Birth, marriage, and death records are not plentiful on Martha's Vineyard. Fortunately, more care was taken with land records. In the case of the Luce family, land records provide information
on the family's movements, and even establish relationships within the family. (Jackson,
245) When added to details pieced together from newspapers, books, magazines, and other
sources, it's possible to gain some insight into their lives on the Vineyard.
We descend from two families on Martha’s Vineyard, the Luces
and the Merrys, beginning with two sets of 9th great-grandparents: Henry and Remember (Litchfield) Luce and Joseph
and Elizabeth (Parkhurst) Merry.
See posts: 27 Oct 2025 Ancestors of Martha’s Vineyard I:
the Merry Family
10 Jan 2026 post, Ancestors of Martha's
Vineyard II: The Immigrant Henry Luce
This post
- covers our four direct descendants of Henry Luce and Remember Litchfield who have the Luce surname,
- has a brief overview of Henry and Remember's children (our 8th great-grandfather, Robert, and his siblings), and
- presents three general observations about the Luce family.
− DIRECT LINE DESCENDANTS OF HENRY
LUCE & REMEMBER LITCHFIELD −
Henry Luce was the first person of that surname on Martha’s
Vineyard. He and his wife, Remember Litchfield, began what would become a long
line of Luces.
Desire (last name unknown)
maternal 8th great-grandparents
*See the 20 Jan 2026 post, Ancestors of Martha's Vineyard III: The Homestead of Robert Luce, for details about Robert.
Henry Luce II (1690-1769)
Hannah Merry (1692-1780)
maternal 7th great-grandparents
Henry, a landowner and farmer, was born 28 Mar 1690 in Tisbury. He was the second of Robert and Desire's children. His wife, Hannah Merry, born on 10 Jun 1692 in Chilmark, was the daughter of Samuel Merry
and Remember Luce. She died in Tisbury on 11 Aug 1780, outliving
Henry by 11 years.
Henry and Hannah married 11 Feb 1710, and eventually had nine children. Eleazer, their first child, became a mariner. Their sons, Robert
and Adonijah, were both landowners and farmers; Adonijah also served as
constable.
Jonathan Luce (1722-1791)
Urania (or Urana) ----- (1723-1808)
maternal 6th great-grandparents
Jonathan
Luce, the fifth child of Henry II and Hannah, was born in Chilmark on 15 Jun 1722. He and his wife,
Urania (surname unknown), married when he was about 22. Unlike many
others on the
island, Jonathan was not a farmer, but a weaver.
 |
| An 18th century loom at Colonial Williamsburg (Photo credit: Darlene Schenck Dec 2021) |
Jonathan
and Urania had ten children, including my 5th great-grandmother, Ruth. Ruth's younger brother, Shubael, born in 1757, served in the Revolutionary War in 1776 as
part of the Sea Coast Defense on Martha's Vineyard. He never married and died at sea in 1781.
Jonathan
wrote his will on 8 Mar 1790. In it, he bequeathed his loom and weaving
gears to his daughter, Nancy. (Ancestry.com) He died a little over a year later
on 12 Jul 1791.
Ruth Luce (1745-1839)
Silas Bartoo (1742-1831)
maternal 5th great-grandparents
Ruth was the first person I encountered with the surname Luce, and the last of that name in our direct line. She was born in Tisbury on 20 Jan 1745, the
second of Jonathan and Urania’s ten children. Ruth Luce and Silas Bartoo married in
Tisbury on 12 Oct 1768.
Silas was born in
Hempstead on Long Island, over 150 miles from Tisbury by sea. Given the
distance, it seems improbable that they even met. However,
young Silas was a whaler, so it's not unreasonable to assume he was on Martha's Vineyard at some point.
− LUCE: THE SECOND GENERATION −
The second generation of Luces were the children of Henry
Luce and Remember Litchfield. They had ten children, all born on Martha's Vineyard.
1. Robert (1667-1714), 8th great-grandfather (See 20 Jan 2026 Robert Luce homestead post.)
2. Remember (1669-1708), 8th
great-grandmother (See 27 Oct 2025 Merry family post.)
The remaining eight children were all boys.
~ EIGHT 8TH GREAT-GRANDUNCLES ~
3. Israel (1671-1727) lived in Tisbury until about 1708
when he moved to Windham,
Connecticut. He and his wife, Grace Baker, had
eight children. Israel and two of his
sons all died within a three-week period
in May 1727, likely from a contagious
disease. [Fifteen-year-old Israel
died on May 3, 16-year-old Eleazer died on May
12, and their father died on May 20, at the age of 56.]
