Dorchester, Elothena

Elothena (Dorchester) Barker

Sullivan, NH

Elothena Dorchester was born in Sterling, MA, in February 1785 to Ishmael and Peggy (Rogers) Dorchester.  She was born the second of the family’s six children. Census records for the years 1790 and 1800 document the Dorchester family’s presence in Sterling, MA.  Ishmael Dorchester was listed as a male head of household in the racial category of “all other free persons.”  All other household members were also listed as free people of color; this most likely included wife Peggy, the children and perhaps one additional person. 

At the age of 20, Elothena married Peter Barker of Sullivan, NH on October 15, 1805.  They were married in her hometown of Sterling, MA, but relocated to Sullivan, NH.  According to Lancaster, MA, historian and Black history researcher Joy F. Peach (2016), Elothena’s father Ishmael Dorchester ran up debt while the family was in Sterling.  This may have caused the Dorchesters to move out of Massachusetts and follow their daughter into southwest New Hampshire.  The Dorchesters relocated to the Dunn Place in Sullivan, NH by 1810.

Elothena’s husband Peter Barker died in 1810, reportedly by eating too many chestnuts. On April 30, 1823 Elothena died at the age of 38 in Sterling, MA.  An inventory of his estate was included in the NH probate records.  After Peter Barker's death, Elothina left Sullivan and moved to Sterling, MA, where her family was originally from.  She died there in 1823.   

~Written by Historical Society of Cheshire County Director of Education Jennifer Carroll, 2024.

GENEALOGICAL SUMMARY

ELOTHENA DORCHESTER was born in Sterling, MA in February 1785 to ISHMAEL and PEGGY (ROGERS) DORCHESTER.  She married PETER BARKER in Sterling, MA, on October 15, 1805.  He died in Sullivan, NH, in 1810.  Elothena died in Sterling, MA, in 1823.

SOURCE MATERIALS

Massachusetts Town Vital Records, Births, Sterling- 1785- Ancestry.com

Massachusetts Town Vital Records, Deaths, Sterling- 1823- Ancestry.com

New Hampshire Vital Records, Deaths, Sullivan- 1810- Ancestry.com

New Hampshire Vital Records, Marriages, Sullivan- 1805- Ancestry.com

Nugent, Karen. “Black History of Lancaster Told.” Telegram & Gazette, Feb. 7, 2006.

Seward, Josiah Lafayette. A History of the town of Sullivan, New Hampshire, 1777-1917 (1921), pages 940-941.

U.S. Federal Census, 1790, 1810, 1820- Ancestry.com