1Florence Harlow Barclay and Anna N. Gurney, Rebecca, Wife of Reverend Isaac Cushman, The American Genealogist, Vol. 26, pp. 144-147 (1950).
"Descendants of Robert Cushman (1855), by Henry Wyles Cushman, which we shall refer to hereafter as the Cushman Genealogy, states on page 101: "Rev. Isaac3 Cushman, born at Plymouth Feb. 8, 1647-8, married Mary Rickard, probably about 1675 as their first child was born Nov. 1776 [sic, doubtless a typographical error for 1676]; she was born 1654 and died at Plympton Sept. 27, 1727 age 73."
Page 121: "Of his wife Rebeckah (so it is spelled in the original records) Rickard we know but little. She was a member of quite a large family that settled in Plympton. Three of the name Rickard were among those who joined the Church at Plympton at its organization in 1698. They were probably her relatives, perhaps her father and mother. She was 21 and he was 27 at date of marriage; she being 6 years older than her husband. She died 5 years before him, age 73. Her monument stands next to that of her husband's and reads 'here lies buried ye body of Mrs. Rebeckah Cushman wife of ye Rev'd Mr. Isaac Cushman dec. Sept. ye 3rd 1727, in ye 73rd yr. of her age.'"
The Cushman Genealogy is not only very confusing but contradictory in regard to the wife of Rev. Isaac Cushman.
. . .
Davis, Landmarks of Plymouth (1883), in the genealogical section, under Cushman states that Isaac married Rebecca daughter of Giles Ricard 1675; but under Rickard fails to attribute to Giles a daughter Rebecca or any daughter who married Isaac Cushman, but, strange to relate, states of John Rickard, son of Giles, that he m. 1651 Esther Barnes and had Mary who m. Isaac Cushman, and a son John 1657.
. . .
In regard to the statement that Mary was a daughter of John2 Rickard, there is no evidence that John2 and Esther (Barnes) Rickard ever had a daughter Mary. The only child found recorded to them was John on Nov. 24, 1657. The Davis statement that Isaac married Rebecca daughter of Giles Rickard is erroneous.
. . .
1. Rebecca2 Harlow was born June 12, 1655. She thus would have been 72 on June 12, 1727, and in her 73rd year in Sept. 1727 when Mrs. Rebecca Cushman died. The age, in other words, is exactly in harmony.
. . .
To sum up: there is no evidence that Rev. Isaac ever had a wife Mary; he did have a wife Rebecca, born 1654-5 and died Sept. 3, 1727, whom he married about 1674-5. Her age at death agrees with the birth date of Rebecca Harlow, and they may well have been identical.".