Mary Salter Marble

Biography

1762–1845

Mary Salter was born at Stow, northwest of Boston in Massachusetts, on January 1, 1762, the daughter of Samuel Salter and Sarah Knight. She was about three when her parents moved to Ashburnham, farther northwest in Massachusetts near the New Hampshire border, in 1765. The family established a farm there, and her childhood included both younger siblings and the loss of her little brother Thomas in 1769.

Mary married Jabez Marble on November 29, 1780, while the Revolutionary War was still underway. They began their married life in Stow. According to Stearns’s family register, they returned to Ashburnham in 1789 and lived on the farm formerly occupied by her father. For Mary, this was a return to the place in which she had grown up, with an expanding household of her own.

The family register records ten children. Mary gave birth to twins Lydia and Lois in February 1792, then lost her daughter Hannah in September of the same year. Her later children included Joel, Grata, and Asenath, the youngest born in 1801. She also outlived her son Jabez, who died in 1826.

Mary and her husband shared more than sixty years of marriage. After his death in December 1843, she lived another two years, dying on December 22, 1845. Her biography spans childhood migration, a return to her family’s farm, a large household, and the losses of children and husband across a long life.

The burial listing associates Mary Salter Marble with Meetinghouse Hill Cemetery, Ashburnham, Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States.