My Family Tree

The Real Mrs. Jasper Blake

This entry, found at http://genforum.genealogy.com/cgi-bin/pageload.cgi?jasper::blake::3513.html sets to rest the confusion surrounding the real wife of Jasper Blake.

The correct wife of Jasper Blake is Deborah Everard (bp. 2 Jun 1628; d. 20 Dec 1678 in Hampton, NH), daughter of Richard Everard and Sarah Dalton. Sarah Dalton was sister of the Rev. Timothy Dalton. The Deborah Dalton long confused to be the wife of Jasper was actually a daughter of the Rev. Timothy Dalton who was born 1619 and died 1624 in England. Reference the July 2000 issue of The New England Historical and Genealogical Register published by the New England Historic Genealogical Society.
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The following entry can be found, along with more information, at http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/b/l/a/Robert-Mason-Blake/GENE2-0046.html.

Notes for Deborah Everard:
From an article entitled "The Dalton Cluster: Timothy Dalton, Philemon Dalton, Richard Everard and Deborah (Everard) Blake", by George F. Sanborn, Jr. and Melinde Lutz Sanborn, published in "The New England Historical and Genealogical Register," Vol.154, at pages 275 through 280:
"The career of Deborah Everard is not well documented. We know that she was baptized in 1628 at Woolverstone by her uncle Rev. Timothy Dalton, and that she was in New England by 1649, when she became the mother of her first known child, Timothy Blake. It is entirely possible that she came with her father and uncle, first to Dorchester, then to Dedham, later leaving her father and stepmother, perhaps to live in the family of her uncle Timothy, and settling in Hampton where she likely married.
Given the gift of land by Rev. Timothy Dalton to Jasper Blake, as described in Jasper's will, we know that Deborah received what must have been her marriage portion through her uncle. This gift would help explain why Richard Everard, dying after his daughter Deborah, did not leave any legacies to her children. This very gift of land has been used by earlier writers as evidence to support the theory that Deborah was a daughter of Rev. Mr. Dalton. Timothy did indeed have a daughter Deborah, but this child was buried in Woolverstone in 1624 in her fifth year. Although Timothy remained in Woolverstone for more than a decade after this burial, he recorded no more children of his own. Indeed, his wife, Ruth Leete, was fully 46 years old in 1624.
"When Jasper Blake named 'cousin' Samuel Dalton as overseer to his will, he literally meant cousin, rather than nephew. Samuel, son of Timothy, was a first cousin to Deborah (and her husband Jasper), daughter of Sarah, if Sarah and Timothy were siblings. Many writers have commented on the fact that it could be no coincidence that Jasper and Deborah's children included the names 'Deborah, Timothy, Israel, and Philemon.' . . .
"Deborah (Everard) Blake, it must be assumed, came to New England with her father, Richard Everard, prior to August 1638 and may have lived for some years at Dedham with him. Since Rev. Timothy Dalton's passage was probably somewhat perilous due to his nonconformity, she likely did not take passage with him. She is not on the passenger list of the Increase with Philemon Dalton.
"There is no record of Deborah's joining the Dedham church, although her father and stepmother joined in 1646 after living in that town for almost a decade. This may be a good argument for supposing that she was living in Hampton with her uncle Rev. Timothy Dalton by the mid 1640s. No church records from this early period survive from the Hampton church.
"In the late 1640s Deborah married Jasper Blake and began a family of ten children. Her first four Blake children bore exactly the same four given names used by her own natal family, Israel, Timothy, Deborah and John. Given her baptism in 1628, Deborah recorded children in Hampton from 1649 to 1671, when she was between 21 and 43 years of age. Her career and those of her father, siblings and half-siblings are traced in the forthcoming book by Dean Crawford Smith and Melinde Lutz Sanborn, Ancestry of Eva Belle Kempton, Part IV."

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Underlines are mine, as these are critical points that have caused MUCH confusion. So, although other various "official" records uphold the "Deborah as daughter (or sister) of Timothy" story, the above version is the only one wherein all elements—facts and dates—agree, rendering a consistent whole picture."

REFERENCE: 2982