Two Ample Families
Early life in Quaker Hill.
It appears that Roger’s father died while the children were still young.
This idea is supported by the fact that Roger was said to have been apprenticed out to a hatter, which customarily would have not been possible before the age of 14 (1741).8
For him to have completed his training would normally have required a full 14 years.
Yet he married and began raising a family at an early age.
It appears, therefore, that there is evidence that his early training could not have been put to use till later in life.
Perhaps his new family was partly supported by the family of his wife’s parents: Lieutenant Samuel and Jane (Wheeler) Doolittle.
Indeed, we cannot easily dispute the possibility that his wife Mary’s was quite young at her marriage to Roger in 1747.
Her older brothers and sisters have full birth dates documented and we cannot fit her birth anywhere but in 1730.
Out conclusion is that she must have been only about 17 years old when she married.9
A new home in the wilderness.
Roger and Mary had seven children together while living at Quaker Hill: Roger (b. abt 1748), Abel (b. abt 1750), Ephraim (b. abt 1752), Moses (b. abt 1754), Abigail (b. abt 1756), Mary (b. 1760), and Elihu (b. 1765).
In 1770 the family moved to Pittsford, Vermont.
Either in the move or immediately upon settling there Mary died, as on 6 Dec. of that year Roger married a second time.
The bride was Mary the daughter of Joseph and Abiel (Hamant) Smith, born 1 Apr 1738 in Stourbridge, Worcester Co., Massachusetts.10
They celebrated the marriage where she was living at Brookfield.11
During the same time period in which his older children were getting married and starting their own families, Roger began his new family with Mary.
