Redemption Rock- who was redeemed, and why?

Redemption Rock is located in a tiny quarter acre park in Princeton, Massachusetts, near the Westminster border on Route 140.   It is a small park with a big colonial history. 

During King Philip’s War, the town of Lancaster, Massachusetts was attacked by Native Americans on 10 February 1676. Mary White Rowlandson (1637 – 1711) and three of her children, and twenty other settlers were kidnapped for many months until a 20 pound ransom was arranged by John Hoar, a Concord resident.  The release and ransom of Mary happened in April right here at this large boulder, which was on the boundary between the white settlers and the wilderness where the native people lived.  

Later, she wrote a book called The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson published in 1682 in Boston and also in London.  It was considered a bestseller of its time. 

A first edition of Mary Rowlandson's book
published in Boston in 1682

John Hoar was the missionary to the praying Indians of the region.  He negotiated for her ransom, which was paid by some wealthy Boston women.  Hoar took Mary back to Boston to be with her husband, the Reverend Joseph Rowlandson, and two surviving children.  In 1677 he was called to be the minister at Wethersfield, Connecticut, where he died in 1678.  Mary took her children back to Boston where she wrote her memoir.  She married Captain Samuel Talcott in 1679, and died in 1711.

John Hoar (1622 – 1704) is the father of my 9^th great aunt, Elizabeth Hoar who married Jonathan Prescott (1643 – 1721) of Concord, Massachusetts.   Jonathan’s sister, Mary Prescott, is my 8^th great grandmother.  Mary’s second husband, Captain Samuel Talcott is my 2^nd cousin, 9 generations removed.

My genealogy link to Mary White Rowlandson:

                                                                        William Skinner m. Margery Trotter

                                                                                                I

                                                John Talcott m. Anne Skinner John Skinner m. Mary Loomis

                                                                        I                                               I

John Talcott m. Dorothy Mott     Joseph Skinner m. Mary Filley

                                                                        I                                               I

Joseph Rowlandson m.1 Mary White m.2. Samuel Talcott                John Skinner m.  Sarah Porter

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                                                Aaron Skinner m. Eunice Taintor

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                                                Charles Skinner m. Sarah Osborn

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                                    Ann Skinner m. Thomas Ratchford Lyons

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                                      Isabella Lyons m. Ingraham E. Bill

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                                  Caleb Rand Bill m. Ann Margaret Bollman

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                             Albert Munroe Wilkinson m. Isabella Lyons Bill

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                          Donald Munroe Wilkinson m. Bertha Louise Roberts

                                                                                                       (my grandparents)

For more information:

Redemption Rock Park  http://www.thetrustees.org/places-to-visit/central-ma/redemption-rock.html

The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, by Mary Rowlandson, Cambridge, Massachusetts: University Press, 1803 (facsimile reproduction of the original) available to read online at Google Book Search.

New England Captives Carried to Canada Between 1677 and 1760 during the French and Indian Wars, by Emma Lewis Coleman, (originally published in two volumes in 1925) Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2012.  

The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity, by Jill Lepore, New York: Alfred A. Knopf publishers, 1998.

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The URL for this post is

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/12/redemption-rock-who-was-redeemed-and-why.html

Copyright © 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Wedding Serendipity

Our family tree is growing a new branch!  Last month our daughter was engaged to be married, and she jumped right into wedding planning.  She has always dreamed of being married in a historical house with some family connection.  Fortunately for her, there are many houses in our area that were lived in by ancestors and their close kin.  She was on line researching houses, and on the phone with many of them that made her “short list”.

My daughter’s first choice was the Fairbanks house, which was built by her 11x great grandfather, Jonathan Fairbanks (abt 1594 – 1668), in Dedham, Massachusetts.  It was built between 1637 and 1641.  She loved the fairytale look of the crooked roof line, and the history.  However, the house and grounds were too small for a big wedding.  It has hosted small weddings in the past.  There were no kitchen facilities for a caterer.  Disappointed, she moved on down the list.

