One of my favorite resources for Cape Cod, besides the Vital Records of Sandwich, Massachusetts series that I own, is the
Benjamin Percival Diary. Benjamin was a great-grandson of James Percival, our earliest known Percival ancestor in America. I've actually read Benjamin's diary cover-to-cover and for the most part it relates the every day minutiae of weather, crops, births, marriages and deaths.
Today's wedding took place July 13, 1800 in Sandwich, Barnstable county, Massachusetts between Benjamin's son Joseph Percival (b. 11/17/1776 d. March 1807 at sea) married Sally Fish (b. abt 1785 d. abt 1858). Here is what Benjamin has to say about it:
Monday July 14th yesterday Joseph was married to Sally Fish today brought his wife here not much wedding.
Copyright 2011, ACK for Gene Notes
Hi, Anne. I'm Jeff Brooke--my great-grandmother was a Percival and I've enjoyed researching much of the line's very rich history back to Ben, James and sideways to the Mayflower. I'm currently vacationing in Provincetown and took time earlier in the week to pop down Cape Cod to Barnstable, where they have a copy of Ben's diary and I made a quick copy using my iPhone. Not elegant, but it will allow me to read it. The original is in the next town, Sandwich. Our cousin Frank Rawls Barrow did the astonishing transcription work (with wonderful notes of historical context) back in the 1980's. I've tried for years to get a printed copy and can never find one. I'm interested in working with a publisher to reprint his (their) book so others can enjoy it. Please reach out if you might be interested in helping me with this--I'll happily pay all costs. Jeffbrooke@gmail.com. I live in DC. If you have an Ancestry account we can connect on that as well.
ReplyDeleteA few years ago, I found Ben's grave--a little family cemetery in Sandwich in the middle of the woods. His wife and dad are next to him. I was amazed to see that someone maintains a plaque next to his grave, and small American flag, that designates him as Revolutionary War patriot.