4. Experience (1673-1747) resided in Tisbury. He was a
weaver and a deacon in the
West Tisbury church. While there is no record of his
marriage to Elizabeth Manter, it's
likely it took place about 1694 since the first of their
seven children was born in 1695.
5. Eleazer (1675-1740) was a sheepshearer in West Tisbury
until 1795 when he moved
to Southold, Long Island, New York. He married Sarah Wines of Southold the
following year. Eleazer was a member of the
Southold Militia Company in 1715.
6. Henry (1677-unk) was called White-eyed Henry due to what
is presumed to be a
congenital defect. He was a blacksmith by trade, and also served
as a constable in
Edgartown in 1736. Henry married Sarah Look about
1698. He died sometime
between 1737, when he wrote his will, and 1743 when it
was proved.
Henry’s son, Sylvanus, died about 1747 at Cape Breton, Nova
Scotia during King
George’s War (1744-1748), the third of the French
and Indian Wars.
7. Thomas (1679-1727) was a poor Tisbury farmer who was
killed in April 1727 while
wrecking a stranded boat, perhaps for firewood.
He married Hannah, last name
unknown, about 1707. There is no record of their marriage, but their first child was
born in 1708. Hannah and their children,
ranging in age from one to 19, survived
him. Thomas’s
brother, Experience, was named administrator of his estate on 7
Jul
1727.
8. William (1681-1734) resided in Tisbury and Chilmark. He
was a weaver by trade.
There are no records of his marriage to Ann Crosby or of his death. His will, which
was probated 7 May
1734 named his wife as executor.
9. David (1683-1752) was a husbandman. He and Elizabeth
Pease were married in
Tisbury on 9 Dec 1707. They moved to
Windham, Connecticut about 1709, where
they had six children.
10. Josiah (1685-1748) lived in Tisbury when he married
Sarah Allen in 1703. They
were in Windham, Connecticut by 1705 when their
first child, a daughter, was born.
(Tabb, 129)
− THE THIRD GENERATION AND BEYOND: SO
MANY COUSINS! −
~ OBSERVATIONS : BIRTHS ~
In 1689, Henry's two eldest children were married. Each of them had a child. These two children were the beginning of the third generation of the Luce
family.
Since Henry and Remember had ten children, and nine of them were boys, I began to wonder how many males vs. females were born into the family through subsequent generations. I recalled from my college statistics class that there was a 50/50 chance of a couple having a boy or a girl. I decided to do an informal investigation to find the answers to two questions.
1) Do the Luces born in Generations 2-6 fit the 50% prediction for males vs. females?
2) Is the 50% likelihood still true nearly forty years after I took statistics class?
*I used The History of Martha’s
Vineyard, Vol III by Charles Banks as my source for this. Details about how I arrived at my conclusions are at the end of the post.
RESULTS:
 |
| If
Generation 2 is excluded, there is only a 1% change for each sex in the final total:
54%/46%. |
CONCLUSIONS:
Question 1: No, Generations 2-6 don't fit the 50% model. The percentage of
boys born
into the family in those generations ranged from 52% to 90%. Girls ranged
from 10% to 48%.
Question 2: The Harvard T.H.
Chan School of Public Health conducted a study from
1956-2015 on the randomness
of sex at birth. The results were published
in July 2025. The study concluded
that the 50/50 ratio is no longer true, nor
is the sex random.
some of the findings
in the study in layman's terms. Two of the factors that
can influence the sex of a child include the number
of boys (or girls)
previously born to a couple and the mother’s age.
By 1680, there were about 40 families on Martha's Vineyard. In 1790, the Luces alone consisted of 41 distinct families.
Left: This chart shows 21 of the largest households on Martha's Vineyard in each
Federal Census from 1790 to 1850. (Banks, Vol. 3, p. x)
Given the number
of boys born into the family over the years, it's no
wonder the Luce surname tops the list with the largest number of individual families in each census.
~ OBSERVATIONS : OCCUPATIONS & MILITARY SERVICE ~
While doing my research, it appeared that a large number of Martha's Vineyard residents were farmers or fisherman. I decided to see if those were the primary occupations in the seven generations of the Luce family that Banks has in his third volume.
Banks was thorough, but limited to the information that was available at the time. (His research spanned 20 years; his books were published in 1911 and 1920.) For
that reason, this chart represents only a portion of the actual number of Luce males,
since many didn't have an occupation listed.
In spite of that, the results show an interesting mix of occupations. Keep in mind there are some overlaps between the occupations and military service. For example, a man can be counted for his occupation and also for his service in the Revolutionary War.
