Excerpt from the Hampden Times, Westfield, Massachusetts, 1876: "The Philadelphia papers bring tidings of the death of Mrs. Lydia Mosley Jessup, a native, and during a large part of her life, a resident of Westfield.

The Mosley family, to which Mrs. Jessup belonged, has been connected with this town from its first settlement. The records of of the town show that the ancestor of the present Mosleys bought here in 1666 several large tracts of land, the greater portion of which lay in the southerly part of Westfield, formerly known as South Meadow, including the homestead lately occupied by Azariah Mosley, and now owned by Franklin Bliss. Our present trotting park, also called "Mosley park," occupies a part of this old family estate.  Col. David Mosley (1), great-grandson of this first settler, was commissioned as magistrate of the county of Hampshire, within our province of the Massachisetts Bay in New England, by George II., in 1749. The original commission, with its quaint old devices, together with the armorial bearings of the Mosley family, is still to be seen hanging on the wall in one of the old   homesteads of the town. Mrs Jessup, lately deceased, was great-grand-daughter of this col. David Mosley (1), and sister of our late Senator, col. David Mosley (3). It is not often in this country, that homesteads are handed down from generation to generation, as this Mosley homestead has been, in unbroken succession for over two hundread years, in fact, from the early Colonial times ; and few are the homes among us, within whose walls have been wtintessed such gathrrings as used to grace this home  in the olden time, or where so large a family circle could be brought together on Thanksgiving day and other festive occasions, the Mosleys having been connected by marriage with many colonial families possessing histories as old as its own--the Adamses, the Belchers, the Collinses, the Leveretts, the Wolcotts, the Winthrops, the Davenports, the  Mathers, the Saltonstalls, the Chaunceys, the Ingersolls, and many others.

The daughters of of Colonel David Mosley (1) all married men of mark. Margaret was the wife of John Ingersoll, who was a member of the body that framed the constitution of Massachusetts in 1780. He was a descendant of John Ingersoll, of Hartford, Connecticut, as were also Charles and Jared Ingersoll, of Philadelphia, and Major Charles Ingersoll, member of Parliament of Upper Canada, whose mother was Eunice Mosley of this town. Mercy, another daughter of of Colonel David Mosley (1) , was married to a lawyer of extensive practice, Hon. John Phelps, a graduate of Yale, of the class of 1759. Their great-grand-daughter, Anita Phelps, married John Lee Carroll, a descendant of the signer, Charles Carroll. Rhoda, a third daughter of Colonel David Mosley (1) , married one of the most noted physicians of his day, Dr.Charles Mather, of Hartford, a graduate o f Yale of the class of 1763, and a descendant of a brother of the famous Cotton Mather. Grace, a fourth daugheter of the same colonel David Mosley (1), married a well-known statesman of that day, Hon. Samuel Mather, cousin to the prececding, and also a graduate of Yale, of the class of 1758.These, however, are not the only reminiscences of this historic familyh. When IsaacAddington was "Speaker, Assistant, Councillor, Secretary, and Chief Justice" (so goes the record) of the state of Massachusetts, we find him using upon his documents of State the seal of his wife, Ann Mosley, bearing the arms of the Mosley family. Her brother, Captain Samuel Mosley, is spoken of in the  history of the times as "a gallant soldier of the Revolution", and his son, Rev. Ebenezer Mosley, was a captain in Col. Israel Putnam's regiment at the battle of Bunker Hill. In later days Frances, a sister of Captain William Mosley, married Major William Shepherd, son of general Shepherd, who was one of Washington's aides. Another sister, Mary, married Joshua Green, Judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. In the present time generation a son of Commodore Perry, of Lake Erie fame, married into a branch of this family, his wife being a sister to Edward S. Mosley, of Newburyport. So it would seem that from the earliest days of the New England Colonies down to the present time the name of Mosley has been linked by marriage, as well as associated in its own right, with the known statesmen and representative men of their time.

It is but meet, before closing these sketches, to say a few words as to the personal character and worth of the estimable lady whose death has been the occasion of the present article. "She was a lady of strong sense and stern integrity, and represented the highest type of the old-time New England womanhood." Although living in complete seclusion from the world after the death of her husband, she maintained to the last a lively interest in the great  social, secular, and political questions of the day, as well as in those of a religious nature, She was unostentatious but discriminating in her charities, preferring  to help those who help themselves. She had great conversational powers, and was apt  with her pen, often employing it in both in prose and verse. A spirit of patient Christian resignation breathed through all her utterances. "From early life the union of dignity and affablilty in her manners rendered her both interesting and amiable. Her intellectual powers, naturally good, were expanded and invigorated by more than an ordinary degree of cutivation. Her memory is precious in all its relations. Her peculiar excellencies can be duly appreciated by her relatives only. Possessing, as she did, a constellation of domestic and social virtues, her Christian character had still higher attractions."   Mrs. Jessup died at her residence, "Augustine", on the Brandywine, near Wilmington, Delaware, March 29, 1876. She leaves two sons and a daughter.

© 2001 - 2007 Sten Holtermann      Last updated: 01 jun 2007