Woodworth

On 20 May 1676, in King Philip's War, the attack on Scituate came down on the Stockbridge garrison house by the mill on the First Herring Brook. "The garrison house of Stockbridge was pallisadoed on three sides, the fourth being defended by the mill pond ... Here the Indians fought several hours, made many efforts to fire the buildings," and they "were not repulsed until night close," when "Lieut. Buck had mustered all the men below." John Stockbridge, a wheelwright, had built the mill and the house in the 1650s, and his son Charles kept them; Sarah, probably John's daughter, had married Joseph Woodworth, a shopkeeper of Scituate, in 1669. Joseph's father, Walter Woodworth, had the third lot on Kent Street, along the ocean front, in 1635 and built his house there; when his neighbour Japhet Turner "in 1661 pulled down WALTER'S fence and obliterated his boundary lines, WALTER promptly sued him and obtained a verdict for £5 and costs." At the court of 6 March 1676/7 the colony tried Mary Ingham, wife of Thomas Ingham of Scituate, for causing Walter's daughter Mehitable, "by the healp of the diuill, in a way of witchcraft or sorcery," "to fall into violent fitts"; a jury of twelve brought her in not guilty, the only witchcraft case Plymouth Colony tried before a jury.

Joseph's son Joseph, born at Scituate in 1670, married in 1694 and moved to Little Compton, Rhode Island, and later to Lebanon, Connecticut, where he owned land in 1739. His son Joseph, born at Little Compton in 1696, married Ann Manchester in 1723 and moved to Lebanon in 1734; one of their sons, Abner, a shoemaker, walked in old age to Pompey, New York, "carrying with him his kit of shoemaker's tools, and driving a cow." The youngest, Lemuel, born at Lebanon in 1735, married Elizabeth Hunt in 1757; their son Joseph "was at the battle of Bunker's Hill," and Benjamin too was a Revolutionary soldier. Their son Lemuel, born at Lebanon in 1772, married Lydia Winter, and in 1806 "Lemuel and Lydia, with her bro. and his sister, Matthew and Anna (Woodworth) Winter ... and their families, came from Scott's Patent ... and settled in East Jewett," in the Catskills of Greene County, where Jonathan Fairchild, the tanner, had settled a few years before. Two of Lemuel's daughters married Jonathan's sons, and his niece Sally Winter a third. He and Lydia died in the same year, 1845, and share a stone: "They were lovely and pleasant in this life and in their death [they were not divided]."

Nancy, born at East Jewett in 1808 or 1809, married Richard C. Fairchild in July 1829; her sister Hannah had married his brother Henry, and her double first cousin Sally Winter married his brother Edward. Richard went west to La Grange, Walworth County, Wisconsin, where their daughter Elizabeth, her husband Stephen George Frost and their baby were living in his house in 1850. Nancy was with him there in 1860 and went with him to Iowa in 1865, and she died at Marion, Linn County, in 1891. The poet Samuel Woodworth, author of "The Old Oaken Bucket," was Walter's descendant in the fifth generation, and his house stood on Walter's land on the First Herring Brook, below Stockbridge's mill. The family histories have Walter's eldest son Benjamin killed in King Philip's War, but he probably came home: in March 1677 a Benjamin Woodworth sat on a Scituate jury with his brother Joseph.

The line at a glance

Walter Woodworth, of Scituate by 1635 > Joseph Woodworth, shopkeeper of Scituate = Sarah Stockbridge (b. 1645), daughter of John Stockbridge (d. 1657) of the Scituate mill and Elizabeth Soan > Joseph Woodworth (b. 1670), of Little Compton and Lebanon > Joseph Woodworth (b. 1696) = Ann Manchester (m. 1723) > Lemuel Woodworth (b. 1735), of Lebanon = Elizabeth Hunt (m. 1757) > Lemuel Woodworth (1772-1845), of East Jewett = Lydia Winter (1773-1845) > Nancy Woodworth (1808-1891) = Richard C. Fairchild (1808-1882), of East Jewett, La Grange and Marion > Elizabeth Fairchild (1830-1889) = Stephen George Frost.

The scope walks every ancestor of Nancy Woodworth. Her husband's side is the Frost and Fairchild line, which stops at her. The Woodworths do not depend on the possible link between Jonathan Fairchild of East Jewett and the Fairchilds of Norwalk, on which the Raymond line rests. Lydia Winter's family is not known beyond her.

