Tombstone Tuesday ~ Rev. Thomas Weld and wife Elizabeth, Rev. Nathaniel Prentice, early ministers at Nashua, New Hampshire

This tombstone was photographed at the Old Dunstable Burying Ground in Nashua, New Hampshire

REV.

THOMAS WELD

BORN JUNE, 1653;

SETTLED AS

THE FIRST MINISTER

OF THE CHURCH IN 

DUNSTABLE, DEC 1685

PROBABLY MASSACRED

BY THE INDIANS

WHILE DEFENDING THE

SETTLEMENT

JUNE 7, 1702

AEt. 49

REV.

NATH'L PRENTICE

BORN DEC. 1698

SETTLED AS THE

SECOND MINISTER OF

DUNSTABLE 1720

DIED FEB. 25, 1737

AEt. 39

ELIZABETH

WIFE OF

THOMAS WELD

DIED JULY 29,  1687

AEt. 31

The Old Dunstable Burial Ground is located on the Daniel Webster Highway, not far from the Massachusetts border.  The proximity to Massachusetts makes this part of the tax free city of Nashua a busy shopping area.  This impressive tombstone is in the southwest corner of the cemetery, away from the busy traffic and shopping malls on Daniel Webster Highway.  It was erected by the city more than 250 years after the death of Rev. Thomas Weld, the first minister at Dunstable, which became the city of Nashua.

According to the book The History of Nashua, page 176 “That portion of the above inscription which refers to the Rev. Mr. Weld’s being massacred by the Indians is legendary, and probably mythical, as there was no Indian War waging in 1702, nor for several years before or after that date.  It should be corrected.”    The next paragraph also reads: “Mrs. Elizabeth Weld was a daughter of Hon. Edward Tyng.  Her mother’s native place was Dunstable, England, and our Dunstable received its name in compliment to her.”

Rev. Thomas Weld is my 2nd cousin 11 generations removed.  We are both descendants of Edmund Weld (1559 - 1608), a cloth merchant of Sudbury, Suffolk, England.  Edmund's son Joseph Weld (1598 - 1646) was my 11th great grandfather and a settler at Roxbury, Massachusetts.  Joseph's brother, Rev, Thomas Weld (1595 - 1660) was a minister in Roxbury.  His grandson is the Rev. Thomas Weld who became the first minister of the first church at Dunstable.  This congregation still exists as the First Church of Nashua.

Rev. Thomas Weld was born 12 June 1653 in Roxbury, and died 9 June 1702 in Dunstable.  He was married twice, first to Elizabeth Wilson on 9 November 1681.  She was the daughter of John Wilson and Sarah Hooker (daughter of Rev. Thomas Hooker of Hartford, Connecticut).  His second wife was Mary Savage, the daughter of Habijah Savage and Hannah Tyng.  You can see that the book The History of Nashua was wrong about the wife buried here in Nashua with Rev. Weld.

The inscription about the Indian massacre is certainly wrong.  A diary by John Marshall of Dunstable has an entry for 1702 "Mem. on the 11th day of June last, Mr. Thomas Weld, the pastor of the Church of Dunstable was buryed he was an eminent preacher of the word of god, a man well beloued and much Lamented by them that knew him.  His death is justly to be accounted a great Loss to the pouince in genrall and to the poor town of dunstable in particuler." 

I previously blogged about Rev. Thomas Weld at this link:
https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/12/first-church-of-nashua.html   

A PDF from the Nashua Public Library of The History of Nashua,  1897, epitaphs from the Old Dunstable Burying Ground are on pages 175 – 183. 

http://www.nashualibrary.org/parker/p2bios-cemeteries.pdf 

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Tombstone Tuesday ~  Rev. Thomas Weld and wife Elizabeth, Rev. Nathaniel Prentice, early ministers at Nashua, New Hampshire", Nutfield Genealogy, posted March 21, 2017, (http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2017/03/tombstone-tuesday-rev-thomas-weld-and.html: accessed [access date]).