The Mayflower House, Plymouth, MA

Next was the Mayflower House in Plymouth, which is used by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants as their headquarters.  If you have used the library, you have been there.  It has a lovely rose garden in the back, where I have attended garden parties for the Mayflower Society’s Trienniel Congresses every three years.  This garden was too small for a reception tent, but would be perfect for a wedding ceremony.  My daughter decided to move on down the list…

The 2000 Felton Family Reunion, Peabody, MA

The Felton Houses in Peabody, Massachusetts were built by her 10x great grandfather, Nathaniel Felton (abt 1615 – 1705).  The Nathaniel Felton, Sr. house was built about 1650, and later divided in half to build the Nathaniel, Jr. house next door.  Both houses have large additions and gardens.  There is a barn across the street used for functions, and our family is familiar with this from the Felton Family Association reunions held every summer in the barn.  There is room for a tent near some beautiful orchards.  My daughter was not in love with the site (perhaps it was too familiar to her from the family reunions?) so we moved on down the list.

The Francis Wyman House, Burlington, MA

The Wyman house, built in Burlington, Massachusetts in 1666 by her 10x great grandfather, Francis Wyman (1617 – 1699), is lovely, but has no bathrooms, kitchen or proper place for a party.  There are plans to erect a barn on the grounds in the near future, especially for functions and rentals.  Too bad, because my daughter lives right in Burlington and that would have been handy! 

The next house was the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline, Massachusetts, which is inside a lovely carriage house that looks like a Loire castle.   The manor house that used to be behind it was destroyed years ago to form a town park.  Many weddings are held on the great lawn, with the “castle” in the background.  It was a bit too formal, too expensive, and not really owned by an ancestor, just a close cousin since Larz Anderson married Isabel Weld Perkins, and we have both Perkins and Weld ancestors.  Next…

The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts sounded perfect.  I've passed by this old house many times and have seen weddings and functions going on in the yard.  It was built by Reverend William Emerson in 1770, who was Ralph Waldo Emerson's grandfather, and is my 1st cousin 7 generations removed.  Our Emerson ancestors lived for a long time in Concord.   The Old Manse is a very romantic house because Nathaniel Hawthorne lived here for a short time and etched love poems to his wife on the window panes.  It is also located right next door to the Concord Minuteman statue and the Old North Bridge for some delightful wedding photos, but would make her wedding right in the middle of lots of tourists and gawking.  The Old Manse didn't quite fit my daughter's plans either. 

I could tell that my daughter was becoming a bit frustrated in her search, since there were so many choices, and none were perfect.  She confessed that she always like the Pierce House in Lincoln, Massachusetts.  She used to pass it every day when she worked nearby at the DeCordova Museum.  It was beautiful, historical, and who cared if it didn’t belong to a member of the family tree.  We all went to visit it and she loved it so much that we put down a deposit for a day next spring.  My husband took a photo of the portrait of John H. Pierce that was in the hallway.  I asked the caretaker if he was descended of the Pierce’s of Watertown, Massachusetts (a wild guess!).  He told me that he didn’t know the family genealogy, but he knew that his real name was Hoar, and he changed it to Pierce.

Here we are at the Pierce  House

Undaunted, when I got home I took a look at my Pierce family tree on the computer.  I found an article about John Howard Pierce online, and how his father, Abijah Pierce Hoar, had changed the surname.  Abijah’s mother was Susanna Pierce.  I found her already listed in my database as a 5^th cousin, 6 generations removed.  This was a rather distant kinship, but fun to tell my daughter about the connection.  However, before I called her I looked at John Howard Pierce’s wife’s name, Mary Elizabeth Wheeler.   She had six common ancestors with us (Coolidge, Hubbard, Heyward, two Munroe lines, and Stone).  Now, that was interesting! 

We’ll have to put a family tree under that portrait of John. H. Pierce on the wedding day!

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For more information, check this list.  One of these historic Massachusetts houses could be perfect for your next function or wedding!:

The Fairbanks House, Dedham, MA http://www.fairbankshouse.org/index.html

The Mayflower House, Plymouth, MA http://www.themayflowersociety.com/museum

The Nathaniel Felton, Sr. and Jr. Houses, Peabody, MA http://www.peabodyhistorical.org/properties.asp

The Francis Wyman House, Burlington, MA http://www.wyman.org/francis-wyman-house

The Larz Anderson Estate, Brookline, MA http://larzanderson.org/
The Old Manse http://www.thetrustees.org/places-to-visit/greater-boston/old-manse.html 

The Pierce House, Lincoln, MA http://www.piercehouse.com/

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To cite/link to this blog post: Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Wedding Serendipity", Nutfield Genealogy, posted April 9, 2012, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/04/wedding-serendipity.html: accessed [access date]).