Emma Seabrook
First wife of Thomas Fairchild, merchant and first settler of Stratford, Connecticut, and probably the mother of Samuel Fairchild, born in 1640, among their seven children. Probably a daughter of Robert Seabrook of Stratford, from whom her son Samuel had land; her first name, Emma or Faith, is uncertain. She died between 1653 and 1662. The family's descent from her, through Jonathan Fairchild of East Jewett, is only possible.
Life
- 1653/62Diedbetween 1653 and 1662
After the birth of her daughter Emma in October 1653 and before her husband's second marriage in December 1662 (Gilmore; Jacobus has "died after 23 Oct 1653").
Family
- Father
- Robert Seabrook
Her son Samuel's lands, recorded in 1674, included land "received by gift from his grandfather Seabrook" (Gilmore, from the Stratford land records); Robert Seabrook is the only Seabrook of early Stratford, and Orcutt makes Thomas Fairchild's first wife his daughter.
compiledprobableSources
- Jean Fairchild Gilmore, Early Fairchilds in America and Their Descendants (1991), with More Fairchilds in America
- Samuel Orcutt, A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut (1886)
- Reasoning:
research/mcmillan/Fairchild_Raymond_Woodworth.md
- Spouse
- Thomas Fairchild
His first wife, a daughter of Robert Seabrook, married by 1640, perhaps in England; her first name, Emma, is probable only.
1 child
Pedigree
Notes
First wife of Thomas Fairchild of Stratford and mother of Samuel Fairchild. That she was a Seabrook is shown by her son Samuel’s land record of 1674, which counts land “received by gift from his grandfather Seabrook” (source). Her first name is less certain: “Various researchers offer the names of Emma or Faith as the wife of Thomas.” Jacobus, in Families of Old Fairfield, has “Emma born by 1620, married by 1639 and died after 23 Oct 1653, her husband probably being Thomas Fairchild,” and her youngest daughter was named Emma. Orcutt says Thomas married her, “so said,” in England (source).
Her sisters married at Stratford and New Haven: Mary married William Preston of New Haven, and then Thomas Kimberly; another sister, Alice or Sarah, married Thomas Sherwood. So the Prestons were her children’s cousins, and two of her daughters married Prestons: Sarah married Jehiel Preston, “her cousin,” and Emma married Hackaliah Preston, a grandson of Robert Seabrook. Her children: Samuel (1640), Sarah (1641/2), John (1644), Thomas (1645), Dinah (1648), Zechariah (1651) and Emma (1653).
The family’s descent from her rests on the identification of Jonathan Fairchild of East Jewett with Jonathan, born at Norwalk in 1744, which is only possible (see Jonathan Fairchild).
Research: research/mcmillan/Fairchild_Raymond_Woodworth.md.
Open questions
- Her first name (Emma or Faith), and where and when she married. Neither name is in the Tring parish register, where a Robert Seabrooke’s children were baptized from 1599.
Connections
- Famous kin
- Charles S. Fairchild
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, 1887-1889, and Attorney General of New York
Charles S. Fairchild is the sixth cousin, three times removed, of the centre of this tree. - George W. Fairchild
Congressman from New York and first chairman of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co., which became IBM
George W. Fairchild is the sixth cousin, three times removed, of the centre of this tree. - Sherman Fairchild
Inventor and founder of Fairchild Aviation and Fairchild Camera and Instrument, whose semiconductor company helped start Silicon Valley
Sherman Fairchild is the seventh cousin, twice removed, of the centre of this tree.
- Charles S. Fairchild