[Brøderbund WFT Vol. 11, Ed. 1, Tree #2155, Date of Import: 17 Nov 1998]


Mary Bronson was a seventeenth century teen-ager when she accompanied her older brothers, John and Richard Bronson to Hartford, and there she became almost but not quite a juvenile delinquent. Probably her brothers and her sisters-in-law were unable to control her.

Four boys, John Olmstead, Jonathan Rudd, John Pierce and Nicholas Olmstead, got into grave trouble for what must have been strenuous petting with Mary, but there is no mention of fornication in the court records, as there certainly would have been in so strait-laced a community as Hartford if the town authorities suspected it had occurred. Instead, the phrases used by the court were "wanton dalliances, lacivious Caridge & fowle Mysdemenors at sundry times wth Mary Brunson."

Mary and the first three boys were merely "corrected" but Nicholas Olmstead was given a stiff fine and ordered to "stand Uppon the Pyllery at Hartford." All this seems to have happened in the winter of 1639-40 and the early spring of 1640.

Mary Bronson was hastily married off, at Hartford, before Apr 2, 1640 to a safe, substantial and somewhat older man, Nicholas Desborough.

Source:
TAG Oct 1962