Enoch Marble was born in Sutton, MA on November 25th, 1726. At that time, Sutton was still a new town. About ten years earlier, it had been just eight square miles in the middle of an unbroken forest. By 1715, a group of Boston investors, that had previously bought the tract of land from the Nipmuc Indians, started granting parcels of free land to the first thirty settlers to encourage settlement. Enoch’s father, Freegrace Marble, was one of them.
Freegrace was from Andover, and, like his father Samuel, he was a mason. He is said to have worked on the State House in Boston. Enoch’s mother, Mary Sibley, had moved from Salem. According to tradition, she and Freegrace celebrated the first marriage in the new community of Sutton. The Marbles were soon a family of prominence. Their pew in the town meeting house was 4′ 10″ by 5′ 6″ and located on the south side of the front door. The property that Enoch was raised on, The Freegrace Marble Farm, is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
On January 9th, 1750 , at the age of 23, Enoch married Abigail Holland. They established their homestead on the eastern half of the Marble property and set about raising a family of eleven children.
By the start of the Revolutionary War, Enoch had assumed a leadership role in the community. At the age of 48 he was a Lieutenant in the town militia. He had probably served during the French and Indian War, but the records are incomplete.
Tensions with Great Britain had been building for a long time. In the months and years leading up to the start of open hostilities towns had started forming “minute companies” in addition to their standing militia. Present day local Sutton historian Keith Downer says that between militia and minute companies the town of Sutton would ultimately provide over 600 men to serve in the revolution, more than any other small community in Massachusetts.
On the 19th of April, 1775 the Sutton minute companies were activated and dispatched to the Boston area in response to the Lexington Alarm the day before. Enoch’s militia company, under Captain Samuel Sibley, left a few days later, on the 21st . They went to Braintree to assist in the defense of Boston Harbor. They were there for seven days before it became apparent that the British did not have immediate plans for attack, and many of the militia units were sent home.
Following Braintree, Enoch retired from active service. He was appointed to the Sutton Committee of Correspondence, Inspection, and Safety in 1777 and held other leadership roles in the town. During the course of the war his five oldest sons, all who were of age, served at various times and in various units.
Following the war, he would live another four decades. He died on January 12th, 1815. His wife Abigail followed him three days later. The two of them had over fifty grandchildren. The markers are now gone, but it is widely assumed that they are buried in the Marble Family Cemetery in Sutton, on the property where Enoch was born and lived his entire life.
References and Notes
Benedict, Rev. William A. & Tracy, Rev. Hiram A, History of the Town of Sutton Massachusetts from 1704 to 1876 (Worcester, MA, Sanford and Company, 1878), pp. 9, 21-32, 98, 103, 688.
Biographical Review Worcester County Massachusetts (Boston, MA, Biographical Review Publishing Co. , 1899) Vol. 30, p 1110.
Downer, Keith, Y.M.H.S, Sutton, MA telephone conversations and email exchanges with Robert Eager March 2022.
Find a Grave, memorial page for Lt. Enoch Marble (25 Nov 1726-12 Jan 1815), Find a Grave Memorial ID 188297503; Maintained by Ross Weaver (contributor 48435494) (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/188297503/enoch-marble : accessed 19 March 2022.
Vital Records of Andover Massachusetts to the end of the year 1849, (Topsfield, MA, Topsfield Historical Society, 1912) Vol. 1. p 262.
Vital Records of Sutton Massachusetts to the end of the year 1849, (Worcester, MA, Franklin P. Rice, 1907) p 308.