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REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN OF NEW ENGLAND


son (Joties) Worth, of Charlestown, and on the paternal side comes from Vermont and Nantucket Quaker stock. Her father is a lineal descendant in the seventh generation of William Worth, of Nantucket (son of John W^orth, of Devonshire, England), the line being W^illiam'; John,* born in 1666; Richard,' 1692; Lionel,* 1737; William,* 1762; Samuel," 1795; Ira Allen,' bom October 23, 1828, during the temporary stay of his parents at Famham, Canada. Lionel Worth, brother of William,' settled at Salisbury, Mass.; and Richard' Worth, another brother, settled at Newbury and later removed to New Jersey.

William' Worth married in Nantucket in 1665 Sarah Macy, daughter of Thomas' Macy. John,* their only son, married Miriam Gardner, daughter of Richard Gardner, Sr. Richard' Worth married in 1729, fifth month, twentieth day, Sarah Hoeg. Lionel* married in 1761 Martha Mitchell, a native of Cuba, but then a resident of Kittery, Me. This marriage, it is said, brought Spanish blood into the family. William,'* eldest child of Lionel* and Martha, was bom in Loudon, N.H. He died at Starks- boro, Vt., in 1849, twelfth month, twenty- third day. His wife was Betsy Tibbetts. Samuel," their eighth child, born in Loudon, removed with his father to Starksboro, Vt. He died at Farnham, Canada, not long after the birth of his son Ira. Samuel" Worth mar- ried in Febmary, 1822, Mrs. Phebe Husted Carpenter, a widow, daughter of Ezekiel Husted and grand-daughter of Jethro and Rachel (Brewer) Husted. Her Husted ancestors were among the early Dutch settlers of Schenec- tady, N.Y. Mrs. Pendergast's mother, a native of Charles- town, Mass., was bom July 14, 1832, the daugh- ter of Joshua and Abigail (Thompson) Jones. Her father, Joshua Jones, was born in 1799 in Burlington, being a son of Aaron and Re- becca (Beard) Jones and grandson of Joshua Jones, who was of Wobum in Revolutionary times. Rebecca Beard, wife of Aaron Jones, is said to have been of Scotch descent. Abigail, wife of Joshua Jones of Charles- town and grandmother of Mrs. Pendergast, was a daughter of Captain Jonathan" Thomp- son, who was born in Woburn, April 26, 1760, son of SamueP and Abigail (Tidd) Thompson. Sanmel,"* born in W^obum, October 30, 1731, was of the fifth generation in descent from James Thompson, of Woburn, who became a member of the church in Charlestown in August, 1633, and in 1640 was one of the thirty- two men who subscribed to the town orders of Woburn, where he settled. The Thomp- son line of ancestry is: James,' Jonathan,' ' Samuel,*^ Jonathan," Abigail,^ Mrs. Pender- gast's matc^rnal grandmother, who was bom August 23, 1800, and died December 28, 1876. (See "Memorial of James Thompson and his Descendants,^' by the Rev. Leander Thomp- son, that book being also the authority for the civil and military records of Thompson ances- tors following.) Samuel Thompson, great-great-grandfather of Mrs. Pendergast, was fitted for college be- fore he was seventeen, but on account of his father's sudden death changvl his plans and remained at home, the family needing his help. The house on Elm Street, North Woburn, in which he lived, and where he died August 17, 1820, was built by his father about 1730, and partly rebuilt by himself in 1764. He became a surveyor, and engaged in important surveys in Woburn and in other towns, some of his work being on the Middlesex Canal.

Wliile on the latter survey, he discovered in W^ilmington a wild apple-tree whose fruit he named the "Pecker," as the tree showed that woodpeckers abounded in that region. He subsequently named this variety of apples "the Thompson." Many trees were grafted by Samuel Thompson and his brother Abijab. They gave grafts of the trees to a friend and neighbor, Colonel Loammi Baldwin, who cul- tivated them with great success and distributed the fruit far and wide. This, we are told, is the true story of the "Baldwin" apple, formerly the "Thompson," as certified by the monu- ment at ^Vilmington.

In 1758, during the French and Indian W^ar, Samuel Thompson held a commission as Lieu- tenant of provincials, and was stationed for a time near Lake George. "On the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, when the alann was given that the British troops were marching