On the Howie and Rider branches I have come to a wall and currently am unable to research back any further. The New England Historical Genealogical Society has a 100 year gap between my GGGr-granndfather Seth Bartlett Rider of Haverhill New Hampshire and Samuel Rider. I call it a wall, as many researchers on Ancestry.com were placing a Seth Rider of Massachusetts in their tree, which I knew was incorrect. To prove this I had to start researching other branches and the history of Haverhill New Hampshire.
What I have found is my sixth generation 4th Great Grand Father Thomas Hibbard (1756 - 1800) born in England. Helen Desdemonia Rider was my 2nd Great Grand Mother, and her father was Ezra Bartlett Rider. Ezra's mother was Mary Hibbard (1774 - 1860), and she was the daughter of Thomas Hibbard.
I have purchased three books on the Hibbard family and have downloaded from google books some history books on the area. As I get more information I may update this post, however here is what I have so far.
Thomas Hibbard was born in England and came first to Haverhill New Hampshire and settled in Newbury Vermont between 1770 and the American Revolutionary War. He fell in love with and married Lucy Sylvester on February 22, 1772. She was the daughter of Levi Sylvester, and she was born in 1751. Their first born was Mary Hibbard born in 1774, she later becomes Seth Bartlett Rider's second wife from whom we descend. Thomas and Lucy had seven children in all. In June of 1775 Thomas was appointed adjutant in Colonel Bedel's regiment and accompanied it through the march to Canada. He was able to return to his family in January 1776. In that same month he was appointed adjutant in another regiment commanded by Colonel Timothy Bedel, which went back to Canada and they were gone for more than one year. In the summer of 1777 we find him present at the surrender of British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga, New York on October 17, 1777. Burgoyne’s surrender followed battles with American General Horatio Gates near Saratoga on September 19 and October 7, 1777. Later Thomas was adjutant of a regiment which protected the northern frontier of New Hampshire in an area of disputed land Grants between Fort Number 4 and Crown Point until the end of the war. In all he saw about three and a half years of service. Thomas Hibbard then became a school master and minute, and it is said that he had the most beautiful hand in writing. A minute was a person who wrote land deeds, so many such documents of the era would have been written in Thomas Hibbards hand. As a school master Thomas taught in Newbury, Haverhill and in Bath, and in 1800 he went to Cambridge, New York, to open an academy, where he died suddenly on July 01, 1800. After his untimely death, Lucy (Sylvester) Hibbard married Mark Sanborn of Bath on January 10, 1801. They stayed married until his death on July 26, 1821. She never married again and she lived until 1860 at the age of 86 years.
