Mary Ely

Mary married Benjamin Lee on 25 Mar 1736. Benjamin (son of John Lee and Elizabeth Smith) was born on 4 Sep 1712 in Lyme, New London, Connecticut; died in Apr 1777. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Elizabeth married Joseph Chester on 22 Sep 1785. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

"He is said to have been the first Washington County (R.I.) physician. Previous to his time the ministers were the physicians. He died of yellow fever, contracted while visiting a patient on a vessel from a southern port. His tombstone recounts that 'He was a physician of eminence, a universal philanthropist, and a friend to the distressed. His death is greatly lamented by all who knew him.' Buried at first in Westerly, R.I., his remains were removed in 1856 to Grove street cemetery, New Haven, Conn." [Genealogy of the Descendants of John Eliot, citation details below.]

Daniel married Lydia Ann Eliot on 4 Feb 1784 in Westerly, Washington, Rhode Island. Lydia (daughter of John Eliot and Lydia Atwater) was born on 22 Jun 1760; died on 17 Sep 1836. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Joseph married Prudee Tracy on 10 Sep 1811. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Her monumental inscription ends: "Though dead, yet shall she live."

Nancy married John Bassett in Oct 1809. John (son of Benjamin Bassett and Molly Hinman) was born on 22 Sep 1779 in of Derby, New Haven, Connecticut; died on 16 Aug 1858. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

A pioneer of evidence-based genealogical research, he spent the last two decades of his life in England researching the English ancestry of various American families. In 1869 he was one of the founders of the Harleian Society. In 1877, Columbia University granted him an honorary LL.D in recognition of his genealogical work. Oxford University followed with another honorary degree in 1881. His literary executor was George Edward Cokayne, Norroy King of Arms, founder of the Complete Peerage.

His connection to the maintainers of this database is that, under the sponsorship of Chicago mayor and sometime congressman John Wentworth,* he performed the primary research establishing with reasonable certainty the medieval ancestry of the New England immigrant William Wentworth (1616-1697), one of TNH's "gateway ancestors."

His other connection, mostly demonstrating that all of human history is a gigantic tangled knot, is that his first published literary work was a volume of poetry entitled Greenwood Cemetery and Other Poems (1843), the title poem of which is absolutely about Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, whose bounds stand half a block from where this database's maintainers lived from 2004 to 2018.

I stand upon Mount WASHINGTON, and gaze
Enraptured on the view within my sight:
The city's spires--its broad and noble bay--
Lie, like a vivid panorama, spread
By master hands in lines of glowing life:--
Turning, the restless ocean meets my eye
And faintly, when the southern breeze is full
I hear thy roar, far sounding Rockaway!


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* In an entirely gratuitous Mormon connection, before entering electoral politics this John Wentworth was a journalist, and in that capacity he wrote to Mormon founder and prophet Joseph Smith with several inquiries about Mormonism. Smith's answer, known in church history as the "Wentworth Letter," is now considered one of the foundational documents of LDS belief.

Jane married Rev. Charles Wells Clapp on 16 Aug 1849. Charles (son of Russell Clapp and Louisa Strong) was born on 22 Jan 1817 in Southampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts; died on 12 Aug 1884; was buried in Godfrey Cemetery, Godfrey, Madison, Illinois. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]