Ichabod was a blacksmith and owned a home in Rehoboth with 14 acres of land on which was a blacksmith shop. In the town records of Rehoboth is the following entry, dated
March 19, 1705, "It was voted by the town that Ichabod Bosworth shall have liberty to set up a hammer to go by water for the blacksmiths trade and a shop and coal-house upon the Ox-pasture run where the foot path goeth down the hill at the point of said hill: and the said Bosworth or his heirs are not to raise a dam higher than to flow an acre and a half."
May 21, 1709, Ichabod Bosworth of Rehoboth, blacksmith, for 33 l., 15 s. "currant silver money of New England," mortgages to Nathaniel Waterman of Providence, R. I., 14 acres of land in Rehoboth "by the Country Roade that leads out at the northerly end of the towne on the westerly side of saide Roade."
(Signed) Ichabod Bosworth
Mortgage discharged April 6, 1711. (Taunton Deeds, 5-546)
March 22, 1710/11, Ichabod Bosworth of Rehoboth, blacksmith, for 40 l. current silver money sells to John Bishop of Rehoboth, potter, 14 acres of land in Rehoboth with a dwelling house and shop standing thereon, bounded "southeasterly to a stake and a heap of stones by the Country Road and so along by Lieut Moses Reeds Land till it cometh to the Ox Pasture (so called) to a stake and a heap of stones for a corner then bounded Northerly and Northeasterly with said Ox Pasture and Southeasterly with said Road as the fence now standeth."
(Signed) Ichabod Bosworth
Acknowledged in Providence Rhode Island Colony same dat
(Taunton Deeds, 16-233)
It will be observed that according to the above, Ichabod sold his home with the land and blacksmith shop, all his possessions in Rehoboth, in a little over a month after the death of his wife Sarah. It appears that Sarah died about the time of the birth of a son named Henry, and Ichabod leaving the town so soon afterward failed to have his birth recorded. Just where Ichabod went at that time it is impossible to state, for a most diligent search in all the surrounding country has failed to yield any trace of him, until in 1712, when we find him, with a second wife named Mary, in Bristol, then in Massachusetts, now in Rhode Island, about ten or twelve miles south of Rehoboth. Here on Oct. 17, 1712, a baby girl was born to this second wife, and following the custom of those times the child was named Sarah from Ichabod's first wife, the daughter by the first wife named Sarah, having died young.
Ichabod's stay in Bristol was probably brief as he did not purchase land, at least no record of any purchase has been found. He probably went from there to a location near what is now the border line between the town of Bellingham, Mass. and Cumberland, R. I., but at that time was a part of Massachusetts. (This location is about 25 miles to the northwest of Bristol and 15 miles from Providence.) We gather this last from the fact that his sons are found later in that neighborhood, also for the reason that the compiler, on visiting this place in 1905, was told by the town clerk of Bellingham, then an old man who had kept the records of the town for many years and made them a study, that the location of Ichabod Bosworth's house was near to that of Capt. John Darling, the leading man of the town whose name heads the request for the incorporation of Bellingham, the location of his house being shown by the chimney still standing. Also, it may be mentioned in this connection, that Ichabod's son Henry, married the daughter of Capt. John Darling.
This town clerk also said, that in the neighborhood of these homes there was a Baptist meeting house that both attended with their families. (This was perfectly natural in Ichabod's case at least, as we have seen that his father, Jonathan Bosworth, Jr., had suffered because of his membership in that denomination.) This church building was afterward sold to the Congregationalists and whatever records were kept by the Baptists have disappeared, at least this compiler after diligent search has been unable to get any trace of them.
It is probable that Ichabod and his second wife lived the remainder of their lives in this locality and died there, but neither the town records of Bellingham, nor any of the surrounding towns furnish proof that such was the case.
Note: In such a situation as the above the best we can do is to draw conclusions from such facts as we have, and the compiler feels that in this case they are very convincing. That the Ichabod, son of Jonathan, Jr., who had a wife Sarah who died in Rehoboth, and who afterward sold his property there and went away, was the same Ichabod who married a wife named Mary who was mother of the daughter born in Bristol, and that later lived in Bellingham with a family of five sons and at least one daughter who lived to maturity and married, the compiler, after years of study of the Bosworth family, is fully convinced. The facts referred to are these:
The eldest son of Ichabod4 Bosworth by his first wife, who lived to marry, was Ichabod5, born Sept. 4, 1708. He married in Middleboro, Joanna Cushman and had a son "Stacy" and a daughter "Sarah," both names of his mother. He also had a son Ichabod-, whose son was another Stacy Bosworth. (He was the father of Rev. George Whitfield Bosworth, a well-known Baptist clergyman.) Ichabod5 returned from Middleboro to Bellingham and later died in Cumberland. His widow married Sylvanus Scott, of Bellingham, an attendant of the Baptist church above mentioned.
[Mary Bosworth Clarke, Bosworth Genealogy, vol. 3, San Francisco: n.p., 1928]