vitals sources
go to
Elizabeth Edwards's page
A tax record in Beverly dated 5 February 1760 provides an interesting clue about his childhood.(1) Capt. Robert Haskell had part of his 1759 taxes abated with the explanation that Nathaniel Haskell had moved to Manchester the previous March. Families paid a poll tax on the adult men in their household, so it is likely that Nathaniel was living with him. However, he was only 19 for the better part of 1759. Circumstantial evidence indicates that Nathaniel's father died about 1746. Capt. Robert was surely Nathaniel's grandfather, who certainly had the financial means to keep his three grandsons. Why Nathaniel was moving back to Manchester (Capt. Robert lived in Beverly) is hard to determine, given that he was only 18 the previous year. No other Nathaniel could fit in this scenario. The record continues to be cryptic in saying that "half of poll of Haskell he being a crippell." Perhaps this is a reference to Robert, who was about 67. This is all the more plausible given that Nathaniel and his brother Benjamin were privates in Capt. Andrew Marsters' company of Minutemen in the Revolution, mustered at Medford, which marched to Concord 19 April 1775 when the alarm of the battle there went out.(2) They were out three days and returned when the British retreated. They probably didn't engage with the enemy, however. He also served for 4 weeks of billeting (perhaps a description of a record of soldiers' quartering) while in Capt. Joseph Whipple's company, raised in defense of the Massachusetts coast. They received payment on 27 September 1775. Andrew Marsters may have been his uncle. Ten years earlier he was chosen to serve on an inferior court jury.(3) He served the Town of Manchester as a hogreave with (his brother?) Benjamin on 7 March 1774,(4) further suggesting he wasn't disabled, but it was possible for men to serve in the Army and to function relatively normally with certain disabilities that would have been considered "crippling" at that time. He and his family apparently moved back to Beverly, MA, between March and September of 1774 since Nathaniel, Jr.'s, birth is recorded in Beverly, while all previous children were recorded at Manchester. Nathaniel, Jr., was baptized in Manchester, suggesting the family hadn't yet transferred their membership yet to the Beverly church. Muster roles for his service in the war don't specify his hometown, but another tax record in Beverly says that he was abated his "soldier tax" for 1777, "he Being in the Continental Army."(5) He had also been overtaxed 12 shillings for his personal estate by mistake. He died of dropsy, which is "an acute condition of fluidal swelling at the connective tissues."(7) He and Elizabeth are buried in Hale St. Cemetery, Beverly. Their stones, carved by the shop of Benjamin Day of Lowell, were ordered at the same time and paid for (cost 27.68 lbs for "two pairs," indicating head and footstones) in January 1818, which is apparently recorded in Nathaniel's probate file (not yet seen, vol. 392, p. 209).
children of Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Edwards) Haskell:
i. Elizabeth b. 30 November 1765 (Manchester)
ii. Hannah b. 1 January 1768 (Manchester)
iii. Anna b. 23 August 1770 (Manchester)
iv. Lydia b. 14 September 1772 (Manchester)
v. Nathaniel b. 26 September 1774 (Beverly), bap. 2 October 1774 (Manchester)
vi. Daniel b. 26 March 1777, bap. 30 March 1777 (Beverly?)
vii. Samuel b. 15 June 1779, bap. 20 June 1779 (Beverly?)
viii. Joseph bap. 20 June 1779 (Beverly?), bur. 12 Oct 1779
ix. Abigail bap. 10 October 1784 (Beverly?)
vital records sources: Nathaniel's birth and marriage dates come from the Manchester vital records. His death date comes from both his gravestone and a record from the First Parish Unitarian Church in Beverly.
1. Beverly, MA, town records, 5 February 1760.
2. Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the Revolutionary War.
3. Manchester, MA, town records.
4. Ibid.
5. Beverly, MA, town records, 14 May 1778.
6. Essex County probate file #12800.
7. First Parish Unitarian Church record.
all text and photographs © 1998-2005 by Doug Sinclair unless where otherwise noted