Samuel Colburn was born 25 January 1654/5 in Dedham, Massachusetts, the third son and eighth child of the eleven children of Nathaniel Colburn and Priscilla Clarke. He was christened 25 February 1654/5 in the same town.1
Samuel fought in King Phillips War: in the Woodcock company on 24 June 1676 and 24 August 1676 in Dedham.2 He was married to Mercy Partridge on 12 Mar 1682/3 in Dedham, when he was 28, and she was about 18.1
Mercy Partridge was born about 1665 (probably in Duxbury, Massachusetts) to George Partridge and Sarah Tracy. We have not been able to find a birth record for Mercy Partridge, but her birth is estimated in many sources as 1660. However, that would have made Mercy 50 years old when Esther Fisher, her last child by her second husband, Cornelius Fisher, was born in 1710, which is highly unlikely. Assuming that she was at least 16 at the time of her first marriage, she could not have been born after March of 1666/67. If we assume a 1665 birthdate, she would have been 44 in 1710 when Esther was born, a reasonable age to still be bearing children. She was probably not more than a year older than that, which would put her birth year between 1664/65, and 1666/67. If she were born in 1665, her mother, Sarah, would have been 42 at the time of her birth, and 44 at the birth of her brother, James, who has been assumed to be the youngest child. We therefore estimate her birth year as 1665. That would make her the ninth child of George and Sarah Partridge.
Mercy is mentioned in the wills of both her parents. George Partridge’s will says, “"I give and bequeath unto my beloved wife Sarah all my houses and lands in Duxburough…for her own proper use and behofe during her natural life on the condition that my wife do as much for my daughter Mercy as we have done for ye rest of our daughters married…"4 Sarah also wrote a will, which says, “"I give and bequeath unto my 8 daughters, Sarah Allen, Trephosa West, Elizabeth Allien, Ruth Thacher, Mary Scrif, Rebeckah Fisher, Lidia Brusiter, Mercy Coburn, all my linens and woolen clothes, etc."
Mercy and Samuel had six children, all born in Dedham.1 The first three died as infants:
Sarah, born 12 December 1684, died less than a month later on 9 January 1684/85.
Samuel, born 10 November 1685, who also died within a month on 3 December 1685.
Mercy, born 6 November 1686, died at three months old on 18 February 1686/87.
The next three lived to adulthood:
Ephraim, born 5 November 1687, married Abigail Fairbanks.
Mary born 5 November 1691, married Ephraim Pond.
Abial, Julia's ancestor, born 27 September 1694, married Elder Michael Metcalf.
Samuel died in Dedham on 18 May 1694, at 39 years of age.1 At the time of his death his wife, Mercy, about 29 years old, would have been about three months pregnant, giving birth to Abiel after her husband’s death.
Almost eight years later, on 27 March 1702 in Dedham, Mercy was remarried to Cornelius Fisher of Wrentham. Cornelius, with his first wife, Anna Whitney, is also Julia's ancestor. Mercy and Cornelius had two children: Mercy (b. 27 January 1703) and Esther (b. 27 October 1710). Their daughters were born in Wrentham, Massachusetts. Mercy died 20 September 1726 in Wrentham.
Early Records of the Town of Dedham Vol. 1
Some Ancestral Lines: Being a record of some of the Ancestors of Guilford Solon Tingley and his wife Martha Pamelia Meyers. P 82
Massachusetts Officers and Soldiers in the Seventeenth Century Conflicts p 54
Plymouth County Probate Records, Vol. 1, pg. 225, dated June 26, 1682
Plymouth County Probate Records, Vol. 2, p. 131-2,