After his death, his widow Isabella had to contest with his sons Noah and Ebenezer to receive her rightful dower from his estate. In the 1925 publication A Wiswall Line: Ten Generations in Descent from Elder Thomas Wiswall of Dorchester, Massachusetts, 1635, to James Boit Wiswall, Wakefield, Massachusetts, 1925, this situation is recounted through a patriarchal lense: '... after his death [she] strove against his sons for her dower. To quieten down the spirited widow, the magnates of the settlement, Prentice, Bond and Trowbridge, assembled in committee, and finally got her under discipline, Prentice, the old trooper, compelling her to retract certain rash assertions and then dryly counselling her to keep a watch before her mouth, and keep the door on her lips.' Isabella's thoughts on the matter are not recorded, leaving us to only know of her actions through the writings of men biased against her.  

 

Not long after the contestation of her deceased husbands will, Isabella's son Edward Farmer was appointed her guardian on 7 April 1685. She died at his house in Billerica, Massachusetts, the following year, passing away on 21 May 1686. ​​​​​​

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Edward Farmer's home was fortified as a garrison during the wars then known as the 'Ten Years' Indian War' or 'American Indian Wars' and now referred to as the 'American Frontier Wars.' Family folklore passed down through generations recounts the following:​

 

​'Between 1670 and 1673 the house of Edward Farmer was fortified as a garrison for a number of years. While occupied as such, the following incident occurred, which has been handed down by tradition in the family. During the Ten Years' Indian War, and probably about the year 1692, when the first depredations were committed in the town of Billerica, the Indians meditated an attack on this garrison. For some days they had been lurking in the neighborhood of it without being discovered. Early in the forenoon of a summer's day, the wife and daughter of Edward Farmer went into the field to gather peas or beans for dinner, being attended by several of her sons, who were young lads, as a guard to protect them. They had been out but a short time before Mrs. Farmer discovered that a number of Indians were concealed behind the fences, and so near that she could almost reach them. Had she given any alarm, they would probably have rushed from their lurking-places, seized the party and fled; although their object was to get possession of the garrison, which offered more plunder and a greater number of captives. but with admirable presence of mind, and without making known the discovery she had made, to her sons, who might, with more temerity than prudence, have attacked the Indians, she said, in a loud tone of voice, "Boys, guard us well to the garrison, and then you may come back and hunt Indians."'

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Returning to Isabella, as an early European settler of the Americas and ancestress of many American descendants, she is recorded in several published genealogies and books about local history. These should always be compared to primary genealogical and historical sources for accuracy. ​Some examples of her in secondary sources:

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• ​When tracing his lineage, John Farmer published a memoir of his family descent in 1828. This work includes Isabella and records that 'John Farmer of Ansley m. Isabella Barbage of Great-Packington of Warwickshire. He died before the year 1669, and Isabella, his widow, came with some of her children to New England, a few years after this period, and married Elder Thomas Wiswall, of Cambridge Village, now Newton, who died 6 December, 1683. She died at Billerica, 21 May, 1686, at an advanced age.' John Farmer also referred to her as 'a woman of masculine courage and spirit'!

• This John Farmer also recorded that 'From her descended in a direct line the late Rev. Richard Farmer , D. D. Master of Emanuel College , Cambridge , author of "An Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare", and among the best commentators on that immortal bard.'

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• The 1854 book A History of the Early Settlement of Newton, County of Middlesex, Massachusetts, from 1639 to 1800: With a Genealogical Register of Its Inhabitants, Prior to 1800 by Francis Jackson she is recorded in the entry about her second husband Thomas Wiswall, as 'Last w[ife] Isabella Farmer, wid[ow], from Ansley, England. She died in Billercia, May, 1686 '.

 

• In 1908's Vital Records of Billerica, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850, an entry for Isabella was recorded: 'WIZSELL, Iszabell, Mrs.,[died] May 21, 1686. Mrs. Isabella Wiswall above mentioned, was wife of John Farmer of Anseley in the county of Warwickshire and came to this county with some of her children after his death, which occurred prior to 1669. It appears from original papers that she was sister to the Rev. Thomas Muston of Wykin and afterward of Brinkow in England. She married Mr. Thomas Wiswall, whence she acquire the name.' This account incorrectly records her as the sister of Rev. Thomas Muston of Wyken and Brinklow, both in Warwickshire, when she was his sister-in-law.
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• In the 4th volume of The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Isabella is featured: 'Isabella (Barbage) Farmer (widow of John Farmer) and her son Edward who was born in Ansley, Warwickshire, England, in 1641 and came to Billerica, Mass., 1670-73'.

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• As recently as in 1998, in the reprinted version of American Ancestry: Embracing lineages from the whole of the United States. 1888-1899, incorrect information regarding Isabella has been recorded, where only 7 of her 9 children are documented.
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• In a recent publication by Nathanial Lane Taylor of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, printed in 2007, Isabella's record says that: 'John Farmer m. Arley, Warwickshire, England 13 Aug 1633 Isabel Burbage, d/o Thomas Burbage and Anne ---, bp. Great Packington, Warwickshire 10 Nov 1611, immigrated with sons Edward and Thomas and daughter Isabel about 1671, m. about 1674 Thomas Wiswall of Newton, d. at house of son Edward in Billerica 21 May 1686.'