An American Family History

Zachariah Bonham was born at Maidenhead, Hunterdon County, New Jersey. There is some uncertainty about the exact year. He was the son of Hezekiah Bonham and his second wife.

The first mention of Zachariah was in December, 1736 in the minutes of a Maidenhead town meeting where he recorded details of marks and brands appearing on two chestnut colored mares and a reddish brown colt with black mane and tail.

Hazie said that Zachariah Bonham married either Miss "Marlett or Smalley"about 1729. Zachariah probably married Maria Marlett, daughter of Thomas Marlett. Thomas Marlett's 1748 will named Zachariah Bonham as a witness.

He and his family moved from Hunterdon County to Middlesex County about 1745.

Maria died before 1750 when Zacharia married Patience Ayers (or Ayres). She was a distant cousin of Zebulon Ayers, husband of Zachariah's sister, Temperance. Her family lived near Cohansey Corners, subsequently called Shiloh, in Salem (later Cumberland) County, New Jersey with a large settlement of sabbatarian Baptists. Zachariah and Patience lived in Shiloh and were Seventh Day Baptists. 

Zachariah Bonham probably died in Cumberland County.

Tax records of 1773 and afterward for Stow Creek Township in Cumberland County identified Patience Bonham as the widow of Zachariah. He and Patience were both buried in the cemetery at the Shiloh Seventh Day Baptist Church.

Howard Eugene Bonham and Jean Allin, Bonham and Related Family Lines, Bonham Book(s), 5104 Bridlington Ln., Raleigh, NC, 27612, printed by Genie Plus, Bradenton, FL, 1996: pgs. 198-203. 

Patience and Zachariah are both buried in the cemetery of the Seventh-Day Baptist Church of Shiloh, Cumberland Co., New Jersey in Lot 21.

Minutes of Town Meeting, 1716-1928, Lawrence Twp., Mercer County., New Jersey, New Jersey State Archives, Trenton, New Jersey, 

December ye 13 day 1736  Zachariah Bonham records a

"soril mair with a call face branded with Lo on the near thigh marked with a half penny eich side of the off ear

also a sorril mare colt with a flaxen main & and tail about a year & ... branded with 1 1 as he supposes with lC on the off thigh both hur hind feet white with a small crop on the off ear & a half penny one the fore side of the ...

with a yiar old hors coalt bay culour with a blais in the face & white feet gelt. 

pr [by] me John Anderson" 

Abraham Van Doren Honeyman (ed), New Jersey Archives - First Series

Benjamin Doughty of Prince Town, Middlesex Co.; will of.  ...  Proved 2 May 1747.   Inventory made 17 Apr 1747 by Edmind Beakes, Jedidiah Higgins, and Aaron Hughes; filed in Hunterdon Co., included a list of Bills and Bonds due.  The list of names included Zachariah Bonham, Isaac Fitchrandle [Fitz Randolph], Thomas South, Nicholas Lake, John Covenhoven, Isaac Randle [Fitz Randolph] of Newtown, PA, Jonathan Runian [Runyon], James Hide and many others.

May 6, 1749.  "Isaac Smalley of Piscataway, Middlesex Co.; taylor; will of.  ... Proved 22 May 1749.  Inventory of (38 pounds, 19 shillings and 7 pence) includes Bible, and cash in the hands of John Smalley, son of Jonathan Smalley, John Dennis, William Rogers, George Lang, Thomas Piatt. Made by John Hepburn and Zachariah Bonham, 19 May 1749.

From An Ancestral Chart and Handbook

Zachariah Bonham m. Patience Ayers dau. James and Phoebe Ayers.