My Dubious DNA

Researching my Ancestors 
John Carrington, William Tuttle, and Andrew Sanford

​WHETHER TRUE OR NOT, when I was a child my paternal grandmother told me stories about our ancestors and the history that went along with them: tales about ancestors who rode wagon trains through the plains to the Colorado mountains where they settled; my great-grandparents who fell in love while escaping the great Chicago fire; and my grandfather, as a little boy, delivering eggs to Thomas Edison. She spoke with conviction and pride, letting me feel what she felt. My grandmother didn’t know of a single ancestor who wasn’t a hero or lived next door to one. That made us special too.

 My favorite was Mary Bliss Parsons (1627-1712), who lived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony at Northampton. In 1675 she was thrown into jail in Boston to await her trial for witchcraft. My grandmother always ended that story—of jealous neighbors, dead babies, and vanishing spoons—with these words, “Mary defended herself at the trial and won. She was married to the richest man in the territory and went home free to lord it over her neighbors. You are descended from strong women, Karen.” 

 Uncomfortably, I was my grandmother’s favorite. None of my sisters got to sit in her lap while being indoctrinated with family stories. Now, I’m the family historian, the one with all the antique pictures, old letters, and files. I was the one who hated history class, but because I wanted to understand my genealogy, I’m now captivated by the entire history of western civilization and especially England and 17th century New England. 

 When I was in my twenties I typed forms, mimeographed them, and mailed them to my grandmothers asking for names, dates, places, and memories of their grandparents and great-grandparents. Both knew my grandfathers’ near ancestors as well. With those names and dates I have grown a family tree of many thousands on Ancestry.com—too large and distant in time to be believable. I’ve gotten all the way back to Charlemagne, to Rollo the Viking, kings and queens from all over Western Europe, Yorkists, Plantagenets, Lady Godiva, crusaders, knights and their ladies, and at least two saints. 

 A distant ancestor is impossible to find unless he/she made news. Besides all the famous people our DNA is fused with thousands of forgotten people, people who lived and died without a paper trail. In other words, the farther out you go into the past the grander your ancestors—they made history. Closer in, you’ll find more ordinary people picked up in the census, town records, and military papers. People like my Pennsylvania Quaker ancestor who fought with the north during the Civil War.

 This story is about the ancestors I found living in or near Connecticut Colony during the 17th century. My DNA brings me right up to those who lived in the 18th century. Research and viable records have sent me back a couple more generations.

 Accordingly, 368 years ago, three of my great grandfathers lived within miles of one another. It is fun to wonder if they ever met. John Carrington lived in Wethersfield, Andrew Sanford was right next door in Hartford, and to find William Tuttle you had to go downriver, turn right at Saybrook, and follow the coast to New Haven Colony.

  Somehow, through six generations, all three of them merged into a woman named Asenath Carrington. She was born a hundred years after her fifth great-grandfather John Carrington was hanged alongside his second wife Joan. Both had been convicted of witchcraft. 

 JOHN CARRINGTON

    John Carrington was born in 1602 in an ancient village bearing his ancestral name. Situated west of Manchester, England, Carrington is now a gas and chemical production center and has the odd demographic of around 185 men to 215 women. I won’t be vacationing in Carrington.

     When John was 33-years-old, he embarked on two life-changing adventures: marrying his first wife, Mary Ann Walker, and sailing across the sea to Boston aboard the ship Susan and Ellen. With all that bad food, seasickness, bouts of the flux, and sixty days of bounding across the waves, I’m guessing they experienced the world’s worst honeymoon trip.  

     They settled in Wethersfield, a tiny hamlet on the Connecticut River, where their son was born. The fact that they had been married three years before this recorded birth makes me wonder if an earlier infant had died. 

     Two years after their son’s birth, Mary Ann died. Death on the childbed was so common that some women of means wrote their wills as soon as they knew they were pregnant, one wrote a book for the unborn child who would never know her, and Ann Bradstreet wrote a sweet, sad poem. Some statistics say that women in the 17th century lost as many as a third of all the babies they bore. It was usual for a woman to give birth every two years. That meant they spent around twenty-two years of their lives giving birth and suckling babies. Mary Ann Carrington may have died giving birth, leaving her husband to raise their son, the fourth John Carrington in as many generations. 

