Meeting Ann Bessonet

We know that John was married to Ann Bessonet of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Ann's family lived for a time in Pennsylvania. Her father, Daniel was a Loyalist during the Revolutionary War, so they were forced to leave this country at the end of the war. They settled in Halifax.

According to the Bessonet Cabeen Manuscript, Ann's two sisters died of consumption in the same year, 1796. "Benjamin Etter, the husband of Mary Bessonet, is said to have been very proud of his beautiful wife. After her death in 1796, he was anxious to marry her youngest and only remaining sister, Ann, Elizabeth and Mary having died in the same year. Persecuted by his attentions which were distasteful to her, she desired to leave Halifax. She had a kind and faithful friend in Mrs. Wright, the wife of a clergyman of the Established Church, who not only encouraged her in her desire, but gave her practical assistance. Ann Bessonet, having found a sum of money apparently mislaid upon a windowsill, took it to Mrs. Wright, and was told by her that it was not lost money, but her own. By this means she was enabled to go from Halifax to Philadelphia. She took passage in the vessel commanded by Captain John Boyd, sailing between Philadelphia and Halifax, and afterwards married Captain Boyd in Philadelphia.

After her marriage -- probably immediately after -- she sailed with her husband on a voyage to Lisbon. Three years before his death, which occurred in 1805, his health failed and he left the sea and removed with her to Bristol, PA. Their son, John, was born in Philadelphia in 1802, their daughter, Mary Ann in Bristol, PA in 1803.

John Boyd died in 1805, aged 27 years, and was buried in Bensalem, PA. Soon after she married Robert Cabeen.