Glimpse into "Made to Last Forever" and Fairbanks Revolutionary War Patriot Project
Glimpse into “Made to Last Forever: A Family. A House. A Nation.”
Fairbanks in Sickness and in Health
The Jonathan and Grace Fairbanks family went through many trials in their lifetime, but the actual life span of the original family may surprise you. Most believe that the people of the 1600s died young. Statistically, people, in general, did die young when untreatable injuries and illnesses, and high infant and maternal mortality were factored into the numbers. However, Jonathan probably lived to be 71 years old.
Let’s look at the health and mortality in the original Fairbanks family of the 1600s. It is believed that Jonathan’s father died during the height of the 1625 plague. He made his will on August 4, 1625, and was buried three days later. You probably remember the chant:
“Ring a Ring O Roses (Ring around the Rosies).
Pocket full of posies.
Atishoo, Atishoos
(Ashes, Ashes)
We all fall down.
“That is a chant about the plague. Grace explains the chant’s meaning to two of her sons in the book Made to Last Forever: A Family. A House. A Nation.
Speaking of Grace, the two most frequent causes of death for women in this era were childbirth and fire from cooking over open fires wearing long skirts. Grace had six children in England. They were born two to three years apart which was the average for women who had no formal birth control but did breast feed.
Another interesting thing about Grace is that she had six babies in England, but it doesn’t appear from records that she had any babies after coming to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. She would have been between 36 years and 40 years old when she arrived, still well within reproductive age.
Looking at the christening records of Jonathan and Grace’s children at St. John the Baptist in Halifax, England, and St. Mary The Virgin in Thornton-in-Craven, England, it appears they lost no children in England. This was quite unusual with the high infant mortality rate of that time. In fact, all of their children survived to marry and have children of their own.
In England, there were pharmacies, physicians, women who regularly delivered babies, and witches, which some might say were women and men who were practicing some kind of healing. In early Massachusetts Bay Colony, there were few physicians or pharmacies. The women of the families had to know basic herbal medicine and how to deliver babies.
Fairbanks House Herbs
Dedham, perhaps was more fortunate than some towns because Dr. Henry Deengains lived in Dedham by 1638, but he left soon to go to Roxbury. Dr. William Avery came to town in 1650. So, Dedham was without a physician 12 years. If there were no physicians, when the women couldn’t heal their families, the minister was called. In the case of Dedham, that was Mr. John Allan. He arrived in Dedham in July 1637 after the Fairbanks arrived in March of 1637.
In 1634, there was a smallpox outbreak in Massachusetts Bay Colony. It hit the Indigenous People much harder than the settlers, possibly because many settlers had the disease prviously or had been exposed to the disease in England. There were other diseases recorded in the MBC, but the one that affected the Fairbanks most took place in 1650 and 1651.
In 1650, Edward Johnson said that one child in every household was stricken and died. At that time, Jonathan and Grace’s children were grown and most were married. However, in 1651, Jonathan must have contracted the disease along with many of the Dedham adults. As a result of this disease, Jonathan and several other Dedham men were not required to pay country taxes in 1651 because they had been ill and had been unable to work during the growing and/or harvest seasons.
Mary Fairbanks married Michael Metcalf, Jr., in 1644. Ten years later in December of 1654, Michael Metcalf, Jr., died. The cause is unknown, but he left Mary with 5 living children. Earlier, they had lost twins shortly after their birth. Mary remarried soon to Christopher Smith. Mary and Christopher are both believed to have died in 1676.
The only child that Jonathan and Grace lost prior to their own deaths was Susan, their second daughter and fifth child, who had married Ralph Daye. It appears from the dates of birth of Susan and Ralph’s children that she probably died of childbirth. Susan died in 1659 at 33 years old.
Jonas, the third son and fourth child, died at age 51 when he was killed during an early Native raid on Lancaster, Massachusetts, during King Philip’s War. George, the second son and second child, died at age 63 when he fell into the Charles River while working on a pier on the river.
John, the first son, died about his 66th year. Mary, the first daughter and third child, died about her 54th year. It appears that Jonathan, Jr., the last child and last son, lived to be 80 years old. There was longevity in the Fairbanks family when outside forces didn’t take their lives.
See the Fairbankshistory.com blog: Grace’s Garden for the herbs that Grace would have grown to care for her family in sickness and health.
Also see: Grace’s Garden for Medicinal Care for more in depth information about the plague in England.
Fairbanks Revolutionary War Patriot Project
Captain Luther Fairbanks
Lineage
Jonathan I, Jonas II, Jabez III, Joshua IV
Luther Fairbanks (1755-1836) #86-page 124/125 in The Fairbanks Family in America by Lorenzo Sayles Fairbanks. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War Luther was in Northfield, Franklin County, MA working as a blacksmith and farmer. From Northfield, Luther answered the Lexington Alarm as a volunteer and marched to Cambridge where he became a sergeant during the siege of Boston. In September he served under Captain Jonas Hubbard and was taken up the Kennebec River and marched with Colonel Benedict Arnold against Quebec. As we learned in an earlier blog about Nathaniel Fairbanks, who was on the expedition but turned back with others before the fort was attacked. The conditions were treacherous, the terrain was wilderness, the weather was harsh in November and December. Some men even turned back before the attack.
Sergeant Luther Fairbanks held fast and participated in the December 31, 1775, assault on Quebec. While attempting to scale the fortification, Luther was taken prisoner and jailed 9 months. In September of 1776, he was transported to New York City, was paroled and soon exchanged. During this lull in his active duty, he married his first wife, Thankful Wheelock, in Lancaster, MA, on March 5, 1777.
The extremity of his previous experiences nor his recent marriage deterred him from again joining the severe battles at Stillwater in September and October 1777 which preceded the October 19, 1777 surrender of the British army under General Burgoyne. Burgoyne’s surrender was significant in preventing the British from dividing the colonies, and it heralded the active French support of the American cause.
Luther joined his regiment going to Philadelphia, but when they arrived in Albany, N.Y., he was detached and appointed Wagon Conductor General in the Quarter Master’s Department under the command of General Patterson of Massachusetts. He camped the winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge. Luther was discharged July 1778.
In April 1818, Luther Fairbanks applied for a war pension and received a pension fitting a Captain. By then he was likely in Pittsfield, Vermont with his wife. She died there in 1820. He married second, Anna X. Luther Fairbanks had ten children by his two wives. He died at age 81 of typhoid fever.
This is a Fairbanks Revolutionary War Soldier who didn’t give in or give up even though he went through some of the toughest conditions of the war.
Summary
Life was difficult and uncertain in the 1600s. A woman feared childbirth because it could likely mean death to her or her baby. It also could mean leaving a husband behind with small children and displacement of the children to other homes or work situations if she died. Medical care was available in the 1600s, but perhaps scarce in the new Colony of Massachusetts Bay. The women were charged with healing their families by any means they had learned and had available in their herb gardens and forests. Even then, they could be called a witch for providing healing compounds to other than their family. But Grace and Jonathan appeared to be of hearty stock and Grace must have had the knowledge of natural medicine to bring her family through deliveries of babies and illness. Except for outside influences, the original Fairbanks family appeared to survive through many trials, even to what we would call older age today.
