Molly Reid Memorial, Londonderry, New Hampshire

 

BIRTHPLACE OF

MARY WOODBURN

WIFE OF

GEN. GEO. REID

1735 - 1823

----------

GEN. STARK SAID OF HER

"IF THERE IS A WOMAN IN

NEW HAMPSHIRE FIT FOR

GOVERNOR, IT IS

             MOLLY REID."

ERECTED BY MOLLY REID

CHAPTER D.A.R.

1899

This monument to Molly Reid is located on High Range Road in Londonderry, New Hampshire, on private property (but visible by the roadside) between Parmenter Road and MacIntosh Road.  She was the wife of General George Reid, who lived in Londonderry (now the part that is Derry) and who fought the American Revolution in Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, Trenton, Saratoga, Monmouth,  and with George Washington in Yorktown.  

George Reid was a farmer, who married Mary Woodburn in 1765.  They had five children, Mary Boyd Reid Dinsmoor (d. 1834), James Reid (1767 - 1827), John Reid (1771 - 1834), George Reid (1774 - 1848), and Elizabeth Reid McGregor (1776 - 1847).  The Reid family is buried at Forest Hill Cemetery, and follow the link below to see a blog post with photographs of the Reid family plot.  

Mary Woodburn was the daughter of John Woodburn, an Irish immigrant, and Mary Boyd of Londonderry.  Their farm and homestead was located near the memorial on High Range Road. Their home was a garrison, which was never needed because Londonderry was never attacked by the French or the native people of the area.  Mary (Molly) was born 7 April 1734/5 and died on her birthday in 1823, aged 88 years.   John Woodburn is also buried at Forest Hill in Derry. 

For the truly curious:

The Molly Reid Chapter DAR website:   http://mollyreid.nhsodar.org/    

A 2012 blog post with the gravestone of General George Reid and Mary Reid, buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Derry, New Hampshire:   https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/04/tombstone-tuesday-revolutionary-war.html    

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To Cite/Link to this post:  Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Molly Reid Memorial, Londonderry, New Hampshire", Nutfield Genealogy, posted June 15, 2021, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2021/06/molly-reid-memorial-londonderry-new.html: accessed [access date]). 

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Boyd Family Monument, Londonderry, New Hampshire

This monument was photographed at the Glenwood Cemetery in Londonderry, New Hampshire, located on Mammoth Road, near the town common and Mack's Apples.

WILLIAM W. BOYD

BORN

MARCH 26, 1845

DIED

DEC. 10, 1928

COL. CALVIN BOYD

BORN

MARCH 5, 1818

DIED

FEB 8, 1850

HIS WIFE

CHARLOTTE W. SHEPARD

DIED JAN 10, 1900

FRANK BOYD

MAY 15, 1850

DEC 14, 1910

FLORENCE F. BOYD

AUG. 25, 1853

MARCH 1, 1931

Colonel Calvin Boyd was born 5 March 1818, the son of William Boyd and Martha Dickey.  He married Charlotte Webster Shepard.  She was born 26 August 1814, the daughter of William Blair Shepard and Lucy Hart Beck.  William Blair Shepard was an ancestor of the astronaut Alan B. Shepard of Derry, New Hampshire.  Colonel and Mrs. Boyd had four children:

  1. Lucy M. Boyd, b. 11 Oct. 1846 m. Solon S. Gould
  2. William Henry Boyd, b. 26 March 1848, d. 10 Dec. 1928  (named William W. above)
  3. Frank F. Boyd, b. 15 May 1850, d. 14 Dec. 1910
  4. Florence E. Boyd, b. 25 August 1853, d. 1 March 1931

I have previously blogged about some of the Boyd family from Londonderry.  I live near the corner of Boyd Road in South Londonderry, where some of the Boyds used to have a dairy farm.  You can see the portraits of Robert and Mary Boyd at this link:
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/09/1851-portraits-of-mr-and-mrs-robert.html
and their land here at this link:
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/10/history-in-my-own-backyard.html

