John
Rickard
Jr.
aka Ricard
Born in Plymouth, Plymouth Colony
Ancestors 
Son of John Rickard Sr.
and Hester (Barnes) Rickard
[sibling(s) unknown]
Husband of
Mary (Cooke) Rickard
— married
about 1678 in Plymouth Colony [uncertain]
Descendants [uncertain] 
Father of
John Rickard, Mercy (Rickard) Cushing, John Rickard, Mary (Rickard) Morton, Ester Rickard, Elizabeth (Rickard) Doggett and James Rickard
Died
at age 54
in Plymouth, Plymouth County, Province of Massachusetts Bay
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Contents |
Biography
John Rickard, Jr., was a son of John Rickard and Hester (Barnes) Rickard. He was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts on 24 November 1657.[1]
There were other men named John Rickard living in Plymouth at the same time. To help distinguish them, records commonly refer to this man as John Rickard Jr., John Rickard the son of John, or (after his father's death) John Rickard the son of John Rickard deceased.
John married Mary Cooke in about 1678. There has been some uncertainty as to whether Mary Cooke married this John Rickard, the son of John Rickard, or his first cousin John Rickard, the son of Giles Rickard. Both men had wives named Mary. In an article entitled "Which John Rickard married Mary Cooke?" in the August 1983 Mayflower Quarterly,[2] Eugene Stratton presented evidence that Mary Cooke's husband was John the son of John. Stratton based this conclusion on several bits of evidence, including a comparison of signatures. There are three known surviving signatures for these two men. The earliest of these is the signature of John Rickard on a 1701 guardianship document for Josiah Doty. The orphan Josiah Doty was the son of Mary Cooke's sister Elizabeth, a strong indication that the John Rickard who adopted Josiah Doty as the John Rickard who was married to Mary Cooke. The signature on the will of the John Rickard who died in 1712 (i.e., this man) is similar in style to the 1701 signature, and these two signatures are distinctly different from the signature of the other John Rickard on a document he signed in 1714 (after this man's death) as administrator for the estate of his unmarried sister, Mercy Rickard. The similarity of the former two signatures identifies them as belonging to the same man, and guardianship paper identifies that man as the John Rickard who was married to Mary Cooke. Thus, this man is the John Rickard who married Mary Cooke.[2]
Children
John Rickard and Mary Cooke are recorded as the parents of seven children. All but the last two named are listed in Plymouth Vital Records:[3]
- John Rickard, born 26 February 1679.[4] He apparently died before February 1684.
- Mercy Rickard, born 3 February 1682. [5]
- John Rickard, born 3 February 1684. [6]
- Ester (or Hester) Rickard, born 1 April 1691.
- James Rickard, born 25 or 26 September 1696.
- Elizabeth Rickard; not in Vital Records, but named in her father's will.[7]
- Mary Rickard; not in Vital Records, but named in her father's will.[7] Mary, daughter of Mary Rickard, was baptized in Plymouth in 1688.[8]
Death
John Rickard's will is dated 20 April 1711. The estate was inventoried on 20 June 1712. He was a slaveholder. His inventory included an enslaved black man named Toby. His will provided bequests to his wife Mary, sons John and James, and daughters Mercy [married name not legible], Mary Rickard, Hester Rickard, and Elizabeth Rickard. [7][9]
John Rickard died on 25 March 1712 and was buried at Burial Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Only part of the gravestone is intact.[10] In 1892, Kingman reported that the the inscription read "Here lyes buried | ye body of | JOHN RICKARD | Aged about 55 years | Decesd March ye | 25th 1712."[11]
Sources
- ↑ Plymouth Vital Records, p. 662 (accessed at AmericanAncestors.org): "John the son of John Rickard born the 24th day of Nov 1657."
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Stratton, Eugene. "Which John Rickard married Mary Cooke?", Mayflower Quarterly, v. 49, p. 122, August 1983.
