Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Distraught Father Sues After Two-Year Old Daughter Dies in a Pit - 52 Ancestors #46

Elizabeth Newhall was my 1st cousin, 10 times, removed. I descend from her father's sister, Susanna (Newhall) Haven. She died when she was just two years old when she fell into a pit and drowned. Her three older brothers were Thomas Newhall (the 3rd so-named, age 12), John Newhall (age 10), and Joseph Newhall (age 7). It is a bit unclear whether they are three sons who used the pit to keep alewives for fishing or if it was her father and his two brothers, Francis and John, sons of her grandfather, Thomas Newhall, the immigrant. There were so many dangers of life in colonial times and losing a young girl to an accident seems especially tragic. 

Daughter of Thomas Newhall, Jr. 
The death by drowning of Thomas Newhall's daughter Elizabeth in November of 1665 was a tragedy that resulted in litigation. The distraught father, Thomas Newhall, brought suit against George Keaser "for damage he sustained by his digging a pit to the loss of his child." The little girl, just two years old, had been out of her mother's sight for half an hour or more, when she was found by the wife of Robert Potter and the wife of John Newhall, floating on the water of a pit near her home, dead. The pit had originally been dug by George Keaser as a tan vat, and Newhall claimed he had left it open. Testimony, however, showed that the pit had been drained by the Keasers, and had been reopened and filled with water (to keep alewives for fishing) by the three sons of Thomas Newhall, and the verdict was for the defendant. ~ The Essex Genealogist, 1995, Vol. 15, p. 42



Thomas & Mary Newhall were in Lynn, Massachusetts by 1638. They were the parents of Francis, Susanna, Thomas, John, and Mary. Thomas Newhall, Jr. was the father of Elizabeth. 

Susanna Newhall married Richard Haven before 1645. Susanna was the aunt of Elizabeth Newhall. 

Mary Haven, daughter of Richard & Susanna (Newhall) Haven, married John Tarbox. 

Nathaniel Tarbox
Benjamin Tarbox
Jedidiah Tarbox (female) 
Patience Smith
David Shepard
Sarah Shepard
Laura E. Emmons
Estes Gilbert Yates
Linona Alice Yates - my grandmother



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