Gurney Genealogy Library Updated 15 July 2026 by Allen Gurney

Nathan Gurney of Little Comfort (1702–1786)

Nathan Gurney was not a direct ancestor; he and his wife Sarah Harden raised the direct-line ancestor Benjamin Gurney (G9).

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Born
15 October 1702, at Weymouth, Massachusetts. He was a son of Zachariah Gurney and Mary Benson, and a grandson of Richard Gurney of Weymouth (G12); he came to the Little Comfort settlement in south Abington as a young man. 1
Died
17 April 1786, at Abington. His wife Sarah outlived him by two years, dying in 1788. 2
Home
Little Comfort, the milling district of south Abington — then within the bounds of Bridgewater, later South Abington, today Whitman. The Gurneys had run its first sawmill since the 1690s; Nathan settled a 107-acre farm nearby, off what is now Plymouth Street. 3
Marriage
Married Sarah Harden (born 9 April 1707, Abington), daughter of John Harden of Little Comfort, blacksmith, and Mary Littlefield, on 12 May 1725. Sarah was the sister of Jane Harden, the mother of Benjamin Gurney (G9). 4
Relationship
Related, tied to G9. Nathan was a first cousin of Benjamin Gurney (G10) — both grandsons of Richard Gurney (G12) — and the husband of G9's maternal aunt. He and Sarah raised the young Benjamin (G9). He is not himself in the direct ancestor line. 5

Highlights

  • He raised a direct-line ancestor. Nathan and his wife Sarah Harden brought up Benjamin Gurney (G9), born in 1730 of an unmarried liaison, in their Little Comfort home. 5
  • Doubly kin to the boy. Sarah was Benjamin's mother's sister; Nathan was his father's first cousin. Fostering the child kept him inside both his Harden and his Gurney families. 5
  • Of the Little Comfort Gurneys. Nathan's people had come from Weymouth a generation earlier and settled the south part of old Abington, running its first sawmill at the milling hamlet of Little Comfort — the family seat for the next century. 3
  • A large household. Nathan and Sarah had ten children between 1725 and 1751 — Martha, Rebecca, Lemuel, Elijah, Noah, Nathan, Silas, Sarah, Jacob, and John — and Benjamin grew up among them. 6
  • Ancestor of the Whitman Gurneys. His descendants anchored South Abington and Whitman for generations. One great-grandson, also Nathan Gurney, became a long-serving selectman and state legislator — a different man, often confused with the foster father. 7

Narrative

Nathan Gurney belongs to the Abington side of the family rather than the direct line, but he sits at one of its turning points: he and his wife raised the boy who carries the line forward. He was born at Weymouth in 1702, a son of Zachariah Gurney, and came down to the new south-Abington settlement at Little Comfort as a young man — the milling hamlet, then still within Bridgewater, where his uncle John Gurney had built one of the first sawmills. Through his grandfather, Richard Gurney of Weymouth (G12), Nathan was a first cousin of the direct-line Benjamin Gurney (G10): Richard’s son Zachariah was Nathan’s father, and Richard’s son Benjamin (G11) was the direct ancestor. 35

In May 1725 Nathan married Sarah Harden, a blacksmith’s daughter from Little Comfort and a sister of Jane Harden; their first child, Martha, arrived that July. Five years on, Jane gave birth to a son, Benjamin, baptized at the First Church of Abington on 30 May 1730 with only his mother named. The child was taken into Nathan and Sarah’s household — a natural landing place, since Sarah was the baby’s aunt and Nathan his father’s cousin. Benjamin grew up there alongside the couple’s own children: Martha and Rebecca, then Lemuel, born the same year as Benjamin, and in the years that followed Elijah, Noah, Nathan, Silas, Sarah, Jacob, and John. 46

Nathan died at Abington in 1786, and Sarah two years after him; the last of their children had been born in 1751. His line did not leave. While the direct-line Benjamin moved on to Bridgewater and ultimately to Cummington in the western hills, Nathan’s sons and grandsons stayed in south Abington, gave their name to houses still standing in Whitman, and produced — three generations on — another Nathan Gurney prominent enough in town affairs that the two are easily mistaken for one another. 27

