Triply Thankful: Three Generations of Women Named Thankful
Thankful Holmes:1690-Unknown
Thankful Mascraft: 1721-1805
Thankful Skinner: 1751-1814
One of my sets of seventh-great-grandparents chose a very
Puritan name for their second daughter, my sixth great-grandaunt: Thankful
Holmes. The name Thankful graced two more generations, passed down from mother
to daughter.
Thankful Holmes was born on September 11, 1690 to parents
James Holmes and Jane Stephens Holmes. The family lived in Woodstock, Massachusetts
Colony, in what is now Connecticut. Thankful had several siblings; I list eight
on my tree, while other trees include up to ten.
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| 18th century drawing of Woodstock CT |
Thankful did not marry until fairly late in life for the
time period; she was 28 when she married Samuel Mascraft on March 28, 1719. Perhaps
Thankful had been needed at home to help raise her siblings, or perhaps there
simply weren’t any appropriate suitors in Woodstock, which had been founded
less than a decade before her birth by a mere thirty families.
 |
| Map of Connecticut, 1797, from the Library of Congress |
Samuel Mascraft had been born in Roxbury, Massachusetts in
1683, and moved to Woodstock, some seventy miles southwest, at some point in
the early 1700s. Histories of the area note that many children of Roxbury
families moved to new communities, including Woodstock, that were being carved
out of the wilderness, as there wasn’t enough arable land near Roxbury to
support more families.
Samuel had been previously married. His first wife,
Mehitable, died in early 1719, leaving him at age 36 with five motherless
children. He married Thankful shortly after Mehitable’s death. Samuel and
Thankful Mascraft had several children of their own, including daughter
Thankful Mascraft, born June 23, 1721. Thankful Holmes Mascraft seems to have
died in 1729 after giving birth to her last child, Abigail. I have yet to
confirm the death date.
Thankful Mascraft, my first cousin 7x removed, married
William Skinner of Malden, Massachusetts, on Jamuary 2, 1746. William was 26
years old and Thankful was 25. William was a church deacon as well as a farmer
and landowner. The couple had somewhere between ten and twelve children,
depending on whose records are to be believed. Their fifth child, daughter
Thankful Skinner, was born in 1751, possibly on July 2 according to an
unsourced record on Family Search.
Thankful Mascraft Skinner survived well into old age. Her
tombstone can be found in Woodstock, and reads: In memory of/ Mrs. Thankful
Skinner/wife of/Deacon William Skinner/who died April 6th 1805/In her 84th Year.
Thankful Skinner, my second cousin six times removed,
married very late in life. She was 39 years old, nearly past potential
child-bearing years, when she wed Enoch Burt, age 47, on January 23, 1790.
Enoch was also a church deacon, born and raised in Wilbraham, Massachusetts,
some thirty miles from Thankful’s hometown of Woodstock, Connecticut. He had
been previously married to a Eunice Stebbins, and had at least three children
with her before he was widowed.
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| Wilbraham, Massachusetts, 1800s |
Despite Thankful’s age, she and Enoch had three children
together, Calvin, born in 1790, Lathrop, born in 1792, and William Skinner
Burt, born in 1794. Enoch died in 1809, and in his will he refers to Thankful
as “my beloved wife”, leaving her “one cow, my mare, six sheep also my weaving
loom and its furniture together with the house hold furniture she brought here
& property comes to her by heirships or legacy to have and use the same for
her own and also to enjoy and possess a part in my house to use as her home as
long as she remains my widow.” From this will, it appears Thankful had brought
substantial assets of her own to the marriage, and it also appears that the
couple loved each other and that Enoch had ensured she would be provided for
following his death.
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| Enoch Burt's will |
It is interesting to note that Enoch’s will left the three
children of his first marriage, Walter, Eunice and Enoch, small sums of cash,
$2.50 each, while he gives his three sons by Thankful “all my landed property
together with all the privileges of water my livestock and farming utensils
with the House and Barn standing on to farm together with the one half of the
grist mill and the one half of the tan mill which I own…” Quite different
treatment for the two sets of children. It is to be hoped that Enoch had earlier
settled property on his older children, perhaps when they reached their
majority.
Thankful Skinner Burt died in 1834, having never remarried.
She is buried next to her husband in Hampden Cemetery, and her headstone reads,
“The Grave of/Thankful/relict of/Dea. Enoch Burt/who died/Jan. 10, 1834/aged
83.”
While I am not closely related to Thankful Holmes and her
daughter and granddaughter and despite having limited information about their
lives, I am thankful to have discovered them and the charming, old-fashioned
name they shared.
Sources:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/49700179/enoch-burt
Massachusetts, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1991,
accessed through Ancestry. https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/567840:9069?ssrc=pt&tid=46986934&pid=322332739052
Library of Congress, Map of Connecticut 1797
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