   Right away the widower married a woman from nearby Simsbury. This would not have been scandalous. Men with children quickly remarried—once, twice, thrice. I’ve come across as many as five wives who followed each other’s deaths. The husbands remarried quickly, women, remember, were highly valued for their housekeeping, cooking, brewing, lambing, sewing, gardening, spinning, child rearing, and dairying skills. I could mention more valuable skills, but I’ll just say that the average age for a Puritan wife’s first marriage was twenty-three. It took that long to learn how to do all the above. 

 For years John’s second wife was simply “Joan” in the records, but recently Ancestry has added Balchyn as a possible surname and the following information: she was from a village located at modern Simsbury, Connecticut. Her parents had immigrated from Surrey in England. There is no record of her having married before or of any children from her marriage to John Carrington. No records exist to explain the details of their trial and conviction. We don’t know why this remarried carpenter had a noose around his neck eleven years later. 

 It might be helpful to know that losing or forgetting a woman’s name was not that unusual. It happened because women were not citizens. They didn’t own property and most did not know how to write.

 Joan Carrington, at 37, was young for an accused witch. Most women accused of witchcraft were widows, old and poor. Old women were thought of as fallow fields, they are wrinkled and shrunken except for their noses. Their skin is covered in odd growths, hair falls away, and moles become pendulant enough to suckle a familiar spirit—the mice, black cats, birds, and bats who aided the witch. “Only the good die young,” comes from the 445 B.C. writings of the Greek historian Herodotus. If that’s the case, what does that say about the old? 

     We don’t know John’s financial status, but as a carpenter he probably wasn’t rich. Why did the witch hunters come for them? Were they thought responsible for someone’s death? People who hanged were sometimes accused of murder by witchcraft. 

     A woman’s most important contribution was bearing children, preferably sons to help with the planting and harvesting. Joan may have been looked down upon. It was sad, even shameful, for a wife not to bear children for her husband. ​

Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine Within your house, Your children like olive plants Around your table. Psalm 128:3 

 

​ANDREW SANFORD​

Another eleven years passed and in 1662 my eighth great grandfather Andrew Sanfordand his wife Mary, were also tried for witchcraft. Both were indicted and Mary was hanged. 

 Andrew Sanford immigrated from England around 1632 and settled in Hartford. Soon after, he married a woman known only as Mary. The only other things we know about him are the date he was made a freeman, his town job of chimney viewer (thatched roofs are flammable), that he was a pump maker by trade, and he lived on North Main Street in 1662—a year full of witch scares in towns along the Connecticut River. It was a year of extreme drought. In 1662 God was angry with the people of New England and took away the rain, their crops, food for winter stores, and seeds for next year’s planting.

   Indian raids, natural disasters, and witch scares often stirred up witch hunts followed by trials. Once the villagers had a suspect, people became watchful and suspicious of their neighbors. Right there in Hartford, a Dutch woman suffering from “violent body motions” accused Rebecca Greensmith—described as “a lewd, ignorant and considerably aged woman”—of witchcraft. 

 Poor old Rebecca broke under interrogation and testified in court against her husband. She told stories about him being possessed by supernatural strength and the mythical animals who followed him through the woods. She said that the “devil appeared to her first in the form of a deer” and that he had made “frequent use of her body,” a euphemism for sex. She said she met in the woods at night under a tree on the green near her home to dance and drink a bottle of sack (popular Spanish sherry) with Goodwives Seager, Ayres, and Sanford. 

  That year (1662) the devil kept company with the Greensmiths, the Sanfords, Judith Varlet, Goody Ayers, and James Wakely. All were tried for witchcraft. Four were hanged and two acquitted. Elizabeth and John Blackleach were accused but escaped before they could be tried. The following year, Mary Barnes was hanged and Elizabeth Seager suffered two trials, one in January and one in June. She was acquitted both times, but the town took away her land. 

  The charge against Andrew Sanford and his wife? Holding public meetings other than those prescribed by the elders, and her frolicking around in the woods at night with Satan and  her friends. Among the jury, some thought Andrew was “guilty,” some “strongly suspected,” but Andrew was acquitted. Mary was not so lucky. 

