Of all the families in my tree, the Woolstons of Burlington County, New Jersey, are the one I have had to rebuild most completely this year. Earlier posts on this blog — my 2007 birthday post for Caroline Bishop Woolston, the 2009 Wordless Wednesday photo of her, my 2006 post for Lettice Woolston — were written from the compiled version of this family that I had carried for years. This fall I read the two wills that govern the family, John's (1838) and his widow Beulah's (1854), along with the Burlington County death register, Orphans Court records, and the wills of the preceding generation. The compiled version does not survive the records. Here is the family as the documents give it.
Eleven children, not nine
My database long showed John Woolston (1766–1838) and his wife Beulah with nine children. The wills prove eleven — four sons and seven daughters — and the nine-child set I had matches neither John's will nor Beulah's. The sons: Abel B. (1797–1834), my ancestor; Thomas B. (born about 1804); John B. (born about 1818); and Joseph, who died by 1852 and was previously unknown to me entirely — he married Martha Joyce in 1839 and left a daughter, Matilda, who married William I. Budd. The daughters: Rebecca (Rogers), Lydia (Eayre), Eliza Ann (Wilkins), Beulah Ann (Scattergood), Lettice (Lippincott), Hannah A. (Coles), and Rachel (Merritt). Several of the daughters' death records name their parents outright — "J Woolston" and "B Woolston" — which is about as direct as evidence gets.
Beulah's name is Briggs — proven
For years Beulah's maiden name floated in trees as "Bishop," "Briggs," or nothing. It is Briggs, and it is proven twice over: her 1854 Burlington County death register entry names her parents, and an 1814 Orphans Court citation identifies her in her father's family. She was a daughter of Abel Briggs, a Northampton Township farmer with about 200 acres, and his wife Lettice — born, herself, a Woolston. Abel died intestate in 1787; his estate was insolvent, and 80 acres were sold by court order in 1792 to pay his debts. The "Bishop" surname sometimes attached to Beulah (and to her granddaughter Caroline, below) has no support on either the Woolston or the Briggs side — it is contradicted.
The will fight of 1854
Beulah outlived John by sixteen years and made her own will — and two of her sons fought it. On 6 May 1854, Thomas B. and John B. Woolston filed a caveat against their mother's will, a bare protest with no stated grounds. The caveat was admitted, and that September Thomas B. took administration of the estate himself, with the will annexed. The records don't tell us what the brothers objected to. But it is Beulah's will, caveat and all, that names her children and her son Abel's children — and closes questions this family has carried for generations.
Caroline, settled at last
Beulah's granddaughter Caroline (1826–1879), who married Dr. Ezekiel Cooper Chew in 1842, appears in most trees — mine included — as "Caroline Bishop Woolston," and the Bishop was often treated as her birth name. Her sister Sarah H. Woolston's 1879 will settles it: Caroline was born a Woolston, Abel's daughter. The "Bishop" middle name is real, but it came through her mother's Haines family — her great-aunt Rachel Haines married Japheth Bishop in Burlington in 1804. Caroline's mother, Rachel (Woolston) Woolston — Abel's wife was herself a Woolston by birth — was probably a daughter of Samuel Woolston and Hannah Haines, though that link is still graded probable, not proven.
A Woolston married a Woolston — and there were two lines
Beulah's mother Lettice was a Woolston who married Abel Briggs in 1773, and Lettice's own parentage is now proven: she was a daughter of Samuel Woolston of Northampton Township, whose 1773 will names "Daughter, Lettis Briggs, £15." Samuel belonged to one of two distinct Northampton Township Woolston lines — his (Samuel Sr. and Susannah's) is the one I descend from. The other line, John (1686–1753) and Hannah's, produced Jacob, Melentus, Cornwell, and Newbold Woolston. Untangling which line a given Woolston belongs to has been the quiet work under all of this.
What is still open
One question survives the wills: John Woolston's own parentage. Cornwell, William, and Samuel (d. 1773) have been ruled out as his father; Jacob (d. 1799, intestate), Melentus, and Newbold remain open. One tantalizing record: a "John Woolston Jr." signed a petition on 20 January 1794 — which implies an elder John Woolston was living in 1794. Small conflicts also remain, and I'm leaving them visible rather than tidying them away: Beulah's death appears as both 29 April and 2 May 1854 in the records, and Lettice's birth year (about 1750) is an estimate. This family's WikiTree profiles now carry the corrected children, Beulah's proven name, and the research notes behind every claim.
Sources: Will of John Woolston (1838) and will of Beulah Woolston (1854), Burlington County, New Jersey; Burlington County death register, 1854; Orphans Court citation, 1814; will of Samuel Woolston (1773); will of Sarah H. Woolston (1879). Verdicts follow my research grades: proven, probable, possible, unproven, contradicted.
