Nielsen Hayden genealogy
Benjamin Bird

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Name Benjamin Bird [1] Birth 13 Apr 1686 Dorchester, Suffolk, Massachusetts [2, 3, 4]
Gender Male Death 29 Mar 1757 Dorchester, Suffolk, Massachusetts [2, 3, 4]
Person ID I23235 Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others Last Modified 4 May 2020
Father Thomas Bird, b. 4 May 1640, Dorchester, Suffolk, Massachusetts d. 30 Jan 1710, Dorchester, Suffolk, Massachusetts
(Age 69 years)
Mother Thankful Atherton, b. Bef 29 Apr 1644 d. 11 Apr 1719, Dorchester, Suffolk, Massachusetts (Age > 74 years)
Marriage 2 Feb 1665 Dorchester, Suffolk, Massachusetts [5]
Family ID F13978 Group Sheet | Family Chart
Family Johanna Harris, b. 18 Jan 1692, Ipswich, Essex, Massachusetts d. 7 May 1768 (Age 76 years)
Marriage 30 Jan 1711 Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts [4]
Children + 1. Sarah Bird, b. 4 Oct 1716, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts d. 4 Jun 1782, Sharon, Norfolk, Massachusetts
(Age 65 years)
Family ID F13977 Group Sheet | Family Chart Last Modified 4 May 2020
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Notes - He was for a while a wharfinger (owner or keeper of a wharf) in Boston. In Dorchester he was constable in 1725, and, chosen to the same office in 1727, paid the fine for non-acceptance. Selectman 1728-32. Deputy to the general court, 1729-33 and 1737.
Around 1745 or 1746, he was excommunicated from the church at Dorchester for "intemperate drinking," and felt himself to have been dealt with unjustly. He was subsequently one of the leaders of a rebellion against the local pastor, the Rev. Jonathan Bowman, but the Council of Churches upheld Bowman and instructed Bird and his associates to humble themselves and return to the church. Whether Bird ever did so is unclear. His son Samuel, who had left Harvard under a cloud "in consequence of some rash censures upon several of the Governors of the College, and the venerable clergymen of Cambridge," became a Methodist minister, and for a time preached to his father's group.
- He was for a while a wharfinger (owner or keeper of a wharf) in Boston. In Dorchester he was constable in 1725, and, chosen to the same office in 1727, paid the fine for non-acceptance. Selectman 1728-32. Deputy to the general court, 1729-33 and 1737.
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Sources - [S3826] The Ancestry of Bethia Harris, 1748-1833: Wife of Dudley Wildes of Topsfield, Massachusetts by Walter Goodwin Davis. Portland, Maine: Southworth Press, 1934.
- [S3033] Find a Grave page for Benjamin Bird.
- [S3035] William B. Trask, "Thomas Bird, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, and Some of His Descendants." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 25:21, Jan 1871.
- [S4109] Ancestry of Alice Maud Clark, version 0.153, by A. H. Gilbertson. 16 Apr 2020.
- [S7376] The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1636-1638 by Ian Watson. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2024.
- [S3826] The Ancestry of Bethia Harris, 1748-1833: Wife of Dudley Wildes of Topsfield, Massachusetts by Walter Goodwin Davis. Portland, Maine: Southworth Press, 1934.