The Wells' Witch

OR "DAN'S WITCH"

AND ONE LINE OF DESCENT FROM SUSANNAH NORTH MARTIN

(Author's note: This is straight up genealogy told with s'mores and a campfire. If you've got something else better to do now would be the time to run. This post is fluid. As new proof becomes available it will be added.)

As always, unapologetically and spectrally, unedited.

The other day, my cousin Dan Wells was giving me a bad time about "my witches" and my penchant for trying to track them down and "proof them out" like they were applications to some lineage society. Eh, so what, right? To his credit though, Dan reminded me of his own connection to Salem, and to a our (quasi) mutual connection through that very same "witch." The witch, or rather the lady in question, was Susannah North Martin, who was also tried and executed on that fateful day of July 19, 1692. (Dan is her direct descendant, I am a descendant of her husband George Martin via his first wife.)

     

        

I'd managed to space all of this out until Dan reminded me of it. (That smart boy's racehorse also just won a prize at Del Mar) Call it old man brain syndrome or that I look at WAY too much of this stuff to keep it all sorted in my balding ass head, but seeing as I had spaced it out on the Susannah North Martin connections and the shared Salem connections of old cousin Dan and myself, I figured that for sh*ts and giggles I'd take another look at it "image wise." I wanted to see just what might be there to be easily proven. (Like any of this stuff is easy?) Anyway, I figured I'd take another trip down that old Susannah North Martin Highway.

(No, not the actual highway, you dorks. Her ancestry and connection to Dan.)

Now put your pitchforks down - I know this retelling and that "the following images" isn't always going to always reflect original documentation. And yes, I can hear the tribunals of Plymouth and those Grand Mavens at the GSMD crying afoul while clutching their faux pearls and calling for a general refurbishing the stockades. I hear their admonishments. Indeed, I am surely attempting to violate here the hallowed genealogical code of the genealogical "proof conduct," etc., etc... but as they say... Blah, blah, blah, "F-'em." 

And yes, I'm gonna use some "Transcriptions and Indexes" here to tell the tale. 

Oh my, the horror!!!

However, I gotta believe that after forty years or so of doing this metier, I'm an adequate enough of a researcher to know that this will work well enough to tell y'all about, well, "Dan's witch," and his connection to Susannah North Martin.

For those of you that need a refresher course here is how it maps out:

Okay, let's dig in. I'm not gonna bother too much with background. This image below of the order to have her arrested for "sundry acts of witchcraft" should be enough to fill in the blanks:

I.  SUSANNAH NORTH

Above: Courtesy of https://salem.lib.virginia.edu/n92.html

Nah, as this is a genealogy, (and a basic lineage from Susannah to Dan) let's start with Susannah marriage to George Martin shown in the Salisbury, Massachusetts index below:

Any questions? (Yeah, I didn't think so.) Okay, next is the birth of their son, John, found, where else, but in Salisbury births in the index image below:

II.  JOHN MARTIN

And just to make sure that "John was George's kid..." a copy of George's will below:

III.  RUTH MARTIN

Next we have their son John Martin getting married to the lovely Mary Weed, (image below) and mention is of found her in this old tome of their daughter Ruth Martin who married Tristram Barnard

IV.  

DINAH BARNARD

And in the image below here, we can see that Ruth Martin and Tristram Barnard's daughter Dinah Barnard married the handsome and dashing Abner Kimball.

Above image is from: The Essex Antiquarian, Volume 6, pages 121-122

The image below reflects the marriage of Abner Kimball to Dinah Barnard and the birth of their daughter Merriam/Miram Kimball:

Dinah Barnard is sometimes recorded, and incorrectly so, as "Dinah Barnett" in both the original records and also the transciptions. (Yes, I know, genealogists everywhere I saying, "We told you this would happen if you relied on transciptions, Jeff...")  This appears to be an error as she has a son named "Barnard Kimball" - More importantly, we can tell too that she was in fact "Dinah Barnard" because she is named in Tristram Barnard's will as "Dinah, wife of Abner Kimball."

  Winner, winner, chicken dinner, for Dinah :)

(So put this in your corn cob pipe folks at the General Society of Mayflower Descendants - I am not a total slacker on original proof documentation...)

