52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – 3 – Jemima Booth

Today's ancestor, Jemima Booth, was my 4^th gt-grandmother. She was married to Benjamin Townsend (who I wrote about on 10 Dec 2017) and was the mother of Edith (Townsend) Marsh (who I wrote about on 8 Dec 2017.)

If you tried to read about Jemima on my genealogy website, you would find very little information there about her. See http://www.joanneskelton.com/p15.htm#i369

The main source of information about Jemima that I have found is the Quaker record of her marriage to Benjamin Townsend, as his second wife, at the Concord Monthly Meeting in Chester County (now Delaware County) Pennsylvania in 1784. I will try to do a transcription of that record sometime soon.

There are a number of public member trees on Ancestry.com (at least 40) which include her. However, as often happens they don't all agree. About 2/3 of them list her parents as Robert Booth and Elizabeth Cloud, while the rest show unknown. Since the Quaker record names her father as Robert Booth, at least that appears to be correct. There was a Robert Booth in that Quaker community who married an Elizabeth Cloud in 1741, so if they were the same Robert, her mother would probably be Elizabeth Cloud.

Most of the public trees show her birthdate as 1759 in Pennsylvania or Delaware. The Delaware may mean Delaware County, Pennsylvania, but Elizabeth Cloud was from Delaware. Looking at Jemima's death date I found that most with a date listed 1803 and a few gave 1805 and all but one gave her death place as Pennsylvania. The one which showed her death place as Ohio was most likely the correct one. I base this on an item I had found in the History of Belmont and Jefferson Counties Ohio, by J. A. Caldwell, published 1880, pg 554. It was in the section about Smithfield Friends Church and said that original members of the church in 1802 were Benjamin Townsend and Jemima his wife. It also said that the first grown person to be buried at that church's cemetery was “Jemima Townsend wife of Benjamin Townsend.”

This Quaker record from the Westland Monthly Meeting in Washington County Pennsylvania showed that the Townsend family, including Jemima, were planning to go to the Concord Monthly Meeting in Ohio in June of 1803.

I checked in the Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, edited by William Wade Hinshaw, Volume IV for Ohio, page 161, Concord Monthly Meeting, and found in the Townsend listings, Benjamin and w. Jemima, as well as 5 of their children were received on certificate there 1803, 9, 17.  Smithfield, or Plymouth, and Concord were in the same basic area. So it appears that if Jemima died in 1803 it was after the 17^th of September. I am fairly confident that she had died before 1807 since Benjamin married a third wife then.

Although public member trees can give clues about an ancestor, often a part or even all of the information can be incorrect. We need to do our own research, even though sometimes we can find very little.

Ancestor Birthday - June 8th - Joseph Townsend - 1715

Joseph Townsend was one of my 5th great grandfathers. As the Quaker record shows he was the son of Joseph and Martha (Wooderson) Townsend, born the 8th day of the 4th month in 1715, so since before the calendar change it was June 8th. This was recorded at the Chester Monthly Meeting in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

His parents, Joseph and Martha, were from England and immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1712. They had been Quakers in England and brought a certificate from the Monthly Meeting at Newbury in Berkshire. Their oldest son, William, was born in England, but the other 7 children were born in Pennsylvania.

Joseph who was born in 1715 married Lydia Reynolds 17th day of 3rd month 1739, or 17 May 1739, as recorded at the Concord Monthly Meeting in Chester County, Pennsylvania, which is now Delaware County, Pennsylvania. I wrote about Lydia on her birthday 24 Apr 2017. There I named their 5 children and showed a portion of Joseph's will showing his bequest to his wife Lydia. He died rather young, at age 34 in Dec 1749.

His will did have bequests for his children when they came of age. The oldest son Francis was to receive the saw mill with 60 acres. Benjamin and Joseph were to get the other part of his plantation of about 152 acres. Benjamin would get the house and that would effect the division between the two. His daughter Esther was to get 50 pounds currency when she was 18. There was an unborn child when he wrote his will, so he designated that 20 pounds was to go to them when they were 21. Also if there was any money left over it would go to that child.

By reading his will we can deduce that Joseph owned a little over 200 acres and had a sawmill. He believed there was enough money to give cash in the future. As his oldest child was only 9 years old when Joseph died, I wonder if his wishes were followed, considering the amount of time before the children would be of age. All of the children did live long enough to be married.