Nielsen Hayden genealogy

Welthea Bradford

Female 1757 - 1846  (88 years)


Personal Information    |    Notes    |    Sources    |    All

  • Name Welthea Bradford 
    Birth 15 Nov 1757  Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
    Gender Female 
    Alternate death Mar 1841  Poughkeepsie, Dutchess, New York Find all individuals with events at this location  [9, 10
    Death 8 Jun 1846  [11
    Person ID I20549  Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others | Ancestor of LDN
    Last Modified 18 Aug 2022 

    Father Samuel Bradford,   b. 2 Jan 1730, Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 17 Feb 1777, Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 47 years) 
    Mother Grace Ring,   b. 6 Apr 1730, Kingston, Plymouth, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 20 Apr 1793, Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 63 years) 
    Marriage 1 Nov 1749  Kingston, Plymouth, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 2, 4, 7, 12, 13
    Family ID F12192  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Isaac Drew,   b. Jun 1748, Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 3 Nov 1835, Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location (Age ~ 87 years) 
    Marriage 1 Oct 1781  Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [6, 7, 11, 14, 15
    Children 
    +1. William Drew,   b. Abt 1798, Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 12 Jan 1853, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location (Age ~ 55 years)
    Family ID F12191  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 2 Sep 2019 

  • Notes 
    • If she died in Poughkeepsie as asserted in the Stephen Hopkins Mayflower Families through Five Generations book (citation details below), she must have removed there very late in life, as the records of her pension application state that she personally appeared before the Plymouth probate judge, calling herself "a resident of Duxbury" (and "aged Eighty years") in Aug 1838.

      A typewritten letter from one Winfield Scott, Commissioner of the "Rev. & 1812 Wars Section" of the Federal pension office, to Mary C. Fraprie of Beacon Street, Brookline, Massachusetts, dated 16 Oct 1928, narrates Isaac Drew's service in the Revolution in some detail, and ends with the note that Isaac Drew's wife Welthea Bradford — who, the letter notes, he married "October 1, 1781", agreeing with the other genealogical sources cited here — was "allowed pension on her application executed August 16, 1838, while a resident of Duxbury, Massachusetts, aged eighty years. She died June 8, 1846." Which is entirely different from the information given in the Hopkins Mayflower Families book.

      The Mayflower Families books use the much-complained-about "giant block of citations" model, in which it can be very difficult to determine which cited source or authority attaches to which stated fact. Failing a specific reason to believe that Welthea Bradford died in Poughkeepsie — or in 1841, as asserted by Ruth Gardiner Hall (citation details below) — we're inclined to believe Commissioner Scott's report that she died 8 June 1846, even if he was writing over eighty years later. For the simple reason that pension offices are strongly motivated to accurately know when their beneficiaries have died and no longer require further applications of public funds.

  • Sources 
    1. [S635] Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Volume 6, Third Edition, Family — Stephen Hopkins by John D. Austin. Plymouth, Massachusetts: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 2001.

    2. [S2252] Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Volume 22, William Bradford by Robert S. Wakefield and Ann Smith Lainhart. Plymouth, Massachusetts: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 2004.

    3. [S2576] A Genealogical Sketch of a Dover, N.H. Branch of the Leighton family by Walter Leatherbee Leighton. Newton Center, Massachussets, 1940.

    4. [S2584] G. M. Fessenden, "A Genealogy of the Bradford Family." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 4:39, 4:233, 1850., date only.

    5. [S2585] History of the Town of Duxbury, Massachusetts, with Genealogical Registers by Justin Winsor. Boston: Crosby & Nichols, 1849.

    6. [S3422] Vital Records of Duxbury, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1911.

    7. [S3423] Descendants of Governor William Bradford (Through the First Seven Generations) by Ruth Gardiner Hall. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Bradford Family Compact, 1951.

    8. [S3425] Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Volume 16, Part 2, John Alden, Fifth Generation Descendants of His Daughter Elizabeth (Alden) Pabodie by Esther Littleford Woodworth-Barnes. Plymouth, Massachusetts: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 2002.

    9. [S3423] Descendants of Governor William Bradford (Through the First Seven Generations) by Ruth Gardiner Hall. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Bradford Family Compact, 1951., date only.

    10. [S635] Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Volume 6, Third Edition, Family — Stephen Hopkins by John D. Austin. Plymouth, Massachusetts: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 2001., place only.

    11. [S3424] Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, from the National Archives, on fold3.com.

    12. [S4433] Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Volume 24, The Descendants of Elder William Brewster, Part 2, The Descendants of William Brewster Through His Son Jonathan, Generations 5 and 6 by Barbara Lambert Merrick. Edited by John Bradley Arthaud. Previewed by Peggy M. Baker. Plymouth, Massachusetts: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 2019.

    13. [S4434] Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Volume 24, The Descendants of Elder William Brewster, Part 3, The Descendants of William Brewster Through His Children Patience, Fear, and Love, Generations 5 and 6 by Barbara Lambert Merrick. Edited by John Bradley Arthaud. Previewed by Peggy M. Baker. Plymouth, Massachusetts: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 2019.

    14. [S2576] A Genealogical Sketch of a Dover, N.H. Branch of the Leighton family by Walter Leatherbee Leighton. Newton Center, Massachussets, 1940., date only.

    15. [S1125] Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of Boston and Eastern Massachusetts by William Richard Cutter. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1908., date only.