Hannah Luce

Hannah Butler (1685-c1753/54). Parson Holmes wrote of her husband Thomas Luce: "He was a poor man and left a numerous family of small children behind him, and his wife, a poor, helpless woman" (Banks 1966: Vol. 3, p. 261).

Ancestry

The History of Martha's Vineyard does not identify the parents of the Hannah who married Thomas Luce (Banks 1966: Vol. 3, p. 251). Although there is no direct evidence, she seems to have been Hannah Butler who was daughter of Thomas Butler and Jemima Daggett (Glazier 1944: 367). She is the only Hannah known in any of the island families who would have been the right age. Further, the wife of Thomas Luce named two of her children Daniel and Jemima, names common in the family of Hannah Butler, but not previously found in the family of Thomas Luce. Some researchers have suggested that she was a Manter or Palmer, although no evidence for this claim has been produced. The known records show no Hannah Manter near the right age, and no Hannah Palmer at all. If she was named as a Manter or Palmer in some previously unrecognized context, it is possible that she might have been been a widow when she married Thomas Luce. -- Justin Swanström.

Sources

• Charles E. Banks, The History of Martha's Vineyard (1911, 1966).
• Prentiss C. vanK. Glazier, "Luce Family Records" in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 98(1944), 366-67.