 Rebecca Greensmith’s testimony clearly implicated Mary. But, how was Grandfather Andrew involved? An article in the New England Historical Magazine reports that the Sanfords of Hartford were Quakers. If that is true, it would have made them heretics in the eyes of their neighbors. Contrary to the religious tenants of their Puritan neighbors and government, they may have been holding Bible studies in their home. 

 No record of Mary’s execution has ever been found, though historians believe she was “probably” hanged. Further evidence to support this comes from the fact that Andrew moved to Milford and remarried. The name of his second wife has recently surfaced on Ancestry.com, but I will wait and see if more information pops up. Whomever she was, she gave birth to Hannah Sanford, my seventh great grandmother.  

WILLIAM TUTTLE​

  Now enters William Tuttleof New Haven, a ninth great-grandfather. He was born in 1607 in a town called Ringstead, Northamptonshire, England. At the age of twenty-six he, with his wife Elizabeth Mathews and three young children, sailed from London to Boston on a ship named Planter. 

     Far above his neighbors in wealth and status, William was among the first settlers in New Haven. He became involved in small affairs of the town on committees and boards, but he was never elected to public office. He was fined in 1646 for falling asleep while on guard duty. At the time of his death, his estate was worth £450, well above average.

  William and Elizabeth had a total of twelve children who survived childhood. Out of those twelve, one was a mentally ill invalid, two were axe murders, one was a murder victim, and one an adulteress. The rest of the Tuttle children probably had nervous twitches.

    Seven of the Tuttle’s children: John, Thomas, Jonathan, Joseph, Simon, Nathaniel, and Ann grew up to lead seemingly ordinary lives and produced sixty viable children. Here follows a list of their brothers and sisters, the ones my grandmother would have erased from memory.

    All we know about poor Uncle David Tuttle is that he lived fifty-four years as an invalid with mental illness. He never married. 

Sarah Tuttle

At court held in New Haven, May 1, 1660, Jacob Murline and Sarah Tuttle were prosecuted for "sinful dalliance." They were accused of "sitting down on a chest together, his arm about her waist and her arm upon his shoulder or about his neck, and continuing in this sinful position about half an hour, in which time he kissed her and she kissed him, and they kissed one another," as the witnesses testify. This complaint was made by Sarah's father under a law that whosoever should inveigle or draw away the affections of any maid or maid servant for himself or others, without first obtaining the consent of her parents or guardians, should pay, besides all the damages the parent might sustain, 40 shillings for the first offense, and for the second towards the same person, 4 pounds and for the third, fined, imprisoned and corporally punished, as the Plantation court may direct.  

  Aunt Sarah married John Slawson, had four children, and died at the age of 34. She was hacked to death with an axe by her 29-year-old brother Benjamin. According to Sarah’s son and daughter, aged 12 and 9, their mother had “rebuked” Benjamin for having been “short” with her. He went out and came back with an axe. As he struck his sister with the first blow, he cried out, “I will teach you to scold.” 

    She was found lying dead across the hearth with her head in the corner of the chimney, her skull and jaw split from her neck to the top of her head. The murder weapon was found near her in a pool of blood. 

     Uncle Benjaminwas hanged on June 13, 1677. 

     Aunt Elizabeth, not long after she married, cheated on her husband. That’s the story as told. But we don’t know exactly how she got pregnant. Was she raped? When Richard Edwards, her husband, learned he was not the father of their first child, he wanted a divorce. Divorce was hard to come by in those days. We don’t know when he filed for divorce, but they had six children together before they split and Elizabeth moved to Fairfield. She died there in 1679.

Aunt Mercy, the youngest daughter, was a strange girl even by Tuttle standards. She married Samuel Brown of Wallingford when she was seventeen. The couple had five children, including a son, Samuel. 

  Throughout her life, Mercy’s behavior was odd and erratic. When her husband died in November, 1691, there was no longer anyone to help her control her moods and conduct. On the night of June 23, 1692 Mercy attacked her 17-year-old son Samuel with an axe and killed him. Mercy admitted she had killed him, but she said it was not done out of malice; rather, it was done “at the instigation of the devil.” In other words, “The devil made me do it.”

