Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/486

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REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN OF NEW ENGLAND
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cnl of the early Bennett generations in America, and states that the family seat in Wiltshire, England, is at Pitthouse, also that the Bennett family had, in the time of Charles I., considerable importance. Sir Henry Bennett, it says, was private secretary to Charles II., who was King of England 1660-85. The Bennett mentioned in the following paragraph, copied from the same book, nmst have been living at a much earlier date than any of the foregoing : —

In 1619, when a chapel in Youghal, Ireland, was being repaired, Richard, Lord Boyle, " provided recumbent stone effigies of a man and woman upon a tomb which bears this inscription — 'Here lyeth the bodies of Richard Bennett and Ellis Barry, his wife, the first founders of this chapel. ¥w the reviving of their memory I have had their figures cut in stone.'"

"The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales," by Sir Bernard- Burke, has this record: —

" Bennett, Pyt House, County Wilts, a very ancient family, of which a pedigree of thirteen descents is recorded in the College of Arms." Edward' Bennett emigrated from Weymouth, England, with his wife and four children, and settled at Weymouth, Mass., but in a few years removed to Rehoboth, where he died 1645~6. SamueP Bennett, born in Eng- land in 1628, son of Edward, resided in Providence and at East Greenwich, R.I., where he was a large landholder. He was General Sergeant in 1652; Commissioner, 1657; on the Grand Jury, 1661; Deputy, 1668, 1674, and 1678. SamueP Bennett died in 1684. His son, William' Bennett, born in 1673, married Rachel Weaver in 1693, and died in 1753. William^ Bennett, born June 3, 1694, son of A'illiam' and Rachel, married Jane Sweet, of Warwick, R.I., March 19, 1723. Their son Benjamin^ married January 1, 1770, Anna Miller, of Fall River, antl had a son. Sweet William" Bennett (born August 9, 1779, died April 27, 1858), whose wife was Mary Boomer, of Fall River. William' Sweet Bennett, born March 30, 1811, .son of the last named couple, married January 21, 1838, Nancy Wihiiarth, whose birth in Uxbridge, Mass., occurred June 6, 1813. He died October 14, 1884, his wife surviving him until May 10, 1900.

Thomas' Wilmarth .settled in Braintree, Mass., in March, 1638. Later he moved to Rehoboth, where he was a man of imjjortance. His wife Elizabeth died in 1676. Thomas Wilmarth, Jr.,^ of Rehoboth, married Mary Robinson, June 7, 1674. Their son Sanmel,' born Au- gust 30, 1688, married June 22, 1719, Eliza- beth Chubb, and had a son John,* whose birth date was August 12, 1727. He was married February 20, 1761, to Phcebe Briggs. Their son Preston,* who was born September 24, 1772, and tiled in 1841, married Desire Fuller, January 3, 1798. Their daughter Nancy" mar- ried William Sweet Beimett in Fall River, and was the mother of Ellen Wrnor, the subject of this sketch, who married Moses Abbott Delano in Acushnet, October 9, 1872.

Mrs. Ellen V. Delano was educated in the public schools of Fall River and New Bedford, taking a three years' course in the New Betlfortl High School. She has practically been a stu- tlent, especially of metaphysics, all her life. She is a firm believer in Christian Science, is a member of the Mother Church in Boston, and for the last ten years has practised healing, in all of which time she has never lost a case that has come under her thought.

Mrs. Delano is the historian of Thomas Kempton Chapter, Daughters of the Revolu- tion, and a director of the Major Israel Fear- ing Chapter, Junior Au.xiliary, Sons and Daugh- ters of the Revolution. Abiel Fuller, her mother's maternal grandfather, and his father, Jeduthan Fuller, who married Elizabeth Dag- gett, are on record as soldiers of the Revolu- tion, Jeduthan as one of the minute-men who marched from Attleboro on the alarm of Bunker Hill, in June, 1775, and his son serv- ing in August, 1780, in Colonel Isaac Dean's regiment, marching to Tiverton, R.I., on an alarm.

Mrs. Delano is a member of the Woman's Suffrage League of New Bedford, also of the Old Dartmouth Historical Society of that city and a life mendjer of the Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association. By virtue of the public services of her remote ancestor, Samuel Bennett, above mentioned, she is eligi-