Mary Ball Munroe

Grandma (8G) Mary Ball Munroe, William’s second wife and a quarter-century his junior, was only 41 when she made him again a widower in 1692. But not before presenting him with six daughters and four sons, including our 7th great-grandfather
Joseph “Corporal Joe” Munroe. I’m not asserting any direct causation, here…

Except for Susanna, their youngest child, born around the time of her mother's death, all of William’s and Mary’s children lived to marry, as did his four children by first wife Martha George. One suspects, on no firm evidence, that mother and daughter may have died in or near childbirth.

Unlike her husband, Mary was a native-born American. Both her parents (John Ball and Elizabeth Pierce) and both sets of grandparents (John Ball and Johanna King, and John and Elizabeth Pierce) immigrated from England to Middlesex County in the 1630s. Hers was a particularly painful childhood, and then William and Martha saved her life; I document their dramatic, scandalous, romantic, heroic story in a separate presentation entitled “William and Mary”.

Mary was among the first buried in Lexington’s Old Burial Ground, donated to the town in the year of her death by her stepson, John Munroe. It’s mildly interesting to note that folks were not much hung up on spelling in those days, even with proper names graven in stone.

I’ve always though it sweet that William’s stone leans lovingly onto that of his child bride…¹

¹…even though their current position doubtless reflects cemetery restoration since they were put here.

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