The Homes and Tales of the Marlborough Brighams

But the most interesting of all is the chair in which Thomas Brigham died. . .for it tells story upon story of that time of the past. ~ Ella Bigelow

first Rice homestead

In her Historical Reminiscences of the Early Times in Marlborough Massachusetts, Ella A. Bigelow tells the tales of old Marlborough residents, some of whom are our relatives. The story of the Brigham family in Marlborough begins with Mercy Brigham who was the widow of our cousin Thomas Brigham (1C13X). After Thomas' death, Mercy "pitying and no doubt loving the lonely widower and father of the large family (Edmund Rice), married him and bore him two daughters…" When Mercy married Edmund Rice, she had five children, two daughters and three sons, from her marriage to Cousin Thomas. All five children moved from Cambridge to Marlborough with their mother and many generations of Brighams would then call Marlborough home.

Edmund Rice had been granted fifty acres of property in Marlborough and he built the house shown below. Edmund and Mercy lived in that home with their assorted children for eight years until Edmund's death in 1663.

Thomas, Gersham and Joseph

One of Mercy's sons, our cousin Thomas Brigham (2C12X), bought twenty-four acres from his stepfather, Edmund Rice. He built a log house on his property and there he lived with his family until it burned down. He built another house on the same spot in 1706 but that home suffered the same fate. The third house has survived to this day. In his old age, Thomas lived with his son Gershom (3C11X) and died at age 76 in an upstairs room of the house that he had built.

Below is a picture of a room in the house with Thomas' chair:

Thomas' son Gershom enlarged the house and lived there with his wife and five children. Then Gershom's son Joseph (4C10X) inherited the house which thereafter became known as the Joseph Brigham house.

Ella Bigelow told a story about Joseph's daughter Lydia (5C9X) and a suiter:

She made a fair picture to young Moses Ames who had come up form the farm district to see her father on business and stopping to rest near the old stone wall he listened to her milkmaid song…Young Moses lost his heart, and being an enterprising young man, he also lost no time in gaining entrance to pretty Lydia’s home and heart.

Lucky Moses not only got Lydia but he also got the homestead at Joseph’s death.

One of Moses and Lydia's daughters wrote a nostalgic bit about old Marlborough:

. . .in one sense the life of Thomas Brigham seems not far away from our own time. The road winding through the valley where his dwelling stood, the fair and fertile fields which he cultivated, the stately and beautiful trees on which no doubt he often gazed, have come down through generations of his descendants uniting the past with the present. . .Living in this troublesome times when wars followed each other in quick succession, he must have been surrounded by elements of dance of which only the echo comes down to us. . .

Ella Bigelow was able to tour the Joseph Brigham house and described her experience:

In one of the rooms one finds a grand old fireplace so ample that one could climb up the immense chimney to the dry roof itself. . .over the high mantle rests the gun and bayonet brought to America at the time of General Lafayette’s landing. . .But the most interesting of all is the chair in which Thomas Brigham died. . .for it tells story upon story of that time of the past. . .

The updated Thomas Brigham house today sits quietly on Glen St. in Marlborough.

Nathan and Ephraim

Nathan Brigham (3C11X) was another son of Cousin Thomas Brigham. He inherited property from his father in an area that came to be known as Clover Hill. When Nathan died in 1747, the homestead went to his oldest son Ephraim (4C10X). It apperars that Ephraim had only two children and both died young. According to Ella Bigelow, "At the time of his death he had 32 heirs none his descendants. . ." One of his bequests, however, was for a school which became familiarly known as the “Brigham School."

Below is a picture of what became to be known as the Ephraim Brigham house.

The Brigham Cemetery

The Ephraim Brigham house eventually went to one of Ephraim's nephews, Captain William Brigham (5C9X). William lived there with his wife, Lydia. Bigelow relates that they both became "sick of malignant small pox in 1793, and of which they died, and which alarmed and kept all others at a distance. . ." Since William and Lydia couldn't be buried in the established cemeteries, their Brigham relatives created one of their own. The couple were the first two be to be buried in Brigham cemetery. According to Wikipedia:

[I]ts first burials were of William and Lydia Brigham, victims of smallpox, who were refused burial in the town's other cemeteries. It remained in the Brigham family until 1808, when it was given to the local Unitarian Society. It was taken over by the town in 1855, and was used for burials until 1934. It is the city's fourth municipal cemetery, and one of its smallest. There are 19 documented burials of Revolutionary War veterans and seven from the Civil War.

The land was deeded to the Unitarian Society by William's son Ephraim (6C8X). In 1887, Lucius Brigham (7C7X)"erected a fine gray granite monument" in the Brigham cemetery over Ephraim's remains.