In October, the court convicted Mercy of murder, but withheld sentence until 1693 when it ruled: 

  Having weighed the evidences given in, to prove that she hath generally been in a crazed or distracted condition as well long before she committed the act, as at that time, and having observed since that she is in such a condition, do not see cause to pass sentence of death against her, but for preventing her doing the like or other mischief for the future, do order, that she shall be kept in custody of the magistrates of New Haven.

 ​Two years later, she died a prisoner in New Haven, the colony her father helped build.

 William Tuttle did not live to see the outcome of most of this children’s lives. He died in 1673, years after New Haven Colony merged with Connecticut Colony in 1664. His wife, Elizabeth, lived until 1684, suffering through the fratricide of her daughter, Sarah, by her son Benjamin, his hanging, and the deaths of four adult children.  

GENERATIONS LATER

 Now this story becomes even more fantastic—at least it seemed so to me as I slowly came to understand that generations later the Carringtons, the Tuttles, and the Sanfords were intermarrying. The Tuttle’s grandson, Daniel married Hannah Sanford, when he was 25 and she was 23. She was the daughter of Andrew and Mary Sanford who were tried for witchcraft thirty years earlier. Then John Carrington’s great grandson Daniel Carrington married William Tuttle’s great granddaughter Hannah Tuttle. 

 By the sixth generation, the afore mentioned Asenath Carrington marries John Parsons.

 RememberMary Bliss Parsons the accused witch of Northampton? John Parsons was her third great-grandson. Yes, Mary Bliss Parsons, who grew up in Hartford, moved to Springfield, then Northampton and was tried for witchcraft. Mary, the woman who “defended herself” at her trial in Boston and was acquitted in 1675. Mary, the “strong woman” in my grandmother’s story. 

 There is an interesting side-story arising from the chaos of Tuttle family life. A story full of magic and optimism. This is one discovery that would thrill my grandmother. 

 Remember Elizabeth Tuttle, the woman whose first child was not her husbands? Her son Timothy became a Minister churched at East Windsor, Connecticut. He married Esther Stoddard, daughter of Solomon Stoddard, minister at Northampton—Mary Bliss Parsons’ pastor. Their son Jonathan Edwards became a minister at Northampton too and later a very famous one at that. Here’s a bit of his bio copied from Wikipedia. 

​Jonathan Edwards (October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758) was an American revivalist preacher, philosopher, and Congregationalist Protestant theologian. His colonial followers later distinguished themselves from other Congregationalists as "New Lights" (endorsing the Great Awakening), as opposed to "Old Lights" (non-revivalists). Edwards is widely regarded as "one of America's most important and original philosophical theologians." Edwards' theological work is broad in scope, but he was rooted in Reformed theology, the metaphysics of theological determinism, and the Puritan heritage. Recent studies have emphasized how thoroughly Edwards grounded his life's work on conceptions of beauty, harmony, and ethical fittingness, and how central The Enlightenment was to his mindset. Edwards played a critical role in shaping the First Great Awakening, and oversaw some of the first revivals in 1733–35 at his church in Northampton, Massachusetts.

 

​ Jonathan Edwards married Sarah Pierpoint, the daughter of the founder of Yale, and was minister there at Yale after he left Northampton. He is my second cousin eight times removed.

 The wonder of it all.  

 “Of all the knowledge that we can ever obtain, the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves, are the most important.” ― Jonathan Edwards

Spiritual delight in God arises chiefly from his beauty and perfection, not from the blessings he gives us.–Jonathan Edwards

 Remember that pride is the worst viper that is in the heart, the greatest disturber of the soul's peace and sweet communion with Christ; it was the first sin that ever was, and lies lowest in the foundation of Satan's whole building, and is the most difficultly rooted out, and is the most hidden, secret and deceitful of all lusts, and often creeps in, insensibly, into the midst of religion and sometimes under the disguise of humility. –Jonathan Edwards

 Jonathan Edwards is not a man of our times. If he preached today, his fiery sermons would empty the pews. For me, his distant cousin, reading his quotes and learning about his life, leaves me to wonder. Where did this brilliance and intense love of God come from? Did he, like me, sit in his grandmother Elizabeth Tuttle’s lap—that scorned woman—and listen to her stories about the family’s history in Old England and her hope that he would know the love of God?