On Tuesday, February 8, 1785 a girl was born to John and Dorothy Carter Blasdel in East Kingston, NH. The name listed on her birth record was Nabby Blasdel. (Nabby is a nickname for Abigail.) She was their second child and second daughter. John and Dorothy would eventually go on to have a total of ten children together with boys and girls represented equally in number.
The new republic was still in the process of being formed, and it wouldn’t be until 1787 that the US Constitution would be accepted and signed in Philadelphia, and, two years later, George Washington would become the first president of the United States of America. Did you know that there was a succession of presidents of the not-yet-United-States prior to George Washington? I didn’t until I was doing some research for this post. They were working under the Articles of the Confederation a sort of a pre-constitution constitution. The men who were president under the Articles of the Confederation during the time when Simon and Abigail were born were Thomas Mifflin, Richard Henry Lee, and John Hancock.
I see this time in history as a transitional period from the colonial era to that of autonomous rule separate from England. Up until the American Revolution the people living in the colonies thought of themselves as British subjects. After the war and after the ratification of the US Constitution people were suddenly Americans. What did it mean to be an American? Abigail was the daughter of a Revolutionary War soldier. Simon’s father may have fought as well. One of my main goals of this blog is to discover who Simon’s parents were.
At this point I have yet to find a marriage record for Simon and Abigail. I have visited or emailed several town and city halls here in New Hampshire (including Belmont, Gilmanton, Laconia, East Kingston, and Kingston) to pore over vital records during the last few weeks with no luck so far. I’ve got a couple more places I need to look, however. The same goes for finding birth records of children. I believe I have found all of them on census records, vital records, as well as in the Blaisdel Family Papers (found at the NH Historical Society). I will talk about their children, one of which is my 3rd great grandfather, John Gilman, in future posts.
Abigail died in Mount Holly, VT on 5 Jun 1864 at 79 years of age and is buried next to her husband in Northam Cemetery in Shrewsbury, VT.
Hey, if any of you are curious about anything I have written or have questions or insights to add, I encourage you to take part in this discussion. If you have ideas for future posts that are related to the scope of this blog, including touching upon social, historical, and cultural contexts, I am open to doing some research or even having a guest blogger. Let me know via a comment below or click on the contact button in the menu above.
