Mary (Dyer) Ward (1647 - aft. 1679)

Born 1647 in Newport, Rhode Island

Ancestors

Wife of Henry Ward — married about 1675 in Rhode Island or Maryland [uncertain]

Descendants

Died after 26 Jan 1679 after age 32 in Delaware

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Biography

Mary Dyer (aka Dyre) was born by 1650 in Newport, Rhode Island. She married by 1675 Henry Ward and moved to Cecil County, Maryland. She died there after 26 January 1678/9, last known record of her.

For many years, all that was known about the only known surviving daughter of William & Mary (Barrett) Dyer was from a single citation in the early Rhode Island records. On 25 July 1670 Samuel & Henry Dyre were charged by their father to post a L300 bond to ensure the inheritance of L100 due their eldest sister, Mary Dyre, and L40 to [their half sister], Elizabeth Dyre.^[1] But in the 1980s, researcher Grace Dyer Mellander found a power of attorney record (dated 11 Jan 1678/9) in the Maryland Hall of Records that identified Mary, wife of Henry Ward of Cecil County, MD, as daughter of William Dyer of "Road Island."^[2]

Children

1. Henry Ward 20 was born before 1678, died about May 1734 in Cecil County, Maryland, and was buried on 9 May 1734 in St. Stephen's Church, N. Sassafras Parish, Cecil Co., Maryland.
2. Rebecca Ward 20 was born before 1678 and died after 4 Aug 1695.

Sources

1. ↑ Johann Winsser, "Mary (Dyre) Ward: Mary (Barrett) Dyre's Missing Daughter Traced," in NEHGR, 145(1991):22-28, citing Rhode Island Land Records, 1648-1696 [Ms at the Rhode Island State Archives], p. 414
2. ↑ Winsser (1991), citing Maryland Hall of Records, Cecil County Land Office, I:117

See also:

• William Richard Cutter, Genealogy - Boston and Eastern Massachusetts, New York: Lewis Historiacl Publishing Co., (1908), Vol. 1, page 461