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Elizabeth's signature from Peter Niles's probate file (top) and Samuel Vinton's (bottom)

Elizabeth was born in Woburn, Massachusetts Bay, and lived most of her life in what is now the town of Randolph, Massachusetts. This was the South Parish of Braintree, which became Randolph in 1793. The family home was evidently a large and typical prosperous gentleman farmer's house. Her mother's dower division in 1756 refers to the lean-to section of the house with the ovens.1 This very likely means it was in the salt-box style, which is two stories with a sloping roof in the back to the first story. This house, either on North Street or South Main Street in Randolph, no longer exists.
     Elizabeth married Peter Niles and had a daughter Elizabeth by him. He died the same year she was born and Elizabeth then married Joseph Man. She petitioned the probate court to be relieved of adminstering Peter Niles's estate because she was "labouring under an impediment," and requested her father take her place.2 This surely was because she had a newborn baby to take care of. The estate was settled by 1754 with the exception of formalizing Elizabeth's dower, which didn't take place until 1763. She was given the east half of the house, the west part of the barn and the half-acre under them on the south side of what is now Liberty Street and twenty four acres on the north side, "being all the land of the deceased not sold." The other halves of the house and barn aren't mentioned, but they must have gone to her daughter Elizabeth, the only other legal heir.
     In the 1756 division of her father's estate, Joseph and Elizabeth Man were named as heirs, and they were given nine and a half acres of the homestead land. This was the last time Joseph was included in any extant real estate transactions and agreements involving the Vinton estate. Seth Turner, Elizabeth's brother-in-law, eventually bought the shares of all these heirs, inlcuding the Mans, although the deed for the latter apparently wasn't recorded.
     There were difficult circumstances in Elizabeth's life, but records only hint at them. On 23 July 1765, Seth Turner, "in consideration of the love & affection I have for my sister Elizabeth Man of Brantree...the wife of Joseph Man...as also her low indigent circumstances as may probably reduce her to straits hereafter and other considerations me hereunto moving have out of mere good will and pleasure," gave to her and her heirs (but no mention of Joseph) nine acres of land and half a dwelling house and half a barn bounded on the east on the "road leading to Bridgewater," north partly on a "cross road leading from the abovementioned road to another road leading by or through blew hills to Boston."3 The halves of the house and barn were those given to Seth and Rebecca Turner out of the Vinton estate. The other halves were part of Rebecca's mother's dower. The nine acres of land hasn't been placed, but the boundary description puts it on the west side of North Street and below one of the streets that runs west to North Main Street. When the dower of Elizabeth and Rebecca's mother, Elizabeth (French) Vinton, was divided by an agreement among the heirs in 1770, the Turners were given the remainimg halves of the house and barn and Elizabeth (Vinton) Man got the four acres underneath them.4 As in the 1765 Turner deed, Elizabeth was the grantee with no mention of Joseph. Seth and Rebecca Turner were named as co-recepients in this agreement, making the absence of Joseph Man's name notable. Under normal circumstances, Joseph and Elizabeth would likely have gotten the house and barn halves, to go with their own halves, and the four acres, giving them full ownership of the home lot. The Turners were given land out of the dower, so they were otherwise compensated in the agreement.
     There is no clear record of Joseph Man ever having his own house or homestead farm. It's possible that when he married Elizabeth, they set up their household, which included Elizabeth Niles, Jr., at the Niles homestead. Widow Elizabeth (French) Vinton surely stayed in her house after her husband died, having half the house and barn and the four acres below them in her dower. It isn't obvious why the Turners gave Elizabeth (Vinton) Man their half interest in the house and barn in 1765 unless there was some reason to believe the Mans might not continue to live in the Niles house. While the Niles house may have burned or had to be torn down, a later deed seems to mention it. It's also possible that they rented the Niles house after 1765 and moved into the Vinton house with widow Vinton. The Vinton heirs furthered the Man connection to the Vinton homestead by giving Elizabeth the four acres of land, but not complete control of the house and barn. There were no deeds found to show what happened to the Turner or Man shares in the Vinton house and land, making it difficult to trace forward and place in Randolph.
     Joseph Man would be the expected support for Elizabeth and the children, so for her to be in "low, indigent circumstances," there must have been some sort of deficiency in Joseph. His pointed exclusion from the Turner grant and the division of Elizabeth (French) Vinton's estate support this. His nephew Joseph Turner told the compiler of the Mann Memorial genealogy that he was "lame" from a cut on the knee when he enlisted in the Revolutionary War,5 but this was only a physical difficulty. This suggests a more complicated situation in which he couldn't be trusted to manage his and Elizabeth's affairs. The Turners taking specific control of half the house and barn when Elizabeth could have been given the whole may have been to protect her from Joseph's inability, whatever it may have been.
     The 1790 census shows that Joseph had, aside from himself, three woman in his household.6 One must have been Elizabeth, and the others may have been her sister Hannah Littlefield and her daughter. Joseph, Sr. and Jr., are bracketed in the enumeration, meaning they lived in the same house but had separate households. His son, referred to as Joseph, Jr., bought land on 1 December 1788.7 He sold it on 28 December 1797 without the suffix, inferring his father died by then.8 Elizabeth was alive in 1800, but she isn't enumerated as a householder, nor is she with Joseph, Jr., or Hannah Littlefield, both of whom have separate listings in Randolph in that census. The ancestry.com index for Joseph's household says there were three women over 45, but this is a misinterpretation of the census image.9
     John Turner also said that Elizabeth was a "tailoress" and "extremely deaf."10 That she was a tailoress is of broader interest. There are deeds involving women in Randolph, including some of her descendants, that use this term. It was very unusual to name a woman's occupation in deeds. That they were all tailoresses only adds to the mystery. When Joseph Man, Jr., petitioned the court to appoint a guardian for her, he said she was infirm and deaf from age and "that I desire that the sharpers [con artists] may not deprive her of her interest and living."11 An addendum mentions her having twenty acres of land, which is why a formal request for guardianship was made. There isn't a record of a guardian appointed, if any. The land was divided into shares among her children.
     Of the original twenty four acres of Niles dower land, there were only twenty when Elizabeth died, if the 1804 court petition is correct. What happened to this land among her heirs is extremely confusing, involving inconsistent court records and contradictory and vague deeds. What can be gleaned from the deeds is that her grandson Jason Holbrook ended up with all of her dower property. Deed boundary descriptions are consistent enough to put the property lengthwise on the south side of what is now Liberty Street and widthwise on what is now North Street. Peter Niles may have inherited his homestead from his father John Niles, who is said to have lived at the end of what is now Liberty Street across from the cemetery.12 Jason Holbrook is said to have had his house near or on the same site. This is confirmed by the 1856 Walling map of Norfolk County, which shows "J. Holbrook" as the owner of several buildings on the south side of Liberty just west of North Street.
     The fate of the house, barn and half acre of land also given to Elizabeth in her dower is also obscured by poor records. In June 1819, Ichabod and Elizabeth sold to their son Jason a house that he had already built on a quarter acre of dower land. However, the previous month Ruth (Man) Holbrook and her husband Nathaniel sold Jason their right to a house there with the quarter acre of land. They wouldn't have had an interest in the house Jason built, so this suggests the Niles house was still standing in May 1819, was then torn down and a new house built by Jason immediately after. This seems unlikely, but there isn't any other evidence to go by. It's possible that Jason's house was somehow considered joint property, which would allow the Niles house to have been gone by 1819, possibly in 1765. This quarter acre must have been a part of the original half acre on which the house and barn stood when Peter Niles died. As mentioned above, Jason lived here, and an early 19th century house still standing on the same spot as one of the "J. Holbrook" buildings on the map, was surely his.
     Despite whatever hardships she had in life, she lived to be 94. The Randolph Congregational Church has the only record of her death. She and Joseph were undoubtedly buried in Central Cemetery. Their poverty explains why there are no gravestones for them.

