Mary Bonham Dunham was born on October 4, 1661 in Barnstable, Barnstable County, Massachusetts. Her parents were Nicholas Bonham and Hannah Fuller.
When she was 20, she married the Reverend Edmund Dunham on July 15, 1681 in Piscataway. He was born on July 25, 1661 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. His parents were Benajah Dunham and Elizabeth Tilson. According to Leonard, Edmund was born in Piscataway and was the first European child born there.
Edmund was ordained at Westerly, Rhode Island in 1705.
. . .the 19th day of August, 1705, we did then and there and with one mind choose our dearly beloved Edmund Dunham, who is faithful in the Lord, to be our elder and assistant according to the will of God, whom we did send to New England to be ordained, who was ordained at the church-meeting in Westerly, R. I., by prayer and laying of hands by their elder, William Gibson, the 8th day of September, 1705.
He inherted from his father in 1680 "the Seventy Acres of land belonging to me which lyeth by Rariton river and I give to him my Musquet and my razier."
Mary and Edmund's children included:
Benajah Dunham (1684, married Dorothy Martin),
Elizabeth Dunham Martin (1689, married Jonathan Martin),
Edmund Dunham (1690/91, married Mary Hill and Dinah Fitzrandolph),
Reverend Jonathan Dunham (1692/93, married Jane Pyatt),
Ephraim Dunham (1696, married Phebe Smalley),
Ruth Dunham Thomas (1698, married David Thomas),
Mary Dunham Smalley (1700, married Elisha Smalley), and
Hannah Dunham Davis (1704, married Josiah Davis).
On January 23, 1709, Edmund was commissioned justice of peace by Queen Anne.
Edmund died on March 17, 1733/34 and Mary died July 15, 1742 when she was 80 years old.
Old Style Calendar
Before 1752 the year began on Lady Day, March 25th,. Dates between January 1st and March 24th were at the end of the year. Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) are used to indicate whether the year has been adjusted. Often both dates are used.
Piscataway Township in New Jersey was first settled in 1666 by Quakers and Baptists who had left the Puritan colony in New Hampshire.
Queen Anne ruled England and Great Britain from
March 8, 1702 to August 1, 1714.
Barnstable, Massachusetts was settled in 1639 when Parson Joseph Hull came to Cape Cod with and his congregation from Weymouth. A little later in the year, the Reverend John Lothrop brought his Congregationalists. They incorporated as the Town of Barnstable.
Women played an essential role in American society as mothers and homemakers.
