Elizabeth Snow (1705-1755) (52 Ancestors 2020 Week 14) Theme: "Water"

Elizabeth Snow's entry into this world at Bridgewater, Plymouth Colony on 5 May 1705 preceded her mother's death from complications of childbirth by just 3 days.

My 7X great grandmother Elizabeth was the youngest of the five children her mother Elizabeth (Alden) Snow had given birth to in the 11 years of her marriage to Benjamin Snow. Mother Elizabeth was just 27 when she died. Widower Benjamin went on to marry widow Sarah (Allan) Cary in October of that same year, giving a much-needed step-mother to his young family. The following August, one year-old Elizabeth had a new half-sister Sarah Snow added to complete her family circle.

Bridgewater MA Records for Family of Benjamin Snow

The day before her 20th birthday Elizabeth was married to 25 year-old Joseph Carver by Josiah Edson, Justice of the Peace.  Their first child born a couple of years later, also named Joseph Carver, would become my 6X great grandfather. The couple went on to have seven more children and raised them at Bridgewater on the western edge of Plymouth Colony. (Bridgewater can be found about 25 miles south of Boston and 35 miles east of Providence, RI.)

Marriage of Joseph Carver and Elizabeth Snow 4 May 1725 (half-way down the page)

Very little can be known with certainty about Elizabeth's life other than that she would have been involved in all the usual activities common to women of her time: childbearing and rearing, tending to hearth, home and family.

Elizabeth lived to the age of 50, dying 6 July 1755. She is buried in the Scotland Cemetery at Bridgewater where her stone reads as follows:

Here lies Buried
Mrs Elizabeth Carver
Wife of
Mr Joseph Carver
Who Died
July 6, 1755
in Ye 51 year
of her Age.

The author and her mother Elinor visiting the Carver burial site, Scotland Cemetery, Bridgewater, MA 1999
Photo Courtesy Graham Barnard

Afterthought: You may well be wondering how Elizabeth Snow fits this week's theme of "Water". In addition to having spent her entire life at a place called Bridgewater,  Snow is just another state of matter for water too!

Some Resources:

Find a Grave Memorial website located at https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/61950286/elizabeth-carver

Mitchell, Nahum, History of the Early Settlement of Bridgewater, in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, including an extensive Family Register (Boston, 1840; rep. Bridgewater, Mass., 1897) accessed online at Internet Archive.