A Paine to Link to the Mayflower
When working on my first lineage book, I ran across the line of Solomon Paine. The trail I followed led back to the Mayflower. However, when attempting to get verification from The Mayflower Society, I was told they didn’t have a record of the marriage I claimed so he’s a different Solomon Paine. I couldn’t find evidence of there being a second man by that name in the same locations. But they persisted - if it isn’t in their book, it isn’t accepted. But it leaves some questions about which of us is right. Is there a second Solomon Paine and my line isn’t the one that goes back to the Mayflower? Or was there an additional marriage their official lineages missed?
Here’s the information and evidence I have. Maybe you can help me see what’s been missed:
Solomon Paine was born May 16, 1698, in Orleans, Massachusetts (a newly incorporated part of Eastham), to Elisha Paine and Rebecca (Doane) Paine. Elisha Paine and Rebecca relocated to Connecticut, to what would become Canterbury, about 1700, where he was involved in setting up the church and represented the town in the General Assembly.
[Solomon married (1st) Abigail Owen (d. 1720, possibly the daughter of Ebenezer Owen) March 13, 1717, in Providence, Rhode Island.
They had two children:
1. Hannah born Februrary 2, 1718, in Rhode Island. She married John Aplin. She died October 21, 1758, and is buried in North Burial Ground, Providence, Rhode Island.
2. Ebenezer born February 16, 1719. No other records have been found for him.]
Solomon married [(2nd)] Sarah Carver (~1701-1731) March 2, 1720/1, in Canterbury, Connecticut. They likely had several children. Records were confirmed for five:
1. Solomon born May 29, 1722. He died June 18, 1722.
2. Ruth born May 25, 1723, in Canterbury, Connecticut. She married Elisha Cleveland (1717- after 1773) in 1742 in Canterbury. They had several children. Some of their children spread into northern New Hampshire. No record of her death was found.
3. Elihu (or Elisha) born August 5, 1725, in Canterbury, Connecticut. He married Elizabeth Cleveland (1731-1788) November 24, 1748, in Canterbury, Connecticut. They had two children. He died February 27, 1752, and is buried in Cleaveland Cemetery, Canterbury, Connecticut.
4. Ichabod born September 7, 1727, in Canterbury, Connecticut. He married Hannah Buswell (1730-1804) January 16, 1748, in Canterbury, Connecticut. He died November 22, 1812, and is buried in Old Amenia Burying Ground, Dutchess Co., New York.
5. David born June 18, 1729, in Canterbury, Connecticut. He married Lydia (Johnson) Fassett (1733-1812) April 5, 1759, in Canterbury, Connecticut. He was a Minuteman at the Lexington Alarm. He died April 24, 1805, and is buried in Cleaveland Cemetery, Canterbury, Connecticut.
Rev. Solomon married (3rd) Priscilla Fitch (1703-1782) May 31, 1732, in Canterbury, Connecticut. They had at least three children:
1. Solomon Cleveland born March 8, 1732/3, in Canterbury, Connecticut. He married Mary Bacon (1732-1820) June 8, 1756, in Canterbury. He died February 22, 1822, and is buried in Carey Cemetery, Canterbury, Connecticut.
2. Priscilla born August 20, 1734, in Canterbury, Connecticut. She may have married Josiah Spaulding (1729-1809) in Plainfield, Connecticut in 1755. If so, she died October 10, 1817, and is buried in Old Cemetery, Eastford, Windham Co., Connecticut.
3. Elisha born November 16, 1736, in Canterbury, Connecticut. He married Anne Waldo (1735-1759) April 12, 1753, in Canterbury, Connecticut. When he died is unclear as the name was very popular in the family.
Rev. Solomon was an ordained minister in a Separatist church, the Congregationalist Church of Christ, following the path his brother Elisha forged in legal challenges to the Colony’s law regarding the licensing of preachers and doctrine. He oversaw the ordination of his nephew Abraham Paine, as well. He died October 25, 1754, and is buried in Cleaveland Cemetery, Canterbury, Connecticut.
Now, the first marriage (between brackets [ ]) is the one that’s contested by the Society. So my ancestor Hannah is supposedly not Rev. Solomon’s daughter. The movement of the family between Rhode Island and Connecticut was questioned, but this wasn’t unusual for ministers at the time. And no record of Abigail Owen has been found after 1720 to make the second marriage questionable. One could argue that Abigail died during childbirth with Ebenezer and then the good minister married again immediately so his daughter would have a caretaker - I don’t see anything questionable about the timeline as suggested by the Society (they claimed that our record of the marriage to Abigail was evidence that it was a different man because then he couldn’t marry Sarah Carver). I’d really like objective evidence of what happened to Abigail though, as well as the movement of Solomon for his religious studies to correlate it with the potential family movement.
Got anything to help?
References for my information:
Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 (digitized on Ancestry).
Rhode Island, Vital Extracts, 1636-1899 (digitized on Ancestry).
Edmund Janes Cleveland. The genealogy of the Cleveland and Cleaveland families. Hartford, Conn. 1899. p. 142
Mayflower Births and Deaths (digitized on Ancestry).
Connecticut, Town Birth/Marriage Records, pre-1870 (Barbour Collection).
Pennsylvania, Society of Mayflower Descendants Applications, 1911-1929 (digitized on Ancestry).
Cynthia Ingalls Brown. The genealogy and history of the Brown/Browne family of Granville, New York and Wisconsin. Waupun Leader-News: Waupun, Wisc., 1970. p. 144-145.
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