My six-times great-grandfather Daniel Bagg (1668-1738) was a farmer in Westfield, a small town on the western frontier of Massachusetts. It was a tightly knit community, centered around the building that doubled as the town meeting house and the Congregational church. Daniel no doubt hoped his children would be blessed by God in their lives, as he had been, but life was far from easy for his son David.

Westfield was founded in 1669, and most of its early residents had come from either Springfield, Massachusetts or Windsor, Connecticut. Daniel was no exception. He was born in Springfield, one of 10 children born to John Bagg and Hannah Burt.¹ His mother died when he was 12 years old, and his father died three years later. It is not clear who raised him and his siblings after that; perhaps his mother’s family looked after them.

Daniel probably moved to Westfield around the time he married, in January 1693/94.² His wife was Hannah Phelps (1675-1751), daughter of Isaac Phelps and Ann Gaylord. Isaac had been a founding settler of Westfield and a community leader; perhaps this connection to the Phelps family helped Daniel become a prominent citizen there.

Agricultural fields spread out around the village. The nearby hills, plains and riverside meadows had fertile soil and provided good growing conditions for a variety of crops, including corn, wheat and flax.

In land deeds and court documents, Daniel was described as a farmer and wheelwright and, in the later part of his life, as a merchant. Perhaps these activities brought him a good income, although his name appeared in several lawsuits, primarily because he either owed money or money was owed to him.³

Daniel served as a selectman (town official) of Westfield in 1718 and 1723. He represented the town in the Massachusetts legislature for a year,⁴ and he was involved in several committees at Westfield’s Church of Christ.⁵

Daniel and Hannah had 10 children: three boys, one of whom died as an infant, and seven girls. Their youngest child, David, born in February 1717, was my direct ancestor.

In 1737, Daniel prepared his will and signed it with his mark, suggesting that he could not write. He died Aug. 18, 1738, age 70.⁶

His will gives us a glimpse of his character, revealing his love for his wife, his trust in his sons, and his generosity to his daughters. In it, he acknowledged that God had blessed him in this life, which was a very Puritan thing to say. The Puritans of New England attributed everything that happened to them to God’s will.

He left to his “dearly beloved wife during her natural life” one end of “my dwelling house and part of the cellar with the one half of the garden, as also one quarter of the orchard by the house and one quarter of the land by the house that was called the homestead, being two acres and a half.”⁹

He bequeathed all his farmland in Westfield to his two sons, Daniel Jr. and David. In age, they were 20 years apart, but they were to share the land equally. Daniel Jr. was to have the new house and David the old house and barn, and Daniel was to give David 60 pounds to enable him to make improvements. David was also to have the team of oxen that ploughed the fields and pulled the farm wagons.

To each of his daughters, Daniel left “100 pounds with what she has already had.” He showed special concern for daughter Abigail, wife of Isaac Dewey, and her children, leaving them extra money. He gave Daniel and David a deadline to make sure his daughters received their bequests – and extra time to come up with the funds if there was not enough in his personal estate.

David Bagg

A year after his father’s death, on July 7, 1739, David married Elizabeth Moseley,⁸ (1714-1759), daughter of Westfield resident Consider Moseley and his wife Elizabeth Bancroft, and they went on to have eight children. Phineas (my four-times great-grandfather) was probably born in 1751, although there is no record of his baptism.

David farmed the fields he had inherited from his father and, in 1754, his brother sold him the 12 tracts of land in Westfield that he had inherited.⁹ But David’s life seems to have been turned upside down with his wife’s death on April 11, 1759.⁵ At the time, his children ranged in age from about 18 to eight. It is possible that Elizabeth died from a communicable disease, such as smallpox or measles, which swept through frontier towns regularly. The local parson wrote in his journal that he was “called up in ye night to visit David Bagg’s wife” on April 9; she died two days later. 

In the wake of Elizabeth’s death, David decided to leave Westfield. He bought a farm in nearby Blandford Township and, in 1761, he married Martha Cook, widow of John Dickinson.¹⁰ The marriage did not last long, however, as Martha died a year later.

Over the next few years, David made more changes. He sold the farm in Blandford in 1766⁷ and gradually sold off his properties in Westfield, selling his last tract of land there in 1777. Meanwhile, he purchased property in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in the beautiful but isolated Berkshire Hills, on the colony’s western frontier.

In this newly settled area, the soil was rockier and less fertile than in the Connecticut River valley, but perhaps David felt that Pittsfield would provide a fresh start for himself and affordable land for his five sons. The move was also typical of a trend in colonial New England for farmers and their growing families to leave settled areas and establish new towns, and these people became known for their independent spirits.

David bought property in Pittsfield in 1760¹² and probably moved there with his family not long after 1764.¹³ The move couldn’t have been easy: the road to Pittsfield was an old Indigenous trail that had been widened, but was often impassable. Nevertheless, David and his family must have moved essential household belongings and farming implements, cleared the land and built a log house. In 1772, David Bagg and a household of eight were listed among the 666 residents of Pittsfield.¹⁴

In 1769, David married again.¹⁵ His third wife was Ruth (Owen) Tupper, the widow of Thomas Tupper of Salisbury, Connecticut.

Meanwhile, David’s lifetime was a period of social and political change. For one thing, the people of New England were not as religious as their great-grandparents had been when they came to North America, fleeing religious persecution.

