Agnes Blanchard

Child of THOMAS BLANCHARD and AGNES BENT is:

viii. child BLANCHARD, b. 1639, on passage to America; d. at sea in 1639

Children of Thomas BLANCHARD and Agnes BENT:

Agnes BLANCHARD, baptized 1638 Apr 8 at Goodworth Clatford10. She probably died on the voyage to New England in 1639.

https://blanchardfamilyhistory.org/content.php?id=2

On the voyage over Thomas’s wife, his wife’s mother, and the children all became sick. The party traveling with Thomas took up a collection for a maid to attend to Agnes and her mother, but Thomas reportedly personally attended to Agnes more than the maid did. Sadly, Thomas’s wife Agnes died on the trip. One source says she died on April 28th, which would have been only a little over two weeks after they departed London. (Another account says she died “fifteen days out of port,” which jives pretty well with the departure date of April 12th.) She may have died of childbirth complications, because the record states that an infant child of theirs also died on the ship. But it is unclear whether this child was one that was born on the voyage or whether it was a child of Thomas’s and Agnes’s that had reportedly been born in England the year before and was traveling with them on the ship. One source says the latter was a daughter named Agnes, another says it was a son named Brent and yet another said it might have been a son named Joseph.