To see Alan B. Shepard's lineage please click here:
http://www.cowhampshireblog.com/2007/02/08/derry-new-hampshire-astronaut-rear-admiral-alan-b-shepard-jr-1923-1998/

My Tombstone Tuesday post of the Alan Shepard family plot at Forest Hill Cemetery in Derry:
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/05/tombstone-tuesday-alan-shepard.html

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Aghadowey Session Book at NEHGS

Yours Truly reading and photographing the
Aghadowey Session Book at the NEHGS library in Boston

James McGregor was born about 1677 in Magilligan in the parish of Tamlaghtard in northwest County Londonderry, in Northern Ireland.  He graduated from the University of Glasgow, and was in Ulster by 1701.  It is claimed that Rev. James  McGregor was at the siege of Londonderry as a boy.  

After the siege, the Presbyterians were living in a land surrounded by Catholics, and the Crown was not protecting the rights of the Presbyterians.  Three ministers: Rev. William Boyd, Rev. James McGregor and Rev. William Cornwall decided to migrate.  In 1718 Rev. Boyd was sent to Boston to petition the Royal Governor Samuel Shute (1662 – 1742) of Massachusetts.  This document was signed by over 300 people and nine ministers.  All but 13 signed their own names.  This document is in the State House at Boston.

Rev. James McGregor replaced Rev. Thomas Boyd at Aghadowey, and was there from 1701 to 1718.   Upon deciding to migrate, he preached a farewell sermon at Coleraine  from Exodus 33: 15 “If they presence go not with me carry not up hence”and he spoke of avoiding oppression, persecution and idolatry.  Five ships left Northern Ireland in the summer of 1718.  Rev. MacGregor arrived on the brigantine “Robert” which left Glasgow for Belfast and then arrived in Boston on August 4^th along with the ship “William”, which had left Coleraine in April or May.   According to the first book of town records of Londonderry, New Hampshire, they anchored “at the little wharf at the foot of State (then King) Street, Boston, New England, August 4, 1718”.  Eventually he ended up at Nutfield, New Hampshire with some of his flock the next year. 

The Aghadowey Session Book from 1702 – 1725 was transcribed in 1905 by J. W. Kernohan, the Secretary of the Presbyterian Historical Society in Belfast, Ireland.  These session records record meetings of the ministers and elders at Aghadowey.  The story of how NEHGS acquired this session book is available online at their website www.americanancestors.org and also from the book Scotch Irish Pioneers in Ulster and America at http://www.archive.org/stream/scotchirish00boltrich#page/118/mode/2up

The New England Historic Genealogical Society has made a digital version of the Aghadowey Session book available on line at the link:   https://www.americanancestors.org/search/databasesearch/445/ireland-session-book-of-aghadowey-1702-1725   You must be a member to see this link.  The best way to read the book is to browse the pages, but it is also searchable for names.   The pages are very legible since J. W. Kernohan’s handwriting is very clear on the scanned images.   McGregor and many members of his flock are in these session books, which cover the time period up until he left for Boston in 1718. 

A page of the Session Book

The Aghadowey Session book online is a valuable resource for Ulster Scots research!  And what a terrific resource for Nutfield, New Hampshire history.  For other records of the parish of Aghadowey you can contact the Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland, which has on microfilm the Aghadowey Baptisms 1855-1944, Marriages 1845-1923, Committte Minutes, 1851-85, Stipend lists, 1832 – 54, and Communion Rolls, 1903-13. 

Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland  http://www.presbyterianhistoryireland.com/

26 College Green
Belfast
BT7 1LN
Northern Ireland

Tel. 028 9072 7330

Email: phsilibrarian@pcinet.org

An essay about the importance of the Aghadowey Session Book
http://www.lynx2ulster.com/ScotchIrishPioneers/007.php

  Photo courtesy of Barbara Poole

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

Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Aghadowey Session Book at NEHGS", Nutfield Genealogy, posted September 27, 2012, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/09/aghadowey-session-book-at-nehgs.html: accessed [access date]). 

