WILLIAM BROWN IDE was born in the town of Rutland, Worcester Co., Mass., March 28, 1796. His ancestry, as far back as tradition has reliably traced it on his father's side, emigrated to this country soon after the landing of the May-Flower at Plymouth -- about the year 1620. The theory has been handed down in one branch of this Ide-family to the present day, that about the year 1630, two brothers, Josiah and Daniel Ide, came to this country from England, settled in Rehoboth, Mass., and that the subject of this memoir is a descendant of one of those brothers. A son of one of them, (Daniel, it is stated), was engaged as an officer in the noted King Phillip war, and took from that Indian chief a small tin cup, which has been handed down as an heir-loom in the several succeeding generations of his family to the year 1874; when Mrs. EUNICE IDE, widow of the late Daniel Ide of Croydon, N. H., deposited it, accompanied with an account of its history, in the archives of the New Hampshire Historical Society.
The present writer refers to the subject of lineage or descent, in this connection more particularly on account of the fact, that we have grounds for claiming those two enterprising emigrants above named (who, about 240 years ago, when New England was, comparatively, a wilderness, planted themselves as Farmers on the then productive soil of the `old Bay State') as the progenitors of the entire race of the name of Ide in this country. There is reason to believe that no one of this name, now inhabiting this `land of the Free and home of the Brave', can produce a well authenticated line of descent from any other ancestry, since the landing of the "pilgrims" in the "May-Flower" in 1620, than from one or the other of these two brothers.*01*
We have wandered somewhat from the subject in hand, presuming that if these memoirs should fall into the hands of any considerable number of this "race" or progeny of those two "emigrants," it might be interesting to those of them who are much given to genealogical research: (and who, of the present generation, will rise up and say to any of his kindred, however distant his relationship, "I am not"?)-- But to proceed with the genealogy of WILLIAM B. IDE:
His grandfather, DANIEL IDE, is understood, by a careful study of chronological incidents, to be a descendant of one of the "two brothers" before referred to. He spent his days in Rehoboth--had three sons and two daughters. His first son's name was Simeon, his second, William, and his third, Lemuel. The two first died early: Simeon married Hannah Kollock, by whom he had one daughter, Abigail K., born April 19, 1789; and one son, Daniel, born Dec. 19, 1791--both of whom died unmarried; their father in 1793, Their mother in 1792.
LEMUEL IDE, the father of William B., was born in Rehoboth, R. I., July 22, 1770--died at Newfane, Vt., Sept. 18, 1825. He was bred to the joiner and carpenter's trade, which occupation, in connection with that of farming on a small scale, he followed for a livelihood during his after life. He resided a short time in Shrewsbury, Mass., after commencing housekeeping, soon after his marriage in 1793. In '95 he removed to Rutland, Mass.; and from there to Clarendon Vt., in '98, where his twin daughters, Sarah and Mary F. where born, and where his eldest sister, Mary, who married Ziba French, Esq., tavern-keeper, and lived with him there some forty years--and, after his decease, with her children, to the advanced age of about 85.--From Clarendon, in '99, he removed to Reading, Vt.; left his wife and three of their children with her brother Zenas Stone, (his second son, Wm. B., then in his 4th year, having been, at least temporarily, adopted by the Rev. ISSAC BEALS, the first settled minister in C., with whom he lived till about 1805.) Having heard of his brother William's death at his residence in one of the Southern States, S. C., we think) Mr. Ide proceeded there by water conveyance to look after and take care of the small estate left by him, and was gone about one year. Soon after his return he took a small tenement of two rooms of Isaac Baldwin, near the south line of Reading, in the town of Cavendish Vt., and applying himself to his trade, he began to lay by a part of his earnings; and, in 1803-4, being assisted by a friend, he bought a 20-acre lot, having a mere hovel for a house upon it. Having now before him the prospect of being able to provide for the support of his family, his son Wm. B. was returned from the kind care and protection of the Rev. Mr. BEALS, to that of his parents, and remained with them till "of age." His father, however, continued to rove from place to place, despite the apothegm that "A rolling stone gathers no moss"--owning, as he did in after life, one after another, three different farms in Reading, two in New Ipswich, N. H., and a few acres of land, with a gristmill thereon, in Newfane, Vt.--He possessed an active, inquiring mind--was much given to reading and the discussion of the political party issues of that day; and, in 1809, was elected by the Republican party to represent the town of Reading in the Legislature of Vermont; and lacked but one vote of a re-election the following year. He was not an "open professor of religion"; but his "life and conversation" gave satisfactory evidence to his "professing" friends, that he was a "believer" in the essentials of practical religion. As indicative of a prominent trait of his moral character, his son William B. caused the inscription:
"An Honest Man's the noblest work of GOD,"to be engraved on his tombstone.
