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continues from part 1 &
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p.130-133 The Wife of Nathan Fish of Falmouth. Contributed by David KEndall Martin, West Chazy, N.Y.
Anyone interested in the early Fish family of Cape Codwill run into the tangles marriage record of Nathan Fish of Falmouth. As NAthan fathered ten children between 1687 and 1708, the identity of his wife concerns the ancestry of a large number of living Americans. In numerous publications over the past hundred years, Nathan's wife has appeared as Deborah Barnes, Deborah Barrows, and Deborah Burg. The truth is she was probably Deborah Burge or Burgess, a daughter of Jacob and Mary (Nye) Burgess of Sandwich. There are several reasons for this identification.
While there were Burges in Massachusetts Bay during the early 17th century, no such family is known in Plymouth Colony. There, as noted by Winifred Lovering Holman in a typescript, "Burgess Lineage" (1957- 1958), in the Society Library, "until the middle of the 18th century, the name [Burgess] appears generally as 'Burge' in the old records," and the early Cape Cod Burgesses are included by Savage under his entry for Burge. Yet, I have not found in any publication the name of the wife of Nathan Fish given as Deborah Burgess.
In 1709 a record book was begun for the town of Falmouth in which were copied from an earlier book of records such items as town meetings, births, marriages, and deaths. The original first book was then destroyed. Col. Oliver B. Brown, compiler of the Falmouth vital records published by the Rhode Island Society of Mayflower Descendants, has kindly checked the marriage entry for Nathan Fish in the 1709 book. In his opinion; my own opinion from xerox copies; the opinion of Felicio M. Franco, Jr., Falmouth Town Clerk (who, previous to our investigation, had issused a certified copy of the record to caroline Thompsoon of New Bedford); and the opinioned of several others, the Falmouth record reads:
"Nathan fish and debro burg were mared the 25d day of december in the year 1686."
When tbe copy was made in 1709, the transcriber left out the name of the bride, but discovered the omission and --in the smae hand--inserted it between the lines over its proper place in the record. In 1901 The Genealogical Advertiser (vol.4) printed the Falmouth records including the marriage of Nathan Fish. Deborah's last name is marked "illegible" with the note, "Perhaps 'burg.'"
A second copy of these records was made for the town of Falmouth in 1880. This is the copy a visitor would be shown upon inquiry at the Town Clerk's office. In this copy Deborah's last name if left blank; penciled in, however, is the name "Barnes," initialed S.E.H.., as yet unidentified, who, apparently noticing the blank, ventured his guess that the name was Barnes, which a close examination of the 1709 book, comparing the letters with other words on the page, shows it definitely is not. Perhaps it was this note that was picked up by William T. Davis who published in his Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth (boston 1883) (Part II page 111) that Nathan Fish married in 1687 Deborah Barnes.
Davis has here compounded the error by combining the Falmouth record with that of another marriage at Plymouth. In the vital records of Plymouth published in the Mayflower Descendant (13 [1911]:203) appears:
"Nathn ffish Was Married to Deborah Barrows the 20th of december 1687."
Deborah Barrows is likely one of the two unnamed daughters mentioned in the will of John Barrows of Plymouth dated 12 Jan. 1691/2. His wife was named Deborah. Here we have the source of the identification of the wife of Nathan Fish of Falmouth as Deborah Barrows.
To add to the confusion, the Rev. Lucien Moore Robinson, who wrote a history of the early Barrows family for the Maine Historical and Genealogical Recorder (7 [1893]: 134), states, on what basis I do not know, that Deborah, daughter of John Barrows, married 20 Dec. 1687 Archipus Fulton of Plympton. I have been unable to find anyone of this name; although the first volume of the Five Generations Project of Mayflower descendants does include an Archippus Fuller of Plympton born in 1721, his two wives were named Mary. Several authors who have mentioned the marriage of Archippus Fulton to Deborah Barrows have suggested that his name was really Fuller.
The Plymouth record indicates the husband of Deborah Barrows as "Nathn Fish. It is my belief this is an abbreviated form of Nathaniel and Deborah Barrows married either Nathaniel born 27 Nov. 1648 to Nathaniel Fish of Sandwich or Nathaniel born 18 Dec. 1650 to Jonahtna Fish of Sandwich (Savage), probably the former as the latter undoubtedly went to Long Island with his father, who was settled there in the late 1650s. Nathan Fish who married Deborahm Burgess was a younger son of Nathaniel, Sr. of Sandwich, probably born in the early 1660s to Nathaniel's second wife, Lydia Miller.
