The Oddest Family That Ever Lived

The Wonders of the Universe, published in 1842.

The Wonders of the Universe, as the title page suggests, offers memoirs and anecdotes of wonderful and eccentric characters throughout history. One of my favorite stories is about the Odd Family. Their story is so incredibly odd, it’s difficult to believe. I’ve seen no other record of them, but then, their story dates to the late 17th century when not everything was recorded as it is today. Perhaps it’s true, perhaps it’s filled with exaggerations or maybe it’s simply folklore. But regardless of its veracity, it’s an entertaining tale. The full story is below:

In the reign of William the Third, there lived in Ipswich, in Suffolk, a family, which, from the number of peculiarities belonging to it, was distinguished by the name of the Odd Family. Every event remarkably good or bad happened to this family on an odd day of the month, and every one of them had something odd in his or her person, manner, and behavior; the very letters in their christian names always happened to be an odd number. The husband’s name was Peter, and the wife’s Rabah; they had seven children, all boys, viz Solomon, Roger, James, Matthew, Jonas, David, and Ezekiel.

The Odd Family, from the book “The Wonder of the Universe” published in 1842.

The husband had but one leg, his wife but one arm. Solomon was born blind of the left eye, and Roger lost his right eye by accident; James had his left ear pulled off by a boy in a quarrel, and Matthew was born with only three fingers on his right hand; Jonas had a stump foot, and David was hump-backed; all these, except David, were remarkably short, while Ezekiel was six feet two inches high at the age of nineteen; the stump-footed Jonas, and the hump-backed David, got wives of fortune; but no girl would listen to the addresses of the rest. The husband’s hair was as black as jet, and the wife’s remarkably white, yet every one of the children’s was red. The husband had the peculiar misfortune of falling into a deep saw-pit, where he was starved to death in the year 1701; and his wife, refusing all kinds of sustenance, died in five days after him. In the year 1703, Ezekiel enlisted as a grenadier, and although he was afterwards wounded in twenty-three places he recovered. Roger, James, Matthew, Jonas, and David, died at different places on the same day in 1713, and Solomon and Ezekiel were drowned together in crossing the Thames, in the year 1723.