Maria Ward Tracy 1764

Born December 12, 1764 in Shrewsbury, MA. and died Oct. 6, 1833. Engaged to Joseph Henshaw of Middletown, CT who was lost in a shipwreck off Guadalupe. She married Dr. Ebenezer Tracy of Middletown, CT, Jan 14, 1790 in Middletown. William Ward Family Genealogy tells us the story “Among Maria Ward’s accomplishments was that of ventriloquism…on a dark and stormy night as the lone passenger in a stage-coach, she frightened off a party of highwaymen by keeping up an imaginary conversation of gruff male voices inside the coach all the time that it was passing through the wilder part of the route where it was (correctly) suspected that they lay in ambush.” Maria and her husband had 10 children all born in Middletown, CT.