Where was I? Ah yes, now back to our regularly scheduled program. Ah, yes, Dinah Barnard and Abner Kimball and their popular and talented daughter of yesteryear, "Mirream" Kimball who married the handsome Thomas Hoyt.

V. MIRIAM KIMBALL

Above: Morrison and Sharples, History of the Kimball Family..., 1897, page 102

   

   

Above: Miriam Kimball's marriage to Thomas Hoyt. (And yes I know I should have cited it better...)           

As an aside here, however, is another "intersecting point of lineage" between Cousin Dan and myself. We both share ancestry through the Hoyt family. 

VI. SARAH HOYT

Moving on to Tom and Miram's thoughtful and devoted daughter, Sarah Hoyt who married Abraham Morrill:

Above: David Webster Hoyt's A Genealogical History of the Hoyt, Haight, and Hight Families..., 1871, page 70

     

 Above: New Hampshire Marriage Index for the marriage of Sarah Hoyt to Abraham Morrill

VII. RHODA MORRILL

Now I admit, here it starts to get a little tricky. Family trees are telling me that Sarah Hoyt and Abraham Morrill (shown above) have a daughter named Rhoda Morrill who goes on to marry Eber Hotchkiss. My problem here is that I have a birth record with no parents name listed, and while it "fits" even I know that it does not prove "one and the same." (Yes, I know, I can hear them snickering in Plymouth even now...)

And while there is one late mention of the couple in a published genealogy...eh, it could really use something extra.

                                      

 

                       

 Above: James Otis Lyford's History of the Town of Canterbury, New Hampshire, 1912.                 

However, and as fate would have it, the elusive and obscurely documented Rhoda Morrill and her devilish rogue of a husband Eben Hotchkiss will have to do more to escape their own proper mention in the line of the witch's blood from Old Susannah North Martin.

You see, Rhoda Morrill's father Abraham Morrill took care of it all for me when he named his elusive daughter "Rhoda Hotchkiss" (and Abraham's wife Sarah) in his Will. (See image below)

                     

 Nice and tidy. Thank you very much. Abe.

But then again, not so fast. 

VIII. ABNER HOTCHKISS

Then next generation (or two) will prove to be just as cumbersome. We know though that (and indeed albeit unverified) if we follow submitted family trees that Eber/Eben Hotchkiss and his wife Rhoda (Morrill) Hotchkiss had a son Abner Hotchkiss, though no birth record could be found. 

We know this because once again, we have gone back  to probate records were Daddy Eber Hotchkiss has been kind enough to name everyone in his Will. (See image below)

   

And we do have a Michigan marriage record for Eben Hotchkiss and Rhoda (Morrill) Hotchkiss's son Abner Hotchkiss who, at least in the surface, appears to be "one and the same" as the Abner Hotchkiss who married Sarah Brown.

  

             

Now I admit - I am not thrilled with this chain of events. Yes, we have everything we need (sans a few dotted i's and crossed t's) down to Eben Hotchkiss and Rhoda's boy Abner Hotchkiss, and I think "the line holds" just fine thus far, and we do have this marriage record for "an Abner Hotchkiss" of Lapeer County, Michigan to a Sarah Brown, and a census record for the family of Abner Hotchkiss and Sarah (Brown) Hotchkiss - but we don't have a lot more than this to go on. 

It does help that Mary Ann's sister Harriet gives us the names of her parents in this Michigan marriage record index. Still, we need that death cert.

 

However, there is an assumption made that the Abner Hotchkiss named in Eben Hotchkiss's will is "one and the same" as the Abner Hotchkiss who married Sarah Brown - even though it appears to be the most likely scenario given the above.

                           

And further: Okay, but I don't know about you, but sending in a Google snippet off of a secondary source is not going to fly with the mavens of literally any lineage society. And seeing as this is a Google snippet from a 1985 secondary source... Well, let;s just say it needs a little more seasoning in the soup. Still, we have no reason to disbelieve it; Eben did have a son named Abner. An Abner Hotchkiss did marry a Sarah Brown... so...

         

Above: (Apologies...the "source" hyperlinks won't "link" in the copied word doc. Ugh.)

