Mary Reeve

Not the same as Mary Reeve and not the wife of Thomas Reeve of Southold

Biography

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Purrier-4

Mary Purrier emigrated from London to Boston, Massachusetts aboard the Hopewell on April 3, 1635 at the age of seven. ("Mary Purryer 7 child of Wm. Purryer"). With her were her parents and sisters Sarah and Katherine.[1]

Disputed husband

Thomas Reeves or James Reeve?

"For a hundred years Suffolk County, N.Y. historians and genealogists have studied the Reeve family of Southold and disagreed whether Mary Purrier... was the wife of the settler Thomas Reeve or of James Reeve."[2]

Her father' William Purrier's will mentions

• "eldest daughter" Mary Reeve
• Isaak Reeve (relationship not stated)
• granddaughter Mary Reeve (husband Thomas Terrill)
• grandson James Reeve

Anderson names Thomas Reeves as the husband and writes they were married "by about 1646."

Baker refers to Thomas Osman's deposition as the deciding piece of evidence that Mary's husband was James Reeve. Osman stated that

"he with his now father-in-law, William Purrier, and his brother in ye law, James Reeve did go adventuringe in ye Chowan country for sperrits resin in ye yeare 1636 and there did meet William Salmon, Thomas Reeve, Thomas Terrill, Thomas Benedict, Henery Whiteney and others who had come hither from ye Summer Islaes". [3]

Family

James Reeve was an immigrant to Southold, Long Island in the early 1640s, possibly arriving with William Purrier and Thomas Osman. He may have been a younger brother of Thomas Reeve of Southold. James Reeve married about 1645 Mary, shown to be Mary Purrier, daughter of William Purrier, in the source detailed below.[1]

James and Mary Reeve had four children:[2]

1. Mary, born about 1647; married Thomas Terrill 1665; died before 13 December 1671
2. William ,born about 1648; married Mary about 1670; died 29 April 1697
3. James Jr., born about 1650; married Mary Terry about 1671; died 6 May 1698
4. Isaac, born about 1653 (not of age in his mention in William Purrier's will of 1671)

Research Notes

< The Reeves Project: A global genealogical collaboration > Reeve, James (c1610 UK - bef 1671 NY)

Recently revisiting the research of this family in order to find the truth as to which Reeve individual, James or Thomas, was the husband of Mary Purrier, it became apparent that the James Reeve of the Osman Deposition could not have been the James Reeve of the 1692 Will since he would have to have been born circa 1610 and presumably his wife would have been close to that age therefore making it impossible for her to have been the mother of children born circa 1670 which the children named in that will would have been.

Discovery of the book The Refugees of 1776 from Long Island to Connecticut By Frederic Gregory Mather, Pub 1913, sheds more light on the family timeline although it does not solve the mystery instead raising the issue that the generations were mixed. The premise is suggested that James and Thomas were brothers and it was their father who was the husband of Mary Purrier. It suggests that it was the first Thomas who was the husband of Mary which still leaves the Osman Deposition's statement that it was James Reeve who was the son-in-law of William Purrier, but this timeline and view of the generations of the family makes more sense otherwise.

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References

• Ancestry.com. Study of the 1658 and 1686 depositions of Thomas Osman [database on-line]. Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005. Original data:Baker, Wesley Logan,. Study of the 1658 and 1686 depositions of Thomas Osman : and early history of Hashamomuck in the town of Southold, Long Island, N.Y.. unknown: unknown, 1969. Page 31. < AncestryImage >
• FamilySearch source viewer: Study of the Reeve family of Southold, Long Island, N. Y., and Southold descendants of the Southampton, L. I. Reeves family at < FamilySearch>