It has been suggested that both Deborahs married the same man as his first and second wives; however, in the Falmouth records the 1686 marriage of Nathan Fish to Deborah Burgess is followed immediately by a list of their ten children born at nearly perfect two-year intervals from "bartolew fich [who] was borne the 16 day of June in the year 1687" to "Roland Fish ye Son of Nathan fish and Deborah his wife [who] was born July 25: 1708." Deborah is also named as the mother of Rebecca in 1703 and Elizabeth in 1705. Nowhere is there a break or a hint in the cloesly written record that Deborah Burgess died between June and December 1687 and Nathan remarried. In each of the nine entries following the first, the father is given as Nathan, never as Nathaniel or Nathn. The two marriage records surely indicate the marriages of two, distinct couples.
But who is Deborah Burgess, the mother of these ten children? Neither the Burgess Genealogy (Boston, 1865) by Rev. Ebenezer Burgess nor Howard B. Burgess, a careful, modern Burgess historian, identifies her. The Plymouth Colony Burgess progenitor is Thomas Burgess of Sandwich who left a will dated 4 April 1684 naming his four sons: Thomas the eldest, John Jacob and Joseph. He left no daughter Deborah. Winifred Lovering Holman in "Burgess Lineage" lists these sons as Thomas born ca. 1627 married 8 Nov. 1648 Elizabeth Bassett, John born ca. 1631 married 8 Sept. 1657 Mary Worden, Jacob born ca. 1633, and Joseph born ca. 1635. Thomas Jr. was divorced by Elizabeth Basset in June 1661, and he shortly moved to Newport, RI. He is known to have had but one child, Thomas, born in 1668 by his second wife, Lydia Gaunt. John moved to Yarmouth and left a will, dated 14 Aug. 1700, in which he mentions five sons, a daughter Martha, and four other daughters unnamed. These are identified by the 1865 Burgess genealogy as Patience, Mercy, Mary, and Sarah. JosephBurgess moved to Rochester where he dated his will 5 Aug. 1695 naming two sons and two daugters Rebecca Ross and Dority Clifton.
By elimination we turn to the third son, Jacob, only to find another troublesome marriage record. The vital records of Sandwich, printed with the original pagination in Mayflower Descendant (14 [1914]: 106-112, 166-174), show that "Jacob Borg and Mary Nie was married the first of June 1660." This record has caused concern because on another page are listed the births of two children of Jacob burge: Samuel 8 March 1671 and Ebenezer 2 Oct. 1673; on still another page is listed a third son, Jacob, 18 Oct. 1676; and on the next page of the original records is listed a fourth son, Thomas, 29 March 1679/80. No other records indicate additional children for Jacob and Mary (Nye) Burgess. Because of the eleven year lapse between their marriage in 1660 and the birth of their first known child in 1671, several authors have considered the marriage date an error and give it as 1 June 1670; in which case, any other children of Jacob Burgess would likely be born after 1680, making it impossible for Deborah, the wife of Nathan Fish, to be a child in this family and unlikely a grandchild of Thomas Burgess, Sr. at all.
Winifred Lovering Holman in "Burgess Lineage" was inclined to the 1670 correction of the marriage date until she found in the Plymouth Colony Records, 6 vols. (Boston, 1855-1856) (3:191) a case of George Barlow concerning which, on 13 June 1660, Jacob Burgess stated he "was drawne to testify that which hee did conserning Barlow, by Benjamine Nye, by feare, as threatened that in case he would not attend Barlow in his occations against the Quakers, and so to give the psent evidence hee should not have his daughter to wife." The court record of 1660 confirms the 1660 marriage date leaving the eleven year gap in the record of the children of Jacob and Mary (Nye) Burgess intact. Into this gap I would place a daughter Deborah, the wife of Nathan Fish. It is perhaps useful to add that Jacob Burgess was the only one of the four sons of the first Thomas Burgess to remain in Sandwich where he died 17 March 1719 and where his wife predeceased him 23 JUn1708. Sandwich was the home of Nathan Fish before his marriage recorded in Falmouth.
Thus it seems that the wife of Nathan Fish of Falmouth is Deborah Burgess, daughter of Jacob and Mary (Nye) Burgess of Sandwich.