IX. MARY ANN HOTCHKISS

That brings us back to the elusive Mary Ann Hotchkiss, daughter of Abner Hotchkiss and Sarah Brown. If you look in the census record, Our Gal Mary Ann is already accounted for. So aside from a small "Hiccup in the Hotchkisses" we really aren't in all that bad of shape. (And yes, I know we will need more for this generation...) And yes, we do have her sister Harrier's marriage record, and can confirm "a sister Harriett" in the census....

But...back to Mary Ann Hotchkiss:

 

 However this document definitely helps to clear up the names of Mary Ann's parents as Abner Hotchkiss and Sarah Brown.

(It could be that we don't need a copy of Mary Ann's death certificate at all.)

Still, is her father Abner "one and the same" as the Abner mentioned in Eben Hotchkiss's will.

At least on the surface, it would appear to be so.

                  

Above: Family identifies the woman in the rocking chair as Mary Ann (Hotchkiss) (Tottter) Leonard

All of the above works pretty darn well. It carries Abner Hotchkiss and Sarah (Brown) Hotchkiss's daughter Mary Ann Hotchkiss down through to her first marriage to Jason Trotter. It doesn't though, name her parents, but the affidavit she filled out in the 1920s does. We also have the 1860 census record which appears to show her parents just fine, but we likely we need a copy of her Mary Anne (Hotchkiss) (Trotter) Leonard's 1926 death certificate and just for any naysayers. Likely, it does and will name her mom and dad, or, given that it doesn't we would need to reach out for the death certs of her siblings....

But that probate records is HUGE at this point.

 

X. ELMER TROTTER

In the mean time, we need to look at Elmer Trotter, son of Jason Trotter and Mary Ann Hotchkiss. 

         

XI. 

MARIE O. TROTTER

 Yikes. That one was not easy. This next one, that for Elmer Trotter and Nora Dugger's daughter, Marie Trotter, isn't much easier. And yes, I know I have skipped some "proof documentation" along the way...but I'm not too worried about connecting the dots at this point.

   

 This document actually binds back three generations, from Mary Anne (Hotchkiss) (Trotter) Leonard to her granddaughter, Marie O. Trotter. 

Above: Nora (Dugger) Trotter named as guardian for Marie Trotter Bradford's inheiritance.

                 

       

                   

      

 

                                                                   XII. 

                                        THE BRADFORD / WELLS BOYS

Okay, we know this last part is its own chapter (if not novel) so we're not going to go into a lot of details about Bobby and Dwayne and who they aren't or were not. Suffice to say that Cousin Dan's line to Susannah North Martin of Salem 1692 fame holds up pretty well under the litmus test and spectral lights. While documenting this would require "some originals" to satisfy the Grand Inquisitors, the only generation I found to be even remotely lacking was that of Abner Hotchkiss and Sarah Brown, but I think that with a little elbow grease that it would likely pan out. 

Rest easy Susannah, we will not soon forget.

                         

                                                            🕊

                      

 "Cracked"      

       

(Author's note: None.)

As always, unapologetically unedited.

Honestly, it gives me a headache. I don't know if the throb just behind my right ear is because of it, or if my head just aches because of that continued wish for some sort of Pavlovian dopamine drip-to-rush of discovery. Perhaps it's the grainy snake of the script or the misnumbered text that seduces my eyes to the pursuit of meaning in oblivion? Is genealogy then addictive? Oh, Hell yes. And addictive in the worst way. Everything about it and its accompanying pursuit is in many ways the ultimate egotism. After all, like the proverbial idiot's vanity, how can one not be mesmerized by the possibility of an image or story of oneself—or, on that rare crossover event, the story of someone else whom the limited acumen of that same vanity might happen to find in those same fields of Narcissus?

Yeah, and I wonder why my head hurts? Seriously?

 

Above: Flyleaf - Colchester, Connecticut, Church Records

 

Nevertheless, for those of you that might read my genealogical missives and drivel from time to time, I thought I'd take a moment to show you kind of what some of it look like. Ya know, so you can see where the Great Gateway Drugs of "Indexes and Transcriptions" (if not Bible records and gravestones) drive one further into the madness, and compel one to seek out the "better highs" of only original proof documentation. 

