Mary Christophers

Biography

Mary Christophers was born at New London, a port on Connecticut’s southeastern coast, on May 23, 1734, the elder of Richard Christophers and Mary Pickett’s two daughters. Her father died in September 1736, when she was two. Her mother later married Nathaniel Greene, so Mary’s childhood continued in a household reshaped by an early bereavement.

Her mother died in May 1754. Eight months later, on January 23, 1755, Mary married Amos Chesebrough of Stonington. New London’s marriage record names both their communities; the family history identifies the minister as Matthew Graves.

Mary and Amos had seven recorded children between 1757 and 1768: Mary, Desire, Abigail, Richard Christophers, Henry, Lydia and Frances. Their first son carried her father’s full name. The New London record preserves the births of the first four children, while the later family compilation extends the account through the younger three.

Mary died on July 28, 1773, at thirty-nine. Her youngest child was not yet five. Her life connects two coastal Connecticut households, but its central events are her own: losing her father as a small child, living through her mother’s remarriage, marrying shortly after that mother’s death, and raising a family over the following eighteen years.

The burial listing associates Mary Christophers with Wequetequock Burial Ground, Stonington, New London County, Connecticut, United States.