Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/344

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REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN OF NEW ENGLAND
257


ored children in Alabama, when Joseph Kirk proposed for her hand and was accepted, their marriage taking place October 11, 1855. They had three children, namely: Joseph, born August 12, 1856, who died July 15, 1886; Lucy Anne, the subject of this biography; and Eleanor Hubbard, born July 15, 1861, who is now an esteemed instructor in the branch of the Washington University at St. Louis, Mo., known as Mary Institute. Mrs. Kirk was born in Boston, May 10, 1836. She died July 8, 1876.

Dr. Kirk's maternal grandparents were John and Lucy Richards (Davies) Stimpson. James Stimpson, who came from England and set- tled on Cowdrey's Hill, in that part of the old town of Reading, Mass., which is now Wakefield, was a physician. He married in 1661 Mary Leffingwell (sometimes spelled Lepingwell). From Dr. James Stimpson Dr. Kirk traces her descent through John Stimpson, who married Mary Wadsworth, of Milton, and died in the town in 1732; their .son, Recompense Wadsworth Stimpson, born in Milton in Feb- ruary, 1728, who married Susanna Blodgett in 1759; Charles Stimpson, born in Boston in 1766, who married Eleanor Hall, and was the father of John, above named, whose wife was Lucy R.- Davies.

Eleanor Hall, the wife of Charles Stimpson, was a daughter of Captain Lsaac and Abigail (Cutter) Hall. Her father was son of Andrew and Abigail (Walker) Hall and grandson of John, Jr., and Jemima (Syll) Hall. John Hall, father of John Hall, Jr., came from England with his widowed mother, Mary Hall, who joined the church in Cambridge, Mass., in 1662, and received land from the town. In 1675 John Hall bougiit land in Medford. He married Elizabeth Green. Jemima Syll, the wife of John Hall, Jr., an;l mother of Andrew Hall, was a daughter of Captain Joseph and Jemima (Belcher) Syll. Her father, whose name was sometimes spelled Sill, was an ofhcer in King Philip's War. Her mother was a daughter of Andrew Belcher, and as sister of Andrew Belcher, Jr., was aunt to his son. Governor Jonathan Belcher.

Isaac Hall, of Medford, father of Eleanor, the wife of Charles Stimpson, was an active patriot during the struggle for American in- dependence. His record, as printed in " Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War," vol. vii., is as follows; "Captain of a CO. in (late) Col. Thomas Gardner's regt., which assembled April 19, 1775; service 5 days; also Captain, same regt., list of officers in said regt. recommended by Committee of Safety to be connnissiQned by Congress; ordered in Provincial Congress, June 2, 1775, that commissions be delivered to said officers; also Captain, Lt. Col. William Bond's (late Col. Gardner's) 37th regt., company return dated Camp Prospect Hill Oct. 6, 1775, represented discharged Sept. 1775; also Captain, service 4 days; company marched from Medford, by order of Gen. Washington at the time of the taking of Dorchester Heights, March, 1776." It is related of Captain Hall that the company that he connnanded before the Revolution had been formed by himself, and that it was his custom to supplement the meagre pay received by his men from the government by supplies of clothing paid for out of his own pocket.

John Stimpson, son of Charles and Eleanor, was born in 1795 in Richmond, Va. He married in Boston, May 29, 1825, Lucy Richard Davies, who was born in Boston in 1799. She was the daughter of Joshua Gee Davies and his wife, Lucy Richards, and on the paternal side grand-daughter of the Rev. Nathan and Susanna (Gee) Davies.

The Rev. Nathan Davies was pastor of the church in Dracut, Mass., from 1765 to 1781. Susanna Gee, whom he wedded April 3, 1766, was born in Boston, November 18, 1740, and baptized in the Second Church, November 23, when she was five days old. She was daugh- ter of the Rev. Joshua Gee by his third wife, Sarah Gardner. Her father served for twenty-five years (1723-48) as minister of the Second Church in Boston, as colleague of Cotton Matlier till 1729 antl afterward as his successor. Born in Boston in 1698, son of Joshua and Elizalieth (Thornton) Gee, he was graduated at Harvard College in 1717.

His father, Joshua Gee, was son of Peter Gee, an inhabitant of Boston in early colonial times. A family tradition has it that Joshua