Nielsen Hayden genealogy
John Folger
- Abt 1660-
Name John Folger [1, 2, 3] Birth Norwich, Norfolk, England 
[4] Gender Male Death Abt 1660 Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts [4] Person ID I17445 Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others | Ancestor of BJS, Ancestor of GFS, Ancestor of TWK Last Modified 29 Aug 2020
Family Merrable Gibbs d. Aft 1663, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts Marriage Bef 25 Jan 1609 [2] Notes - Some confusion has transpired over whether Merrable Gibbs was the mother of Peter Folger. In his 1862 NEHGR article "The Folger Family," William Coleman Folger wrote "John Folger died about 1660. Meribell Folger his widow was living in 1664. Her surname is supposed to have been Gibbs. According to tradition, John was a widower when he came over [in 1635]; if this be correct, he must have married her after his arrival in America."
But Benjamin Franklin was certainly aware that Merrable Gibbs was the mother of his grandfather Peter Folger. In 1759, M. Foulger of Illington, Norfolk wrote to Franklin that "John Foulger married to Mirriba Gibbs in Old England by hir he had one sone named Peter and one Daughter than married a Pain on Long Island." And in 1932 George Andrews Moriarty discovered and published the will of "John Gibbes of Frendes in the County of Norff[olk] yeoman," dated 25 Jan 1609, which included a bequest to his daughter "Merrable Folser." So the "tradition" that John Folger emigrated as a widower would appear to have been incorrect; he was certainly married to Merrable Gibbs before 25 Jan 1609, and she certainly outlived him by four years and died on Martha's Vineyard in or after 1664.
Children + 1. Peter Folger, b. Abt 1617, Norwich, Norfolk, England d. 1690, Nantucket, New York (Age ~ 73 years)+ 2. Mary Folger, b. Aft 1617 d. Bef 18 Jul 1685 (Age < 66 years) Family ID F10708 Group Sheet | Family Chart Last Modified 11 Jan 2019
- Some confusion has transpired over whether Merrable Gibbs was the mother of Peter Folger. In his 1862 NEHGR article "The Folger Family," William Coleman Folger wrote "John Folger died about 1660. Meribell Folger his widow was living in 1664. Her surname is supposed to have been Gibbs. According to tradition, John was a widower when he came over [in 1635]; if this be correct, he must have married her after his arrival in America."
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Notes - Said to have come with his wife and son in 1635.
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Sources - [S76] The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004-ongoing.
- [S2310] Nathan W. Murphy, "Gibbs and Robertson Ancestry of Merrable Gibbs, Wife of John Folger of Martha's Vineyard, and Anne Gibbs, Wife of Rev. John Fiske of Chelmsford, Massachusetts." The American Genealogist 88:286, October 2016.
- [S4303] Lineage of the Bowens of Woodstock, Connecticut by Edward Augustus Bowen. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Riverside Press, 1897.
- [S2274] William Coleman Folger, "The Folger Family." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 16:269, 1862.
- [S76] The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004-ongoing.