General Notes

Pioneer Irish in New England
CHAPTER IX
page 152

In the case of Elephel Fitzgerald, there is an interesting but all too inadequate account of her in the genealogy of the Slocum family, in which it is said that about 1687, she married Eliezer Slocum of Dartmouth, Mass. (now New Bedford). Eliezer was a son of Giles Slocum of Portsmouth, R. I., who, on receiving a grant of a large tract of land in Dartmouth Township, removed to that place before 1682. Eliezer owned extensive properties at a place known as Slocums Neck on Buzzards Bay, and his will, dated March 1, 1727, still preserved in the probate office at Taunton, shows that he divided his estate, which was appraised at the immense sum for those days of œ5790, among his beloved wife, Elephel, and his sons, Eliezer and Ebenezer. The time of her arrival in this country is unknown, and among her New England descendants, there are partially conflicting opinions as to the circumstances of her departure from her native land. In one branch of the Slocum family, the tradition is, that although she was a lady of high birth, she was one of a number of young women who were forcibly brought to America and sold for wives to respectable purchasers, the purchase money in this instance amounting to about $600. Other  branches apparently are unwilling to acknowledge that she could have occupied so lowly a station in life as to be sold as a wife to their Slocum ancestor. These Slocums probably are unacquainted with Englands methods of governing Ireland at that period, namely, in confiscating the property of the Irish and parcelling it out among the English adventurers and soldiers, rich and poor were treated with equal severity and some of the leading families of the island were thus reduced to the most extreme poverty.
The tradition in these branches is to the effect that Elephel Fitzgerald was a daughter of Earl Edmund Fitzgerald of Dublin, whose sister became affianced to an English officer against her fathers will and eloped with him, taking with her a younger sister, this Lady Elephel, whom they brought to America, perhaps to further the success of their plans.

In another account of the family, written by a descendant of Eliezer and Elephel Slocum, Collections, New Hampshire Historical Society, Vol. 4, p. 503;
Vol. 5, p. 86; Vol. 7, p. 158; Vol. 31, p. 578.47 it is stated that she lived as a domestic in the household of Giles Slocum at Portsmouth, that Eliezer was born at Portsmouth in 1664, he and Elephel Fitzgerald having been married before they were twenty, and with his wife, Elephel, he was living at Slocums Neck prior to 1684. A romantic story has come down in the family of the courtship of Eliezer Slocum and the Irish maiden, but it has had no appeal for their descendant, and he not only treats it as a fable but seeks to cast ridicule on the tradition that she was of the noble family of the Geraldines. In what manner, he relates, our little Irish maid was separated from her sister and came to find a home in the simple household of Giles Slocum in  Portsmouth, the tradition sayeth not. Irish maids were not commonly employed in those early days, and even in later times Irish maids were seldom Earls daughters. Nonetheless, it is probable that the Lady Elephel did in fact serve in a domestic capacity in the household of Giles Slocum. Elephel (Fitzgerald) Slocum was the mother of seven children, all born in Dartmouth Township between 1689 and 1703, and her will, proved October 4, 1748, shows that she divided among them a considerable estate. Her daughter, Joanna, married Daniel Weeden of Jamestown, R. I., and many of the Weeden, Slocum, Carpenter and other families now in Rhode Island and Massachusetts trace their descent back to the gentle Irish girl, Elephel Fitzgerald.

Elephel, beloved wife, was bequeathed by her husband, Eliezer, the sum of twenty pounds annum of good and lawful money of New England to be paid every year for her natural life, an Indian girl named Dorcas during the time she had to serve by indenture, the great low room of his dwelling house with the two bedrooms belonging together with the chamber over it, the bedrooms belonging thereto and the garret, also what part of the N. addition she shall choose and one half of the cellar. The executors were to supply Elephel with firewood sufficient during her natural life and whatsoever provisions and corn were left after Eliezer's death, and hay sufficient for the support of the cattle.
Elephel's will of considerable estate was proved October 4, 1748.