Ahnentafel № 381 · The compiler's 6× great-grandparent
Mary Parris Russell
1763–1835 · of Athol, Worcester, Massachusetts, British NE American Colony, Present, USA
Birth
6 Apr 1763/5
Athol, Worcester, Massachusetts, British NE American Colony, Present, USA
Death
21 Apr 1835
Jonesboro, Washington, Maine, USA
Biography
From the Hyten family archive; subject is Mary Parris Russell (1763–1835), a 6× great-grandmother of the compiler on the paternal-grandmother (PM) line. This entry covers her birth in colonial Massachusetts, parentage, marriage to Benjamin Kelton/Kilton, her son William, removal to coastal Maine, and the Revolutionary-era and early-Republic context of her life. Notable: surname Parris suggests a possible link to the broader Parris family of New England.
Mary Parris Russell was born on the sixth day of April, 1763, in Athol, Worcester County, in the British colony of Massachusetts Bay, then on the eve of profound political transformation. She entered the world as the daughter of William Russell (1737–1828) and Katherine Bent (1736–1818), and her early years unfolded in the upland farming country of central Massachusetts, a region that within a dozen years would furnish men and provisions to the cause of American independence. The Russell and Bent families were each long-established in the Massachusetts colony, their roots reaching back to the great Puritan migrations of the seventeenth century, and Mary's middle name, Parris, points toward another of the storied New England surnames whose bearers had figured in the religious life of the colony from its earliest generations.
Mary came of age during the Revolutionary years and the uncertain decade that followed, when the towns of Worcester County contributed both militia service and political fervor to the new republic. In due course she was joined in marriage to Benjamin Kelton, whose surname also appears in the records as Kilton — an orthographic variation not uncommon in an age when spelling followed the ear of the clerk rather than any settled convention. Of this union came at least one son, William Kilton, born in 1787, who would live until 1834.
The latter portion of Mary's life was passed at a considerable remove from her Worcester County birthplace. She died on the twenty-first day of April, 1835, in Jonesboro, Washington County, on the rugged coast of Maine — a district that in her lifetime had been transformed from the easternmost frontier of Massachusetts into a separate state of the Union in 1820. Her removal to that thinly settled coastal county reflected the broader northeastward migration of New England families seeking land and livelihood along the Maine shore. She was survived by her father's name in record and her son's posterity. Mary Parris Russell stands in the compiler's paternal-grandmother line as a sixth great-grandmother.
Additional research
Subsequent research has clarified and considerably enlarged the canonical entry. The marriage of Mary Russell to Benjamin Kilton is now fixed by record to the twenty-sixth day of October, 1786, at Barre, Worcester County, Massachusetts, as preserved in the Massachusetts Town Clerk Vital and Town Records (per FamilySearch); a secondary date of 1785 circulates without documentary support and should be set aside in favor of the Barre entry.
The middle name "Parris," long suspected to denote a New England connection, appears in fact to be a maternal inheritance. Mary's mother, Katherine Bent — born 23 September 1736 at Sudbury, Middlesex County — was herself a daughter of Mary Bent, born Parris, who in turn was a daughter of the Reverend Samuel Parris of Salem, the minister at the center of the 1692 witch trials (per Geni). The lineage thus passes Mary → Katherine Bent → Mary Parris Bent → Rev. Samuel Parris, and the given name memorialized a notable, if troubled, ancestral surname. Her father William Russell is further identified as the eldest son of Samuel Russell of Sudbury, a cordwainer, and is recorded as having purchased fifty acres in the northwest quarter of the Rutland district (later Barre) on 25 October 1762 (Worcester Deeds, Book 46, p. 194, per Geni). Mary's siblings included Sarah, William, Nathan, and Dorothy Russell (per WikiTree).
The union with Benjamin Kilton proved abundantly fruitful, producing at least eleven children: John, an unnamed infant, Hannah L., William, Henry, Gustavus Fellows, Sarah C., Katherine Ann, Mary C., Margaret, and Benjamin Jr. (per WikiTree). Eldest son John Kilton (1787–1854), a farmer of Jonesboro, lies buried at Village Cemetery in that town (per Find A Grave). Mary's own death prior to 1864 is corroborated by the death entry of her daughter Mary E. Hatch, which names "Mary P. Kilton" as mother (per FamilySearch). A direct maternal-line mtDNA test has further identified haplogroup K1a4a1a2b for her descendants (per WikiTree). Mary Parris Russell remains the sixth great-grandmother of the compiler, Jacob Hyten, upon the paternal-grandmother line.
Family
Parents
Children
Sources
Source citations and original documents will appear here as research progresses. Currently sourced from Ancestry tree hints — to be verified.