back Appleton and Amanda Hurd Stillman next

After making his will, Grandpa Appleton lived another four months—long enough to know that Amanda had been carrying a son: the will provides differently for little Lucius, had he turned out to be the second Lucia Emily. As we’d always known, Grandma Amanda lived nearly another seventeen years and still died five years younger than did her husband.

Thanks to Bob Grigg, we’re now fairly confident that she did not remarry but lived as the Widow Amanda Stillman. On July 9, 2009, Bob kindly sent the following via e-mail:

Bob Grigg 		“There are two entries about Amanda Stillman in Volume 9 of the Colebrook Land Records.
  • April 22, 1839, Leonard Gillette purchased for $300.00, land in the 6th tier south of Daniel Stillman’s Griffin Lot. Bounded east by highway, north on the grantor’s land, west on the public highway. Consists of 30 acres. This same land given to our mother, Amanda Stillman by our father, Appleton Stillman.
  • January 7, 1841, Leonard Gillette purchased from Sylvester Stillman, for $42.00, land located south by Charles Griffin’s land including all the land between Griffin’s land and the highway, which runs north-south, then extends from Griffin’s line 40 rods [660 feet] in width and to continue that width 10 rods [165 feet] eastward from the highway which runs north-south, then to turn a square point southward to run parallel with the line of the original 10-rod highway at the east end of the lot, from thence to run a line parallel with Griffin’s line against his lot. Otherwise known as the dower estate of Amanda Stillman, deceased.”
Had she remarried, the 1841 land record would doubtless have referred to her by her new married name, not as “Amanda Stillman, deceased.” If we find her grave,2 and if its marker has survived, we’ll expect to find our family name on it.

Grandpa Jason now takes us on to the next generation.1
1We note in passing that our Mayflower heritage has a strong distaff flavor: Grandpa Benjamin Smith carried only half of it, and in the seven generations between him and yours truly, Jason’s our only male Mayflower ancestor.
2FindAGrave.com has a memorial (#24434381) for her, repeating a widely-published but unsourced death date of February 6, 1834, and placing her in Beech Hill (but no plot number). I’m trying to get in touch with the memorial’s author.
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