child of Elizabeth Vinton and Peter Niles:

i. Elizabeth, b. abt. April 1752,13 bap. 11 November 175314

children of Joseph Man and Elizabeth Vinton:15

ii. Phebe b. abt. 175416
iii. Ruth, b. 9 March 1756
iv. Hannah, abt. 175817
v. Joseph, b. 22 June 1760

vital records sources: Her birth is in Vital records of Woburn, MA., Births, Deaths, and Marriages From 1640 to 1873, vol. 1 (Boston: 1891), 266. Her death is in the records of the Randolph Congregational Church, vol. 3, widow, age 94.

1. Suffolk Co., MA, probate case 11313.
2. 28 May 1752, Suffolk Co., MA, probate case 10056.
3. Suffolk Co., MA, deed 105:5.
4. Ibid, 117:7.
5. Mann, George S., Mann Memorial. a Record of the Mann Family in America (Boston: 1884), 76.
6. Joseph Man and Joseph Man, Jr., households, 1790 US Federal census, Massachusetts, Suffolk, Braintree, NARA microfilm publication M637, roll 4, p. 94.
7. Suffolk Co., MA, deed 167:127
8. Norfolk Co., MA, deed 8:42.
9. Joseph Man household, 1800 US Federal census, Massachusetts, Norfolk, Randolph, NARA microfilm publication M32, roll 18, p. 126.
10. Vinton, John Adams, Vinton Memorial [hereafter VM] (Boston: 1858), 53.
11. Norfolk Co. probate file #12814.
12. Beal, John V., Randolph's Centennial Celebration (Randolph, MA: 1897), 19.
13. Suffolk Co., MA, guardianship file 10521, age abt. 16 months.
14. "Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988," ancestry.com database online (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011), Randolph, "Church Records, with Births, Marriages and Deaths," image 381. Called daughter-in-law of Joseph Man.
15. Briantree Records, 850.
16.m. intentions to John Sloan, 28 November 1778 (p. 881), m. Noah Whitcomb, intentions 20 October 1788, m. Stoughton 3 Mar 1789 (p. 861). Phebe Whitcomb, Alexandria, NH, 1830, alone 70-79.
17. m. 1. Moses Littlefield, Jr., 3 April 1777 (p. 880) he was bap. 12 Oct 1755, Randolph, she was very likely born after him, as was the norm. She m. 2. Ezekiel Reed, intentions 17 October 1807, Bridgwater, Hannah Littlefield of Randolph Bridgewater, Births, Marriages and Death, image 458, in Randolph, intentions entered 10 Oct, Randolph, Births, Marriages and Death, image 16. 1830 census, probably the 70-80 year old woman in Ezekiel Reed, Jr.'s, household.