Jabez Avery, Sr

It has been surmised that he had a first wife, Lydia, who d. soon after marriage, but diligent search fails to reveal such an one. He was a coachmaker at Norwich. He was in the "Lexington Alarm"; corporal, 1775, 7th co., 6th reg't; in Capt. Brewster's co., Col. Huntington's reg't~ 1776; d. in the army of smallpox, Jan. 30, 1779 (Conn. Men in the Revn, 7, 76, 102). His estate was not fully settled until May, 1802. His widow d. Aug. 19, 1788, at Norwich; she Was buried by the side of her husband in the Norwichtown burying-ground.

THE GROTON AVERY CLAN, Vol. I, by Elroy McKendree Avery and Catherine Hitchcock (Tilden) Avery, Cleveland, 1912. Found in the DAR Library, Washington DC. Page 326.

_____

Jabez Avery b 1733 was the son of John and Lydia Smith Avery of Preston He is said to have married (1) Lydia, though the record of his first marriage we have not found, and (2) in 1761, Lucy daughter of Richard and Lucy (Perkins) Bushnell. He was a coachmaker and died in 1779 of the small pox leaving a widow and seven small children five sons and two daughters. His widow Lucy died in 1788. In 1776 John Saltmarsh a leather breeches maker from London just arrived from Lyme advertises to make all sorts of of doe and buckskin breeches at Jabez Avery's near the Court House. A blacksmith shop formerly stood between this house and the Zebadiah Lathrop house but this had disappeared before 1790 In 1806 the Jabez Avery heirs sell this house to John Sterry.

source: Old Houses of the Antient Town of Norwich [Conn.] 1660-1800

By Mary Elizabeth Perkins p. 89