Citations

  1. Born 15 October 1702 at Weymouth (Weymouth vital records); parentage — son of Zachariah Gurney and Mary (Benson) Gurney, grandson of Richard Gurney of Weymouth — from Jean Gurney Rigler, The Gurney Family from Aaron to Zuinglius, rev. ed. (Honolulu: J. G. Rigler, 1994), Nathan-4 entry, p. 182. Benjamin Hobart's History of the Town of Abington, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, from its First Settlement (Boston: T. H. Carter and Son, 1866), Appendix Gurney register, pp. 383–384, made Nathan a son of John Gurney of Little Comfort; Rigler corrects this, noting the error arose from the wording of John Gurney-3's estate transactions and that the Weymouth vital records, Cyrus Nash, and the Anna Gurney papers establish Zachariah as his father. Source IDs: rigler-gurney-family-aaron-zuinglius-1994, hobart-benjamin-history-abington-1866. return
  2. Nathan Gurney died 17 April 1786, and Sarah (Harden) Gurney in 1788, both at Abington (Abington vital records), per Rigler, Gurney Family from Aaron to Zuinglius (1994), Nathan-4 entry, p. 182. Source ID: rigler-gurney-family-aaron-zuinglius-1994. return
  3. The Little Comfort milling hamlet of south Abington (first sawmill, 1698): Hobart, History of the Town of Abington (1866), Appendix Gurney register, p. 383, and main text p. 3. Rigler, Gurney Family (1994), identifies the mill's founder as John Gurney-3 — Nathan's uncle, a son of Richard Gurney (G12) — and records Nathan's own 1733 purchase of a 107-acre Stowell tract near Plymouth Street where he settled (Nathan-4 entry, p. 182). Source IDs: hobart-benjamin-history-abington-1866, rigler-gurney-family-aaron-zuinglius-1994. return
  4. Sarah Harden's birth (9 April 1707) and parentage from Vital Records of Abington, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850, vol. 1, and John Harden's 1751 Plymouth County will (daughter Sarah Gurney). Marriage of Nathan Gurney and Sarah Harden, 12 May 1725 at Abington, from Rigler, Gurney Family (1994), Nathan-4 entry, p. 182, and The Neverending Hobby — John Gurney, US 1636; their eldest child Martha was born that July. Source IDs: abington-vr-1850-vol1, plymouth-probate-john-harden-1751-will, rigler-gurney-family-aaron-zuinglius-1994, neverending-hobby-john-gurney-us-1636. return
  5. Relationship: Rigler, Gurney Family (1994), entry Benjamin Gurney-5, pp. 21–22 ("raised in Abington by Nathan-4 & Sarah (Harden) Gurney, his mother's sister"), with the shared descent from Richard Gurney of Weymouth (G12) — Nathan through Richard's son Zachariah (Nathan-4 entry, p. 182), the direct line through Richard's son Benjamin Gurney-3 (G11). Source ID: rigler-gurney-family-aaron-zuinglius-1994. return
  6. Children of Nathan and Sarah from Rigler, Gurney Family (1994), Nathan-4 entry, p. 182, with Hobart, History of the Town of Abington (1866), Appendix Gurney register, p. 384: Martha (b. 1725, m. Zachariah Shaw), Rebecca (1727, m. Joseph Tirrell), Lemuel (1730), Elijah (1732), Noah (1735, m. Ruth Pool), Nathan (1739, m. Mary "Molly" Palmer), Silas (1743, m. Ruth Palmer), Sarah (1745/6), Jacob (1748, m. Elizabeth Keene — Rigler correcting Hobart's "Reese"), and John (1751, m. Sarah Norton). Source IDs: rigler-gurney-family-aaron-zuinglius-1994, hobart-benjamin-history-abington-1866. return
  7. Hobart, History of the Town of Abington (1866), Appendix Gurney register, pp. 385–386, and main-text biography of Nathan Gurney, Jr. (d. 11 Jan. 1851); Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System inventory WHI.307 ("Gurney, Nathan and Martha Pullman House," Whitman). Source IDs: hobart-benjamin-history-abington-1866, macris-mhc. return