A great aunt who had a portrait painted by Copley

Mary Sherburne Bowers

1763

Somerset, MA

Painted by John Singleton Copley 

from Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Jan, 1916.

She was married to my 6 times great uncle Jarathmel Bowers (1720-1799). He was ancestor to my grandmother, Ada Swasey Rogers, or rather his sister Mary Bowers was (1719-1823) who married Joseph Swasey (1714-1801).

I'm not going into her parents' names, because it seems the more famous people were, the more different biographies there are. (see 2 below) Her father was probably considered rich and famous in his lifetime, Joseph Sherburne, Esq.  I know he was married 3 times, but am not sure which wife was Mary's mother.

He had a portrait also painted of himself, by John Singleton Copley.  I'll let you make your own opinion of it.

Joseph Sherburne (1710 - 1779)

c. 1768

"The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manhattan, New York, New York, USA

Artist: John Singleton Copeley (1738 - 1815) Medium: Oil on canvas Comment: Joseph Sherburne (1710–1799) was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the son of Mary Lovell and Judge Joseph Sherburne, a man of considerable wealth who served variously as mariner, merchant, selectman, member of the King's Council, and justice of the Supreme Court. The Sherburnes moved to Boston sometime before 1728. The sitter became active in the East India Trade, and later was a successful hardware merchant. Sherburne owned extensive lands in Boston and married three times, first in 1734 to Mary Watson, by whom he had one daughter, Mary. (15.128). Three years later, he married Mary Plaisted of Salem, whose two children both died at an early age".

The above information was published by the Metropolitan Muesum of Art in New York

Another biographer in 1904 wrote:

"He married first, Apr. 4, 1734, Mary, daughter of James Watson, by whom he had one child, Mary; married second, Feb. 2, 1737, Eunice, daughter of William Hubbard, by whom he had no issue ; and married third, Nov. 21, 1750, Mary, daughter of Col. Ichabod Plaisted of Salem, by whom he had Joseph and John, who died young, and Sarah, who married John Hunt, Jr., and died childless, in 1785-6. Mary, his sole surviving child and heir, married, July 7, 1763, Jerathmiel Bowers, the rich Quaker of Somerset, Bristol Co., Mass., whose son John laid out Somerset Street, on Beacon Hill, Boston, partly from the estate of Joseph Sherburne. (See Boston Rec. Com. Report, No. 5, p. 74.)"

Source: "Some descendants of Henry and John Sherburne of Portsmouth, N.H." (1904)