Making the Past Present: All in the family.

Eleanor and John Upton spent their lives in the area of Wood Hill in western Danvers along the Ipswich River in Reading.  Their children remained in the area for generations, marrying into nearby families:  Goodell, Phelps, Flint,  Gardner,  Putnam are but a few.

Click on the map for access.  Samuel & William Upton, 109, Quadrant 3

"On the map of Salem Village in 1692, prefixed to Upham's "Salem Witchcraft," the point designated as the probable site of the house of William and Samuel Upton is in fact the site of the old colonial cemetery where many Uptons lie buried.  The house, occupied until 1849 by descendants of the emigrant's son Samuel Upton, and which, there is no reason to doubt, nearly marked the site of his own dwelling, was on the south side of Wood Hill, near the top, and about one-third of a mile from the forks in the Gardner Road.  The Wood Hill estate was situated on or embraced at least part of a low hill anciently known on "the Wood Hill," but now called Upton Hill, in the westerly part of the present town of Peabody, near the Lynnfield and Middleton boundaries, the three towns coming together at a point not far from the farm.  It is one mile south of the Ipswich River, about a mile west of Bald Hill, and not far from the paper mill in Middleton.  Twenty acres added to the west half of it in 1741 brought it to the line of the present town of Lynnfield.  It was in the south-west corner of a part of Salem which was long known as "the Village," "the Farms," or "Salem Village," and which was erected into a parish known as Salem Farms or Salem Village in Oct. 1672.  Danvers, incorporated as a district Jan. 1752, and as a town June 1757, included the Middle Precinct or Third Parish of Salem.  The Middle Precinct was established in 1710, called the South Parish after 1757, became the town of South Danvers in 1855, and changed its name to Peabody in 1868.  A large section of the north-west part of Peabody, including Wood Hill, was part of the original parish of Salem Village."

Mary's grandparents, Ezra and Mehitabel Goodell, kept the tavern farm during the time of the Revolution.  When he died in 1787, Ezra appointed Mehitabel as "adminstratrix"  of the estate and gave it jointly to her and his son, Jesse (Mary Upton Ferrin's father.) 

The joint ownership held even after Mehitabel married Daniel Putnam and, when he passed, married his brother, Joseph - who died in 1818, at about the same time Jesse left for Indiana.  

The tavern was conducted as late as 1819, and probably much later.
Dr. William Bentley, in his Journal, mentions dining there occasionally during the thirty-six years that he resided in Salem. June 2, 1810, (two months after the birth of Mary Upton Ferrin) he wrote: "Our first stop was at Upton's tavern in the point of Danvers between Lynnfield & Reading Precinct. We found the son upon the same spot in which I found the mother 30 years ago."

After Jesse's departure, it seems likely the immediate family remained at the tavern farm with Mehitabel and may have continued to live there after it was sold to David Upton, Ezra's brother.

Jesse Upton died in the winter of 1824, having devised the estate to three of his sons, Eben, Ezra and Jesse Upton - sons from his first marriage to Mary Upton. His will ignores his two sons and three daughters with his second wife, Elizabeth Wyman. The tavern farm, as it is called in the inventory of his estate, was then appraised at twenty-seven hundred dollars.

Mary's grandmother Mehitabel died in 1827. When David Upton died in 1836, the tavern farm remained in the family for another year.

David Upton Sr.'s daughters, Lucy, wife of Daniel Nutting of Gardiner, Me., and Phebe, wife of James W. North of Clinton, Me., released their interest in the estate to their brother, David Upton Jr. of Reading, Mass. He conveyed to his sister Martha's husband, Daniel Brown, Jr., yeoman, and to Daniel P. King, Esq., "a certain farm in Danvers, called the Tavern farm," etc., Dec. 7, 1837. It's a mystery where Mary and Elizabeth lived after the sale of the tavern farm. Mary's mother, Elizabeth, was alive in 1837. She was living in Petersham, Mass. in 1855 and died two years later. She is buried in Blackstone, Mass. Where was 27-year-old Mary living after the sale of the tavern farm in 1837 and before marrying Jesse Ferrin in 1845?

Essex Registry of Deeds, book 302, leaf 97.
Essex Registry of Deeds, book 303, leaf 196.
Essex Registry of Deeds, book 915, leaf 22. Essex Registry of Deeds, book 1158, leaf 122