Elizabeth Hunter

Elizabeth, Hunter by birth as Anderson has it (Great Migration Begins, citing The American Genealogist 40:80-81), married Deacon Humphrey Woodbury of Beverly by 1637; the Beverly and Salem records call her only Elizabeth. She was probably the mother of Thomas Woodbury, born before the church records begin. In 1686 she was the executrix of her husband's will.

Her own will of 1 May 1689, signed by mark, remembers the son she lost at Bloody Brook fourteen years before: "I give unto my two grandchildren Peter ye son of John Woodberry, & to Peter ye son of William Woodberry, 10s apiece out of my estate because they beare ye name of my son Peter that was killed in ye war with Capt. Lartheope by the Indians, & had not had any inheritance among his brethren." To her daughters "Susana Tinee & Christian Traske" she left twenty shillings each "to be laid out in two Gold rings, and kept by them in remembrance of me," and in August she added her son William as executor "with my daughters" (source). She died at Beverly later that year, and the will was proved at Salem on 26 Nov 1689.

Peter, born at Salem on 28 Mar 1652 (Salem VR 2:441), was killed when Capt. Thomas Lathrop's Essex company was ambushed at Bloody Brook, Deerfield, on 18 Sept 1675, in King Philip's War. He is in the list "At Muddy-Brook bridge ye 18 Sept. 71 men slane," with Josiah Dodge, probably the brother of Hannah (Dodge) Woodbury, and Treasurer John Hull credited "Peter Woodbury 01 18 06" to his estate on 30 Nov 1675 (Soldiers in King Philip's War, pp. 136-138).

Research: Woodbury, Rand–Cheever–Ivory and Slater lines behind the Ellingwoods.