Nathaniel Ayers, blacksmith, and wife Amy Cowell Ferber Ayers

There have been several of my ancestors who were blacksmiths.  As a person who also works with my hands as a craftsman, I think this is the best of our perhaps inherited talents...as well as having children to pass them along.

Nathaniel's wife was Amy Cowell Ferber Ayers...she had first married Jethro Ferber and had one son.  But after the death of Jethro, she married Nathaniel.  He was part of her inventory and administration of the probate for her first husband in 1686.

Nathaniel and Amy had 2 children, Capt. Edward Ayers and Amy Ayers Swasey.  Amy Swasey became my great times six grandmother.

Amy Cowell Ayers had been born in New Hampshire...the daughter of Agnes Harvey and Edward Cowell, Sr.  He has an interesting story attached to his life, also in battle with Indians.  But I think it is also likely that his son, Edward Jr. was the one told about in the story.  I'll share it with you and you can figure it out...tomorrow.

Back to the life of Nathaniel Ayers and Amy his wife.  Living in Portsmouth NH in early settlement days, they were active in establishing this port town.  This was Amy's home town, while Nathaniel had been born in Ipswich, moved to the ill-fated town of Quaboag, then lived in Ipswich with his mother's family probably...until he married at age 22 to the widow Amy Cowell Ferber who had a 4 year old son...and property from her father.

When Amy's father died, in 1677,  the probate court of New Hampshire (May 1682) gave her and her first husband, Jethro Ferber guardianship of her little brother, Samuel, who was just 9 in 1677. They were to educate him and clothe him until he was 14 years old.  Remember all the troubles with the Massachusetts courts which Nathaniel's mother, widow of Nathaniel's father, encountered after he died in Quaboag in 1675 (see posts of last 2 days here.)

Jethro Ferber died in 1682, and Amy had married Nathaniel Ayers by 1686 the year of the probate of Ferber's estate.   Nathaniel and Amy's first child was born in 1684, so I wonder if there was also a marriage that took place before the record that is posted at Ancestry.  He was definitely her husband when the courts in 1686 had Ferber's probate settled, as he is listed as such in the record.

I am not sure how he ended up being buried in Boston, in 1731, near his 2 brothers' graves.  His wife Amy died 5 years later in Portsmouth, NH.

Birth: Jun., 1664 Death: Dec. 4, 1731 Inscription: Here lyes buried ye body of Mr Nathanie Ayres aged 67 years & 6 mo dec'd December ye 4th 1731 Burial: Copps Hill Burying Ground, Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts

Nathaniel Ayers - Birth: Jun., 1664 Death: Dec. 4, 1731   Parents: John Ayres (____ - 1675) Susanna Symonds Ayres (____ - 1683)  Siblings: John Ayres (1648 - 1711) Samuel Ayres (1657 - 1713) wife: Amy Cowell Ayers (1657-1736)