To continue on in this genealogical line: The writer is in possession of data going no father back, on William B. Ide's mother's paternal side, than the birth-day of his great-grandfather, Lieut. ISSAC STONE, which was on the 3d of September, 1697, in Framingham, Mass. He married ELIZABETH BROWN*02* of Sudbury, July 24, 1722--settled in Shrewsbury, Mass., in 1727, and was a member of the first board of selectmen of that town. He died April 22, 1776, aged 78 years, 8 months. His widow lived to the great age of 96, and died in 1794; the same year that one of her great-grandsons now (1880) living, (a brother of Wm. B.) was born--thus showing, in this instance, the lives of two individuals extending through five and a half generations, or the average age of mankind, as computed by statisticians of the present day.
Mr. IDE'S grandfather, JASPER STONE, was born in Shrewsbury, April 30, 1728. He married Grace Goddard, daughter of Dea. Benjamin Goddard, April 17, 1755. He owned and lived on a farm of about 250 acres, in the south-westwardly part of that town, on which one of the first two-story framed dwellinghouses built in that town now stands in good order--which farm is now owned and occupied by a grandson of him who bought and cleared it over a hundred and twenty years ago, and lived on it all the days of his wedded life. He died Oct. 20, 1802, aged 74 years and 6 mos. --his widow, Oct. 31, 1815, aged 80.
We have but little more to add in this ancestral line. The mother of William B. Ide, SARAH, daughter of Jasper and Grace Stone, was born Oct. 16, 1767,--married Nov. 24, 1793,--died at the residence of her oldest son, in Claremont, N. H., January 4, 1859, aged 91 years, 2 mos., 19 days. Mrs. Ide was a pattern of industry and economy, in the management of her domestic affairs. Her early days were spent happily, and in comparative ease under the paternal roof; yet she was not exempt from the common lot of the daughters of farmers of those primitive times. Household duties-- the hum of the spinning-wheels, and the rattle of "the weaver's shuttle," afforded the kind of instrumental music that was the most familiar, if not the most charming, to her ear. But all alone, through the lapse of twenty subsequent years, the rearing of seven children (one dying in its infancy) she had an unusual share of a mother's cares, anxieties and labors to confront her, till her children were all comfortably settled in the married state. She spent the last thirty-three-or-four years of her useful life among her dutiful children, in comparative ease and comfort--and, at the close of a long and well-spent life, departed in the enjoyment of a well-grounded hope of a happy re-union with them in the New Jerusalem--whither two of her daughters, and one of her sons, besides the subject of this memoir, had "gone before." Her only surviving daughter informs me, that in her 91st year, she read her Bible through twice, without the use of glasses--was for some forty years an exemplary and pious member of the Baptist church.
The writer has thought the preceding sketch in relation to the birth, residence, etc., of such portion of Mr. IDE'S ancestry as he could find the material for, would be interesting and instructive,--if not to the present generation, yet to the generations that will succeed it.-- His ancestry on both parental sides were of the humbler walks of life--dependant on their daily labors for their "daily bread." On his mother's side, so far back as we have gone in these researches, they were a benevolent and pious people; "zealous in every good word and work."