Tristram Barnard

Biography

Tristram Barnard established his adult household at Weare, in inland southern New Hampshire, after growing up in Amesbury, in northeastern Massachusetts near the New Hampshire border. The memorial places his birth in May 1766, a son of Tristram Barnard and Dorothy Currier. In November 1789 he married Sarah Titcomb; Amesbury's published marriage records preserve her familiar name, Salley.

At Weare he became a deacon in the Baptist congregation. William Little's town history identifies him as the Tristram Barnard of Barnard Hill chosen during the ministry of Ezra Wilmarth. The church's records show him doing practical work as well as holding a title. After a regional Baptist gathering in September 1813, he and fellow deacon Abraham Morrill were appointed to calculate the expenses incurred by two members who had supplied liquor for the meeting. The congregation then paid the bill.

His family included Nancy, Jonathan, Oliver Titcomb, Sarah, Timothy and Daniel. Their names connect the Weare household with the Titcomb family from which his wife came.

Tristram lived into his nineties. He died on April 10, 1860, with the memorial locating his death at Lowell, a city on the Merrimack River in Massachusetts, and his burial at East Weare. Little's history includes him among Weare's notably long-lived inhabitants.

The family record identifies his daughter Sarah as Sarah “Sally” Barnard Moulton.

An earlier family chronology gives Tristram’s birth year as 1767, differing from the memorial’s May 1766 date.