The Families of Sylvanus Lowell
But those records also show some gaps and mysteries.
The vital records of Amesbury show the future mariner born to Moses and Francis (usually spelled Frances) Lowell on 2 May 1746. His name was apparently spelled as “Salvenas,” which looks more like church Latin than classical. He had siblings named Sarah, Thomas, Moses, Affea, Daniel, and Willebe (Willoughby). Their mother died when Sylvanus was two.
The vital records of Bradford say that on 2 Aug 1770 “Silvanus Lowell of Amesbury” married Hannah Hopkinson, daughter of Ens. Solomon Hopkinson of Bradford. That marriage is also noted, without an exact date, in the Amesbury records.
The Bradford records add that Hannah Lowell died on 20 Sept 1771, or possibly 26 September, “in her 26th year.” Thus, Sylvanus Lowell quickly became a widower.
There’s no child listed of that marriage in Amesbury or Bradford. However, the Bradford records are notably sparse if you weren’t named Kimball. The next sign of the family appears in the vital records of Newburyport, which say that Hannah Lowell, daughter of Sylvanus and Hannah, was baptized there on 20 June 1775. Was this a daughter of the captain’s first marriage, baptized at about age four? There’s no answer.
Likewise, I’ve found no answer about Sylvanus Lowell’s second marriage to a woman named Elisabeth. She pops up in the Newburyport records as mother of several children by him:
- Elisabeth, baptized 6 Oct 1776 and buried 3 Sept 1777.
- Elisabeth, baptized 12 Apr 1778.
- Harrison, baptized 30 Jan 1780, probably died young.
- Sylvanus, baptized 12 Aug 1781.
- Sally, baptized 2 Feb 1783.
- Thomas, baptized 11 Sept 1785 and buried 3 Sept 1786.
Even more mysteriously, on 9 Mar 1791, Newburyport’s Essex Journal reported: “Died, Mrs. Lowell, wife of Capt. Silvanus Lowell of this town.” The vital records say that Elizabeth Lowell was buried that day. Obviously, she couldn’t have given birth to a son in July. Maybe the second Harrison was actually born in 1789 or 1790, and both the baptismal record and gravestone are off?
On 10 Oct 1791, just a few months after being widowed for the second time, Capt. Sylvanus Lowell married a widow about thirty-six years old named Elizabeth (McCard) Barriere or Berryer. She had a daughter, Fannie, from her first marriage.
I haven’t found any sign of Sylvanus having children by his second wife named Elizabeth. Each brought young children to the marriage to raise. Several of those children grew up, married, and had long lives. Both parents lived into their eighties.
This genealogical data shows Capt. Sylvanus Lowell having a fairly typical life for a New England patriarch of his time. Looking just at his three marriages and possibly eight children over more than a decade, one wouldn’t know that he’d come close to dying and lost significant portions of his body just before the Revolutionary War.
TOMORROW: What did you do in the war, Papa?
1 comment:
Any chance that Col. Harrison Lowell was an offspring from Sylvanus' third marriage, to the second Elizabeth? That would mean that the 1791 birth year on his gravestone was in error, but the 1799 baptism date could still be correct if it had been delayed.
A July 1792 birth, for example, would conveniently come about 9 months from when Sylvanus married the second Elizabeth. If, as you say, she was about 36 when she married Sylvanus in October 1791, then she would have been about 37 the following July; so it's within the realm of possibility.
On the other hand, Elizabeth's gravestone, on FindAGrave, says she was age 90 when she died in September 1839; that would make her about 43 in July 1792, so it seems less likely.
Nevertheless, FindAGrave says that Harrison's first daughter, born 1823, was named Elizabeth McCard Lowell, and McCard appears to have been the maiden name of Sylvanus' third wife, the second Elizabeth. Harrison also had a son, William, born 1836, who was given the middle name McCard.
Sylvanus, the second Elizabeth, Harrison, and William are all buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Biddeford, Maine, as are several other Lowells from later generations, presumably children and grandchildren of Harrison.
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