Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/475

352 (Jones) 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 Worth, of Devonshire, England), the Hne being William1; John,2 born in 1666; Richard,3 1692; Lionel,4 1737; William,5 1762; Samuel,6 1795; Ira Allen,7 born October 23, 1828, during the temporary stay of his parents at Farnham, Canada. Lionel1 Worth, brother of William,1 settled at Salisbury, Mass.; and Richard1 Worth, another brother, settled at Newbury and later removed to New Jersey.

William1 Worth married in Nantucket in 1665 Sarah Macy, daughter of Thomas1 Macy. John,2 their only son, married Miriam Gardner, daughter of Richard Gardner, Sr. Richard3 Worth married in 1729, fifth month, twentieth day, Sarah Hoeg. Lionel4 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,5 eldest child of Lionel4 and Martha, was born in Loudon, N.H. He died at Starksboro, Vt., in 1849, twelfth month, twenty-third day. His wife was Betsy Tibbetts. Samuel,6 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. Samuel6 Worth married in February, 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 Schenectady, N.Y.

Mrs. Pendergast's mother, a native of Charlestown, Mass., was born July 14, 1832, the daughter of Joshua and Abigail (Thompson) Jones. Her father, Joshua Jones, was born in 1799 in Burlington, being a son of Aaron and Rebecca (Beard) Jones and grandson of Joshua Jones, who was of Woburn in Revolutionary times. Rebecca Beard, wife of Aaron Jones, is said to have been of Scotch descent.

Abigail, wife of Joshua Jones of Charletown and grandmother of Mrs. Pendergast, was a daughter of Captain Jonathan6 Thompson, who was born in Woburn, April 26, 1760, son of Samuel,5 and Abigail (Tidd) Thompson. Samuel,5 born in Woburn, 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 Thompson line of ancestry is: James,1 Jonathan,2 3 Samuel,4 5 Jonathan,6 Abigail,7 Mrs. Pendergast's maternal grandmother, who was born August 23, 1800, and died December 28, 1876. (See "Memorial of James Thompson and his Descendants," by the Rev. Leander Thompson, that book being also the authority for the civil and military records of Thompson ancestors following.)

Samuel Thompson, great-great-grandfather of Mrs. Pendergast, was fitted for college before he was seventeen, but on account of his father's sudden death changed 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.

While on the latter survey, he discovered in Wilmington 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 Abijah. They gave grafts of the trees to a friend and neighbor, Colonel Loammi Baldwin, who cultivated 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 monument at Wilmington.

In 1758, during the French and Indian War, Samuel Thompson held a commission as Lieutenant of provincials, and was stationed for a time near Lake George. "On the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, when the alarm was given that the British troops were marching