Wightman Family in Walpole New Hampshire

This genealogy of the Wightman family comes from a four volume set of genealogy research compiled in the early 1900s. Each generation is shown in parentheses ( ). Begin with one individual and continue that line through the furthest generation currently known before starting a new descendancy for the next sibling. This method keeps each family group intact, while presenting the families of siblings separately but under the same generational number.

This name is found early in the WIGHTMAN Colonies of Rhode Island, that community established upon the broadest foundation of religious liberty, which has contributed so much to the moral, intellectual and material development of the United States. It is the home of the busy spindle and other tools of industry, as well as the abode of institutions of learning, and exercises an influence in the history of the nation far beyond its territorial importance or relative numbers in population. The family herein treated furnished some of the pioneers of western New Hampshire, and has been well and favorably known in the development of this section.

(I) George Wightman is of record in Rhode Island as early as 1669. He was an inhabitant of Kingstown, and took the oath of allegiance to the colony May 20, 1671, and was made a freeman in 1673. He was constable in 1686, was a member of the grand jury in 1687, and for some years was a member of the town council. He was one of the eighteen persons who bought seven thousand acres of land in Narragansett, sold by the general assembly in 1710. Tradition makes him a descendant of Edward Wightman, who was burned for heresy at Litchfield, England, April 11, 1612, being the last to suffer death for religion’s sake in that country. He was a relative (perhaps a brother) of Valentine Whitman, who settled early in Providence. The descendants of George have more generally preserved the spelling of the name as Wightman, though they occasionally use the other form, Whitman. George Wightman was born in January, 1632, and died in January, 1722. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Gilbert and Catherine Smith Updyke. She was born in 1699, and was the mother of the following children: Elizabeth, Alice, Daniel, Sarah, John, Samuel and Valentine.

(II) George Wightman, second son and fifth child of George (I) and Elizabeth (Updyke) Wightman ^[1]For George to be the second son and fifth child he is either John in the list above, or George (I) and Elizabeth (Updyke) Wightman had 8 children, and not just the seven listed., was born January 8, 1675, in Kingstown, and was an inhabitant of Warwick, Rhode Island, becoming a freeman in 1716. In 1719 he bought one hundred and fifty acres of land in the town of East Greenwich, Rhode Island, and was a deputy from that town in 1729. His will was made September 1, 1759, and a codicil was added March 1, 1760. He probably died about the beginning of the succeeding year, as his will was proven January 16, 1761. He married (first) Elizabeth (surname unknown), and (second), August 30, 1738, Sarah Todd. His children were: George, John, Samuel, Elizabeth, Phoebe and Deborah.

(III) Samuel Wightman, third son of George (2) Wightman, was married, November 11, 1729, to Margaret Gorton, and their children are given upon the Warwick town records as: Samuel, Benjamin, Penelope, George, Freedom, Margaret and Asa.

(IV) Samuel Wightman (2), son of Samuel (1) and Margaret (Gorton) Wightman, was born January 23, 1738, in Warwick, Rhode Island, and resided in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, at the time of his marriage, December 4, 1760, to Amy Lawton, also of East Greenwich. Their children appear on the record of Rehoboth, Massachusetts, where it is probable they afterward lived. They were: Sarah, Israel, Mary, George, Amy, Lydia and Samuel. Samuel Wightman came to Walpole in 1801, and purchased of Isaac Redington three hundred and fifty acres of land, lying in the vicinity of the mouth of Cold River. The land had been owned previously by Colonel John Bellows, and he had erected on the site of the residence of Thomas Keyes a public house. To this house Mr. Wightman moved with his family, and remained two or three years. In the meantime he built what is now known as the Carpenter stand. He died in 1827, in the eighty-ninth year of his age, and his wife Amy died in 1837, aged ninety-eight years. Deacon Samuel Wightman’s family consisted of seven children, three sons and four daughters, of which Israel was the second, who died in 1838, aged seventy-four. The father gave his son Israel the place on the plain, which was the largest portion of his estate, where he lived during life, after coming to Walpole, New Hampshire.

(V) Israel Wightman, eldest son and second child of Samuel (2) and Amy (Lawton) Wightman, was born December 12, 1765, in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, whence he moved to Walpole, New Hampshire, and died there March 21, 1838, in his seventy-fourth year. The records of Rehoboth, Massachusetts, show that the intentions of marriage of Israel Wightman and Frances Allen were published March 30, 1788. She was the sister of William H. Allen, whose son, Daniel B. Allen, married Ethelinda Vanderbilt, the daughter of the Commodore, and was for many years at the head of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. They had ten children: Samuel Allen Wightman, who married Matilda, daughter of Solomon Bellows, who was a brother of Alexander Hamilton Bellows, the father of Dr. Henry W. Bellows, the noted Unitarian divine. Samuel Allen Wightman went to Ashtabula, Ohio. He served in the war of 1812. John, Maria, Herman, Sarah, Hannah, Frances, Pamelia, Content and Herman Allen.

(VI) Herman Allen Wightman, the youngest child of Israel and Frances (Allen) Wightman, was born in 1808. He married Maria Retsey Lovell, of Claremont, New Hampshire, in 1834, and removed to the old homestead in Walpole, New Hampshire. They had five children: Frances M., Nellie S., Martha L., Mary J. and Caroline E.

(VII) Mary J. Wightman, the fourth child of Herman Allen and Maria Retsey (Lovell) Wightman, was born January 19, 1843, in Cambridgeport, Vermont, and married Dr. Osman B. Way, February 22, 1882 (see Way, VIII).

Source

Stearns, Ezra S., Genealogical and family history of the state of New Hampshire : a record of the achievements of her people in the making of a commonwealth and the founding of a nation, New York : Lewis Publishing Co., 1908.