The 1868 NEGHR lists the marriage of Will Shackford to Patience Dow but in 1890, Samuel Shackford of Chicago carefully examined the original old church record and pointed out a "misleading and perplexing" error and clarifies that the records stated that Will Shackford had married Mrs Patience Downing.
We do not know when Patience died but do know that William's third wife was Eleanor Mendum who had first married Capt John Sherburn, then Mr Samuel Marshall. While we have not found a marriage record, multiple newspaper articles record Eleanor's death listing William as her third husband. They also state that she lived to her ninety first year, that William had died 32 years earlier, and that she had forty-two descendants, ten of whom had deceased and also had twenty one great grand children.
It is interesting to note that Eleanor's daughter Eleanor Jackson Marshall married William's son Samuel (she was his second wife) and Eleanor's daughter Deborah Marshall married William's son Josiah.
Dean John Ward Editor, The New England Historical and Genealogical Register Volume 44 1890 (1890), page 117; digital images, Google Books (http://books.google.com : accessed 26 March 2014
"DIED," Portsmouth Oracle (Portsmouth, New Hampshire), 25 February 1804; digital images, America's Historical Newspapers at Godfrey Memorial (http://infoweb.newsbank.com : accessed 29 April 2014).
Hardon Henry W, Newington, New Hampshire Families in the Eighteenth Century (Bowie, Maryland: Heritage Books, Inc, 1991), page 52
The New England Historical & Genealogical Register. For the Year 1868 Volume XXII: Published Quarterly, Under the Direction of the New England Historical Society (Boston: David Clapp & Son, 1868), page 25 and page 27; digital images, Google Books (http://books.google.com : accessed 28 February 2014; Church Records of Newington, N. H
Copyright 2014 Joanne Shackford Parkes