Isaac Chase (ca 1681-1756) and Charity Pease (1696-??)

Isaac Chase was born perhaps about 1681 (assuming he was 25 at his first marriage),  probably at Yarmouth on Cape Cod. Published genealogies have him as the son of John and Elizabeth (Baker) Chase. I have not found primary source for that, but it seems generally accepted. I wrote about John and Elizabeth here. I Isaac lived in the area of Yarmouth that became the town of Dennis.  

Isaac married, first, Mary Berry on 23 May 1706 at Yarmouth. [Yarmouth VR 3:32] Mary was the daughter of John and Susanna (——) Berry. She died before 8 July 1727, when the intentions of Isaac Chase and Charity Kelley were published. [Yarmouth VR p 145] Isaac “Chaise” and Charity Killey were married 3 August 1727 at Yarmouth by Peter Thacher, Justice of the Peace. [Yarmouth VR 3:37]

Charity’s maiden name was Pease—she was born Yarmouth on 2 December 1696 to Hannah Marchant and Matthew Pease. [Yarmouth VR p 9] Her parents were unmarried, something quite scandalous at the time. Her father was of Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard; her mother lived in Edgartown and Yarmouth. Isaac and Charity are my seventh great-grandparents. 

Charity had married, first, Jeremiah Kelley (spelled in many ways including Killey and O’Kelley) on 8 August 1716. [Yarmouth VR 1:139] He was the son of Jeremiah and Sarah (Burgess?] Kelley. He died about 1726.

Isaac Chase and his first wife Mary had nine children [Yarmouth Vital Records in MD 13:223]:

1. Hezekiah born 9 December 1706
2. Obadiah born 16 September 1708; married Mary Smith
3. Thankful born 14 Feb 1711/12; married Jacob Baker 
4. Isaac born 28 March 1714[?/15;] m. Thankful Maker
5. Lot born 11 March 1716[?/17]; married Rebecca Wing 
6. Hannah born 27 Sep 1718
7. Mary born 9 Jan 1720/21; married Nathaniel Covell 
8. Nathaniel born May 1724
9. Judah born 24 Oct 1726; married Mary Woodside

Isaac and his second wife Charity “Charete” had five children [Yarmouth VR in MD 13:223]:

10. Barnabas born 29 April 1731

11. Temperance born 4 March 1731/2; married Nathaniel Baker

12. Charity born 15 July 1736; married Sylvanus Chase 

13. Mehitable born 9 August 1740; married Isaac Eldredge 

14. Desire born 6 March 1741/2; m 1st Archelus Chase, 2nd Bachelor Swayne

John Carroll Chase also gives Isaac and Charity a son David but with provides nothing further on him.

Charity and Jeremiah Kelley had four children, born Yarmouth (now Dennis) [first two births recorded Yarmouth VR p 44; second two from father’s probate records]:

1. Unnamed infant son born June 1717 who died at 8 days old
2. Sarah born 10 September 1718; died before 8 November 1727 when she is not mentioned in her grandfather Jeremiah O’Kelley’s will
3. Jerusha born about 1720; married Reuben Eldredge 
4. Elisabeth born about 1722

I cannot even imagine what Charity’s life was like. She grew up with the shame of being an illegitimate child with a father who did not even acknowledge her in his will, she lost her first husband when she was about 30 years old, and she lost a newborn and at least one other child. But she carried on and she had two living children when she married for a second time and became step-mother to as many as nine children ranging from 8 months to 20 years. Then she gave birth to five more children, with the last being born when she was 45. So she was mothering as many as 16 children!

I have found little mention of Isaac in records. In the 1712 division of common land at Yarmouth, Isaac Chase received 18 1/2 shares. And for ”ye tenement for Isaac Chase to his father" 9 shares.

Could be this Charity Chase keeping school as her husband Isaac Chase had already died:

“As late as 1761 Lot Howes records paying town [Yarmouth] money to Widow Charity Chase and Widow Mehitable Kelley for "keeping school" in their homes. [Dennis Historical Society Newsletter, Nov. 1981]

Isaac Chase died Yarmouth 22 May 1759. [Yarmouth VR 1:166] He was likely in his late 70s. He died intestate and on 23 June 1759 Barnabas Chase of Yarmouth, yeoman, was granted the administration of his father’s estate. [Barnstable County Probate Records, 10:27, digitized on FamilySearch]

The inventory was taken on 28 June 1759 by David Gorham, Samuel Smith and John Burges. It did not include real estate and totaled over 39 pounds. It was a brief inventory that included two oxen, a heifer, two cows, one horse, eight sheep, five lambs, 4 swine, fowl, wearing apparel, a spinning wheel, and some household items.  [Barnstable County Probate Records 9:425-6, digitized on FamilySearch]

In 1760, an account of his estate by Barnabas Chase included doctor bills, digging the grave, debts paid, and cash received from the sale of items.

I have not found Charity’s death record. She was not named an administrator of her husband Isaac’s estate, so perhaps he pre-deceased him. But if she was the widow Charity Chase keeping school, then she died after 1761. 

Sources Not Mentioned Above:

Nancy Thacher Reid, Dennis Cape Cod; From Firstcomers to Newcomers 1639-1993, Dennis Historical Society, 1996

John Carrol Chase (contributed by), NEHGR, “Some of the Descendants of William Chase of Roxbury and Yarmouth,” 87:132-33 (1933)

Kelley, R. Dudley. NEHGS Register, “David Okillea of Yarmouth, Massachusetts and Some of His Descendants,” (NEHGS, Boston, Mass., 1997) 151:141