The Seven Years’ War (also known as the French and Indian War) ended in 1763 with the French ceding New France to the British. This brought to an end the raids on Massachusetts towns by the Indigenous allies of the French. It also led indirectly to the American Revolution: the war had left the British heavily in debt, and the high taxes they imposed on the Thirteen Colonies eventually led to a revolt.

Many people in the Berkshires were strongly opposed to the British, and David probably agreed with them. During the American Revolution, he served in Pittsfield militia regiments on two occasions: in January 1776, he marched to Albany for five days, and in July 1777, he served for 10 days on a march to Manchester. Each time, one of his sons (Phineas or Martin) accompanied him.¹⁶

The last mention of David Bagg of Pittsfield in Massachusetts records is a note referring to a court action, in June, 1784.¹⁷ 

In the 1790 federal census, his sons Martin and Phineas Bagg and Daniel Bagg (possibly a nephew) were counted in Pittsfield, while son Joseph appeared in nearby Lanesborough.¹⁸ David might have been living with one of his children then, but he was more likely deceased.

This story has been condensed and revised from two articles about Daniel and David, written in 2018 and posted on my personal family history blog, www.writinguptheancestors.ca.

Notes:

The children of Daniel and Hannah Bagg were: Hannah, b. 1695; Daniel; Ebenezer, b. 1700, died as an infant; Rachel, bap. 1702; Ann, b. 1704; Abigail, b. 1702; Ruth, b. 1709; Margaret, b. 1712; Sarah, b. 1714; David, b. 1716/17.

The children of David and Elizabeth Bagg were: Elizabeth, bapt. Nov. 1, 1741; Joseph, born Jan 6, 1739/40 at Westfield, bapt. Nov. 1, 1741; Rachel,  bapt. Dec 19 1742 at Westfield; Martin, bapt. Jan 27, 1745 at Westfield; Eunice, bapt. June 8, 1746 at Westfield; Abner, bapt. May 15, 1748 at Westfield; Aaron, bapt. Mar 11, 1750 at Westfield; Phineas, born c. 1751.  (Phineas, my direct ancestor, moved to Canada around 1797.)

There were several individuals named David Bagg in this time period. David Bagg jr., son of David and Hannah of Springfield died in 1756 in his 19th year. David Bagg, son of Jonathon Bagg of Springfield, died in 1760 in his 50th year.  David Bagg, born Westfield to Mary Sackett, March 27, 1739.

Sources:

1. Massachusetts: Vital Records, 1621-1850 (Online Database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001-2016).https://www.americanancestors.org/DB190/r/1320087835

2. New England Marriages to 1700. (Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2008.) Originally published as: New England Marriages Prior to 1700. Boston, Mass.: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2015. https://www.americanancestors.org/DB1568/i/21174/65/426875386

3. Debrett, “The Bagg Family of Massachusetts, America and of Montreal, Canada. Research for Mrs. J.D. Hamilton, July, 1980.”

4. Massachusetts: Legislators of the General Court, 1691-1780 (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2002), (Orig. Pub. by Northeastern University Press , Boston, MA. John A. Schutz, Legislators of the Massachusetts General Court 1691–1780 A Biographical Dictionary, 1997.) https://www.americanancestors.org/DB142/r/5875254

5. Rev. John H. Lockwood, Westfield and its Historic Influences 1669-1919: The Life of an Early Town (Springfield, 1922, Printed and sold by the author), p. 147, 310, https://archive.org/stream/westfieldandits00lockgoog#page/n174/mode/2up, accessed May 19, 2018

6. Hampshire County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1660-1889. Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2016, 2017. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives and the Hampshire County Court. Digitized images provided by FamilySearch.org) https://www.americanancestors.org/DB1653/i/33925/7-17-co3/0

7.  Massachusetts: Vital Records, 1621-1850 (Online Database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001-2016). https://www.americanancestors.org/DB190/i/13250/3/253010247

8. Massachusetts: Vital Records, 1621-1850 (Online Database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001-2016). https://www.americanancestors.org/DB190/i/13251/4/253014174

9. William A. Cooper, “The James Bagg Family of Lanesborough, Mass,” unpublished, 1918.

10.  Massachusetts: Vital Records, 1621-1850 (Online Database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001-2016). https://www.americanancestors.org/DB190/i/13250/91/253013581

11.  Massachusetts: Vital Records, 1621-1850 (Online Database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001-2016). https://www.americanancestors.org/DB190/i/14507/117/264964546

12. Rollin H. Cooke, Pittsfield Families, Vol. 1 A-B, p. 73.

13.  J.E.A. Smith, The History of Pittsfield, (Berkshire County,) Massachusetts, From the Year 1734 to the Year 1800. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1869. p. 476.

14.  “The Number of Families and Persons in the town of Pittsfield, Nov. 16, 1772” Berkshire Genealogist, fall 1993, vol. 14, no 4, p. 111.

15. Vital Records from The NEHGS Register. Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (Compiled from articles originally published in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register.) https://www.americanancestors.org/DB522/r/264680608

16.  Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the War of the Revolution, Ancestry.com

17. Cooper, “The James Bagg Family of Lanesborough, Mass”.

18. Ancestry.com. 1790 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: First Census of the United States, 1790 (NARA microfilm publication M637, 12 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.  year: 1790; Census  Place: Pittsfield, Berkshire, Massachusetts; Series: M637; Roll: 4; Page: 483; Image: 526; Family History Library Film: 0568144. (accessed Jan. 14, 2013)