James TREFREN 1185
(7 May 1769 - 30 October 1846)
Married Amy or Amey unknown & Sarah ‘Sally’ LAUGHLIN
Parents: Foster TREFETHEN0694
(before 1731 - after 1764) with Sarah PEACOCK
(Sometimes this is the BEST we can do!)
Biography:
Birth 15 April 1772, New Hampshire, USA [Findagrave]
Baptized on 07 May 1769, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, ‘son of Foster and Sarah’ Trefethen [Source 54]
Amy (or Amey [Source 151]) died after 1812, but before October 1819; in Alton, New Hampshire.
Married Sarah on 04 October 1819, in New Durham, New Hampshire. She was born there on 02 February 1798.
There are several instances where his name was spelt ‘TREFETHREN’ (especially before 1805), which is a clear indication that his descendants belong in this listing. Source 36 has found his son’s War of 1812 Pension File proving the Trefren/TREFETHEN link. In it, the wife of Jonah March TREFREN1203 states that although she & her children spell their name Trefren, her husband usually spelt it TREFETHEN.
He’s apparently the ancestor of all Trefrens in the U.S
A Miller & Cooper; also a licensed clergyman of the 1st Freewill Baptist Church
1798: is found on the Rochester, New Hampshire, Tax Lists.
1799 - 1805: is found on the Farmingham, New Hampshire, Tax Lists. In 1800 he had ’1 poll’; in 1801-1804, 1 poll & 1 cow; and in 1805 the same plus a horse. ‘Never any land, buildings, etc.
1805: Bought land in Alton, New Hampshire and was taxed there as a non-residence.
1806: A James Trefuren & Joseph Trefren are found on New Durham, New Hampshire, Tax Lists.
1808 - 1820: on Alton, New Hampshire Tax lists. He & Amy sold some land there in 1813.
James married Sarah Laughlin on 04 October 1819, and had James Jr. the next year.
1822: Moultonboro, Carroll County, New Hampshire voted to abate his tax for that year.
Died in Moultonboro, Strafford County, New Hampshire
Buried in Shannon Cemetery, East Moultonboro, Carroll County, New Hampshire.
Family Tradition says his father was lost at sea when James was a youngster. After this event, he was apprenticed out to learn the coopers and millers trade
Leitha Trefren writes (via the RoundTable)
“Yeah. Foster4. I always did think he was, just couldn’t prove it. But
thanks to Glenn’s tax lists in Portsmouth and various newspaper articles
he abstracted, and his and Gary’s land division work placing people in
various families on top of my vital record research, we seem to be left
with only Foster 4 in the right place at the right time and the right
age. The tombstone date is simply wrong, a good but not accurate guess
by one of James’ offspring. So James was not born in 1772 and was not a
father at the age of 18. Now if we could just determine Amy’s
parentage......sigh.”
(And later)
“Sarah Laughlin Trefren married John Kent after James5 Trefren died in 1846, lived in Lynn or Salem Massachusetts for a while, then with her daughter Amy after Mr. Kent died. Sarah is buried next to James5 in the Shannon Cemetery near Moultonboro.”
For more information, see Alice Elizabeth TREFREN1187, his grandaughter Alice, via Reverend John Below