wife of Deacon Ralph Wheelock

∼Mercy Standish, dau. of Lieut. Josiah Standish & his 2nd wife Sarah Allen, and gr.dau. of Capt. Myles Standish of the Plymouth Colony and 1620 Mayflower. She was prob. b. at Duxbury, Mass. but the date of her birth is not of record and the confusion caused by her gravestone at Windham, Conn. does not help matters.

On Sept. 30, 1726 of record in Windham, Conn., Mercy m. as his 2nd wife, Dea. Ralph Wheelock, s. of Capt. Eleazer Wheelock and Elizabeth Fuller, b. in Mendon, Mass. Feb. 12, 1682/3. He d. in Hebron, Conn. Oct. 15, 1748, Æ 66 and is interred there at the Andover Road, or Old Hebron, Cemetery.

There is no record that Mercy was previously married. She and her husband had only one child, dau. Mary, who will be detailed in her father's memorial.

The record of Mercy (Standish) Wheelock's gravestone in the Hale Cemetery Database is obviously wrong:

• Wheelock, Mercy, wife of Deacon Ralph Wheelock, died Nov. 4, 1846, age 6?

According to the inventory of the Windham Center cemetery by Joel N. Eno, A.M., and published in July 1917, her gravestone said:

• This Monument Sacred to the memory of Mrs. Mercy, wife of Deacon Ralph Wheelock ob. Nov. 4th A.D. 1746 Ætat 6[2d digit illeg. or missing]

The word "ob" in the inscription is abbreviated Latin for obit, i.e. died. Also, the incomplete word "Ætat" in her inscription is also Latin for the term "Ætatis suæ," in which age is based on the day of birth (a person is in the 1st year of their age at birth), not on a chronological year basis. Susan Roser in "Mayflower Increasings" adjusted the date of death to Nov. 4, 1748 citing her husband's will dated Oct. 10, 1748 in which: "I leave to my well beloved wife mercy the whole and improvement of my House and Household upon both sides of the Highway...and all my Personal Affects..." There is no record of Mercy's death in any known Connecticut town record.

Edited 8/27/2016