Abigail Wilson Hildreth

Biography

Abigail Wilson was born at Woburn, north of Boston in Massachusetts, on August 8, 1666, a daughter of John Wilson. She married Joseph Hildreth in February 1683/84 and became part of his household at Chelmsford, farther northwest in Massachusetts. The town's records place the births of their children across approximately twenty years, from the 1680s into the early 1700s.

Those years overlapped Joseph's service as constable and representative. Abigail's own family circumstances changed sharply when he died in January 1706. Their son Ephraim was only five, and their daughter Elizabeth, born in 1703, was younger still.

A nineteenth-century Barrett family study identifies Abigail as the widow who subsequently married Jonathan Barrett, usually dated to about 1708. This possible later marriage remains uncertain. Her first marriage, children, and widowhood provide the firmer outline of her life.