1851 Portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Boyd of Londonderry

Robert Boyd

This is the second time I’ve blogged about the Boyd family and paintings!  I live on the land that was once the Boyd Family dairy farm in Londonderry.  The road behind my house, on the other side of a small pond, is Boyd Road.  The first time I blogged about a painting related to the Boyd family, it was this post about a landscape of this land  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/10/history-in-my-own-backyard.html    This time I"m not writing about a landscape, but two portraits.

Mary Lund Towne

The portraits of Robert Wilson and his wife, Mary Lund Towne, were painted in 1851 by the itinerant Vermont artist Horace Bundy.  They hang in the Londonderry Leach Library, which gave me permission to photograph them for this blog and for the Towne Family Association newsletter, "About Towne".  

Robert Boyd died only one month after his portrait was painted.  He is buried in the Valley Cemetery on Pillsbury Road in Londonderry.  He was born 31 July 1789, the son of Thomas Boyd and Margaret “Peggy” Darrah.  He was a descendant of some of the original Ulster Scots settlers of Londonderry.  He married Mary Towne on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1812 in Londonderry.

Mary Lund Towne’s family is buried right on Boyd Road in the small Towne Family Burial Plot on the corner of John Street.  Mary isn’t buried here, but at the Valley Cemetery with her husband.  She is a descendant of the Townes from Topsfield, Massachusetts, and is a distant cousin of mine since I descend from the Townes, too.  She was born about 1791 and died on 10 May 1887 in Londonderry.   For her complete Towne lineage please see http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2009/08/boyd-and-towne-families-of-londonderry.html

Horace Bundy was born in Hardwick, Vermont on 22 July 1814.  He was self-taught and itinerant. His style of painting is not called “primitive” but has been labeled “American Naïve” in art history books.  His first paintings were sleigh decorations.  The Smithsonian Institution Research Information System lists 109 of his paintings, which hang in many museum including the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC;  The Shelburne Museum, VT;  and at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH.  Interestingly, he became an Adventist preacher in 1842 and traveled throughout New England preaching.  The 1860 Federal census of Springfield, VT lists him as a painter, but in 1863 he was called to be the pastor of the Second Advent Church in Lakeport, New Hampshire.  He died in 1883 after returning from a trip to Jamaica where he contracted typhus.    You can Google his name and pull up many images of his portraits.

See also an article at “Townefolk” on the Towne Family Association website, with information on the Boyd and Towne families from my blog  http://www.townefolk.com/testing/TFA_GENEALOGY.php

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Copyright 2012, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Tombstone Tuesday- James McKeen, Derry, New Hampshire

This tombstone, erected by descendants in 1848, is located in Forest Hill Cemetery, Derry, New Hampshire.  It contains a plethora of genealogical information!  According to FindAGrave.com this stone was carved by F. A. Brown of Haverhill

In memory of

JAMES McKEEN, Esq.

A principal proprietor & Magistrate of

the little Colony which first settled this Town.

Who died Nov. 9, 1756:

aged 91 yrs.

His children by JANE COCHRAN his first

wife were ELIZABETH, the wife of ASA NESMITH

and JANNETT, the wife of JOHN COCHRAN;

and by ANNAS CARGILL, his second wife,

JOHN McKEEN, a member of the provisional

Congress in NH, JAMES McKEEN, JANE the wife

of Wm. ORR, MARTHA, the wife of JOHN DINSMORE,

and MARY the wife of ROBERT BOYD.

His other near relations were his sister MARY ANN

the wife of the REV. JAs. McGREGOR, ANNETT

the widow of his brother JOHN McKEEN and his &

her three sons & one daughter formerly of Londonderry

ALSO IN MEMORY OF

ANNAS

his 2d wife, who died Aug. 8, 1782

aged 94 yrs.

