From NEW ENGLAND FAMILIES GENEALOGICAL AND MEMORIAL
William Richard Cutter, A.M., New York, 1915
Captain Israel Jennison, son of Peter Jennison, was born at Sudbury, Massachusetts, 1713, died at Worcester, September 19, 1782. He settled in Worcester, and in 1739 owned the estate on Lincoln Street, just west of the city farm. For forty years he had a general store at the corner of Lincoln and Boylston streets. He was one of the leading citizens of the town. He was register of probate of the county, 1776-1793. He married (first) February 17, 1738, Mary Heywood, daughter of Deacon Daniel Heywood. She died June 19, 1775. He married (second) December 9, 1775, Margaret Coolidge, of Lancaster, widow of Rev. Joseph Wheeler. Children by first wife: Mary, born August 25, 1739; Sarah, April 13, 1742; Abigail, July 30, 1744, died June 29, 1798, unmarried; Samuel, December 24, 1745-46, married Elizabeth Curtis; John, July 3, 1747, died January 15, 1755; Faith, August 30, 1751; Relief, November 7, 1754, married Abel Stowell; William, Betsey or Betty, January 22, 1764.
From REMINISCENCES OF WORCESTER
Caleb Wall, Worcester MA; Tyler & Seagrave, 1877
Capt. Israel Jennison, born in Sudbury in 1713, was a resident here as early as 1739, when he married Mary, daughter of Dea. Daniel Heywood, and resided on the estate on Lincoln street next west of the City Farm, afterwards owned and occupied by the first John Barnard, who died Sept. 17, 1830, aged 87, and his son the late Capt. Lewis Barnard, who died April 2, 1853, aged 73. Capt. Jennison was a retail merchant, and kept store for some forty years previous to his death, Sept. 19, 1782, in a small building but a few years since destroyed, which stood just on the east corner of Lincoln and Boyslton streets. After his death, his store business was continued by Nathaniel Curtis, brother of his son Samuel's wife, and Samuel, about the same time (1782) opened a hotel at his own residence, which stood just east of the house of his father. This hotel, which for many years, was a famous place of resort, especially after the closing of Capt. John Curtis' hotel a little farrther west of it on the same street, for balls, &c., was kept by Samuel Jennison for some thirty years until his death, Nov. 18, 1815, aged 70. This hotel was continued by Adin Ayres and Oliver Eager, until 1819, when the property was purchased by the town of Worcester and the building used for an almshouse until 1854, at which latter time the present commodious brick structure since used for an almshouse was built by the city, on the east side of the junction of Lincoln and Boylston streets. The old Jennison tavern building, the cellar hole of which still remains, was torn down seven or eight years since by O. A. Kelley, Jr., the present owner of that estate and of the old Barnard estate adjoining it.
The keepers or superintendants of the town and city almshouse and farm located at that historic old corner and formerly celebrated thoroughfare of travel in the early history of the town, have been, from 1819 to the present time, in succession as follows: Luke Gray, Capt. Peter Slater, Maj. Samuel Graves, George H. Knight, Sumner Harrington, L. B. Drury, and John Farwell, the latter having now officiated about twenty years in that capacity.
Of Capt. Israel jennison's five children, one, Relief, born in 1754, married Abel Stowell; another, Betsey, married peter Stowell, brother of Abel and son of Cornelius Stowell; and William, born in 1760, married Elizabeth, daughter of Cornelius Stowell.
Capt. Israel Jennison's brother Samuel, born in Sudbury in 1722, who came here with his brother, married in 1755, Mary Heywood, daughter of Phinehas Heywood of Shrewsbury, where they resided and he died in 1704, aged 81, and his wife in 1820, aged 87.
After Capt. Jennison's death in 1782, his widow Mary (Heywood) married Rev. Joseph Wheeler, from Harvard, Register of Probate from 1776 till his death in 1793.