John Adams - Mary Pedrick Family Group

What We Know About This Family

An Overview of Their Lives

John Adams was a Revolutionary War patriot and was born in Marblehead, although the date is uncertain and his parentage unknown. One Daughters of the American Revolution record gave his year of birth as 1730. That same source gave his date of death as 1780, which we know is incorrect. (He was on the Schooner Yarico in 1801 and his estate was probated in 1804). The 1830 birth date is not inconsistent with his marriage to Mary Pedrick in 1751. Mary came from a large family of mariners. They had seven children in the years before the Revolution, the last being born in 1775. In 1776, John Adams owned a house on State Street, and he ran a store inside. The structure still stands today, and a photo appears in the Documents section.

John Adams was a seaman on the brig "Fancy" that was captured on 7 Aug 1777 by the British and confined in the Old Mill Prison in England. He appears on the log of prisoners at the prison near Plymouth on 7 Feb 1779. From the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, April, 1878.)

They were committed on the charge of high treason, to await trial, and could only be released on receiving the King's pardon. Two members of the Dalton's crew, Charles Herbert and Samuel Cutler, kept journals in prison. Cutler says the ration "is 3/4 lb. beef, 1 lb. bread, 1 qt. very ordinary beer, and a few greens per man for 24 hours. The beef when boiled weighs about 6 oz. This is our allowance daily, except Saturday, when we have 6 oz. cheese instead of the beef. To sleep upon, we have a hammock, straw bed and one very thin rug . . . We are allowed every day to walk in the airing ground from 10 to 12, then locked in till 3 o'clock, then we are let out again till 7 o'clock, then in and locked up for the night."

Jonathan Archer wrote to his parents from Mill Prison, September 25, 1778:

"The time seems long and teadious to me; I shall embrace every opportunity of writing. We have plenty of provisions; the gentlemen have raised a large sum of money for the relief of the Americans." (Essex Inst. Coll., June, 1864.) Letters of (Benjamin) Franklin to correspondents in England also did much to excite interest in the prisoners (Wharton, ii, 409, 410, 448, 492.) When the money that had been raised for their benefit had become exhausted, about the end of 1778, the old conditions returned. The prisoners hunted for rats, and if a dog strayed in, he was immediately killed and eaten. To be put upon half allowance, as many frequently were for punishment, was to be reduced nearly to the last extremity. Nevertheless, the health of the prisoners as a rule was good, and the death rate, at least for the first two years, compared with that of the New York prison-ships, was very low.

Ninety-seven of the prisoners at Old Mill were released on 15 Mar 1779. Of the 56 men taken from the Fancy, two died and eleven escaped, but none of them agreed to join British ships to fight against their countrymen. I don't know whether John Adams was part of that first release or when he arrived home. After he did, we can assume he continued his fishing activities and the store as he and Mary saw their five surviving children grow up, marry, and have families of their own. In 1795, they purchased a new house on the same street as the other building with the store. He was still fishing in 1801. His estate was probated in 1804. The real estate was appraised but named in such a way that I was unable to determine where the building with the store went. After his death, the store was continued by his daughters Mary Adams Salkins and Meriam Adams. Mary owned real estate listed in her will, but I don't know if that was the house with the store. When Mary died in 1830, she left the use of her real estate to Meriam, who continued the store until her own death in 1842. Their mother Mary Pedrick Adams died in 1808 as did Mary's husband Thomas. Although John Adams died intestate, the probate was written to identify his surviving children or their heirs by name. Elizabeth Adams Martin was named as "the late," and her share of the estate went to her heirs.

About the Children

• Mary Adams married Revolutionary War patriot Thomas Furness Salkins, who was designated a fisherman in his probate administration. Their lives were filled with tragedy starting with the death of their first-born child at two weeks of age. Their first son named George and their son Nathaniel both died at six months of age, and they had a stillborn infant. Their second daughter named Mary died at age 18 of consumption. Their sons George and John were both lost at sea a year apart, and their son Thomas died two months short of his 35th birthday. Thomas, Sr. himself died of a "lingering illness" at 56. Mary lived until she was 75 having buried all of her children. There is a baptismal record for a second Nathaniel Salkins the year following the death of the first. I was not able to find any other information for him, nor is he mentioned in her will. It's possible the record was a duplicate, one of them having an incorrect date. All their children were buried at Marblehead's Old Burial Hill except for him. Mary and her sister Meriam ran the store that their father started in 1776. Mary died with a will and left everything to her "faithful friend and beloved sister Meriam Adams." At Meriam's decease, what remained was bequeathed 1/4 each to 1) her daughter-in-law Martha Hammond (wife of her deceased son John); 2) the heirs of her bother John Adams; 3) the heirs of her brother Nathaniel Adams; and 4) the heirs of her sister Elizabeth Martin. She had outlived all of her siblings but Meriam as well as all her children.


• John Adams, shoreman, and his wife Sarah Reed had six children. Their son John and his wife Elizabeth Conway had several children as did his sister Sally and her husband John Sparhawk. Their first born died a captive in Dartmoor Prison in England, and their sons Samuel Reed Adams and Nathaniel Gorden were both lost at sea.


• Elizabeth Adams married Captain Thomas Martin. They are our direct ancestors and have their own family group page, They had six children, the last of whom was Martha, who married Joseph Harris. Martha's death record indicates that her parents were Thomas and Elizabeth Salkins. Mary Adams Salkins was Martha's maternal aunt (Elizabeth's sister older by 13 years). It's impossible for us to know why this record was recorded as Thomas and Elizabeth Salkins rather than Thomas and Elizabeth Martin. It was obviously an error. I suspect whoever wrote he entry might have been familiar with their relationship. Martha was born in 1799, and her mother died sometime between then and five years later when when John Adams died. Martha would have been very young. It's quite possible her aunt Mary was a major caretaker in her life after her mother's death. The Captain remarried a woman Hannah named in his will who outlived him by 20 years. She left a will that defined relationships of many of her deceased husband's children and grandchildren.


• Meriam remained single and was also the longest lived of her siblings. She and her sister Mary continued running the shop after their father's death. Mary suffered the loss of all her children and her husband at a fairly young age. She left everything to Meriam, "her faithful friend and beloved sister." Reading between the lines, we can see how close the two must have been.


• Nathaniel Pedrick was a seaman of some kind, and he and his wife had several children, some of whom died young. Nathaniel Pedrick, Jr. died of typhus after he married. I haven't found records for most of the others. Nathaniel Sr. himself died of consumption in his early 50s. His widow Susanna died at 76 in the poorhouse, and that leads me to believe she may have outlived all their children.


• Richard Pedrick did not generate any records after his baptism and was not mentioned in his father's will, so I have to conclude he died young.

Proof of Relationship

The baptismal records and the wills are our best proof of relationship.

What Else We Need to Learn

The goal of this project is to trace every line of ancestry to the arrival of its first immigrant to America. The basic information of each couple is considered complete when we know the dates of birth, marriage, and death for both spouses. their parents' names (or whether they were the immigrant), and the child or children in our ancestry line.

The research on this family is incomplete until we learn the parentage of John Adams.