{Parents of Ezekiel Johnson}
Research by Pam Smith
Click here to go to a condensed version of this biography
Genealogical researchers learn quickly that in earlier centuries, there were no hard and fast spelling rules. The names of ancestors could be spelled many different ways. Even so, the variety of spellings of Bethiah Garnzey’s name is amazing. Various records give the spelling of her family name as Garnzey, Ganzey, Garnsey, Garnsay, Geurnsey, Guernsey, and Garfeel. Her first name was variously spelled Bethiah, Bithiah, Sethiah, Sethier, Selhthiah, and Thiar. We have chosen to use the spelling from the record of her birth.
The Rehoboth Massachusetts Vital Records show the marriage of 20-year old Seth Garnzey and 21-year-old Bethiah Lee on 15 November 1753.1 Their daughter, Bethiah Garnzey, was born in Rehoboth, Bristol, Massachusetts on 12 February 1754, a month after the death of her father, Seth Garnzey.1 Bethiah Lee Garnzey, who must have been devastated by the death of her young husband, was named executrix of his estate, and there was apparently some conflict with her mother-in-law, Hannah Millard Garnzey Mansfield, because 1 August 1758 – Hannah Mansfield appeared in probate court to answer to a complaint against her "for Imbezzling … some part of the estate of my son, Seth Guarnsey late of Rehoboth, … late deceased … I do solomnley declare that I have not Imbeseled any of ye Estate which ye sd Seth Garnzey died seized of or had any just right to."2
Young Bethiah Garnzey was an only child until she was 12 years old, but on 19 October 1766, the widow Bethiah Lee Garnsey married Ebenezer Smith of Rehoboth.1 Ebenezer’s first wife, Sarah Bardeen Smith, had died in 1762.1 They had four children before her death: Cyril, born 17561, died young; Sarah, born 17571; Gaius, born 17591, died young; and Patience.
Ebenezer and Bethiah Lee Garnsey Smith had two more children: Lewis, born 1767, and Abel, born 1768. On 19 March 1770, Ebenezer Smith sold his farm in Rehoboth. On 9 April 1770, he bought land in Uxbridge, Massachusetts4 and moved there with his family, including step-daughter Bethiah Garnzey, now 16.
On 12 January 1773, a son was born to 18-year-old Bethiah Garnzey in Uxbridge, Worcester, Massachusetts. Of this birth, Paddy Spilsbury, a Johnson descendant, writes,
The story of our great Johnson family began inauspiciously with the unheralded arrival of a child born out of wedlock. The records do not tell us when he was born, just that he was born, and that it was a problem: a problem for his mother, of course, but also a problem for the town fathers. Buried within the pages of the Worcester County, Massachusetts Court Records under the date of September 1773, is found the following entry:
"Bethia Garsee of Uxbridge in the county of Worcester Spinster comes into Court to confess to a presentment found agnst her by the grand jurors for the Body of this county for that she did on the last Day of May Anno Dom 1772 at Uxbridge aforesaid did commit the crime of Fornication with a male person to the said jurors unknown whereof she afterwards had a Bastard Child born of her body agnst the peace. to which She plead guilty---
"The court having considered of her offense order that she pay a fine of five shillings to the (______) that she pay costs and stand committed until this sentence is performed."
As the record states, the young Bethia "Garsee", then 19 years old, came to confess she was guilty of fornication, which "crime," the court stated, "occurred on the last day of May, 1772," resulting in the subsequent birth of her son.
It seems unusual that the date of the child's birth was not included on the record, but rather the date of "the crime." I searched through the Worcester court records for the year surrounding Ezekiel's birth and found that a total of ten women came before the court that year on similar charges. In every case except Bethia's, the date of birth of the child or children (one woman had twin daughters) was given. It is unsettling that the court knew the date of the infraction. How did they learn it? Did she tell them? Were there circumstances around the event that made the date memorable to others? We do not have answers to these questions.
A guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion. It's rather difficult to argue innocence when you are not married, but have given birth to a child. Each woman found guilty of a similar offense that year was fined 5 shillings, the equivalent of about 80 cents in 1770. It must be remembered that the average yearly income in 1775 was approximately 20 to 25 British pounds, or less than $80. That fine, which to us seems so insignificant, was equivalent to about 1% of a family's yearly income.
Bethia chose not to name the father of her child in court. Only two women of those ten similarly accused that year chose not to give the name of the father. In most cases, a woman who found herself in such a predicament was very willing to disclose the father. Feelings of resentment at being abandoned, or of jealousy seem likely to have contributed to the overwhelming majority of women revealing the name of the father in open court.2
"Such was not the case with Bethia. Her refusal to name her baby's father, however, could not have been a decision made lightly. Such a refusal signifies that she had already subjected herself to the ordeal of being grilled by midwives to identify the father during her labor. It was a generally accepted belief of that time that a woman who chose not to reveal the name of the child's father would be more likely to reveal that information in the midst of labor while at the height of her travail. At such a time it was felt that a woman's ability to resist was diminished, so the midwife was charged to try to find out the father's identity.3
"The town fathers wished to discover the identity of the father in order to punish him, but more importantly, they wished to hold him responsible for the financial maintenance of the child. Such an obligation usually lasted six or seven years, or until the child was felt to be old enough to help contribute to the family he resided with. Without that identification, the responsibility for his maintenance might fall on the town, especially if the mother had few resources for support.4 Bethia refused to provide that information. However, by November 1775, she was calling her child Ezekiel Johnson, the name his family later associated with the name of his father.
"As I searched through the records, I found that when the name of a father was given in court, it was usually the practice of the court to call him in and charge him with the maintenance of his child. I wondered if Ezekiel was so charged. Apparently not. I have searched the Middlesex and Worcester court records, and find no charges brought against him. Why not? Did he agree to contribute to the maintenance of the child voluntarily, so no court action was necessary? Was he able to avoid the 'punishment' Bethia received? We do not know."
For almost two hundred years, the descendants of Ezekiel Johnson worked to try to identify Ezekiel’s biological father. Recent DNA testing has established the link to Ezekiel Johnson, the son of Isaac and Suzannah Thayer Johnson, born in Bellingham, Worcester, Massachusetts on 25 June 1750.
Carl McBrayer, in his Find a Grave Memorial for Bethiah Garnzey, speculates, "Perhaps Bethia chose not to reveal the name of the father to the authorities to protect him from prosecution hoping that he would return and assume his proper role. This unfortunately never occurred."
For more information, see the biography of Ezekiel Johnson (1750-1808).
Back in Uxbridge, life may have been uncomfortable for the Smith family after Ezekiel’s birth. For whatever reason, they moved south to Douglas, Massachusetts. Bethiah and Ezekiel continued to be part of the household. Paddy Spilsbury says,
We find that this concern of financial support of town fathers followed Bethia in succeeding years. The next time Bethia's name appears in the records is again in the Worcester County court records, this time in 1776, when she and her mother's family were "warned out" of the township of Douglas. Under the date of 2 January 1776, is found:
"Smith, Ebenezer, w(ife) Bethia [our Bethia's mother], ch(ildren) Sarah, Patience, Lewis, Abel, "Bethia Gansey, and her child, Ezekiel Johnson. 27 Nov. 1775" 5
There is a gap in the Douglas town records for the year preceding January 1776, so we cannot see the initial record of November, 1775 or know what the situation was. However, we do know that town fathers throughout the colonial period felt strongly that they should not have to provide support for a family coming from another town. In order to avoid that responsibility, colonial acts were passed forbidding "strangers or stragglers who appeared in communities" from settling there "for any length of time, unless some reliable persons furnished security for their behavior and support.6
Just such a situation must have presented itself, for on Jan. 1, 1776, the day before the warning out was made official, intentions to marry were registered for Bethia Garnsey and Jonathan King, of Douglas, and the Smith family was able to stay in Douglas.
