Mary (Corliss) Neff (1646 - 1722)

Born 8 Sep 1646 in Haverhill, Norfolk, Massachusetts Bay Colony

Ancestors

Wife of William Neff — married 23 Jan 1665 in Haverhill, Norfolk, Massachusetts Bay

Descendants

Died 22 Oct 1722 at age 76 in Haverhill, Essex, Province of Massachusetts Bay

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This profile is part of the Haverhill, Massachusetts One Place Study.

Biography

Mary was born in 1646. She passed away in 1722.

On March 15, 1697, when she was a 51-year-old widow, Mary Corliss Neff was serving as a nurse for Hannah Emerson Dustin and her newborn baby. The women and baby were taken captive when Abenaki Indians from Quebec raided Haverhill, killed 27 of the settlers, and took 13 captive. Mary and Hannah were assigned to a family of 13 and sent north; along the way, one of the Indians killed Hannah’s six-day-old baby by smashing it into a tree.

The two women and a 14-year-old captive from Worcester, Samuel Leonardson, killed 10 of the 12 Indians who held them in captivity (two men, three women, and seven children, with one woman and one child surviving) — with Mary and Hannah killing 9 out of the 10. They returned to Haverhill with the scalps, to collect the bounty that was in effect for killing Indians. They were rewarded by the colony in both cash and land and became famous through Cotton Mather’s telling of the tale.

The story became popular again in the nineteenth century as the United States was undertaking major campaigns against Indians. John Greenleaf Whittier, Henry David Thoreau, and Nathaniel Hawthorne (the only one to call Dustin an “awful woman” for the violence) all retold the story. Admirers erected a bronze statue in Haverhill and a large statue on the island in the Merrimack River (near Boscawen, New Hampshire) where the event took place.

Burial:

Date: 22 Oct 1722

Place: Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts

Marriage:

Date: 23 Jan 1664/65

Place: Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts

Mary was born to George and Joanna (Davis) Corlis in 1646.^[1]

"Willi : Neff of Haverhill and Mary Corley or Haverhill, Jan. 23, 1665" ^[2]

Mary never remarried and died at Haverhill on October 22, 1722. ^[3] Her estate can be found in the Essex County, Massachusetts, Probate Records #19221. The inventory was taken in 1722 by Daniel Little, Philip Haseltine and Jonathan Emerson.^[4]

Research Notes

• In 1680, Haverhill and Salisbury, both located north of the Merrimack River, were annexed to Essex County. These communities had been part of Massachusetts' colonial-era Norfolk County.
• Norfolk County, Massachusetts was created on March 26, 1793, by legislation signed by Governor John Hancock. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk_County,_Massachusetts Mary could not have lived in Norfolk County at the time of her birth as it did not exist.

Sources

1. ↑ #S-211 Vol. 1
2. ↑ #S-209 Old Norfolk County Records "Haverhill Marriages" EA 4:140
3. ↑ #S-212 Vol. 2, Page 450
4. ↑ #S-208

See Also:

• A List of accounts of the Dustin events is on the website [Hawthorne in Salem, http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/Literature/NativeAmericans&Blacks/HannahDuston/Literature.html]
• A documentary is available on YouTube: Savage: The Hannah Dustin Massacre
• A nice summary of the accounts is at [1]
• MLA Citation Curry, Dorothy Neff, 1899-1958. The Descendants of William Neff Who Married Mary Corliss, January 23, 1665, Haverhill, Massachusetts. [N.J.?: D.N. Curry, 1958. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005731944/Home
• Source: S-209Sidney Perley, editor. The Essex Antiquarian (EA). Vol. 6. Salem, MA: The Essex Antiquarian, 1900. Google Books

• Source: S-211Haverhill (Mass.). Vital records of Haverhill, Massachusetts. Volume 1 - Births. Topsfield, Mass: Topsfield historical society, 1910. Open Library

• Source: S-212Haverhill (Mass.). Vital records of Haverhill, Massachusetts. Volume 2 - Marriages and Death. Topsfield, Mass: Topsfield historical society, 1910. Google Books

• Source: S516 Author: Ancestry.com Title: Public Member Trees Publication: Name: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date: 2006; Repository: #R19

• Source: S-1938396353 Title: Ancestry Family Trees Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. Text: http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=26867133&pid=420 Text: http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=4478194&pid=1519467967 Repository: #R-19

• Repository: R-19 Name: Ancestry.com Address: http://www.Ancestry.com

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• This person was created through the import of Wilson.ged on 14 September 2010. The following data was included in the gedcom. You may wish to edit it for readability.

• Wikipedia contributors. (2019, March 14). Essex County, Massachusetts. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 13:18, April 26, 2019, from [2]