Dorothy Harbottle

Second wife of Thomas Lamb of Roxbury. The Roxbury church record calls her “a godly maid, a sister of our church” (quoted by Pane-Joyce).

About 1649/50, before her second marriage, the Roxbury burials record that “an infant of a sojourner at sister Lamb’s dyed of the small pox.” She was then Thomas Lamb’s widow and a member of the church, so “sister Lamb” was very probably Dorothy (our inference). Roxbury church baptisms of about 1674 include “Harbottle the son of Abiel Lambe”: her maiden name used as a forename by Abiel, probably the “Abel” whom John Eliot lists as Thomas Lamb’s fourth son by his first wife, and so her stepson (our inference).

Her second husband, Thomas Hawley, was “under the command of Capt. Sam[ue]ll Wadsworth” when he was killed at Sudbury on 21 Apr 1676 (Roxbury VR). His first wife, “Emm,” had been buried 29 Nov 1651, about two months before he married Dorothy. Roxbury baptisms include Joseph (1654), Elizabeth and Dorothy Hawley, children of Thomas Hawley; an earlier son Joseph was buried 23 Nov 1653. About 1674 the church recorded that “Elizabeth Hawley, Dorothy Hawley, daughters of our Sister Hawley” took hold of the covenant together, and later “Joseph Hawly dismissed to the church at Northampton” (Roxbury church records).

Savage (2:384) says Joseph Hawley of Northampton, son of Thomas, “taught a sch[ool] soon after gr[aduating], then preach[ed] a brief period, and again was sch[ool]-master, last a trader,” and served as deputy. Savage calls his grandson Joseph Hawley (b. 1723) “one of the master spirits of the Amer[ican] Revo[lution],” which would make Dorothy that man’s great-grandmother.

Open questions

• Her second marriage: the page has 2 Feb 1651; the colonial tree writes 2 Feb 1651/2 (Roxbury VR 2:547). Hawley’s first wife was buried 29 Nov 1651, so 1651/2 fits. Check how the record writes the year.