Moses Chamberlain (1748 - 1803)

Born 1 Sep 1748 in Dudley, Worcester, Massachusetts Bay Colony

Ancestors

Husband of Hepzibah (Nurse) Chamberlain — married 20 Apr 1775 in Massachusetts

Descendants

Died 30 Jan 1803 at age 54 in Winchester, Cheshire, New Hampshire, United States

Biography

Moses was born in 1748.^[1]

He passed away in 1803.^[2]

Notes

From numerous searches on Ancestry.com and Find A Grave, it seems that there is some confusion as to who Deacon Moses Chamberlain was married to. According to Ancestry.com family trees, three possible names for wives are Mary Vinton, Rhoda Wheelock, and Hepzibah Nurse.

Find A Grave states that his daughter, Hepzibah Chamberlain, had a mother named Mary Vinton. There is no link to a grave for her though. There are some Ancestry.com results that state his wife was Mary Vinton, but they don't have any marriage info. No records for their marriage exist. Furthermore, it appears that Moses was the son of a Phebe Vinton. While this makes the marriage harder to believe, searching through genealogy in general reveals that marrying close family is not as uncommon as it previously seemed, so it's still possible that he had a wife with the same last name.

Ancestry.com also doesn't show any marriage info for Rhoda Wheelock. No records for their marriage exist. Find A Grave shows, however, that Moses had a daughter named Rhoda Wheelock (maiden name of Chamberlain). It's possible that she was confused by some to be a wife of his.

Finally we get to Hepzibah Nurse. It seems that she is legitimate, as both Find A Grave and Ancestry.com searches support her existence. Find A Grave attaches her as his wife, with last name unknown, and Ancestry gives an exact marriage date and location for Moses's marriage to her.

After studying the information at hand, I do not think Rhoda Wheelock is a wife of Moses. There is no evidence of Mary Vinton's connection to Moses besides taking someone's unsourced word for it. I can safely say Hepzibah Nurse definitely is his wife, with evidence to back me up.

Due to the fact that Hepzibah Chamberlain, Moses's daughter, was born just two years after his marriage to Hepzibah Nurse, and the fact they had other children after that, I'm connecting her as Hepzibah's mother, in spite of the unsourced statement from Find A Grave. If anyone has more insight as to the identity of Mary Vinton, please let me know.

Sources

1. ↑ "Massachusetts Births and Christenings, 1639-1915", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FC25-GPX : 15 January 2020), Moses Chamberlin, 1748.
2. ↑ "New Hampshire Death Records, 1654-1947," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FSKF-6Z1 : 10 March 2018), Dea Moses Chamberlin, 30 Jan 1803; citing Winchester, Bureau Vital Records and Health Statistics, Concord; FHL microfilm 1,001,065.

• Ancestry.com search for Moses Chamberlain, spouse of Mary Vinton

• Ancestry.com search for Moses Chamberlain, spouse of Rhoda Wheelock

• Ancestry.com search for Moses Chamberlain, spouse of Hepzibah Nurse

• Ancestry.com search for Moses Chamberlain, b. abt 1746

• Ancestry.com search for marriage records for Moses Chamberlain and Hepzibah Nurse

• "Massachusetts Marriages, 1695-1910", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FCX8-9S7 : 24 January 2020), Moses Chamberlain, 1775.

• Find A Grave: Memorial #80537991