An American Family History

Mary Harwood Powers was born on February 5, 1675/76 in Concord, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. Scholars are not in agreement about who her parents were. 

“Mary Harwood could not have  been dau. of Nathaniel and Mary (Barron) of Chelmsford, whose dau. Mary was probably born in Concord March 13, 1695-6, nor of Peter, whose dau. Mary was b. August 11, 1705.(*) She might have been dau. of Nathaniel and Elizabeth of Concord, whose dau. Mary was b. Feb. 5, 1676-7.” (Records of Littleton, p. 338)

She may have been the daughter of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Harwood as many researchers believe, but Harwood’s careful genealogy shows the daughter of Nathaniel and Elizabeth as the wife of Thomas Merriam. (New England Harwood Genealogy, Vol III, Harwood, Watson H, p.10) It is unlikely that the same woman was married both to Thomas Powers and Thomas Merriam because Merriam died in 1738 and the last child of Thomas and Mary Merriam was born in 1714 and she married Thomas Powers in 1702.

She married Thomas Powers in 1702. Their children and life together are described in detail in the section on Thomas and Mary Powers. According to Little, Burrage, and Stubbs she was the teacher of her sons and took prominent place in the affairs of the town in which they lived.

She was left a widow in 1733 when Thomas died.

She died on September 29, 1756 in Concord, Middlesex County, Massachusetts.

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