The Humphreys family in America - citizen hylbom blog

FAMILY 3.
22. Captain Ebenezer'' Humphrey, [6] (Ebenezer^) was born in Oxford, Mass., 22
June, 1741. He married Ruth , and settled in his native town, and there resided until his
death, in 1839. He lived, excellently preserved, to the age of 98, and having been born in
1741, his recollections reached back to an early period of the English settlement at Oxford, many
of which are preserved.*
"At the commencement of the revolution. Captain Humphrey was in the vigor of manhood,
and early participated in the privations and perils of the war. He was out as first Lieutenant at
New York, in 1776, at the capture of Burgoyne, in 1777, and afterwards commanded a company
stationed near Rhode Island to guard the coast. But during the war his services were little less
valuable than in the field. It is a singular fact, but it must be an acknowledged one, that the
war of the Revolution originated in the spirit of our towns, and was prosecuted by these means.
It has recently been said by a distinguished citizen that ' the Revolution would never have been
achieved without them.' Capt. Humphrey shared largely in the administration of these municipal
affairs, and notwithstanding his means were limited, he contributed what would be equivalent to
one-third part of the support of one soldier during the war. Under the pension law of 1832, he
received a partial return for the great sacrifices he had made in the service of his country. He
always spoke with much feeling of the distresses of the people, after the Revolution, growing out
of a depreciated currency, coupled with enormous taxation. It finally led to the Shay's Rebellion.
But, although Oxford was a Shay's town. Captain Humphrey stood firmly on the side of the
government and the laws, and when he found great numbers of his friends embroiled and about
to rush into a civil war, he coolly advised them that 'they had better go home.' He was a
patriot in the true and best sense of the term. His patriotism was based upon a sense of civil
and religious duty, and not upon a miserable selfishness that seeks nothing but popular favor.
He was long one of the deacons of the Congregational Church in Oxford, and to those of the
present generation he was best known as 'Deacon Humphrey.' His character was not less remarkable
for his piety than his patriotism; and he will long be remembered as a sample of those men
of another age who had not only the valor to achieve, but the virtue to perpetuate our national
independence."
23-
Children:
—
Worcesler Spy, 1839.
Peter, 3 b. 3 Jan., 1762; d. 6 June, 1763, aged one year and five months.
Mary, 3 b. 26 May, 1763; d. in June, 1769, aged six years.
RuTH,3 b. 14 Mch., 1765; m. 22 Mch., 1789, John Crane; "both of Oxford."
Stephen, 3 b. 13 May, i767.f
• In the appendix to the Memoir of the French Protestants Settled at Oxford in tbSb, we find the following: " My first visit to
Fort Hill, io Oxford, was 20 April, 1819. It is about a mile southerly of the inn, kept many years by the Campbell family, at the union
ol the two great roads from Boston and Worcester, about fifty miles from Boston. * * * In May, 1S25, I visited Capt. Ebenezer Humphrey,
and obtained from him satisfactory information concerning the place of this second fort (to which allusion has previously been
made in the article from which this is taken), and the meeting-house, and the burying-ground. Captain Humphrey was in his eightyfourth
year. He told me that his grand-father was from England, and that his father was from Woodstock, and came to Oxford to keep
garrison. He himself now lives where his father lived, about half a mile west from Oxford village. His house is near a mill standing
upon a small stream that runs on the left, near the great road leading to Norwich."
Capt. Ebenezer Humphrey was 20 years of age when his father, Ebenezer, aged 70, told him about the fort, Zi.c.—Mass. historienl
ColUetions, Vol. II, 3d Series, pp. 80, 81.
t Stephen Humphrey, styled "great grand-son of Deacon Humphrey," is said to have had the following children. As Stephen,
son of Deacon Ebenezer, is the only one of that name mentioned on these records, and from the dates they might be his chUdren, we
place them here, awaiting further information:
I. Fidelia, b. 9 Nov., 1S12: living, widowed, in i83,: m. Erown: had five children: all dead.
II. APALINE D b . 7 July, 1814. m Moffat Res (iSS,) Oxford, Mass.: has five children
III JiLlA, b. 8 Dec , 1817; living, 18S4, unmarried [See note on p. 916 J