(It was so much easier when I was simply addicted to cocaine in the 80s.)

In light of this, I got to thinking about my "present project" that is my quest to input "Mom" into the annals of published genealogical academia. Believe me, it isn't that mom isn't already there. She is. Her own mother's Sage ancestry is beautifully done like a fine tapestry- no thanks to me. She's just not there in the way of those "indirect lines," or in my own personal way of paying homage to her. And well, let's face it, her connection to two of the woman hung at Salem in 1692 for witchcraft is way more interesting than your average genealogical headache. Believe me, it isn't everything. However, by the time I am through with this rambling ass post I wanna be able to show you just how it isn't everything. I want to be able to show you just maybe a couple of these other genealogical dopamine rushes I've stuck in the old crack pipe along the way.

When I come upon these "moments of time" I never cease to be amazed by the moments of someone else's tomorrow.

See what you think. Maybe you can see why the headache (nor the addiction) never seems to go away. 

It all seems to start in a place like this:

Above: Block image search from FamilySearch.com times 100,000 plus

But as usual, I digress. I'm gonna shut-up about all that genealogical headache business for now. Let's return to the matter at hand. My Mom, and her ties to Salem.

Here's the refresher course:                     

As some of you know, I've been working on identifying one specific branch of Mom's lines to one of those Salem gals, a gal by the name of Martha Allen Carrier, and those to her great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth "Betsey" Carrier who married Roswell Russell- a descendant of that other gal also hung out to dry, Rebecca Towne Nurse. Now it would put you all to sleep BIG TIME to go through the ins and outs of it all, and let's face it, I'm sure you need to mow the grass or stuff some Bell peppers for dinner instead. However, what I thought I'd do is to show you part of where I have been going with all of this. I show this to you not so much so you might follow the genealogy but more so that you can see a couple of those AHA! moments along the way. 

Yeah, you already knew I was nuts. Peace out. 

Anyway, the goal here is: "to tell the story as it was told the first time" in living (or "dead" as the case may be) color, and if you will not mind the insult to that great story teller, a bit in the style of my mentor, the great and indomitable Dr. Seuss.

Hang in there with me if you dare...

It is after all, a witch's tale.

Enter the witch Martha:

Above: The start of it all. A church records notation of the marriage of Thomas Carrier (sometimes called Thomas Morgan) to Martha Allen and a notation of the birth of their son Andrew.

   

Above: A subsequent record of Andrew's son Andrew, [Jr.]

For me though, it really starts to get interesting with Andrew Carrier [Jr.], and his wife Rebecca. (See image below)

Now I don't know about you, but I gotta wonder about poor grandma Rebecca (Rockwell) Carrier and what she had to confess to. The script is too thick, archaic, and convoluted for me to tell much about just exactly why dear Grandma Rebecca Carrier had to state:

"I believe so with shame and blushing to come Before God..."

Yikes. It must have been a doozy of a sin to get the better part of a whole page in the confession book in February of 1749. She must be glad (wherever she is) that the most of us can't read the script her confession 275 years later. Personally, I think that whatever she did that we could give her a break after all this time. Dang, girl, it couldn't have been all that bad to do "blushing!" LOL.

But maybe it was?

Then, of course, what happened next, well, that

 remains to be seen, but it looks like Andy and Rebecca loaded up their kids, and may have got out of the town of Colchester after all that blushing business. It's a good thing their boy Isaac Carrier was already baptized in 1744 - or maybe that was what the whole blushing event was all about?

Just sayin...

Above: Baptism record for my ancestor Isaac Carrier son of Andrew Carrier, Jr.

Above: The Will of Andrew Carrier, Jr. where he names his wife Rebekah and his son Isaac

But our boy Isaac though, that is Andy and Rebecca's son, he did okay. About 1773, he found a nice girl - a cousin of sorts - and they got married. Andrew and Rebecca Carrier's son married a girl by the name of

Elizabeth Adams. 

Now before I get too far, I need to mention that Grandma Elizabeth (Adams) Carrier had had a hard start in life. She was raised by her grandparents as her own parents David Adams and Margery (Williams) Adams died when she was just a baby herself.

