March 2010 Quiz

This month’s quiz borrows the theme from last December’s quiz: “Most Children.” In that quiz, I indirectly asked about the most children fathered by a Pendleton man. This month the question is what is the largest number of children born to a Pendleton woman?

A. 15
B. 17
C. 19

Check back next month for the answer...

-- ANSWER

First, I thought this one would be easy. I started looking for mothers who had 12 children and found that there were quite a number who had 13. So I narrowed the search to 13 or more and found quite a number who had 14 children. So, I narrowed again to 14 or more and found there were at least 4 Pendleton women (and one wife of a Pendleton) who gave birth 15 times! I didn’t find any who had more than 15 children, although, even though I now have about 25,000 people in the family tree, I still have a lot of missing “branches.”

I think the “winner” would have to be Deborah (-4) Pendleton and her husband, Joseph Clark. Deborah was born May 9, 1737 in Westerly, Rhode Island and died in Petersburg, New York – I’m not sure of the date of her death. Of her 15 children, all lived into adulthood the youngest dying at age 31. In fact, 12 of her children lived to be at least 69 and the longest lived child, Simeon Clark (-3), died at age 88 in 1850.

The other 3 Pendleton women who had 15 children were: Lydia (-3) Pendleton [1789 – 1873] and Elisha Bennett; Mary (0) Pendleton [1813 – 1892] and Henry Hooper; and Abigail (-2) Pendleton [1794 – 1869] and Francis Amy. Sadly, ten of Abigail’s children did not survive infancy.

Finally, the one “in-law” who had 15 children was Patience Little Rogers and Peleg (-2) Pendleton [1793 – 1874].