Susannah Ayres

John Ayres Sr. was a prominent Ipswich resident who promoted the settlement in Quaboag. He also was killed in the ambush by the Indians in New Braintree the same day as the Brookfield massacre. His wife Susannah (Symonds) Ayres survived the attack at Brookfield and moved back to Ipswich with her six sons and one daughter.

A record of the descendants of Captain John Ayres of Brookfield, Mass by Whitmore, William Henry, 1836-1900 page 6. Archive.Org

CAPT. JOHN 1 AYRES was of Ipswich in 1648, and was then a tenant of John Norton's. I know nothing of his parentage, but it seems highly probable that he was accompanied hither by two of his brothers-in-law, William Lamson and William Fellows.*

He married Susanna, daughter of Mark Symonds, of Ipswich. This Mark Symonds, aged 50 years in 1634, died 28 Apr. 1659, leaving wife Joanna, daus. Susanna Ayres, Abigail, wife of Robert Pierce, Pris- cilla, wife of John Warner, and had had Mary, wife of Edward Chapman, who died before her father.

His widow presented an inventory of his estate, now recorded at Salem, on which she wrote, K I have seven sons and one daughter." Although the births of these children are not all recorded, I have been able to recover all their names without doubt,* and I think to arrange them chronologically.

The children were

• John 2
• ii Samuel 2
• iii Thomas 2
• iv Joseph 2
• v Edward 2 b. 12 Feb. 1658.
• vi Mark 2 b. 14 Dec. 1661. Sail recorded at Ipswich.
• vii Nathaniel 2 b. 6 July, 1664. )
• viii Susanna 2 b. ; m. Day

In 1703, Samuel, John and Thomas were appointed executors of the estate of John Sr. On Jan 14, 1716, as recorded in Worcester in 1741, the land formerly possessed at Brookfield by John Ayres Sr., was conveyed to Joseph Ayres of Ipswich by Thomas, Mark, Edward, and Nathaniel, sons of Sgt. John; and by Samuel, son of Samuel and grandson of Sgt. John; and by Robert Day, son of Suzannah (Ayres) (Day) and grandson of Sgt. John.

References

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ayer
• https://minerdescent.com/2012/04/10/john-ayre/
• http://www.anamericanfamilyhistory.com/Stanhope%20Family/StanhopeJo...
• http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/b/l/a/Peter-J-Blake/WEBS...
• http://www.themorrisclan.com/GENEALOGY/AYER%20John%20F15036.html
• http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~arlene/
• http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/f/e/l/Mark-D-Fellows/GEN...
• http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~ayergenealogy/story.htm
• http://www.cholet.us/Families/Ayres/capt_john_ayres_biography.htm
• Quaboag Plantation – Alias Brookfield: A Seventeenth Century Massachusetts Town by Louis E. Roy, M. D., West Brookfield, MA; Worcester, MA: Heffernan Press, Inc., 1965.
• https://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:Susanna_Symonds_%285%29 cites
• Savage, James. A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England: Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May, 1692, on the Basis of Farmer's Register. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co, 1860-1862) 4:246.
• Hoyt, David W. The Old Families of Salisbury and Amesbury, Massachusetts. (Providence, RI, 1897-1919) II:600.
• Liinzee, John William. The History of Peter Parker and Sarah Ruggles of Roxbury, Mass. and Their Ancestors and Descendants. (Boston, Mass.: Samuel Usher, 1913) 441. Susannah Symonds, b. about 1617 England; d. 8 Feb. 1682 Ipswich, Mass. (Ct. R.), as Susannah widow of John Ayres.
• Ipswich, Essex, Massachusetts, United States. Vital Records of Ipswich, Massachusetts to End of the Year 1849. (Salem, Massachusetts: Essex Institute, 1910, 1919) II:485. Ayres, Susannah, wid. John, (died) Feb. 8, 1682 (court record, Essex Co. Quarterly Court).