Spinster No More: 52 Ancestors 2024 Prompt “Love and Marriage”

 

May-December Romance? Or Fortune Hunter and Prey? Mary Langstaff Marries a Man Forty Years Younger

Mary Langstaff: 1650-Approx. 1716 (Maternal Ninth-Great-Grandaunt)
Eleazer Coleman: 1685/90-17-- (Husband of Ninth-Great Grandaunt and First Cousin 9x Removed)
Anna Nutter: 1682-17-- (Maternal First Cousin 9x Removed)

 

After 55 years living in her family’s home and caring for her aging father Henry Langstaff (see previous blog post), Mary Langstaff was suddenly independent and alone following Henry’s death. Her father tried to repay her for her long devotion and her lost chances of marriage and motherhood by leaving a large portion of his land and possessions to her; only her brother Henry received a larger bequest. Henry stated that he gave the properties:

“…to my daughter Mary Langster [for] natural love, goodwill, affection, etc., and her carefulness in taking pains to wait and attend upon me upon all occasions in this my great age.”

Henry’s 1705 death left Mary an heiress of sorts, the owner of fifty acres of land in Dover, New Hampshire, land in the “little bay” area of Dover, and half of Henry’s lands and marsh in Greenland, plus half of all his household goods, except for three cows and ten sheep which were to go to her married sister.

There are no records to indicate how Mary dealt with her new properties and responsibilities. Did she employ laborers to work in the fields? Did she rely on her brother Henry or her brother-in-law Anthony Nutter for assistance? Did she work the fields and tend to the livestock on her own? And how did the community react to her newfound status? After all, in the 1600s, women rarely held property independently. Was she suddenly an attractive marriage prospect to every land-hungry widower in town?

All we can prove is that eight years after Henry’s death, Mary gave up spinsterhood at last, marrying Eleazer Coleman. But this marriage was probably even more shocking to her neighbors than Mary being a female landowner: the bride was sixty-three and the groom either twenty-three or twenty-eight years old (records vary). Eleazer was young enough to be Mary’s son—perhaps even young enough to be her grandson.

Why did they marry? How did they know one another? Was it a purely practical, economic arrangement? Was Eleazer an employee on her land? Was there affection between them? Did Mary feel motherly toward Eleazer and wanted to provide for him, and marriage was the only way their culture would accommodate that? Did she have physical conditions that necessitated in-home care, and Eleazer could only provide such personal care if he was her husband? Were there any romantic feelings between them? Was Eleazer just a fortune hunter?

The only indications we have about their relationship come from records cited in the book Landmarks in Ancient Dover (see citation below, pg. 240), where the author references “a curious bit of family history, well worth copying form the County records” regarding the transfer of some parcels of land:

“Mary Langstar of Bloody Point, June 20, 1713, well knowing that a marriage by God’s grace is intended and shortly to be had and solemnized between Eleazar Coleman of said place to the [aforesaid] Mary Langstar, and considering that [said] Mary, being about ye age of 63 years, and the said Eleazar about 28 years, and she may the better be taken care of in case she lives to any great age, and for divers other good and just causes, conveys to him fifty acres of upland called Steven’s Point, otherwise by ye name of Stephen Jether’s point, a little above Bloody Point, right east by Broad Cove. Also land on Little Bay, beginning by a creek in Broad Cove, and Running up ye Little bay as far as Dumplin cove.”

This sounds more like a business arrangement. Mary is trading her land for the promise that Eleazer will care for her as she grows old. Did the “divers other good and just causes” include some sort of affection and friendship if not romance or desire? One hopes so for both their sakes.

A footnote at the bottom of the page in the Landmarks book relates a bit of gossip about the couple:

“There is a story, which the writer is unwilling to believe, that Eleazar Coleman, having been asked if he loved his elderly but well-endowed bride, replied significantly that he loved the very ground she walked on.”

I’m sure the land was certainly the primary inducement for a young man to give up potential opportunities to start a family of his own. Mary could have, after all, been as long-lived as her father, who was well into his nineties when he died. Eleazer risked spending decades tied to a very old woman.

Property records confirm that the marriage took place, for on March 6, 1714, Eleazer Coleman and “Mary his wife” sold the fifty-acre Stephen’s Point property and the Little Bay property to Richard Downing and Thomas Coleman. Thomas Coleman was Eleazer’s older brother.

Plan of Coleman's Farm in Newington, 13 acres. 1853 plan. Were these Colemans descendants of Eleazer or his family?

Luckily for Eleazer, he didn’t have long to wait before he became a widower. Mary died in 1716, just three years after their marriage. His path to inheriting her property wasn’t entirely smooth, however. Apparently, Mary’s brother John and his family had never approved of her marriage. After her death, they filed court claims against the land she had inherited from her father, referring to her in the court documents by her maiden name as if they didn’t recognize Eleazer as her husband. John’s son Henry, a lawyer, finally resigned all claims to lands given to Eleazer by “Mary Langstar, deceased” on November 26, 1716. (Note: this proves Mary died no later than 1716.)

Eleazer married Mary’s great-niece just a few months later, on March 1, 1717. Anna Nutter was the granddaughter of Mary’s sister Sarah Langstaff Nutter and her husband Anthony Nutter. Anna’s father, John Nutter, was Sarah and Anthony’s eldest son. Anna Nutter was born in 1682, so once again Eleazer married an older woman. However, at least this time she was only three to eight years older: Anna was 34 and he was either 26 or 31 years old when they married. Did they meet through her relationship to Eleazer’s first wife, or did they already know one another? Perhaps Mary’s siblings could take comfort in the fact that Mary’s lands were staying in the family so to speak, since now Eleazer’s inheritance was being used to support another Langstaff descendant.

Birth record for Anna and Eleazer's son, Eleazer

This second marriage seems to have been a success. Anna and Eleazer had eight children between 1718 and 1731. They lived in the Greenland/Newington area of Rockingham County, New Hampshire and presumably died there. Their death dates are unconfirmed.

Aerial view of Newington, NH

Love and marriage. They don’t necessarily need to go together. While we can surmise that Eleazer Coleman’s first marriage was more of a business arrangement than a love match, perhaps he chose to marry for love the second time.

 

Sources:

Thompson, Mary P. (Mary Pickering), 1825-1894, "Landmarks in Ancient Dover, New Hampshire. Complete edition." (1892). Local History & Genealogy (Town Histories). 68. Pg. 240.

The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633. Robert Charles Anderson. New England Historic Genealogical Society. Boston. 1995. Henry Langstaff entry: pgs 1156-1160. Accessed through NEHGS/American Ancestors. Pg. 1157 and 1158.

New Hampshire: Miscellaneous Censuses and Substitutes, 1640-1890 (Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2013. From records supplied by Ancestry.com) https://www.americanancestors.org/DB507/rd/13679/3512/242289998

New Hampshire: Births, Deaths and Marriages, 1654-1969. (From microfilmed records. Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014.) https://www.americanancestors.org/DB516/i/13797/28514/246070949

Vital Records from the New England Historical and Genealogical Register. Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (Compiled from articles originally published in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register.)

Dame, Timothy, Jr. "Plan of Coleman's Farm in Newington containing 13 acres - 125 rods." Map. Portsmouth, N.H., 1853. Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center, https://collections.leventhalmap.org/search/commonwealth:8k71r164v (accessed January 21, 2024).