Katherine Hartshorne (1682-1759)

Katherine Hartshorne was born on 02 May 1682 in Middletown, Monmouth, New Jersey, as the seventh child of an English immigrant named Richard Hartshorne and his wife, Margaret Carr. Katherine Hartshorne had ten siblings, namely: Robert, Hugh, Thomas, Mary, William, Richard, Hugh, Sarah, Richard, and Mercy. Her name is found spelled as both Katherine and Catherine.

When she was 21, Katherine Hartshorne married Edward Fitz Randolph, son of Nathaniel Fitz Randolph and Mary Holley, in 1704 in Middletown, Monmouth, New Jersey.

Edward Fitz Randolph and Katherine Hartshorne had the following children:

1. Richard Fitz Randolph was born on 16 Jun 1705 in Woodbridge, Middlesex, New Jersey. He married Elizabeth Corlies on 25 Jul 1735. He died in 1754 in Perth Amboy, Middlesex, New Jersey.
2. Edward Fitz Randolph was born on 05 Sep 1706 in Woodbridge, Middlesex, New Jersey. He married Phebe Jackson on 23 Oct 1734 in Flushing Monthly Meeting, New York. He died on 26 May 1750 in Old Vail Farm, New Jersey.
3. Thomas Fitz Randolph was born on 24 Jan 1708 in Woodbridge, Middlesex, New Jersey. He died on 21 Sep 1740 in Woodbridge, Middlesex, New Jersey.
4. Mary Fitz Randolph was born on 24 May 1710 in Woodbridge, Middlesex, New Jersey. She married William Thorne in 1729. She married Fitz Randolph after 1735. She married Marmaduke Horseman on 16 Mar 1744. She married James Jackson on 26 May 1749.
5. Robert Fitz Randolph was born on 19 Jul 1712 in Woodbridge, Middlesex, New Jersey. He married Catherine Taylor before 20 Feb 1739 in Essex, New Jersey. He died about 1803 in Green Brook, Somerset, New Jersey.
6. Nathaniel Fitz Randolph was born on 21 May 1714 in Woodbridge, Middlesex, New Jersey. He married Mary Shotwell on 21 Nov 1745 in Woodbridge, Middlesex, New Jersey.
7. Margaret Fitz Randolph was born on 09 Sep 1716 in Woodbridge, Middlesex, New Jersey. She died on 18 Jun 1718 in Woodbridge, Middlesex, New Jersey.
8. Eseck Fitz Randolph was born on 12 Mar 1718 in Woodbridge, Middlesex, New Jersey.
9. Hugh Fitz Randolph was born on 19 Dec 1719 in Woodbridge, Middlesex, New Jersey. He died on 23 Jun 1748 in Woodbridge, Middlesex, New Jersey.
10. Hartshorne Fitz Randolph was born on 08 Mar 1723 in Woodbridge, Middlesex, New Jersey. He married Ruth Dennis on 16 Aug 1746 in New Jersey. He died about Mar 1805 in Randolph, Morris, New Jersey.

Katherine and Edward both grew up, and then raised their own family, in the Quaker faith. Back in 1704, about the same time as they married, the Society of Friends in Woodbridge decided to start holding their meetings at Nathaniel Fitz Randolph’s home “every first day of the week until Friends se kause to alter it.” This was the father-in-law of Katherine Hartshorne Fitz Randolph. Eventually, in 1713, a meeting house was ready and the meetings were moved there, but for many years, the young couple worshiped in the home of his parents.

Edward himself was “‘desired’ to repair the meeting-house and ‘hors stable’” according the meeting minutes from 21 Jun 1746. And when the Quarterly Meeting was held in Woodbridge for the first time ever on the last Monday in May of 1751, Edward was one of the two representatives to the meeting representing Woodbridge.

As a Quaker woman, Katherine probably had it slightly better than her Puritan counterparts of the same time period as Quakers believed in gender equality.

Katherine Hartshorne Fitz Randolph died on 13 Oct 1759 in Woodbridge, Middlesex, New Jersey at age 77. Her husband died a few months later on 23 Apr 1760 at age 90.

Where is she in the tree?

Selected Sources:

Rev. Joseph W. Daily, Woodbridge and vicinity : the story of a New Jersey township ; embracing the history of Woodbridge, Piscataway, Metuchen and contiguous places, from the earliest times ; the history of the different ecclesiastical bodies ; important official documents relating to the township, etc. [New Brunswick, N.J. : A.E. Gordon, 1873] Archive Org, Web, 30 Apr 2017, https://archive.org/details/woodbridgevicini00dall.