They were members of the presbyterian Church & to enjoy their

opinions in peace they & all the other Colonists emigrated from the

north of Ireland to this Country.  In gratitude to God & in honor

of departed worth this monument was erected in the year

1848 by certain descendants of the deceased. 

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Copyright 2011, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Tombstone Tuesday - Rev. David and Mary MacGregor of Londonderry

This stone is located in Derry, New Hampshire at the Forest Hill Cemetery, in the section known as "First Settlers". These honored gravesites of the Scots Irish founders are marked by an iron fence around their plot. The town was known as Londonderry at the time the Reverend James MacGregor was pastor of the First Church, which is located adjacent to the cemetery. Please note, he was not married to the Mary inscribed across the bottom of his stone!

Memento Mori

Eth mors indies accelerat tamen

Virtus poit Funera vivet

Here lies the dust of him who did provide

Salvation to lost souls in Jesus's Name

His Master call'd to give the great Reward

To those who here ye Flock of Christ regard

The Revd Mr. David Macgregore Son of

The Revd James Macgregore first

Minister in Londonderry

Died March 5 1729

In the 68th Year of his age

To his Memory this Monument

is erected by his Relict and Children

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

MRS. MARY McGREGORE

Relict of

Rev. David McGregore

died Sept. 28, 1783

detail - click to enlarge

As his gravestone states, James MacGregor was the first minister of Londonderry, and was considered the leader of the band of Ulster Presbyterians who traveled from Northern Ireland to the New World in 1718. He was probably born in Scotland about 1677 and ordained on 25 June 1701 in Northern Ireland. It is said by tradition that he was in Londonderry, Ireland at the time of the Seige, and he ws the young man who climbed the city wall and fired a gun to tell the inhabitants that the relief ships approached. When the settlers arrived in New Hampshire in 1719, he lead the first religious services under a nut tree near Beaver Lake, which was why it was first called "Nutfield" until renamed "Londonderry".

His son David became the minister of West Londonderry and his wife was Mary Boyd, who is memorialized here at the bottom of her father-in-law's gravestone. Reverend James MacGregor's wife was Marion Cargill, daughter of David Cargill and Janet Smith, married in Aghadowey on 29 August 1706. Mary Boyd was supposedly orphaned at a young age, and was a foster child of James and Marion.

For more information:

Memoir of the Rev. James MacGregor, D.D. by Rev. George Patterson, Philadelphia, 1859

The History of Londonderry, Comprising the towns of Derry and Londonderry, NH., by Edward Lutwyche Parker, Boston: Perkins and Whipple, 1851

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Copyright 2010, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

History in my own Backyard!

The Boyd Farm painting in the Morrison House

Last August, on Old Home Day, I was helping out in the Londonderry Historical Society's Morrison House Museum. I sat in the dining room for several hours, helping with a weaving demonstration. My husband snapped a few photos of the weaving, and then he also snapped a few photos of artifacts inside the museum. Later he asked me if I had noticed the painting behind our table. I had to laugh when I turned around to look. It was a painting of the house that used to stand our own backyard!

The Boyd Dairy Farm is now the Rolling Meadows Condominiums, built over forty years ago. It is an open area of about sixty acres, bordered by forest land and surrounding three good sized ponds. I had blogged about this land last year at the post http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2009/08/boyd-and-towne-families-of-londonderry.html

The photo above was taken yesterday, of the same piece of property. The old homestead and attached barn are no longer standing. Boyd Road, on the right, is still there, and so is the pond. Many trees have grown up along the edge of the pond. The modern townhouses sit just about where the homestead was, and if you walk along the road you can still see a stone wall. In the back, the hill is still covered with dark green pine trees. Just a little bit further up the road you will find our maintenance shed, which used to be the calving shed when this was all a dairy farm. The original painting was probably done before 1950, and you can see the changes in the landscape.

