With about one out of every eight women dying of complications of childbirth in early New England, it comes as no surprise to find them among our early ancestors. Elizabeth Alden, my 8X great grandmother, was one of these women. Those of us who descend through the child she died giving birth to owe this woman (and all those like her) a great deal of gratitude.
In the days prior to effective birth control and medicines, many women gave birth to a baby every two years and often succumbed to infection and a variety of complications of childbirth. It isn't surprising that many colonial women regarded pregnancy with dread. Their letters from the time indicate their awareness of the danger that they were facing. Early New England poet Anne Bradstreet expressed the fear well in her poem entitled "Before the Birth of One of Her Children" in which she anticipates her husband's remarriage after her death:
Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms.
And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains
Look to my little babes, my dear remains.
And if thou love thyself, or loved'st me,
These O protect from step-dame's injury.
Elizabeth Alden was born in 1678 in Bridgewater, Plymouth Colony to Joseph Alden and Mary Simmons. She was the granddaughter of 1620 Mayflower passengers John Alden and Priscilla Mullins on her paternal side and of 1621 Fortune passenger Moses Simmons on her maternal side.
When she was still in her teens, on 12 December 1693 she was married by Justice of the Peace Josiah Edson to Benjamin Snow (a grandson of Peter Browne, another Mayflower passenger). Benjamin was a farmer in the Bridgewater area. Then started the regular arrival of babies and the inherent danger that entailed:
- Rebecca Snow born 7 November 1694
- Benjamin Snow born 23 June 1696
- Solomon Snow born 6 April 1698
- Ebenezer Snow born 29 March 1701
- Elizabeth Snow born 5 May 1705 (my 7X great grandmother)
(Based on the usual pattern, one might suspect a miscarriage or stillbirth to have occurred in about 1703, but no record has been found.)
Elizabeth did not recover after the birth of her daughter Elizabeth, dying three days later on 8 May 1705 of complications of childbirth. She wasn't yet 30 years old. Her burial location is unknown but would be somewhere in the Bridgewater area.
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| Scotland Cemetery, Bridgewater MA photo 1999 - other family members buried here but no record for Elizabeth Alden Snow |
With five young children including a newborn baby, it isn't surprising to see widower Benjamin remarrying in short order. On 25 October of that same year, he married the widow Sarah (Allen) Cary who added some five children of her own to the household. One might hope that she treated her stepchildren well and not in the way poet Anne Bradstreet had feared in her poem.
Elizabeth and her namesake daughter never got to know each other at all. Young Elizabeth Snow grew up to marry Joseph Carver when she was 20, dying at the age of 50 after successfully giving birth to 8 children between 1727 and 1744. Our branch of the family descends from her first-born son, Joseph Carver junior. One might assume that this Elizabeth faced each impending birth with understandable concern, always aware that her own birth had resulted in her mother's death.
Elizabeth Snow's tombstone in the Scotland Cemetery near Bridgewater, MA, is in a lovely country setting. It reads as follows: "Here lies buried Mrs. Elizabeth Carver, y wife of Mr. Joseph Carver, who died July 6th, 1755, in y 51st year of her age."
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| Bridgewater 1755 tombstone for Elizabeth Alden's daughter Elizabeth (Snow) Carver photo taken 1999, Scotland Cemetery, Bridgewater, MA |
The sacrifice made by Elizabeth Alden in giving birth to her daughter Elizabeth Snow enabled the very existence of a whole line of descendants. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. Remembering you is the only way we can really express our gratitude for your life.
Some Resources:
- Bradstreet, Anne, Before the Birth of One of her Children, accessed online 09 November 2020 at https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Before_the_Birth_of_One_of_Her_Children
- Childbirth in Early America, Digital History Topic ID-70, 2019, accessed online 09 November 2020 at https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/topic_display.cfm?tcid=70
- 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 09 November 2020 at https://archive.org/details/historyofearlyse00mitc/page/n5/mode/2up
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