Archive:NEHGR, Volume 73

Archives > Archive:Extracts > Archive:The New England Historical and Genealogical Register > NEHGR, Volume 73

Davies, Mary Ingraham, "Hon. Prentiss Cummings, B. A., LL. B.," NEHGR, vol. LXXIII (1919), pp. 83-86.

[p. 84]

Nathaniel⁴ Cummings [(Nathaniel³ and Abigail (Parkhurst), John² & Sarah (Howlett), Isaac¹)] of Dunstable, second son of Nathaniel³, was born 8 Sep 1699, Dunstable, Mass., and married Elizabeth Whitney of Stow, Mass. He died before 1760, but his wife seems to have survived him and to have lived to an advanced age. They had nine children.

Their third son and third child was Oliver⁵ Cummings, who was born at Dunstable 10 April 1728, and died there 15 August 1810. He married at Killingly, Conn., Sibyla Whitney, who was born 4 February 1733 and died 16 December 1812, daughter of Israel and Hannah (Learned) of Groton, Mass., and Killingly, Conn. They resided at Dunstable, and had five children. He served with the Massachusetts troops in the Revolutionary War, being captain of the Ninth (West Dunstable) Company in the Seventh (Middlesex County) Regiment, commanded by Col. Simeon Spaulding. His commission was issued 31 May 1776.

His eldest child, Oliver⁶ Cummings, was born at Dunstable 12 July 1757, and died at Sumner, Me., 2 July 1823. He, also, served in the Revolution, being a fifer in the company of which his father was captain and taking part in the Battle of White Plains in 1776. After the War he became one of the first settlers of Sumner, Me., then a wilderness, migrating thither to take up a lot of land assigned either to him or to his father as a Revolutionary soldier. He is said to have felled the first tree cut in that town. After he had begun his clearing he found that he had made a mistake as to his location, and therefore he returned to Dunstable for more information. In the following year he went back to Sumner, made a clearing in another part of the town, and built a log house. As soon as he had a home to offer he married Betsy Bailey, who had been brought up in his father's family. Later he became a well-to-do farmer, and built a house, before 1800, which was standing in 1898. He married secondly, 1 February 1804, Phoebe Churchill, who was born at Plympton, Mass., 18 January 1779, daughter of Joshua and Elizabeth (Bonney), who moved from Plympton to Hartford, Me., in 1800. Joshua Churchill also was a soldier in the Revolution. Oliver Cummings had two children by his first wife and three children by his second wife. . . .

---

Copyright © 1999, 2006, The Whitney Research Group