June 4, 1742- A son, Abel, is born to Ebenezer Doolittle & Lydia Warner. The infant does not survive,
passing away June 13th.
June 17, 1742- A daughter, Hannah, is born to William Sisson & Hannah Mullins in Stonington,New London,Connecticut. Hannah does not reach adulthood, dying in her eighth year.
(Abel Doolittle is my second cousin 8 times removed. Our common ancestors are Abraham Doolittle & Abigail Moss.
Hannah Sisson is my second cousin 8 times removed. Our common ancestors are George Sisson & Sarah F. Lawton.)
"In
1742, Sarah Grosvenor of
Pomfret, Connecticut, died, apparently from the
effects of a combined medicinal-
surgical abortion that had produced a
miscarriage. Four years later, Grosvenor's sexual partner, Amasa Davis, and the
abortion provider, Dr. John Hallowell of Killingley, were indicted for her
murder.
It was quite common for couples like Grosvenor and Davis to
conceive a child
before
marrying. Indeed, in the mid-1700s historians have counted 30% of
New
England couples' first children being born within seven months of their
marriage.
In eighteenth-century New England, if a young unmarried woman became
pregnant, the father-to-be was expected to marry her. Then they'd have as many
more children as they could, with little said about the circumstances of the
first pregnancy. In some cases, such as
Ebenezer Richardson, the father-to-be couldn't marry the mother-to-be because he
already had a wife. Amasa Davis was unusual in being free to marry Sarah
Grosvenor, but refusing."
-Taken from the blog Boston 1775.
