John Daby

Notes:

He was a blacksmith, and one of the original petitioners for the town of Harvard in Worcester County.

His gravestone reads:

Here lies the Body
of M^r John Daby
who Departed this
Life Jan'^y 6^th AD 1769
Aged 80 years and
11 months.

Tis but a few whose Days amount
To three score years and ten;
And all beyond that short Account,
Is Sorrow, Toil and Pain.

Our Vitals with laborious Strife
Bear up the crazy load.
And drag those poor Remains of Life,
Along the tiresome Road.

Family/Spouse: Hannah Butterick. Hannah (daughter of John Butterick and Mary Blood) was born on 6 Jun 1685 in Stow, Middlesex, Massachusetts; died on 17 Nov 1744 in Harvard, Worcester, Massachusetts; was buried in Harvard Center Cemetery, Harvard, Worcester, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 27 Feb 1715, Stow, Middlesex, Massachusetts

Simon married Mercy Wilson on 22 Jan 1738. Mercy (daughter of John Wilson and Mercy Wright) was born on 13 Aug 1717 in Andover, Essex, Massachusetts; died on 31 Aug 1751 in Groton, Middlesex, Massachusetts; was buried in Old Burying Ground, Groton, Middlesex, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Or "John Daby".

Many online sources give this John Darby/Daby, husband of Sarah Hopgood, a birth date of 24 Mar 1741, and show him as a son of Simon Daby (1715-1802) and Mercy Wilson (1717-1751). It's chronologically and geographically plausible. And this John and Sarah did in fact name their first child Simon (b. 20 May 1765). But there are problems with it.

Henry Stedman Nourse's 1894 History of the Town of Harvard, Massachusetts: 1732-1893, in his list of the offspring of John Daby and Sarah Hopgood, calls this John Daby "John, Jr.". Warren Hapgood's 1898 The Hapgood Family (citation details below) also calls the husband of Lt. Shadrach Hopgood's daughter Sarah "John Darby, Jr."

And according to Viola A. Derby Bromley's 1905 Derby Genealogy, the John Darby/Daby who married Sarah Hopgood was born "about 1740", a younger son of John Daby (1688-1769) by his wife Hannah (1685-1744). In her reckoning, the John Darby/Daby who was born 24 Mar 1741 to Simon Daby and Mercy Wilson married a Dinah Willard.

Finally, the 1917 Vital Records of Harvard, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850, in its register of marriages, also calls the John Daby who married Sarah Hopgood "John Jr." (Interestingly, it also calls the John Darby who married Dinah Willard "John Jr.", which creates another problem for Derby Genealogy.)

Of course, the problem with John Daby and Hannah (now known to have been Hannah Butterick) being the parents of the John Daby/Darby who married Sarah Hopgood is obvious. If John and Hannah's birthdates are as shown in the town records of Harvard, this supposed "John Darby, Jr.", born about 1740, would have been born when his father was 52 and his mother was 55. This is highly implausible. According to Wikipedia, in the United States between 1997 and 1999, only 194 women gave birth aged 55 or over. That's out of a population of about 280,000,000. The population of New England in 1740 was about one million.

The range of birthdates shown by Bromley for the other children of John and Hannah is 1712 to 1722. It's hard to avoid the suspicion that Bromley was aware that prior sources (Nourse, Hapgood, Harvard vital records) all called the husband of Sarah Hopgood "John, Jr.", and simply parked him as a child of John and Hannah because there were no more plausible local Johns Darby/Daby for him to be the offspring of.

There's little question that Simon and Mercy Daby/Darby had a son John who was born 24 Mar 1741. The Harvard vital records show a John Daby, "s. of Simon and Marcey, Mar. 24, 1741." Nourse lists, in his register of births, John Daby, born "March 24, 1741", among "The Children of Simon and Mercy."

It's also worth noting that the Harvard vital records show no birth of any John Darby, Daby, or Derby to John and Hannah Darby, Daby, or Derby.

Our suspicion is that the John Darby/Daby who married Sarah Hopgood was in fact a son of Simon Daby and Mercy Wilson, just as geography, chronology, and onomastics suggest, and that the idea that he was a "Jr." was introduced by an error in transcription somewhere along the way. We'd like to see the actual materials from which the 1917 Harvard vital records book was transcribed. But suspicion is not evidence.

UPDATE, 14 Feb 2016: ancestry.com has a handwritten record of Harvard, Massachusetts births, on which we see, under "Daby," "John s of Simon and Mercy" born 24 Mar 1741. No "Jr." in sight.

John married Sarah Hopgood on 17 Jan 1765 in Harvard, Worcester, Massachusetts. Sarah (daughter of Lt. Shadrach Hopgood and Elizabeth Weatherbee) was born on 16 Jun 1744 in Harvard, Worcester, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also known as Sarah (or Sally) Daby.

Sarah married Josiah Stone on 13 Sep 1797 in Harvard, Worcester, Massachusetts. Josiah (son of Lt. James Stone and Deborah Nutting) was born on 1 Apr 1771 in Harvard, Worcester, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]