52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS#46: JOHN HASTINGS SR. & JOHN HASTINGS JR.

Fellow geneablogger Amy Johnson Crow of No Story Too Small has issued the
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge. Basically, we have to post something every
week on a different ancestor, whether a story, picture, or research problem. I've
been tracing the ancestral lines of my grandmother Cora Barker, which include
the Barnes, Colby, Davis, Hoyt and Kelley familes, and now turn to my Hastings
ancestors.


I finally found something in Google ebooks about my 6x and 5x great grandfathers
John Hastings Sr. and John Hastings Jr. It was in a collection of family histories
for families in Maine, which I now realize is someplace I should have looked
at earlier, given my branch of the Hastings had moved there in the late 18th
century. Even so, most of the information on John Sr is about his wife's grandfather
Richard Bailey:
 
(IV) John, youngest son of Robert and Elizabeth (Davis) Hastings, was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, September 3, 1691. He married, May 2, 1717, Edna, daughter of Joseph Bailey, and granddaughter of Richard Bailey, of Rowley, who is said to have come from Yorkshire, England, some time from 1630 to 1638; he is represented then as a lad of some fifteen years, a very pious person, called on to pray for the safety of the ship during a storm encountered on the passage; the ship was the "Bevis," one hundred and fifty tons. Richard Bailey was one of a company to inaugurate at Rowley the first cloth mill in America; his death occurred between 1647 aml 1650, aged thirty-three to thirty-five years perhaps, just in the young flush of middle life. Richard Bailey left one son, Joseph, who was a leading man in state, church and army; a selectman in Bradford and a deacon from the formation of the church there till his death: he in turn left eight sons and daughters, among whom were Elizabeth and Edna, who married Robert and John Hastings, respectively, as aforementioned. Children of John and Edna (Bailey) Hastings: 1. John, born January 23, 1718. 2. James, May 4, 1720. 3. Abigail, August 12, 1722. 4. Jonas, January 12, 1727.

(V) John, eldest son and child of John and Edna (Bailey) Hastings, was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, January 23, 1718. He married (first) Rebecca Bailey, and (second) Mary Amy. Children of first wife: 1. John, born April 11, 1744. 2. Richard, October 12, 1745. 3. Rebecca, 1746. 4. Jonas, November 9, 1747. 6. Timothy, April 12, 1750, died young. 7. Amos, February 3, 1757. Children of second wife: 8. Levi, June 6, 1762. 9. Evan, July 12, 1764, died unmarried. 10. Mollie, September 12, 1766, died young. 11. Joshua, June 7, 1768. 12. Abigail, August 2, 1770. 13. Ann, March 3, 1772. 14. David, June 17, 1774. p1752

Genealogical and Family History of the State of Maine, Volume 4 (Google eBook)
Henry Sweetser Burrage, Albert Roscoe Stubbs Lewis historical publishing Company,  New York 1909


One problem surfaced in all this information: the book lists John Hastings Jr.'s first
wife as Rebecca Bailey while I'd previously found it in other places as Rebecca
Kelley. Here are images from the   New Hampshire, Birth Records, Early to 1900
collection at FamilySearch. These are for the births of four of the children of John
and Rebecca Hastings. If you compare the birthdates in the images with those in
the passage from the book, they match up. In all four, the name of the mother is
given as Rebecca Kelley.

I have a possible explanation for the discrepancy. Here is the image for the
marriage record of John Hastings and a Rebecca Kaley, The date here matches
with what I had in my database:

Could it be someone misread Kaley for Baley?