Mary Neff

Mary married Matthias Button on 24 Nov 1686 in Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts. Matthias (son of Matthias Button and Teagle) was born on 17 Mar 1658 in Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts; died in 1725 in Plainfield, Windham, Connecticut. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Daniel Button was born on 20 Sep 1687 in Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts; died in May 1745 in Stonington, New London, Connecticut.

Notes:

First appears in Essex (Massachusetts) county court records in Newbury, later in Haverhill. On 14 May 1663 he was made town herdsman of Haverhill. In 1689 he was drafted into the army of the short-lived Dominion of New England and sent to Maine, where he died at Pemaquid (which is now Bristol, in Lincoln County).

William married Mary Corliss on 23 Jan 1665 in Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts. Mary (daughter of George Corliss and Joanna Davis) was born on 8 Sep 1646 in Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts; died on 22 Oct 1722 in Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

From Wikipedia:

During King William's War, Hannah [Duston], her husband Thomas, and their eight children were residents of Haverhill, Massachusetts. In March 1697, the town was attacked by a group of Abenaki from Quebec. In the attack, 27 colonists were killed, and 13 were taken captive to be either adopted or held as hostages for the French. When their farm was attacked, Thomas fled with eight children, but Hannah and her nurse, Mary Neff (nee Corliss), were captured and forced to march into the wilderness, Hannah carrying her newborn daughter, Martha. According to the account Hannah gave to Cotton Mather, along the way her captors killed the six-day-old Martha by smashing her head against a tree.

Hannah and Mary were assigned to a family group of 12 persons and taken north. The group included Samuel Lennardson, a 14-year-old captured in Worcester, Massachusetts, the year before.

Six weeks later, at an island in the Merrimack River at the mouth of the Contoocook River, near what is now Penacook, New Hampshire, Hannah led Mary and Samuel in a revolt. Hannah used a tomahawk to attack the sleeping captors, killing one of the two grown men (Lennardson killed the second), two adult women, and six children. One severely wounded Abenaki woman and a young boy managed to escape the attack.

The former captives immediately left in a canoe, but not before taking scalps from the dead as proof of the incident and to collect a bounty. They traveled downriver, only during the night, and after several days reached Haverhill. The Massachusetts General Court later gave them a reward for killing their captors; Hannah Duston received 25 pounds, and Neff and Lennardson split another 25 pounds (various accounts say 50 or 25 pounds, and some accounts mention only Duston's receiving an award).

The event became well known, due in part to Cotton Mather's account in Magnalia Christi Americana: The Ecclesiastical History of New England (1702). Duston became more famous in the 19th century as her story was retold by Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Henry David Thoreau.

Notes:

First appears in Newbury, Massachusetts about 1639, giving his age as 22 years.

George married Joanna Davis on 26 Oct 1645 in Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts. Joanna (daughter of Thomas Davis and Christian Bellsire) was born about 1625 in Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, England; died before 12 Jan 1693 in Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1624

Notes:

Chipping Sodbury, in Gloucestershire, is a semi-finalist in your genealogist's Silly English Village Names bracket, sadly defeated by the Yorkshire hamlet of Thornton-le-Beans.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: of Marlborough, Wiltshire, England

Notes:

He and his wife emigrated in 1635 on the James out of Southampton.

Thomas married Christian Bellsire on 14 Nov 1622 in Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, England. Christian died on 7 Apr 1668 in Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]