Mary "Polly" Chapman Heath

of Ledyard and Groton, Connecticut

Mary "Polly" Chapman Heath
Photo courtesy of Lance Loranger

          Mary Chapman was born April 6, 1797 in Ledyard, Connecticut.  She was the eldest of thirteen children born to John and *Barthena (Button) Chapman of Ledyard, Connecticut. Mary Chapman was the descendant of several early settlers of New London County, including Thomas Rose, Peter Spicer, Robert Allyn, Thomas Fox, Matthew Griswold, Andrew Lester, George Geer, Matthias Button, and James Rogers.

          On April 10, 1815, at the age of eighteen, Mary married Amos Heath, the twenty-nine year old son of William and Mary (Culver) Heath of Groton. Amos Heath was a soldier in the War of 1812, serving in the summer of 1813, when he was twenty-seven years old, in the company commanded by Stephen Billings.

In the thirty-three years of their marriage, Mary and Amos had the following children:

          All of Amos and Mary's children survived to adulthood except Julia Ann, who died at the age of fourteen. Hudson Heath died at an early age of yellow fever on a sailing ship homeward bound from New Zealand, and Amos F. Heath (the son) died at the age twenty-three on the battlefield at Drury's Bluff, Virginia in the Civil War.

          Amos Heath died at the age of sixty-two on April 12, 1848. He is buried at the Old Wightman Cemetery in Groton, where his grave stone inscription reads:

Still lives the memory of departed worth.

          Mary (Chapman) Heath outlived Amos by thirty-eight years. She remained a widow for the rest of her life, and died at the age of eighty-nine in 1886.

*Barthena Button Chapman's given name has also been listed varyingly as Berthena, Bethana, and Bethany. Her gravestone inscription reads "Barthena".

Five of the daughters of Amos and Mary Heath
Inscribed on back of photo:
Top row from left to right - Aunt Frances Allen and Aunt Nancy Swain.
2nd row - Aunt Emeline Maynard, Aunt Lucy Ryley and Aunt Ardelia King.

SOURCES

The Barbour Collection of Connecticut Vital Records, Town of Groton, compiled under the supervision of Lucius B. Barber and Lucius B. Barber, 1911-1934.

The bible of Levi Nelson Clark in the possession of Sally Russell Cox.

Button Families of America by R. Glen Nye. Private Publisher, Utah 1971, p. 53.

Commemorative Biographical Record of Tolland and Windham Counties, Connecticut. Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens and of Many of the Early Settled Families by J.H.Beers & Co., Chicago; 1903, (Hon. Levi Nelson Clark & The Heath Family) p. 1012.

Daughters of the American Revolution lineage records on the descendants of William Heath of Groton, Connecticut.

A Modern History of Windham County, Connecticut, A Windham County Treasure Book, Allen B. Lincoln. Editor, Illustrated, Volume II, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1920.

The records of Helen Louise Heath Palmer.

The records of Ken Pumphrey, descendant of Oliver Beckwith Heath.

The records of Sally Russell Cox, descendant of Sarah Heath Clark.

1850 U.S. Census Records for the State of Connecticut

Go back to
The Heaths of New London County, Connecticut

Go back to
My New England
Ancestry

Contact me, Sally, at
 cscox@gci.net

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