Samuel Manning

Samuel Manning, son of William Manning of Cambridge, was born on July 21, 1644. On November 9, 1662 he bought the grant of the late Thomas Hubbard; the house lot lay west of Long Street, north of Patterson's, near what was later the Pillsbury place, and Hubbard's lot in the great common field south of Fox Hill passed to him as well.

On April 13, 1664 he married Elizabeth Stearns, a sister of the elder John Stearns; another sister married Isaac Learned, one of the purchasers of the Dudley Farm. Elizabeth died on June 24, 1671, and on May 6, 1673 he married Abiall Wight of Medfield. He had a large family. His son Ephraim married Mary, daughter of Joseph Tompson, in 1710, and his daughter Sarah married Samuel Robinson of Cambridge; her son Samuel Robinson became a captain in the French war and one of the pioneer settlers of Bennington, Vermont.

Manning was one of the working officers of the young town. In November 1676, when John Durrant's family was "in an afflicted condition," the town ordered "Samuel Manning to see to their necessityes & relieve their extremities, so farr as he can obtain anything suitable of the neighbours." He was a selectman in 1673, 1677 to 1679, 1682 to 1690, 1692 to 1694, 1696 and 1699, and in March 1677-8 he signed, with Jonathan Danforth and Joseph Tompson, the selectmen's reply to Cambridge about running the bounds between the towns. In November 1680 the town granted him six acres of swamp on condition that he build "a good and sufficient Damm or Damms, to drowne that swamp commonly called the mill swamp," raising the water "one foot higher than at present." He followed Danforth as town clerk, keeping the records from 1686 to 1690 and again in 1692 and 1699, and he represented Billerica in the General Court in 1695 and 1696. John Farmer's memoir of 1816 sums up his service: selectman nine years and town clerk six.

Ensign Manning died on February 22, 1710-11. His gravestone in the Old South Cemetery gives his age as 67.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 93, MANNING family #1 (birth, Hubbard grant, offices, marriages, death, children)
2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 94, MANNING #5 (son Ephraim married Mary Tompson)
3. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 27, First Settlers (Samuel Manning's wife Elizabeth, sister of John Stearns)
4. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 37, Land Distribution (Thomas Hubbard's lot passed to Samuel Manning)
5. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 189, Gleanings from the Records (relief of John Durrant's family, 1676)
6. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 192, Gleanings (selectmen's letter to Cambridge, 1677-8, signed by Manning)
7. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 195, Gleanings (mill swamp grant to Samuel Manning, 1680)
8. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 305, list of selectmen
9. Farmer, Historical Memoir of Billerica (1816), p. 5 (Samuel Manning: selectman nine and town clerk six years, deputy 1695-96, died Feb. 22, 1711)
10. Vital Records of Billerica to 1850 (1908), deaths p. 377 (Ens. Samuel Manning, Feb. 22, 1710-11, gravestone a. 67)