Jonathan King was a widower with children. There is a marriage for a Jonathan King to Hallalujah Brown 20 May 1764 in the Glocester, Providence, Rhode Island Vital Records.3 They were probably the parents of a son, Jonathan King of Cranston, Providence, Rhode Island, a daughter, Elizabeth, who married Isaac Chapel in New London, Connecticut, and another son, John King, who married Neomy Beebe in New London, and lived close to the Chapels.
Jonathan King is the son of James King Jr. and Susannah (Crabtree?) of Glocester, Providence, Rhode Island. James made a bequest to his son, Jonathan, and his his daughter, Susannah Williams, in his 1762 will.
Jonathan, Sr., was shown on a 1774 census taken in Cranston, Connecticut, and bought land in Douglas, Massachusetts on 6 April 1774, so he had only been in Douglas about a year and a half when his intentions of marriage to Bethiah were posted there. There are records of several of Jonathan’s land transactions recorded in Douglas, Massachusetts, and in Ashford, Connecticut. In one deed, he is called a "yeoman", and in another, Jonathan states that he is a "husbandman." He sold his property in Douglas on 30 December 1775, two days before posting his intentions of marriage, and bought property in Ashford, Connecticut. Clara Johnson calls him "a man of substantial means."
We do not have the marriage record of Jonathan and Bethiah King, but later land deeds confirm that they were married. Ezekiel would have been about 3 years old at the time of his mother’s marriage, and Jonathan’s daughter, Elizabeth, would have been about eight years old.
On the 6 February 1776, Jonathan King purchased 100 acres and a house in Ashford, Windham County, in the Colony of Connecticut for 750 pounds from his sister, Susanna King Williams. Two years later, Jonathan King sold this same property to Benjamin Horton for 300 pounds on December 4, 1777. Ezekiel was almost five years of age when the farm in Ashford was sold. But it is entirely possible that the family continued living in or near Ashford until he left home.
The last day of January in 1779 must have been cold when Jonathan King and his wife sold twenty acres of land in Freetown, Bristol, Massachusetts to Jonathan Drown. This was the land Bethiah had inherited from her "honored father Seth Ganzey, lately of Rehoboth." He acquired the said piece of land as a tenth lot that had been in the possession of Hannah Mansfield, ‘Sethier's’ honored grandmother."3 Clara S. Johnson speculates that the purchaser may actually have been Jonathan Brown, the brother of Hallelujah Brown, Jonathan King’s first wife.
Although no record has been found that Jonathan purchased more land in the Ashford area, when he and Bethiah sold her inherited property in 1779, they list their residence as being "of Ashford." Perhaps they were living on property owned by other family members or possibly they rented property in the Ashford area. Clara Johnson states that, in the 1790 census, there is a Jonathan King listed as being head of a family in a small town not too far from Ashford. Possibly this was the same Jonathan King who bought and sold the Ashford farm. At this time, Ashford was a rather busy and important place with a major road intersecting it. Perhaps Jonathan King did move to a nearby place but still used his place of residence as "of Ashford" because it was readily recognized by name.3
Ezekiel’s stories to his children indicate his dislike for his stepfather. In her 1960 report to the Johnson Family, Clara Johnson said, "It is my belief that our Ezekiel Johnson’s boyhood days were spent on a farm in Connecticut. His boyhood days may have been happier than we are led to believe. I am certain that many children at one time or other in their younger days are prone to believe they are harshly, even unfairly treated, by their parents. It is quite a common threat down through the years of childhood to parents to hear 'I am going to run away.' As a teenager, Ezekiel did decide to run away. As Ezekiel told the story to his children, his chance came when his stepfather gave him a purse with the name 'James King' on it and sent him on an errand to collect a debt owed to him by a neighbor. Ezekiel was supposed to place the payment into the leather pouch, hand over the debt agreement, and return home as quickly as possible with the money. Ezekiel collected the payment and placed it into the pouch as instructed, but when he started for home it occurred to him that he had within his grasp the financial means to provide for his needs for a while and to be able to live on his own. He pondered the situation and his future and made the decision to take the money and run away." Family tradition says that Ezekiel never saw his mother or stepfather again.
