vital records sources
go to Perley Bartlett's page

Lucy was born in Northborough, but the family moved to Townsend, Massachusetts, when she was a toddler. They returned to Northborough when she was about twelve. She didn't have to look far for her husband. He was her next door neighbor and her first cousin once removed. Because of numerous Bartlett marriages into the families of John and Abraham How of Marlborough, they were cousins many times over beyond the Bartlett connection. After becoming Lucy (Bartlett) Bartlett, she moved with husband Perley and baby Curtis (and she was already pregnant with Lyman) to Wendell, Massachusetts, in 1797. She joined the Congregational church there "in full communion" in August of 1799.1 Apparently not finding that town to their satisfaction, or one of them with a convincing case, they ended up in Wilmington, Vermont, about 1801, with two more children. They lived in a comfortable house built for them on a remote lot in the town (still relatively remote), adjacent to what is now the Haystack Mountain Ski area. Thirteen years later they moved closer to the village into a larger house just off the main road leading north to Dover.
     After Perley died she may have stayed on the farm for several years, or rented it. By the time she sold in three years later, she was living with her son Lyman and his family. They had a farm near the village of Shushan, New York, near the Vermont border. Lucy was back in Wilmington by the time the 1850 census was taken, when she was living with her daughter Lucy Pettee. Her husband, Dr Ansel Pettee, had a house and office where Town Hall now stands. By 1860 she was with her son Curtis on Main Street.

Curtis Bartlett's house in Wilmington

Lucy and her daughter Lucy and family, the Tituses and Pettees, were active exhibitors at the Wilmington Fair. An 1853 article says Lucy won a third premium prize for making a chair cushion.2 In 1866 she was the sole exhibitor of "cotton hose."3 She was ninety four in that year.
     When Perley died she received her traditional dower thirds of his estate. This is a description of what she was given of the Bartlett homestead, as outlined in Perley's estate papers on 31 December 1845:

"...two west rooms in second story of dwelling house and all the two upper stories or stairs in said house so far east as the west side of the stairway leading thereto, with priveledges of the hall and stairway which may be necessary for the free enjoyment of the above described, also the north wood shed and small building attached,also the stable and scaffold in the west end of the large barn with priveledges in the floorway or driveways as may be necessary for carting, threshing,foddering, etc. Also the west barn, shed entire. Also the west half of the barnceller under the east floor proprtioned right of the barn yard and watering place and right of ingress.

total value $1616.33, full third part of estate"

Lucy died just short of her 96th birthday and is buried beside Perley behind the Congregational church in Wilmington.

death notice (with wrong day)

Lucy was in a maternal line of long-lived women. She, her mother, one or maybe two of her daughters and two of her granddaughters lived to be in their 90s.

children of Lucy Bartlett and Perley Bartlett:

i. Curtis R., b. 7 January 1797, Northborough, MA
ii. Hannah, bap. 3 September 1797, Wendell, MA
iii. Lyman, bap. 7 July 1799, Wendell, MA
iv. Avery, b. abt 1801, Wilmington, VT, hereafter
v. Jonas, b. 10 April 1803
vi. Lois, b. abt. 1805
vii. Lowell, b. abt. 1808
viii. Elmer b. abt 1809
ix. Lucy, b. abt July 1811
x. Perley, b. abt 1813

vital records sources: Lucy's birth and marriage dates come from Vital Records of Northborough, Massachusetts, to the end of the year 1850 (Worcester:1901), 17 & 77; her death date comes from her gravestone in Rest Land Cemetery, Wilmington, VT.

1. Congregational Library & Archives, http://congregationallibrary.org/nehh/series1, Wendell, MA, Congregational Church records, image 43, mss p. 41.
2. Windham County Democrat, 12 Oct 1853, 3.
3.Vermont Farmer, 29 Sept 1866, 1.
4. Vermont Recorder and Farmer, 12 Mar 1868, 3.