Benjamin Bird

1686 - 1757  (70 years)

• 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 | Ancestor of TWK
  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

  
  

• 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.

  
  

• 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.