Representative women of New England/Ellen V. Delano

by Mary H. Graves

ELLEN VERNOR DELANO, historian of Thomas Kempton Chapter, Daughters of the Revolution, was born in Warren, R.I., May 31, 1848. Her parents were William Sweet Bennett and his wife, Nancy Wilmarth. On her father's side she is descended from Edward Bennett and on her mother's from Thomas Wilmarth. These two immigrant progenitors, be it noted, were numbered among the original proprietors of the town of Rehoboth, Mass., which was incorporated in 1645.

A genealogical work of about fifty pages, entitled "The Bennett, Bently, and Beers Families," by S. B. Bennett, gives a brief recELLEN V. DELANO 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 eligible to membership in the Society of Colonial Dames.

Mrs. Delano's husband, Moses Abbott Delano, is a mining engineer and a thirty-second degree Mason. He was born in Fairhaven, Mass., October 30, 1848. His father, Moses H. Delano, who is still living in Fairhaven, was born in that town, July 21, 1820. He married Amantla F. Eldridge, October 12, 1845. The parents of Moses H. were Joshua Delano, Jr., who was born in 1783 and died in 1855, and Eunice Reed Ellis, whom he married November 24, 1807. Joshua, Jr., was son of Captain Joshua Delano, Sr., a soldier in the [{evolution, who was born in 1746, and died May 20, 1819, and whose wife was Patience Snow. Captain Joshua's father was Jethro Delano, born July 31, 1701, who married Elizabeth Pope, of Sandwich. Jethro was son of Lieutenant Jonathan (born in Duxbury in 1647, died in Dartmouth in 1720) and his wife, Mercy Warren, grand-daughter of Richard Warren, of the "Mayflower."

Lieutenant Jonathan Delano was son of Philip De La Noye by his first wife, Hester Dewsbury, of Duxbury, whom he married in December, 1634 (Plymouth Colony Records, vol. i,). Philip De La Noye (son of Jean de Lannoy), born at Leyden, Holland, in 1602, ba])tized December 6, 1603, came to Plymouth in the .ship "Fortune" in 1621, and died in Bridgewater, Mass., in 1681. His second wife, whom he married in 1657, was Mary, widow of James Glass and daughter of William Pontus.

According to "The Royal Chart of Lannoy," in the Delano Genealogy, the line of ancestry goes back to "600 B.C.," given as "the earliest known date, authentic or otherwise."

Mr. and Mrs. Delano have one child, a son, Preston lirady Delano, who was born in Phœnix, Mich., April 2, 1886, Mr. Delano being then superintendent of the Pha>nix and St. Clair mines at that place. This son fitted for Harvard at Mr. Mosher's Hoine Preparatory School, and successfully passed the examination. He is greatly interested in athletic sports, winning the silver cup in the tennis tournament in Fairhaven, Old Home Week, 1903, and the cup at the Country Club, New Bedford, September, 1903.