Check out those dates of death for Mom and Dad Williams:

Above: The birth record for Elizabeth Adams who married Isaac Carrier - alongside the death record of her parents

In case you are wondering how this couple, that is Isaac Carrier and Elizabeth (Adams) Carrier met and fell in love, well, duh, their parents went to the same church together - or at least they did so back in the day before all that "blushing business" came out back in '49. The image below shows Andrew and Rebekah Carrier and David Adams and Margery Adams all in one fell swoop.

Now I haven't found an exact copy of Isaac Carrier's marriage to Elizabeth Adams. But there is more than one way to skin a cat, right? In the image below, we can see Isaac and Elizabeth receiving her portion of her father David Adams' estate. So while I am looking for that marriage record, I've got a nice receipt that ties both Isaac Carrier to Elizabeth Adams, and further on back.

Chicken dinner.

And for any of you naysayers at the National Genealogical Society that will proclaim that this "simply isn't enough," here you go- below is a nice fat 1775 deed from Colchester, Connecticut, and signed paying homage to King George himself, whereby Isaac Carrier and Elizabeth (Adams) Carrier are selling off some of Grandpa Adams' land. They are likely tired of all that "blushing drama" in Colchester and all that whispering behind their backs.  

They probably figured it is time to get out of town. 

I think Isaac Carrier and his lovely wife Elizabeth (Adams) Carrier needed a fresh start. All that Revolutionary War business was probably getting to them, and from what I can tell, they were more than deeply religious. And while I still think I need a Litchfield County, Connecticut deed showing "Isaac Carrier formerly of Colchester" I am comfortable saying that the couple winds up in Colebrook, CT, just down the road where, by 1795, they have helped to start a new church as founding members.

                                      

                                                

Now I gotta tell you, life in Colebrook for Isaac and Elizabeth wasn't gonna last. I think they were starting to get older, and their kids decided to move out of state to New York. Kids, right? Go figure.

So about 1796ish Isaac and Elizabeth (Adams) Carrier decide to follow three of their sons to a place called Liberty, Sullivan County, New York, where their daughter, who also happened to be named (wait for it) Elizabeth (we will call her "Betsey") and her new husband Roswell Russell will also soon migrate to- about 1798-ish.

Then a little bit of bad news. Grandpa Isaac Carrier dies in 1806.

                        

Above: Daughters of the American Revolution records for the death of Isaac Carrier

Undaunted by Isaac's death, his wife Elizabeth (Adams) Carrier does the only thing she knows how to do best. Heck, she helps start a new church- see image below:

In between all of that, or afterwards, Isaac and Elizabeth's grandson wrote down their vital records as he remembered them in the family Bible - image below.

But as you can see, even Elizabeth (Adams) Carrier would, in the end, succumb to the Great Reaper. 

(Image below)

For the most part, the story ends here with the birth of Betsey Carrier shown in the Bible record above. She is the crux of the line, and indeed the one that needs more proof beyond the anecdotal. She is the one I have been working on, and (cue the head ache) will hopefully somehow resolve.

I've already written about Elizabeth "Betsey" Carrier (Russell) (Grant) in a previous post so I don't want to put you to sleep any further. If you are curious - it's here:

https://atroubledsage.blogspot.com/2026/08/beyond-neversink-and-dearborn-witch.html

       

Above: Judith McGhan's 1983 Genealogies of Connecticut Families by George Ely Russell

                   

Above: Dearborn County, Indiana, Church Records - receiving "Elizabeth Grant" by letter.

Suffice it to say that there is enough documentation to link this generation's  Elizabeth Carrier (Betsey (Carrier) (Russell) Grant) shown in the above image on down the line to Mom. Notwithstanding an old spell book or two that Nana may have misplaced along the way, the lineage generally holds. My goal here hasn't been genealogical though. My goal in this post has been to show where some of this lineage comes from, where it hides, and that incredible feeling of discovery- that after looking through hundreds of pages of church records on the off chance you might find something - and then you do - it is indeed why this blog is called: The Last Aha!

It's all in the moment.

Just like they were.

☮