- ↑ "Vital Records of Plymouth," transcribed at Descendants of Stephen Hopkins - Mary Cooke
- ↑ Plymouth Vital Records, Page 670. "John Rickard, son of John Rickard Jr. was born on the 26th day of February 1679."
- ↑ Plymouth Vital Records, Page 671. "Mercye, the daughter of John Ricard, the son of John Rickard deceased was born the 12th of Feb 1682."
- ↑ Plymouth Vital Records, Page 671. "John Rickard, the son of John Rickard deceased, was born the 12th of Feb 1684."
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Will and probate papers of John Rickard, in Plymouth County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1686-1881, from New England Historic Genealogical Society
- ↑ Plymouth, MA: First Church Records, 1620-1859 from the Plymouth Church Records 1620-1859. CD-ROM. Boston, Mass.: New England Historic Genealogical Society; Colonial Society of Massachusetts, c2003. (Online database. NewEnglandAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2008.) page 332.
- ↑ "Massachusetts, Plymouth County, Probate Records, 1633-1967," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-997D-ZX17 : 20 May 2014), Probate records 1708-1717 and 1817-1861 vol 3-3P > image 78 of 710; State Archives, Boston.
- ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (accessed 14 September 2020), memorial page for John Rickard (24 Nov 1657–25 Mar 1712), Find A Grave: Memorial #84440695, citing Burial Hill, Plymouth, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, USA ; Maintained by CWSam (contributor 46803167) Gravestone picture
- ↑ Kingman, p. 9
- S17Massachusetts Vital Records to 1850 (Online Database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001-2010). Vital Records of Plymouth, Massachusetts to the Year 1850, compiled by Lee D. van Antwerp, edited by Ruth Wilder Sherman; Picton Press, Camden, Maine; 1993.
- Kingman, Bradford. url=https://archive.org/stream/epitaphsfromburi00king. Epitaphs from Burial Hill, Plymouth, Massachusetts, from 1657 to 1892. Brookline, Mass.: New England Illustrated Historical Publishing Company, 1892. [ Internet Archive]
- Harlow, Florence. Rebecca, Wife of Reverend Isaac Cushman, The American Genealogist (1950) Vol. 26, Page 146.
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R > Rickard > John Rickard Jr.
Categories: USBH Heritage Exchange | Plymouth, Massachusetts | Burial Hill, Plymouth, Massachusetts | Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Slave Owners | Massachusetts Project-Managed
The current consensus seems to be that the man who married Mary Cooke is Rickard-98, who died in 1712. The short explanations on these pages of the rationale for this conclusion don't come close to explaining all of the analysis that's been done.
I was surprised by your citation to a familysearch record that names Mary Cook as the mother of Joanna (one of the names that is found in only one of the two families, since no one has previously reported the existence of such a record, but I find that the citation https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F457-YYW is only a index record, not supported by an image or other details to verify that this is a real record.
You also supplied citation https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FHDG-JPJ -- a record for the birth of Elisha Whiton in Hingham in 1706. That has an image of the page (an impressive document that I've not seen before), but I can't figure out what evidence it gives for the "which John married Mary?" question. (Did you intend to cite a different page?)
Please don't change the wives and parents on these profiles. A great deal of work went into getting them sorted out properly.
I've already pointed this info out on the other relevant profiles.
There were several different John Rickards in and near Plymouth at the same time. John Rickard and his wife Hester Barnes had a son John Rickard, born in the 1650s (specifically in 1657), who is represented by Rickard-98. Giles Rickard Jr. and his wife Hannah Dunham also had a son John born in the 1650s (specifically in 1652), who is represented by Rickard-445. They both had wives named Mary and both had at least one son named John.
The situation is confusing; sources don't agree on who goes with which dates, wives, etc.; records often identified them by descriptors like "John son of John" and "daughter of John, deceased."
They have the same birthdate but they have different death dates.
I believe that this should be resolved so that the two can be merged.
The death of the father and son are probably being confused.