Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Pratt Stories-The Bond Family III



Our ancestor Isaac Bond (Jr) grew up in Sherborn, Massachusetts Bay Colony, and there met and courted Miss Abigail Greenwood. They were married on April 27, 1758. Their first five children at least were born in Sherborn; Huldah in 1759, Jonas in 1761, our ancestor Sarah on Christmas day in 1762, next Miriam, date unknown, then Abigail in 1765. They left Sherborn and moved to Dublin, New Hampshire, in 1767. For their last two kids, Isaac and William, I have neither birthplace nor birthdays. Sarah would have been about 5 years old when they moved. She became my great-great-great grandmother.
 
As fate would have it, the Moses Pratt family of Natick, only three miles from Sherborn, moved to New Hampshire three years later and also settled in Dublin. Fate? I doubt it, I'll bet the two families knew each other in Massachusetts. I told the Moses Pratt family story in my Email of October 11," The Pratt Migration III-Moses".
 
My to-be great-great-great grandfather, Asa Pratt (Sr), the second of ten children, would have been about 13 when his family arrived in Dublin. He was five years older than Sarah.
 
I don't know what attracted the Bond and Pratt families to New Hampshire or to Dublin in particular. Here is what the Town of Dublin's home page says:
 
"One can barely imagine the hardships undergone by the early settlers in wresting a livelyhood from the thin, rock-strewn soil found within the township's boundaries. Nevertheless, they cleared the land, and from it derived all their necessities, not only food but flax and wool for clothing..."
 
Google Maps will show you that Dublin the town is a dinky little burg in the shadow of Mount Manadnock and that about three miles to the east is Bond Corner (named for our ancestors?) Both are in what we in Michigan would call the Township of Dublin. Back east "Town" is the equivalent of our Township. Click on "Terrain" and "Satellite" to see the place in 3D and color.
 
Mount Manadnock is the most prominent New England peak south of the White Mountains. It is nearly a 1,000 feet higher than any mountain peak within 30 miles and rises 2,000 feet above the surrounding landscape. (Translation, it really sticks out there by itsself). The term "manadnock" has come to be used by geologists to describe any isolated mountain formed from the exposure of harder rock by the erosion of softer rock that once surrounded it.
 
Asa and Sarah grew up in Dublin town. I presume they knew each other although the five years older boy probably didn't pay much attention to little Sarah.
 
The Revolutionary War came. Asa enlisted in December of 1776 at age nineteen, and after several campaigns and battles which I have described in detail in eight Emails entiltled "Asa in the War", he was finally discharged in October of 1780.
 
 I don't know what he did after the war but some time after 1778 he removed to the Town of Plymouth, Windsor County, Vermont (he is shown as a Constable in Dublin that year). In October 1782 he married in Plymouth one Betty Sandford. They had four children in Plymouth but the first died as an infant. She died in 1787 at age 27, when her youngest was but six months old.
 
Betty Stanford was from Sherborn, Massachusetts, as was Sarah's family, and Asa was from nearby Nantick so perhaps they all knew each other when they were young.. Any way, in 1789 Asa went back to Dublin and married Sarah Bond and brought her back to his home and children in Plymouth. There Sarah became the step-mother of Betty's and Asa's three kids, then had three children of her own. Our ancestor Asa (Jr) was the first of these. Sarah died in August of 1815 at age 52. She was the last in our family with the surname of Bond. As you know, Bond became the middle name of Asa (Jr)'s son William; Wilmer's son Henry, and Vincent's son Jason.
 
Sarah and Asa are buried in the Five Corners Cemetery. If you are ever in Vermont visiting Coolidge State Park, here is how you get there: Go south on Bradley Hill Road until you run into Five Corners Cemetery Road. Follow that road until it dead-ends at a farm house. There will be a sign and a foot path leading to the cemetery. Take a photo of their gravestones and send it to me please.
 
Elaine and I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

(Photo: The view of Mt. Manadnock from Pack Manadnock)

Emailed Dec. 22

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