G2G: ? Abigail Bull of Hartford and her many husbands. Who were they?

Question

Currently the profile for Abigail Bull (b. c. 1653, dtr of Thomas Bull (immigrant) of Hartford, says she married three times
____ Buck after 1684
James Curtis 8 Jul 1686 in Wethersfield, CT
Andrew Roby Nov. 19, 1691 in Hartford, CT

Anderson says she married instead Rev. Thomas Barnard of Andover, Mass, in Salem, Mass (roughly 120 miles), but apparently Thomas was born in Hartford and raised in Hadley, Mass until he went to college (so maybe).

The town record says: Abigail Bull, Mrs. [of Salem, dup.], and Thomas Barnard, widr. [at Salem, dup.], Apr. 28, 1696.

Sometimes Mrs. does not mean a married person. She was 43, rather old for a first marriage.

On the other hand the marriages to Buck, Curtis and Roby don't hang together well. I've added sources to Abigail's profile in the Research Notes.

Short Story. Her father's 1684 will calls her by her maiden name. But Savage for some reason says that his will calls her Abigail Buck. We know this is incorrect. So the first step in the chain is broken. Abigail probably never married an Unknown Buck between 1684 and 1686.

Then the marriage record of James Curtis does not list a brides surname. Abigail could just as easily be Smith as Buck or Bull.

Abigail, the widow of James Curtis did marry the widower Andrew Roby.

I believe we need to change the wife of James Curtis and Andrew Roby to Abigail Unknown, eliminate (make him disputed) Unknown Buck  and then marry Abigail Bull of Hartford to Rev. Thomas Barnard.

Thoughts? Objections?

Comments

Wait a second!  If you have her father's will, how can her maiden name be Unknown?  Don't you know her father's name?

---

I have Abigail Bull's father's will that calls her Abigail Bull. The wife of James Curtis and Andrew Roby becomes Unknown if she is not the daughter of Thomas Bull.

---

It looks like I started one of the records now merged as Abigail Hall.  Look at change log https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:NetworkFeed&who=Hall-22825.  I have marginal data right now, but I'm not able to get to the link I used as the source - http://bearstoc.com/fam/hist/PafVersion/pafg300.htm#8210

I'll try revisiting this soon, but it may be a few days.

---

As far as the Rev. Thomas Barnard goes -- IME, clergy and doctors moved a lot, and fairly often returned to marry people from their home town, often from quite a distance.   Was he in the pulpit at Andover?    

There was also a lot of migration, travel and marriage up and down the Connecticut river, and I suspect people traveled down the Connecticut and then up the coast as often as they went across country to Boston.  Lots of shipping, and much less bumpy.  So Salem, as the nearest port to Andover (20 miles) isn't totally outrageous if she was coming from Hartford -- but I'd still be scouring the Salem records for originals.   And Familysearch largely has the original  handwritten Massachusetts town books digitized, though the indexing is really haphazard.

---

Ok, so I used the nice Rootsearch tool from Thomas Barnard's Wikitree profile,  and in mere moments found myself looking at the Torrey entry for "Barnard, Thomas" at NEHGS, ($$). I dropped a copy of  the two relevant entries here. in the profile's image directory -- click to enlarge.

Reading the pdf intro to Torrey, looks to me like Elizabeth Price, his 1st wife, and Abigail Bull, his second wife, were both unmarried when they married him -- no parentheses or brackets around their names.   And Thomas himself was of Andover when he married Elizabeth, and of Andover/Salem, having moved to Salem,  when he married Abigail. Torrey doesn't actually mention where the marriages took place, or where the women were from.  You may need to dig into Torrey's sources.  

Rick Pierpont has stashed everything Torrey here, (on Wikitree, including another link to that pdf intro I linked above) and his "list of sources" includes links to the various sources. 

---

Did this ever get resolved? I was working on Thomas Barnard for the Black Sheep Project and Abigail is not listed as his wife.

If it is okay to make the changes, I will do so. I don't want to step on anyone's to do list!

Thanks!

---

I've removed all the extra husbands from Abigail Bull, so please go ahead and correct her biography and add her correct husband and children, if any. Thank you

Answer 1

I agree 100% with you Anne. I am pretty sure that the Abigail that was married to James Curtis is not Abigail Bull. Plus James Curtis is said to have a Daughter Abigail, and Abigail Bull's profile reads she had no children.