Ensign Isaac Fisher (1694-1778) and Esther Mann (1696-1770)

{Hills Ancestors}

Research by Rue Lynn Galbraith

Isaac Fisher was born 19 May 1694 in Wrentham, Massachusetts, the third child of Cornelius Fisher and Anna Whitney.1 His mother died in 1701 when he was six-years-old, and his father married a widow, Mercy Partridge Colburn, in 1702. Isaac had five siblings and two half-sisters, and he would also have grown up with Mercy’s two youngest daughters by her first marriage.

Esther Mann was born as a twin on 26 June 1696 to Samuel Mann and Esther Ware.1 Esther had 11 siblings, including her twin brother who died when they were born. Her father was the first minister of Wrentham, and he was respected and beloved by the people of the town.

Isaac and Esther were married in Wrentham by Mr. Henry Messinger on 30 December 1719 when Isaac was 25 and Esther was 23.

Picture 142

They had 12 children: Jonathan (b. 1720), Timothy (b. 1722), Esther (b. 1723), Anna (b. 1725 twin), Isaac (b. 1725 twin), Timothy (b. 1726), Julia's ancestor Margaret (b. 27 Dec 1728), Experience (b. 1731), Isaac (b. 1732), Beriah (b. 1734), Silence (b. 1736), and Hannah (b. 1739). All of their children were born in Wrentham.1

Esther Mann died 20 January 1770 in Dover, Massachusetts and is buried in Highland Cemetery in Dover. Isaac Fisher died 7 March 1778 and is buried in the West Wrentham Cemetery. His headstone is still extant.

(Note from Rue Lynn Galbraith: This information, included in the Vital Records of Wrentham, Massachusetts, pg. 433, is from the Graves records of the West Wrentham Cemetery which gives; “March 7, 1778 in his 84th year.”1 However, “The Fisher Genealogy” states that Isaac “removed to Cumberland, R.I., where he died March 7, 1773.”3 I have done research trying to find a death record of Isaac in Cumberland, Rhode Island but at this point I have not found one. I searched the “Vital records of Rhode Island Vol. 3” and found that Isaac’s oldest son, Jonathan, did live there. It is possible that Isaac moved to his son’s house in his old age, and died there but was buried in Wrentham, Massachusetts, which is just across the state boundary from Cumberland. It would be easy to misread “1778” as “1773.)

Sources

  1. Vital Records of Wrentham, Massachusetts, to the year 1850, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, 1910

  2. Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Original data: Town and City Clerks of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Vital and Town Records, Provo, UT: Holbrook Research Institute (Jay and Delene Holbrook).

  3. The Fisher Genealogy by Philip A. Fisher