There are a few paragraphs about the Boyd family in the book Early Londonderry: Tidbits and Sketches, Volume II, by the Londonderry Historical Society, pages 136 -7. Before becoming condominiums in the 1960s, the land was known as the Thomas Boyd estate, and then owned by the Harrington family. The Harringtons built a newer, modern home on Boyd Road, but I'm not sure which one house might be the Harrington House.

This is the link to the post I did for Old Home Day...
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/08/londonderry-old-home-day-2010-weaving.html
If you look close you can see the painting right behind us as we are weaving!

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Copyright 2010, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Tombstone Tuesday- The Towne Family Burial Ground in Londonderry

The Towne Cemetery is located on the corner of John Street and Boyd Road in Londonderry. I used to be able to see it from my living room windows, but the trees have grown up so much that I can't even see the stone wall surrounding the burial ground. The sign tacked onto a nearby tree says it was established in 1828.

SUSANNAH

Daughter of

Jabez & Mary

TOWNE

1816-1903

JOHN TOWNS

died

April 3, 1848,

Aged 54 years

& 9 mos.

The Towne Family lived on Boyd Road right next to the cemetery. I have a small book published by the Londonderry Historical Society in 1962, "Early Londonderry, Volume II". On page 136 it states "....the Towne Home, occupied by Jabez Towne, who lived to be over 90 years of age...across the field on the opposite side of the road, is the "Townes Cemetery", just beyond the present Jackson place. It is the last resting place of the Towne and Boyd families." Today I can no longer see any Boyd grave markers. There appear to many missing stones, and a third of those still standing are broken. There are eleven legible stones in this cemetery.

SACRED TO THE

Memory of

MR.

MOSES TOWNS

who died

Jan 22, 1828

AEt. 70

[this appears to be the oldest stone in the cemetery

and the year the cemetery was established]

Charlotte, wife of Moses Towne

[note how the name is spelled TOWNE and also TOWNS]

On page 137 of the same book is a funny story about this cemetery. "The following experience is one never to be forgotten by Mr. Corliss. One day, when he was twelve or thirteen, Harry had been telling ghost stories out behind schoolhouse #4 with a group of boys, and the hour grew late. Harry was a little nervous as he passed the whispering birches which lined the road below the Cross place, but it wasn't until he was passing the "Townes" cemetery that he became really frightened. A pale moon shone overhead and there, moving weirdly about in the cemetery, was a ghostly figure emitting the most unearthly sounds, screeching and screaming! Terrified, Harry raced for home and fell upon the floor as he entered through the kitchen door. The next morning, a neighbor came down to the Corliss house swinging two white hens. It was she who had been in the cemetery in her nightgown the night before."

An old photo of the Towne Homestead,

from page 166 of "Early Londonderry" Volume II,

by the Londonderry Historical Society, 1962

For more information on the Towne and Boyd families, see my blog post http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2009/08/boyd-and-towne-families-of-londonderry.html from August 2009. In this post I give the Towne lineage down to Mary, daughter of Jabez Towne, who married Robert Boyd. I also give information on the link to the Towne family in Topsfield, Massachusetts and the relationship to the three Towne sisters accused of witchcraft in 1692 (Rebecca (Towne) Nurse, Sarah (Towne) Cloyse, and Mary (Towne) Estey).

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Published under a Creative Commons License

 Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Tombstone Tuesday-  The Towne Family Burial Ground in Londonderry", Nutfield Genealogy, posted September 28, 2010  (  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/09/tombstone-tuesday-towne-family-burial.html:  accessed [access date]). 

The Boyd and Towne Families of Londonderry

The Boyd Farm in Londonderry
is now Rolling Meadows Town Houses

A few years, ago two portraits were donated by a descendant to the Londonderry Leach Library, and their story was printed up in the Derry News. They were primitive style paintings of Robert W. Boyd and his wife, Mary Lund Towne painted by the itinerant portrait painter Horace Bundy in 1851. In the days before photography it was common to hire these roaming self taught artists to capture the family on canvas. Robert Boyd died only one month after sitting for his portrait. The Boyds are buried in the Valley Cemetery on Pillsbury Road in Londonderry.