Out of 72 men whose occupations were listed by Banks, 22 (30.6%) were marine-related, 21 (29.2%) were some type of farmer, and 10 (13.9%) were weavers. Surprisingly, only one man was a whaler, a type of fisherman.
Left: “The 12-gun Continental Sloop Providence”
by John Mecray. (Navsource.net)
Right: "The Action
Between the Frigates USS Bonhomme
Richard and HMS Serapis
during the Battle of Flamborough Head, 1779. The Alliance fires on the
combatants," by Thomas Mitchell.(Navsource.net)
[In the group of three on the far right, Bonhomme Richard, is on the left, Serapis is in the middle, and Alliance is on the right, firing at both ships.]
Left: The “Continental
Frigate Boston (1777)” painting by Rod Claudius, 1962. (Navsource.net)
~ OBSERVATIONS : MARRIAGES ~
When I started researching the Merry family, I noticed that
my 7th great-grandparents, Hannah Merry and Henry Luce, were first
cousins. Then,
while working on the Luce family, I noticed there were a number of similar
situations in later generations.
Once
again, my curiosity got the better of me. How many other first or second cousins married through
the generations? I went back to Charles Banks, Volume III and made a spreadsheet to keep things organized. His numbering system made it possible for me to keep track of people, since many given names were often repeated through the generations. [My spreadsheet is at the end of this post.]
GENERATION 1: 9th GGPs - Henry Luce & Remember Litchfield and Joseph Merry & Elizabeth Parkhurst
GENERATION 2: 8th GGPs/GGUs/GGAs - their children
GENERATION 3: 7th GGPs/GGUs/GGAs - their grandchildren
GENERATION 4: 6th GGPs/GGUs/GGAs - their great-grandchildren
RESULTS
GENERATION 2: Seven out of the 10 Luce children in this generation had children who
married each other. The Merrys had none.
GENERATION 3: Out of 64 Luce & Merry children in this generation, there were 5
marriages among ten 1st cousins (15.6%).
GENERATION 4: Out of 89 children in the two families, there were 3 marriages among six
1st cousins (6.7%) and 5 marriages among ten 2nd cousins (11.2%).
Martha's Vineyard has never had a large population, and in the second through fourth generations, there would have been limited options for finding a spouse. Meeting people of a similar age and gender could have been a challenge. This would have been particularly true for the large Luce family. However, the percentages show a downward trend, which would continue in the next generations as more families settled on the Vineyard.
*
*
*
−
INTERESTING READING –
− SOURCES −
Charles E.
Banks. The History of Martha’s Vineyard, Duke’s County, Massachusetts,
Vol III (1931). Google Books https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89067299883&seq=26
Dukes County, Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records,
1635-1991, p. 224 (image 496). Ancestry.com
Jackson, B. Darrell.
“The Family of Henry and Remember Luce of Martha’s Vineyard,” The New
England Historical and Genealogical Register 177 (Summer 2023):245-257.
Malhi, Sabrina. “Your
baby’s sex isn’t random. A study shows what could influence it.” (July 18,
2025). https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/07/18/baby-sex-not-random-study/
McCourt, Martha F. The
American descendants of Henry Luce of Martha’s Vineyard. Boston, MA: New
England Historic Genealogical Society, 1994. Internet Archive. www.archive.org
Norton, Henry
Franklin. Martha’s Vineyard. Henry Franklin Norton and Robert Emmett
Pyne, Publishers, 1923. http://history.vineyard.net/hfnorton/history.htm
Tabb, Jeanne Mitchell
Jordan, compiler. Ancestor Lineages of Members Texas
Society/National Society Colonial Dames Seventeenth Century. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc.,
1991. Ancestry.com.
* * *
− METHOD USED FOR MALE VS. FEMALE BIRTHS −
I used The History of Martha’s
Vineyard, Vol III by Charles Banks as my source for this and the marriages. Banks is considered the
authority on the history of Martha’s Vineyard and its residents. His third volume
contains family genealogies where each member in a family is assigned a unique number using the Ahnentafel numbering system,
along with whatever information he had about each person. This made for easy tallying.
NOTES:
- Generation 2 is an outlier since the data is
significantly different than the next four generations. I included it because there
were only 10 children born in that generation, and the effect on the final outcome
was slight (1%).
- Values are rounded to the nearest whole percentage (< 50 round down, ≥ 50 round up).
* * *
−
MARRIAGE SPREADSHEET −
In each generation, the sibling parents of the bride and groom are in bold.
* * *
Bradish-Scott Family
History −
February 2026