How sure it is

• Nancy to Lemuel Woodworth and Lydia Winter (compiled, probable): Gilmore (1991) reports an indenture of 1 Apr 1846 in which Richard and Nancy, "of town of Windham," are named with "other heirs of Lemuel Woodworth," among them Hannah's sons Julius and Jonathan Fairchild, selling his land in the town of Hunter (the deed itself not seen); the East Kill Valley Genealogy (1974) calls her "dau. of Lemuel and Lydia (Winter) Woodworth." Lydia as her mother rests on that book and the Ancestry tree. Her birth is 12 Dec 1808 in the Ancestry tree, "5 Feb. 1809, East Jewett" in the East Kill Valley Genealogy and "ca 1808" in Gilmore (possible).
• Nancy's marriage to Richard C. Fairchild (documented, probable): the 1860 census of La Grange and the 1846 indenture. The wedding was at East Jewett in July 1829, on the 3rd (Plume, as Gilmore gives it) or the 13th (the Frost Genealogy). Their daughter Elizabeth is proven by the 1850 census (the Frost and Fairchild line).
• Lemuel (1772) to Lemuel Woodworth (1735) and Elizabeth Hunt (compiled, probable): the Woodworth Records (1898) list "3 Lemuel, b July 15, 1772" among the children of Lemuel and Elizabeth (Hunt) Woodworth of Lebanon, and say he "moved to Greene Co., N. Y., among the Catskill Mountains"; the East Kill Valley Genealogy independently makes him "the son of Lemuel b. 25 Jun. 1735, Lebanon, Conn." His sister Ann, born 13 Aug 1780, is very probably the Anna Woodworth who married Matthew Winter: that book names "Anna's ... brother Joseph, a soldier of the Revolution b. Lebanon," and her stone's date matches. His own stone, as printed, has "b. 1778."
• Lemuel (1735) to Joseph Woodworth (1696) and Ann Manchester, Joseph (1696) to Joseph (1670), and Joseph (1670) to Joseph Woodworth and Sarah Stockbridge (compiled, probable, step by step): the Woodworth Records, from the Little Compton records and a Lebanon deed of 1739 "by him to his sons," with Deane's History of Scituate (1831). The wife of Joseph (1670), married in 1694, is not known, so neither is the mother of Joseph (1696).
• Joseph to Walter Woodworth (compiled, probable): Deane names Joseph among Walter's children "from incidental records," and the Woodworth Records call him "son of Walter, Sr., b at Scituate." His marriage to Sarah Stockbridge, 6 Jan 1669 by the Woodworth Records (Deane has the year only), is compiled and probable; whether January 1669 is 1668/9 or 1669/70 is not stated.
• Sarah Stockbridge to John Stockbridge (documented, probable): John's will of 1657 left "daughter Sarah 10£ at marriage, or at 21 years of age," and Deane's Stockbridge sketch lists "Sarah 1645, (wife of Joseph Woodworth 1669 ...)" among John's children by his second wife, the widow Elizabeth Soan. The Woodworth Records, and Deane's own Woodworth sketch, call her "daughter of Charles Stockbridge, who kept the mill"; but Charles's daughter Sarah was born in 1665 and married Israel Turner, and his first known child was born in 1660. Charles stays as the alternative, possible. Elizabeth Soan as her mother is compiled and probable; her maiden name is not known.

Walter Woodworth's English origin (the Woodworth Records guess Kent) and his wife are not known. Set aside: the Ancestry tree's "Lemuel G. Woodworth" and "Lydia Hannah Winter ... of New London," which have no sources. The account in Deane and the Woodworth Records that Benjamin Woodworth was killed in King Philip's War grew from the land the colony allowed on 21 July 1676 to "Charlse Stockbridge, for Benjamine Woodworth" (Records of the Colony of New Plymouth 5:206); but "JOSEPH WOODWORTH" and "BENJAMINE WOODWORTH" sat on a jury entered at the court of 6 Mar 1676/7 (5:227), and "LEABANON. Benjamin Woodworth." was among the Narragansett grantees of 1733 (King Philip's War: Plymouth Colony and the Rhode Island border). The research is in Notable connections of Frances Fairchild Holbrook: the Fairchild branch and the families that married in, sections 1.13-1.15.

Open questions

• Lemuel Woodworth's birth, 1772 or 1778 (the Lebanon vital records).
• When and where Lemuel married Lydia Winter, and the rest of their children.
• Lydia Winter's parents ("Moses (?) Winter") and birthplace.
• Nancy's birth, 1808 or 1809.
• The wife of Joseph Woodworth (1670), married in 1694, and when he died.
• Sarah Stockbridge's father, John or Charles: the Scituate record of the 1669 marriage.
• Lemuel Woodworth's (1735) death, and Elizabeth Hunt's family; Ann Manchester's parents.
• Walter Woodworth's English origin, his wife, and when he died.