Jonathan and Bethiah had no known children together. They moved south to New London, Connecticut, before 1800, when they are on the New London Census. They lived near Isaac and Elizabeth King Chapel, Jonathan’s probable son-in-law and daughter. Jonathan is on the New London Census in 1800, but the Widow King is shown as head of household in the 1810, census so Jonathan must have died between those years. There are tick marks in the census for others living with Bethiah. Who were they?
Isaac and Elizabeth Chapel were living next to the Widow King in New London, Connecticut, during the 1810 Census and are also shown living near her in New London in the 1820, 1830 and 1840 census records.3, 6
Bethiah lived until 7 May 1842 and was laid to rest in Ye Antientist Burial Place, New London Connecticut. She had been a widow for about 40 years. Her headstone read:
In Memory of Bithiah King
Relict of John King who
died May 7, 1842, aged 86 years.
This would mean that Bethiah was born in 1756 instead of 1754 which is her generally accepted birth date based on vital records, but dates on headstones were sometimes wrong. Proceedings were started to settle her estate on 9 May 1842 and Philip Morgan was named to handle the settlement of her estate at that time. No kin objected to his appointment. The settlement was closed 14 March 1843 and two named men were each paid $2 apiece for the two years they worked on the evaluation and sale of the estate property and personal property. It does not seem probable that Mr. Morgan would have been named to handle the estate only two days after her death. This usually did not occur for up to one year after the death. The dates would probably be more reasonable if her death year were read as 1841. 3, 6
Isaac Chapel was one of the men appointed to take the inventory of Bethiah’s estate. The following is a partial listing of the inventory and value of Bethiah's personal property in her estate:
feather bed $8.75
old satin cloak $ .50
9 pounds of pewter $ .54
1 large and 6 small silver spoons $4.50
2 pair of cotton sheets $ .34
3 geese, 10 hens $3.16
1 cow and a yearling $20.00
1 lot and house $100.00
separate lot $60.00
1 old fashioned dress and 1 calico dress $ .50
1 brass kettle $ .25
It is known, from the land records of Waterford, that Bethiah King did own two parcels of land at her death. She bought two acres in 1820 from James Read. A deed for her purchase of another parcel of land could not be found, but it is assumed that she probably inherited the parcel upon which her house stood from her husband, Jonathan King, when he died. If Bethiah’s next-door neighbor was actually a daughter of Jonathan King, maybe the daughter and the wife inherited split shares of his Waterford land. 3, 6
The estate settlement states that her personal property was only sold for $152.35 so her property was sold at auction to the highest bidder to settle her debts. Lucretia and Mary Rogers purchased both parcels of land.3,6
Massachusetts Vital Records Project - Rehoboth Births, Marriages and Deaths
Bristol County, Massachusetts Probate Records
1960 Ezekiel Johnson Report to the Johnson Family by Clara S. Johnson
The 2005 Garnsey Guernsey Gurnsey Genealogical Dictionary by Judith Young-Thayer
Massachusetts Vital Records Project – Holliston Marriages p 243
Johnson Gems by Judy Cluff
Bethia Garnsey and Ezekiel Johnson by Paddy Spillsbury 6-09
Records of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace from the County of Worcester, Massachusetts, 1731-1862. volumes 3-4, 1775-1780, September, 1773. SLFHL film 859240.
Demos, John.1970. A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony. Oxford University Press: New York. p. 153. FHL US/CAN 974.4 H6d
Demos, 1970. p.152.
Demos, 1970. p. 141n.
Blake, Francis E., ed.1899. Worcester County, Massachusetts, Warnings, 1737-1788. Franklin R. Rice: Worcester, Massachusetts. Reprinted 1992 by Picton Press: Camden, Maine. FHL US/CAN 974.43 N2w
Blake, 1992. p. 3.
Rice, Franklin P, ed. 1906. Vital Records of Douglas, Massachusetts, to the end of the year 1849. Worchester, Massachusetts: Rice. FHL 974.43/D1 V29.