Many Trees online have Sherebiah’s wife as Lydia Hopkins. I disagree with this because I could not find one Lydia Hopkins in the correct time frame. I found four women named Lydia Hopkins in the proper time born in the 1720s to mid-1730s. There are other girls named Lydia Hopkins that died young. The following four are ones who lived to adulthood.
- Lydia b. 1727-d. 1790 d/o Nathan & Lydia Hopkins. She married Elijah Bragdon
- Lydia b. 1732 –d. 1816 d/o Stephen & Sarah Scott Hopkins. She married Thomas Collins
- Lydia b. 1737-1826 d/o Benjamin & Hannah Wilson Hopkins. She married Israel Towns
- Lydia b. 1737-d. 1793 d/o Stephen & Mary Hopkins. She married Daniel Tillinghast
Each of these women was married and having children with the above-mentioned husbands at the same time that Sherebiah and his wife Lydia were having their children in Pownalboro /Wiscasset, Maine. Their children were born between 1750 and 1762.
The last two Lydia’s both born about 1737 would have been only 13 at the time of birth of their first child. This was not as likely in New England as general society disapproved of early marriage. Being married in your early twenties was more the norm.
There is no record of these couples being divorced. The first two are listed as the widows of the respected husbands.
I think that Lydia is a red herring. Some people believe that Sherebiah’s stepmother, Abigail Uran, was Lydia’s mother. But there is a problem with this line of thinking. There is an Abigail Uran who married a William Hodgeson, not Hopkins. William and Abigail had two children, Abigail in 1750 and a son Daniel in 1757. This is the same time that Sherebiah & Lydia started their family.
Who do I think is Sherebiah’s wife? After researching these women named Lydia for roughly two years looking for Sherebiah’s wife I narrowed my search to one woman I feel the most likely Lydia to be married to Sherebiah, this is Lydia Greenleaf.
This Lydia was born in 1722 in York, Maine. Sherebiah was born in 1728 also in York, Maine. York being a small town it is possible that they knew one another. Like the Lamberts who moved out of York to move farther Downeast, so did Lydia’s parents Stephen and Mary Macrease Greenleaf. They moved to the Georgetown and Woolwich area on the Downeast coast of Maine.
One of Lydia’s brothers lived just south of Wiscasset. There is a greater chance that Lydia Greenleaf is married to Sherebiah given the fact the families would have known each other and had similar backgrounds. Most people married within their known circle of friends and family.
