 1879 in the book Genealogy of the Caverly Family.    In 2008 Paul Caverly revised this book and has published it at Lulu.com and he also has a blog at http://caverly.blogspot.com/.

 The Caverlys have also been written up at the website www.kimvarneychandler.com/caverly  but there are some mistakes in the first two generations, so be aware and check your own sources.   The Caverly Family Newsletter has several new articles on Moses and Nathaniel Caverly in the second generation, and their descendants.  You can contact the Caverly Family Association at maryecav@metrocast.net

There is a Caverly DNA project at www.familyTreeDNA.com  

Update 3 August 2018

An email from Christopher Childs 
"I'm finding (MA VR) that Leonard married Mary _Caley_, widow of Robert Caley (Torrey's "New England Marriages" has "Calley") of Malden... not Mary _Caverly_, widow of William. (Mary is, from best evidence, my ancestress, with 1st hubby Thomas Guptill.) Thanks for any info you may have. (If William didn't die till somewhere relatively near 1732, this also would call into question a 1707 remarriage of his widow!) I've laid out the argument with source links on Leonard's WikiTree profile at wikitree (dot) com/wiki/Drowne-62"

 Please see the link  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Drowne-62   

-------------------

Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Surname Saturday – Caverly", Nutfield Genealogy, posted October 1, 2011, (  https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/10/surname-saturday-caverly.html: accessed [access date]). 

6 comments:

  1. Heather, do you have a confident source for that third marriage to Leonard Drowne? I'm finding (MA VR) that Leonard married Mary _Caley_, widow of Robert Caley (Torrey's "New England Marriages" has "Calley") of Malden... not Mary _Caverly_, widow of William. (Mary is, from best evidence, my ancestress, with 1st hubby Thomas Guptill.) Thanks for any info you may have. (If William didn't die till somewhere relatively near 1732, this also would call into question a 1707 remarriage of his widow!) I've laid out the argument with source links on Leonard's WikiTree profile at wikitree (dot) com/wiki/Drowne-62 .

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    1. Very interesting. I always had doubts because of the line in "Gen. Dic. of ME and NH" which says "he m. 2nd 4 Nov. 1707 Mary, wid. of Robert Colley of Malden and was liv. then when he went bonds for her in court." Thanks for clearing this up. I will edit the blog post.

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  2. Just to add to the complexity, I now find that Mary Guptill probably is _not_ my ancestress; she'd been claimed to be the wife of my forebear John Pearce of RI, but it looks very much as though someone confused the marriage of a later Mary Guptill to a later John Pearce of ME/NH. I don't think we know who the wife of the first John was -- she's just going to have to stay "Mary UNKNOWN" on WikiTree for the present...

    Never a dull moment in this game. :o)

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    1. Christopher, I just had to lop an entire branch of my BATCHELDER tree off. But fortunately I found the new BATCHELDER branch was already in my notes, so it was like adding a "graft" branch without a lot of new research. However, I will have to update a lot of blog posts, which will be even more work! I lost a lot of interesting maiden name ancestors from Rockingham County, NH and gained a few new ones from the Newbury, MA area.

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  3. Whoops -- I better clarify that while I am indeed a member of NEHGS, I should not be confused with my near-namesake, ace professional genealogist Christopher _Child_ (no "s") of that august organization. While I endeavor to be scrupulous in my genealogical assertions, I am not quite ready to set my work alongside his. [For one thing, he has access to a much wider array of sources! :o) ]

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