Abigail Hildreth Russell

Biography

Abigail Hildreth was born on August 11, 1730, a daughter of Ephraim Hildreth of Westford, northwest of Boston in Massachusetts. She married John Russell on July 18, 1749, shortly before her nineteenth birthday, and made her adult home in nearby Littleton. Her eight recorded children were born between 1750 and 1769.

Abigail's early married years included the death of her little daughter Abigail in January 1754. Another daughter, born three years later, carried her name. The surviving family record also follows Ephraim, Thomas, Mary, John, Marcy, and Sarah, giving a long view of a household that grew from young children into adult sons and daughters. In 1798 Abigail suffered another recorded loss when her son John died.

She died in Littleton on April 12, 1805. Her marriage had lasted more than half a century, and her husband survived her by nineteen years. The dates retained in the family Bible and tablet give her a distinct place in that long family history: a Westford childhood, a marriage at eighteen, two decades of childbearing, and an old age in Littleton.