The Brigham Cemetery, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a small pocket of land next to the much larger St. Mary's Cemetery in Marlborough. It is accessed through a gate which leads to a passageway between two houses. About thirty Brighams are buried there.

(1) Brigham Cemetery (2) St. Mary's Cemetery

Samuel, Addington and William Brigham

The Samuel-Barnabas-Addington Brigham house in Marlborough was first owned by Samuel Brigham (3C11X). In Samuel's time the house, which sat on 187 acres of land, was used as a garrison during the French and Indian wars.

The house then went through many generations of Brighams, first to Samuel's son George (4C10X). George lived in the house until sometime before 1790 when he moved to a "fine farm" that his uncle Timothy Brigham (3C11X) had left to him. George had a whopping seventeen children. We'll have more on George and his children below.

When George moved to Southborough, the house went to his son Ashbael Samuel Brigham (5C9X). The house managed to stay in the family when Ashbael sold it to his cousin Daniel Brigham (5C9X). Daniel left it to his son Barnabas (6C8X) who left it to his son Addington (7C7X).

Below is a drawing of the Samuel-Barnabas-Addington Brigham house and a photo of the house as it looks today:

Note: Addington Brigham's grandson, First Lt. William Munroe Brigham, Jr., fought in WWI. He was killed in France in 1918 and is buried there. He has a marker at the Maplewood Cemetery in Marlborough. The marker in Marlborough is known as a cenotaph "which means that the bodily remains are buried elsewhere," in this case, France.

Below is a photograph of William Monroe Brigham, Jr. (9C5X) in his uniform:

the sad case of George Brigham

Our cousin George Brigham (4C10X) had little fortune when it came to his children. George's wife Mary gave birth to 17 children. Only four of them outlived their father and only three outlived the mother. All of the children are our (5C9X).

George's first born died at a little over a year:

Phineas   b. 25 May 1754, d. 3 July1755

Six of George's children died in 1771. I can't find any record of an epidemic in Marlborough in that year, but five children died within a month of each other.

Louisa b. 27 Sep 1760, d. 18 Sep 1771 (Age 10)

Ashbel   b. 3 Mar 1762, d. 27 Sep 1771 (Age 9)

Mary b. 18 Dec 1763 d. 27 Aug 1771 (Age 7)

Zerviah   b. 6 Apr 1867 d. 11 Sep 1771 (Age 4)

Samuel b. 27 Jan 1769 d. 1 Sep 1771 (Age 2)

Stephen  b. 7 Jan 1771 d. 3 Mar 1771 (Age less than 2 months)

Two children died in 1775:

Mary  b. 6 May 1773 d. 2 Sep 1775 (Age 2)

Stephen b. 8 Aug 1774 d. 11 Sep 1775 (Age 1)

Two sons lived to adulthood but died before their father:

George   b. 22 July 1756, d. 26 Aug 1782 (age 26)

Timothy   b. 11 Feb 1759, d. 6 Jan 1804 (age 44)

One child listed only as Infant was probably either stillborn or died shortly after birth

At the time of his death in 1808 at age 78, George had four children still living:

Thankful who died at age 59

Ashbel who died at age 67

William who died three years after his father at age 32

Phineas who died at age 55

We have a birth date for Frances, 24 Dec 1776, but no death date indicating she may have died at birth.

Jedediah Brigham

Our cousin Samuel Brigham, mentioned above, had a brother named Jedediah (3C11X). The Jedediah Brigham home in Marlborough home lies on Boston Road. At his death, Jedediah left the homestead to his son Winslow Brigham (4C10X).

the jealous step-sister

Westborough, which was incorporated as the hundredth town in Massachusetts, is an offshoot town which lies about seven miles from Marlborough. Harriette Merrifield Forbes wrote a book about the town titled The Hundredth Town: Glimpses of life in Westborough from 1717 to 1817. In her book, Forbes tells a cute story about our cousin Moses Brigham (5C9X) and the wooing of his future wife, Mehetable. Evidently, Moses' stepsister had a major crush on him and his love for Mehetable caused her "many heart-burnings and wild frenzies of jealously." To try and hamper his new found relationship, "[o]ne evening, when she knew that he planned to ride over to see Mehetabel, she slipped out to the stable and hamstrung Selim, his favorite horse."

As it turned out, all the "heart-burnings and hamstringing was to no avail." Moses and his Mehetable married and settled into a house that he built on Elm Street in Westborough. According to Forbes "Moses lived here until his death; then his son-in-law, Jonathan Forbes, took possession of the north end of the house and the widowed Mehetabel lived in the south end."

Below is a drawing of the Forbes homestead:

We'll leave the last word on the Brigham family in Marlborough to our cousin Betsey Brigham (6C8X): “You can’t throw a stone in the borough but you’ll hit a Fay or a Brigham.”