Mary Pickett

Biography

Mary Pickett was born in 1714 and baptized at New London, a port on Connecticut’s southeastern coast, that August. She was a daughter of John Pickett and Elizabeth Mulford. Her mother died in 1720, while Mary was still a child.

She married Richard Christophers in December 1733. Their two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, were born in 1734 and 1735. Richard died in September 1736, leaving Mary a young widow with a toddler and an infant. On January 17, 1738/39 she married Nathaniel Greene, a son of Deacon Timothy Greene of New London.

The clearest surviving scene from her later life is the record of her funeral. Mary died at her home at White Beach on May 11, 1754. Two days later, Joshua Hempstead recorded that her body was brought by water to Mr. Bullfinch’s, then carried through the town street with pallbearers and buried according to Church of England practice.

She was about forty. Behind the formal procession lay a life shaped by early loss, marriage, two daughters, widowhood and a second household. Her surviving daughters were young women by the time of her death.