Polly Sacket

Polly Sacket, daughter of Lieutenant Abner Sacket and Rhoda Kellogg, was born in Westfield, Hampden County, Massachusetts^G, on 20 or 21 December 1779.^1,2,3 She was probably the Polly Sacket who filed an intention to marry Samuel Tiffany in Westfield^G on 1792.^4,5,6
     Identification of the Polly Sacket born in 1779 with the marriage record of 1792 is problematic, not least because she was then apparently only twelve years old. However, another candidate for the marriage has not been found. A marriage at that age would have been unusual but not illegal. The marriage record is of an intention to marry, not of the marriage itself, and it may be that the marriage took place some years later. The birth date of 1779 is subject to verification. This is taken from a transcribed rather than an original record, which has not been found. A transcription error is always possible, and she may have been born earlier.
     A genealogy, the Tiffanys of America, published in 1901, identifies a Samuel Tiffany who married a Mary Sackett. Census records give Samuel's wife's name variously as Polly (1850), Mary Polly (1855), Mary (1860), and Polly (1865). Her ages at the census dates, 76 in 1850, 82 in 1855, 87 in 1860, and 92 in 1865, are consistent, giving a birth date of about 1773, six years earlier than the Polly of the Westfield birth record.
     The Tiffanys of America lists ten children of the marriage, but gives birth dates for only a few of them. These birth dates, which may have helped date the marriage, have not been found elsewhere. The dates that are known are in the 1800s rather than the 1790s, pointing to a marriage date later than 1792.
     If this Samuel Tiffany family is correctly identified with Polly the daughter of Abner Sacket, then her birth is more likely to have been in about 1773 than in 1779, meaning a transcription error in that record.
     Samuel Tiffany was born on 21 October 1761.⁷ He died aged 89 in Delaware County, New York State^G, on 21 April 1851.⁷
     In 1850 Polly was living in Hamden, Delaware County, New York State^G, in the household of her husband Samuel Tiffany, 89, and was recorded in the census as Polly Tiffany, aged 76.⁸
     In 1855 she was living in Hamden^G in the household of her son Ezekiel, daughter-in-law Nancy, and their family, and was recorded as Mary Polly Tiffany, a widow aged 82. She had lived in Hamden for 50 years.⁹
     In 1860 she was living in Hamden^G in the household of her daughter-in-law Lois Tiffany, and was recorded as Mary Tiffany, aged 87.¹⁰
     In 1865 she was living in Hamden^G in the household of her son Ezekiel Tiffany, 56, a farmer, daughter-in-law Nancy, and their family, and was recorded as Polly Tiffany, a widow aged 92.¹¹