This story pertains to my maternal great grandmother's maternal family, her paternal family are immigrants from County, Tyrone in Northern Ireland, her ma's kin are all Yanks from Massachusetts and Maine that went into New Brunswick Canada, when they came back down to the states they mixed with the Deitsch. The Estabrook's themselves go back to Enfield, Middlesex, England, there are some Yorkshire and Norfolk folk mixed in as well.
Elijah Estabrooks II married, at Haverhill, Mass., Nov. 14, 1750, Mary, daughter of Ebenezer and Hannah (Ring) Hackett, of Salisbury. Mass. The marriage ceremony was at Haverhill but is recorded in the Second Congregational Church at Salisbury. She was born in Salisbury Aug. 1, 1728. Her family were ship builders.
Elijah and Mary (Hackett) Estabrooks apparently lived in East Haverhill from 1750 to 1757 for the baptisms of their first three children are recorded there in the Fourth Congregational Church. They probably moved to Boxford, Mass., about 1757 where the baptisms of two children are recorded in the Second Congregational Church.
El ijah Estabrooks II was in the army in l758 and was discharged Nov. 7 of that year. He re-enlisted April 6, 1759, and was sent to Halifax, N.S., where he remained until Dec. 2, 1760. During his years in the army, 1758-1760, he kept a diary which is still extant. It may be seen among the Estabrooks-Palmer records in the Archives Department of the New Brunswick Museum, Saint John, N.B.
The last entry in the diary records his departure from Halifax. "Nov. the 25th day, 1760: We embarked on board the ship and the 27th day we went out to sea and about noon we had like to be cast away and we put into Halifax again and laid there until the second of December, and we then put to sea again and the l3th day we got into Boston and the l5th day I got home to my family."
During the next two and one-half years Elijah Estabrooks II made preparations to remove his family to the Saint John River. Early in 1763 he moved them to Halifax, then to Cornwallis near Digby, N.S., intending to leave them there until he had made arrangements for their settlement at Maugerville in Sunbury County. He crossed the Bay of Fundy and joined Israel Perley's party which was going up the river to occupy their lands. It is said he took his son, Elijah III, a boy of seven years, with him to see the country.
W hen he reached the township at Maugerville he found his lot was under water. He decided not to use it and returned to Cornwallis. During the next two years he was apparently exploring the possibilities of the new land. Tradition says he paid a visit to Sackville, N.B., where Valentine Estabrooks had settled. However, he was apparently set on the river, and on Oct. 18, 1765, he entered the employ of Simonds and White at Portland Point (Saint John, N.B.). In 1773 he made an agreement with William Hazen and James Simonds to settle in the township of Conway near the mouth of the river, Hazen and Simonds guaranteeing him 250 acres of land. An old census return dated August 1, 1775, shows that he had cleared and improved seven acres of land and built a log house by that time.
The American Revolutionary War first made itself felt on the Saint John in Aug. 1773 when a party from Machias, Maine, entered the harbor in a sloop, burned Fort Frederick on the Conway side and captured a brig loaded with provisions for the British troops in Boston. The inhabitants of Conway took to the woods to avoid the depredations of the marauders. And the experience was repeated several times as the war progressed.
In 1777, Elijah Estabrooks II, and those of his family who were still living at home, removed from the mouth of the river to land which was part of the Spry grant at Gagetown, on Grimross Neck. The following year, 1778, Mary (Hackett) Estabrooks died and was probably buried in the old Garrison graveyard on the Jemseg opposite Gagetown. He then married, Dec. 17, 1778, Sarah, widow of James Oakes and daughter of Philip Hammond of Marblehead, Mass., who was living at Cornwallis.
When the Loyalists arrived in N.B. in 1783 some of them were determined to dispossess the pre-Loyalists and occupy their land. Elijah Estabrooks II and his family at Grimross Neck found themselves harassed by the Loyalists and decided to remove to the Jemseg. He applied for and received one-half of lots 25 and 26 in Cambridge Parish, Queens County. His sons Ebenezer and Joseph received the other halves of the two lots. His son Elijah III was granted one-half of lot 3 at Jemseg, and lot 32 on the intervale.
The lots in Cambridge were beautifully situated on a ridge overlooking the Jemseg River near Grand Lake. The Garrison graveyard was just over the fence on a slope stretching down to a creek. Elijah II and two married sons, Ebenezer and Joseph, moved to their two lots in 1787. He became active in the Baptist Church in Cambridge and is mentioned several times in a book published by Rev. Walter R. Greenwood, M.A., Th.D., in 1941 entitled "The Early Baptists of Cambridge Parish, Queens County, New Brunswick." The children of Elijah and Mary (Hackett) Estabrooks were: Hannah (m. Zebedee Ring); Mary (m. Samuel Hartt); an infant which died five days after birth; Elijah III (m. Mary Whittemore); Samuel (died young); Ebenezer (m. lst, Maria Fletcher, 2nd, Charlotte Lounsbury); Joseph (m. 1st, Miss Clinch, 2nd, Lucretia Handy); Sarah (m. John L. Marsh); Abigail (m. William Harper); John (m. Catherine Ebbett); and Deborah Estabrooks (m. Moses Clark). By his second marriage to Sarah (Hammond) Oakes, Elijah Estabrooks II had two children: Elizabeth (m. Martin Holts); and Hammond Estabrooks (m. Rebecca Glazier).
Elijah Estabrooks II is said to have remained hale and hearty to the last. He spent his latter years with his son John at Swan Creek on the west side of the Saint John near Upper Gagetown. It is said there were two things he used to pray for. One was that he should never be sick and the other that he should die at his work. He used to pound grain for the chickens in a mortar. One summer afternoon in 1796 after working for a while he lay back in his chair and covered his face with his hat. His grandchildren, who were playing around, thought he was asleep but when they went to waken him for supper they found that he was dead. He was buried in the Garrison graveyard at Jemseg, N.B.
The above Estabrook is a great great grandchild of Rev. Joseph Estabrook, he was born in Enfield, Middlesex, England:
The pioneer Estabrooks were Puritans, and with his brother, Thomas, came to America in 1660. It is said that there was another brother with Joseph and Thomas Estabrook who settled in Connecticut.
After receiving a preparatory education for College Joseph Estabrook entered Harvard and graduated 1664. In 1667 he was ordained as colleague of the Rev. Edward Bulkley, minister of the church in Concord, at whose decease he became pastor of the church and continued in that office until his death, for which he was eminently fitted as his preaching was plain, practical and persuasive. His appearance carried so much patriotic dignity that people were induced to love him as a friend and reverence him as a father. These traits in his character obtained for him the name of "The Apostle." He was made freeman, Cambridge, Mass., May 3, 1663.
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