Seth Garnsey (1732-1754) and Bethiah Lee (1732-1814)

{Garnsey Ancestors}

Seth Garnsey Jr. was the third of seven children of Seth Garnzey Sr. and Hannah Millard Garnzey. He was born in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, on 20 November 1732. His probate records say he was a laborer.

Bethiah Lee was born on 27 September 1732, the fourth child and third daughter of Richard Lee and Experience Millard Lee of Rehoboth. Her father was a cordwainer or shoemaker.

On 15 November 1753, the Rehoboth, Massachusetts, Vital Records show the marriage of 20-year old Seth Garnzey and 21-year-old Bethiah Lee, also of Rehoboth.1 Seth’s mother, Hannah Millard Garnzey and Bethiah Lee’s mother, Experience Millard Lee, were first cousins, born only a month apart, and probably grew up as close associates.

On 12 January 1754 , Seth Garnsey died. The record of his death was entered between deaths dated in 1763, so it was apparently not recorded for some years after he died.

On 12 February 1754, one month to the day after the death of her father, Seth Garnzey.1 Bethiah Garnzey, was born in Rehoboth, Bristol, Massachusetts, to Bethiah Lee Garnzey, who must have been devastated by the death of her young husband. Seth died intestate, and Bethiah was named executrix of his estate. There was apparently some conflict between Bethiah and her mother-in-law, Hannah Millard Garnzey Mansfield, because on 1 August 1758, Hannah Mansfield appeared in probate court to answer to a complaint against her "for Imbezzling … some part of the estate of my son, Seth Guarnsey late of Rehoboth, … late deceased … I do solomnley declare that I have not Imbeseled any of ye Estate which ye sd Seth Garnzey died seized of or had any just right to."2

Bethiah Lee Garnzey was a widow for 12 years, but on "19 October 1766 – Bethiah Lee Garnsey, wid, 2/md (Int: 6 Sep) Ebenezer Smith of Rehoboth (by Elder Samuel Peck)." He had 4 children by his first marriage.

Ebenezer and Bethiah had two more children born in Rehoboth, Lewis in 1767, and Abel in 1768. On 19 March 1770, Ebenezer Smith sold his farm in Rehoboth. On 9 April 1770, he bought land in Uxbridge, Massachusetts,4 and moved there with his family, including step-daughter, Bethiah Garnzey, now 16.

On 12 January 1773, a son was born to Bethiah’s 18-year-old daughter, Bethiah Garnzey in Uxbridge, Worcester, Massachusetts. She was hauled into court and fined for having a child born out of wedlock. Things must have been at least uncomfortable for the family in Uxbridge after the birth of the baby, and the family moved south to Douglas, Massachusetts. There, the family was warned out of the township in 1775: The county records of Warnings Out show, "Smith, Ebenezer, w(ife) Bethia, ch(ildren) Sarah, Patience, Lewis, Abel, "Bethia Gansey, and her child, Ezekiel Johnson. 27 November 1775" 5

Fortunately for the Smiths, on 1 January 1776, the day before the warning out was made official, intentions to marry were registered for Bethia Garnsey and Jonathan King, of Douglas. He was a person of substance, and because he was willing to "furnish security for their behavior and support", the Smith family was able to stay in Douglas.

Jonathan King sold his property in Douglas, and he, Bethiah and her 3-year-old son Ezekiel moved to Ashford, Connecticut, shortly after the marriage.

Bethiah Lee Garnzey Smith’s mother, Experience Millard Lee, had lived her life in Rehoboth, but she died in Douglas, Massachusetts, on 1 April 1784, so it is probable that she spent the last few years of her life in the home of her daughter, Bethiah Lee Garnsey Smith. Experience had cared for her aging parents, and was in turn cared for by her daughter, Bethiah Smith.

Ebenezer and Bethiah Smith continued to live in Douglas until their deaths. Ebenezer Smith wrote his will in Douglas on !4 February 1814, and Bethiah is not named in it, so she had probably died before that date. His will was probated on 7 December 1819 in Worcester County. 7

Sources:

  1. Massachusetts Vital Records Project - Rehoboth Births, Marriages and Deaths

  2. Bristol County, Massachusetts Probate Records

  3. 1960 Ezekiel Johnson Report to the Johnson Family by Clara S. Johnson

  4. The 2005 Garnsey Guernsey Gurnsey Genealogical Dictionary by Judith Young-Thayer

  5. Massachusetts Vital Records Project – Holliston Marriages p 243

  6. Johnson Gems by Judy Cluff

  7. Worcester County Probate Records.

  8. Bethia Garn

Endnotes from Paddy Spilsbury’s Biography of Bethiah Garnsey

  1. Records of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace from the County of Worcester, Massachusetts, 1731-1862. volumes 3-4, 1775-1780, September, 1773. SLFHL film 859240.        

  2. Demos, John.1970. A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony. Oxford University Press: New York. p. 153. FHL US/CAN 974.4 H6d

  3. Demos, 1970. p.152.

  4. Demos, 1970. p. 141n.

  5. Blake, Francis E., ed.1899. Worcester County, Massachusetts, Warnings, 1737-1788. Franklin R. Rice: Worcester, Massachusetts. Reprinted 1992 by Picton Press: Camden, Maine. FHL US/CAN 974.43 N2w

  6. Blake, 1992. p. 3.

  7. Rice, Franklin P, ed. 1906. Vital Records of Douglas, Massachusetts, to the end of the year 1849. Worchester, Massachusetts: Rice. FHL 974.43/D1 V29.