Dorothy Baggs (1776 - 1858)

Born 24 Aug 1776 in Belchertown, Hampshire, Massachusetts

Ancestors

Died 30 Oct 1858 at age 82 in Amherst, Hampshire, Massachusetts, United States

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Biography

DOROTHY BAGGS was the daughter of Noble Baggs and Mary Darling.^[1]

DOROTHY “DOLLY” BAGGS, b. Belchertown 24 Aug. 1776; d. Amherst 30 Oct. 1858 aged 85,^[2] “idiot,”^[3] never married but had a female child in 1803 who died at Belchertown 16 Sept. 1803 “of a Dysentery neare 8 weeks old.” ^[4]

On 24 Aug. 1814, her brother John Baggs was made her guardian, as she was “a non compos person”;^[5] her guardian as of 2 Aug. 1825 was Asahel Thayer of Belchertown.^[6]

Thayer successfully sued her brother John Baggs to legally establish Dorothy’s right to part of Noble Baggs’s Amherst homestead, John’s wife Electa waiving her dower rights for $20 on 2 June 1826 as part of the execution of the judgment.^[7] Thayer then sold the same 42 acres on 24 Dec. 1833 to abutter Zebina Dickinson of Amherst, Gentleman, for $2200.^[8]

From 14 Nov. 1837, Park Warner was Dolly’s guardian.^[9]

Sources

1. ↑ Robert M. Gerrity, "Noble Baggs," Helen S. Ullman, FASG, ed. Western Massachusetts Families in 1790 (Boston: 2018) vol. 2 pp. 1-11; Original Online Database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2012, available$ at https://www.americanancestors.org/DB475/i/56957/1/0 Noble Baggs.
2. ↑ Massachusetts Vital Records from 1841, 121:41, parents named, birthplace “unknown”; ibid., 121:43, Belchertown, recorded as Dorothy Baggs, died Amherst 6 November 1858, aged 86 years 5 days [sic], born Connecticut [sic], daughter of Noble Baggs.
3. ↑ Smith, “Families of Amherst,” 1:26.
4. ↑ Belchertown Church Records [FHL 1,862,889], 123.
5. ↑ Hampshire County Probate, 29:214; Supreme Judicial Court, Northampton Session, October 1817, p. 168, in which John gave bond for permission to sell “all of the Real Estate of Dorothy Baggs.”
6. ↑ Hampshire County Probate, 35:462.
7. ↑ Hampshire County Probate, Executors’ Accounts, Book 8:7 (as noted on Hampshire County Probate, Index card for “John Baggs,” this volume not on FHL microfilm); Hampshire County Deeds 55:172, where Electa called the acreage “part of the farm on which we now live.”
8. ↑ Hampshire County Deeds, 70:264–65.
9. ↑ Hampshire County Probate, C3:56, Box 7, Files 20 and 21.

• For more on Dorothy's Baggs and Paine ancestry, see here and see Robert M. Gerrity, Ralph Pain and Descendants: Four Generations (1992; under revision by author, 2020-2022.), PDF copies available at www.yankeeancestry.com.