John Colby

  General Notes:

per Gen of Leslie Nutbrown.
Per Alice Colby Volkert and passed to me Oct 2000 via e-mail:
"John got captured while fighting the Franch and Indian War and was taken to Quebec where he' made good' and married Marie LaMarie. He finally was released and returned home (with the "French woman"). They had more children after their arrival in NH: John, Peter and Mary/Polly. Then after she died or ran back to Quebec. John then married to Elizabeth and had Christopher, Reuben and Elizabeth. I understand that the first child, Jean Baptiste, went with his mother back to Quebec."could also have married a Hannah Simonds
His will was proved June 26,1798.

The following copied in part from paper of Roger Lawrence of the Canadian-American Genealogical Ass'n of Manchester, NH

John Colby of Sandown NH enlisted at age 23 in 1775 as a soldier in Jacob Bayley's (of Hopkinton ) Co. He was sent to Fort Dummer for sentry duty. A letter dated 20 Jun 1755 to his father, Peter Colby, said he was in good
health and well. On Jun 22 he and 6 others left the fort to cut timbers for the stockade wall. About a 1/3 mile from the fort, 3 soldiers cut wood while the others keep guard. A sudden Iindian attack led to the death of one soldier, and the capture of John Colby. He was taken to the Abenaki village of St Francois du Lac, to which he walked barefooted. He somehow paid a ransom of 300 Livers to the Indians and was freed in Montreal, but held there until the British victory in 1760.

Coleman's book says that John was taken captive and that his first wife was a French woman.

Fortnier says that John was held at St Regis, Called Akwasasne for several years and that he was baptised there as Jean Baptiste.

On Jun 29 Oct 1759 with dispensations of two banns in Notre Dame de Montreal Jean Colby, a 26 year old native of Newton NH, Married Marie Josephe Lamare the 26 year old daughter of Jean Lamare and Francoise Jolivet. Her father was present at the wedding, but her mother was deceased. The witnesses were Jean Louis Menard and Joseph Denis. Jean Colby is said to be the son of Pierre Colby and Maria Straw in the marriage register. In the Tanguay record no children are listed but a child of the couple, Jean Baptiste, was baptisted 19 Sep 1760 at Chateauguay P Q. The couple went to New Hampshire in Oct 1760 after the fall of Canada to the British. More children were born to them in Sandown NH, and baptised in the local protestant church. John was able to get
the soldiers wages for 5 years in Canada .

Marie-Joseph Lamare died betwen 1765 and 1768 in Sandown NH or did she return to Canada?, and that is where her son John had gone with his mother and still was, when his father made his will.

John Colby Sr. could have remarried even with his Canadian wife still alive if the local minister considered the Catholic marriage invalid or if she had been gone 5 years and declared dead.

  Events

• Alt. Birth: Alt. Birth, 20 Feb 1733.

John married Marie-Joseph LaMare on 29 Oct 1759 in Montreal, Quebec Province, Canada. (Marie-Joseph LaMare was born on 15 Jan 1733 in Quebec, Canada and died in 1765 in Sandown, Rockingham County, New Hampshire.)

John next married Elizabeth Hodgin in 1767 in Massachusetts. (Elizabeth Hodgin was born on 31 May 1732 in Maucoupin, IL and died in 1778.)