I was very interested in the story because I live at Rolling Meadows, which used to be the Boyd Family Dairy Farm. As I write this I can look over the pond where they watered the cows. I can see a small cemetery there at the corner of Boyd Road and John Street, but it doesn’t contain any Boyds. Nothing survives of the homestead except for the calving shed, which now our maintenance man’s workshop. And the cows have left a legacy of lush green lawns around each modern building!

When I saw that Mary Boyd’s maiden name was Towne, I said to myself “Hmmmmmm???” Of course, this story set off a night of Googling and researching the Towne family. I knew I had Townes in my own family tree, and that they were linked to some interesting New England history.

Robert Boyd and Mary Towne were married on 24 December 1812 in Londonderry. The Boyds were descendants of some of the original settlers of Londonderry. The Towne family removed to Londonderry from Topsfield, Essex County, Massachusetts. The first Towne immigrant family from England was William Towne and his wife Joanna Blessing, who were married in Great Yarmouth on 25 April 1620, the year the Pilgrims sailed on the Mayflower.

William and Joanna had eight children, but their three daughters Rebecca, Sarah and Mary made their mark on history by all being accused of witchcraft in the 1692 hysteria. Rebecca (Towne) Nurse was actually executed on 19 Jul 1692, and her story has been made famous in numerous novels, plays and movies. You can visit her homestead in Danvers, Massachusetts and hear the story about how the elderly, pious Puritan housewife suffered through the trials.

Poor sister Mary (Towne) Estey, was released from prison, only to have her accusers redouble their efforts to slander her name, and she was executed on 9 September 1692. Sister Sarah (Towne) Cloyse, who was also accused, survived the trials and imprisonment, and was awarded a settlement of three sovereigns, one for her and the other two in her sisters’ memory. Three weeks after being released from rotting in jail for two years, and after having her sisters names cleared, she died and was buried with her coins. The fourth grade at South School used to read the young adult novel “Three Sovereigns For Sarah”, and it was made into a 1985 movie with Vanessa Redgrave. A colonial style home built for the movie still stands at the Rebecca Nurse homestead.

Our Mary Lund (Towne) Boyd is descended from the Towne sister’s brother, Jacob Town. Now, I wonder if the Harold Estey Lumber family located down the street from the Boyd farm property is related to accused witch Mary (Towne) Estey?

Lineage:
Generation 1- William Towne b. abt 1598 in England, d. abt 1672 in Topsfield, Massachusetts married Joanna Blessing

Generation 2- Jacob Towne b. abt 1632 in England, 27 Nov 1704 in Topsfield, Massachusetts married Katherine Symonds

Generation 3- Jacob Towne b. 13 Feb 1659/6 Topsfield, d. 4 Oct 1741 Topsfield married Phebe Smith

Generation 4- Jabez Towne b. 15 Jun 1704 Topsfield, d. 1 Apr 1783 in Londonderry married Triphenia Dwinnell

Generation 5- Jabez Towne b. 4 May 1731 in Topsfield married Lydia Perkins

Generation 6- Moses Towne b. 1757 d. 1828 married Charlotte Underwood

Generation 7- Mary Lund Towne b. abt 1791 d. 10 May 1887 Londonderry married Robert W. Boyd

• The Towne Family Association, descendants of William and Joanna (Blessing) Towne, whose daughters Rebecca (Nurse) and Mary (Esty) were executed in 1692 during the witchcraft hysteria at Salem, Mass., will hold their 29th annual meeting September 25-27, 2009 at the Best Western Wynwood Hotel and Suites in Portsmouth, NH. For more information contact Elizabeth Hanahan ( HanahanTFA@aol.com ) or visit http://www.townefolk.com/

Copyright 2009, Heather Wilkinson Rojo