Mary (Fairchild) Burritt (1698 - 1726)

Born 7 May 1698 in Stratford, Fairfield, Connecticut Colony

Ancestors

Died 18 Aug 1726 at age 28 in Stratford, Fairfield, Connecticut Colony

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Before changing this profile, please read the note below. (Orcutt got it wrong!)

Biography

Mary Fairchild, daughter of Zachariah Fairchild and Hannah (Beach), was born 7 May 1698 (recorded) at Stratford, Connecticut.^[1][2] She was bapt. at Stratfield, Connecticut, 5 June 1698.^[2]

She married Ephraim Burritt 14 Feb 1721/2, in Stratford.^[1][2]

Mary Burritt died 18 Aug 1726, in Stratford.^[1] after which Ephraim remarried.

Children of Ephraim Burritt and Mary, born in Stratford:

1. Eunice b. 27 Oct 1722^[1]
2. Martha b. 11 June 1724; d. 20 Sep 1734^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4} White, Lorraine Cook, ed. The Barbour Collection of Connecticut Town Vital Records. Vol. 1-55. Stratford. Baltimore, MD, USA: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1994-2002. p. 98 + -
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2} Jacobus, Donald Lines, MA (compiler, editor.) History and Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield. Fairfield, Conn.: The Eunice Dennie Burr Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution, 1930.

• Orcutt, Samuel, Rev. (1886) A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut, Part II Genealogies. Published by the Fairfield County Historical Society. page 1115, 1198 (#25)
• Connecticut Town Birth Records, pre-1870 (Barbour Collection)
• American Genealogical-Biographical Index (AGBI), 1708
• Connecticut, Town Marriage Records, pre-1870 (Barbour Collection), 1729
• U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900
• Connecticut, Deaths and Burials Index, 1650-1934
• Jacobus, Donald Lines, compiled & edited (1930-2). History and Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield. For the Eunice Dennie Burr Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution (Fairfield, Connecticut) vol. 1, pages 196, 718
• The Barbour Collection of Connecticut Town Vital Records (NEHGS, Boston, 2011) Vol. Stratford, Page 31. Death record.

Note

Quote from Orcutt (1886) vol. 2, page 1198, children of Zechariah Fairchild: No. 25: Mary, b. May 7, 1698; m. Samuel Adams (prob. son of Edward of New Haven, Milford and Fairfield.) They had 6 children ... The family removed to Litchfield not long before Mr. Adams’ death in 1788, ae 85. Mrs. Adams lived until August 29th, 1803; in her 106th year. She lived in three centuries.

Jacobus (1930) vol. 1, page 718, History and Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield, has a special appendix note on this problem, questioning Orcutt’s conclusions:

• Mary Fairchild m. 12 Mar 1712/3, Benjamin Brooks.
• Mary Fairchild m. 14 Feb 1721/2, Ephraim Burritt.
• Mary Fairchild m. 7 Mar 1728/9, Samuel Adams.

  To answer the requirements of these three marriages, just three Mary Fairchilds were found in records sources. One was Mary, dau. of Zechariah, b. 1698. The second was Mary (Booth) Fairchild, left a widow by Zechariah’s son Agur in 1712. The third was Mary, b. 1708, dau. of Samuel, a cousin of the above Mary and Agur.
   If Orcutt can be believed, both Mary (b. 1698) and Mary (b. 1708) married Samuel Adams in 1729. Most accounts make her dau. of Zechariah b. 1698, but this would make her 31 at first marriage, and 53 when her first child was born, and 105 at death. Actually, the Conn. Herald at the time of her death in 1803 stated her age was 105. Despite this, Samuel Fairchild’s dau. was called Mary Adams in the probate records, and wife of Samuel Adams in Fairfield Land Records when she conveyed inherited property with other children of Samuel Fairchild. We are therefore correct in calling this Mary dau. of Samuel b. 1708.
   The deed recently discovered in Stratford by Mr.s Katharine H. Fogarty, in which Benjamin Brooks and Mary his wife joined with other heirs of John Booth, identifies this mary with the widow Mary (Booth) Fairchild. This leave Mary dau. of Zechariah (b. 1698) free for the marriage to Ephraim Burritt in 1722, when she was nearly 24 years old. Thus all three Marys are accounted for, with record evidence for the history of two of them. Orcutt’s account of them was inherently improbably, and is proved incorrect.