Chris & Julie Petersen's Genealogy

Martha Wood

Female Abt 1644 - Aft 1715  (~ 72 years)


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  • Name Martha Wood 
    Born Abt 1644  , , , United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Female 
    Died Aft 1715  of Jamaica, Queens, New York, United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Person ID I4003  Petersen-de Lanskoy
    Last Modified 27 May 2021 

    Family Jonathan Mills,   b. Abt 1637, of Jamaica, Queens, New York, United States Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. Aft 21 Jan 1717, of Jamaica, Queens, New York, United States Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age ~ 80 years) 
    Married Abt 1665  of Jamaica, Queens, New York, United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Last Modified 28 May 2021 
    Family ID F1917  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Notes 
    • RESEARCH_NOTES:
      1. FHL book 929.273 M625u "A Mills and Kendall Family History…," by Helen Schatvet Ullmann (Boston, 2002), pp. 11-14:
      "Jonathan2 MILLS (George1), son of George and perhaps Rebecca (___) Mills, was born perhaps about 1637. It has been said that "He was living at an advanced age at Jamaica 1718."[41] But no confirmation of this has been found. He was surely living on January 21, 1714 and probably on January 18, 1717 (see below). Although he lived in the area of Jamaica called Springfield, there is no gravestone for him in the cemetery on Springfield Avenue. This contains many Mills but none early enough for Jonathan's family.[42] He married, probably in the mid-1660s, Martha WOOD. It has often been said that Martha "was born about 1644, probably in America, and died after 1710 in Jamaica, L.I., daughter of Jonas Halstead" of Hempstead, Oyster Bay and Jamaica.[43] However, Martha was much more likely the daughter of Timothy and ___ (Strickland) Wood.[44] She was living on January 21, 1714 (1714/15?) when she and Jonathan sold land...
      By a deed of gift dated November 10, 1710 Jonathan Mills of Jamaica and his wife Martha "for love and affection" gave their son Samuel Mills half of the homestead farm of 80 acres in the Springfield section of Jamaica, a piece of fresh meadow on the "further East Neck in the said township, And also two small lotts ... on ye said Neck in ye Cove, Containing about three acres," reserving for themselves the largest room in the house, half the orchard and a third of the crops during their lifetime. After their deaths Samuel was to pay their executors ₤25 current money of New York. Jonathan and Martha made their marks and it was witnessed by Joseph Smith and William Ludlum.[52] On January 20, 1714 Samuel transferred this back to Jonathan and the next day, January 21, Jonathan and Martha sold it to Peter Noorstrant of Jamaica in two documents.[53] It has been said that they moved to Smithtown with all four of their sons.[54] But no record confirming this has been found. Perhaps Jonathan and Martha did go to Smithtown, but the only son found there is Timothy.[55]
      ENDNOTES
      41. Edward C. Mills, 1:4.
      42. William Applebee Eardeley, "Springfield, Jamaica, Queens County, Long Island, New York, Cemetery, 1735 or 1760 to 1909," typescript (Brooklyn, 1912), FHL #0,017,931.
      43. William Leon Halstead, "The Story of the Halsteads of the United States" (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1934), p. 58, which says Jonas had a daughter Martha who married Jonathan Mills and had Timothy, Jonathan, Samuel and perhaps others but gives no evidence. She may have been born in Stratford, Connecticut, since Orcutt's history of that town says, "Jonas Halstead was among the early dwellers of Stratford, went to Jamaica, L.I., before 1660" (Samuel Orcutt, "A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut" [New Haven, 1886], Part I, p. 136, his source unknown), but no deeds for him appear in Stratford land records. The English origin of the Halsteads is treated by Arthur S. Wardwell, "Jonas Halstead and John Lum of Hempstead, New York," "The American Genealogist," 18 [19421:146-47. He concludes that Jonas was baptized at Northowram Patish in Halifax, Yorkshire, on 23 Feb. 1611, son of Abraham and Susan (Whitley) Halstead and discusses his relationship to other Hempstead families. The theory that Martha was the daughter of Jonas Halstead is based on a land record where on 30 March 1677 Jonas Halstead of Jamaica deeded to Jonathan Mills of the same place, "for a valluable consideration," a third of the whole "Acomadation" which Jonas had bought from Robert Coe, but described as a half of the housing, orchard, land, meadow and fences which Jonas and his son Joseph owned. Cook says, "This was apparently a dowery (sic) given to Jonathan Mills at least ten years after his marriage to Halstead's daughter Martha." But six days later, by an assignment of 5 April 1677, Jonathan Mills transferred this property to William Creed and Daniel Whitehead (Frost, "Jamaica," 1:72-73, from 1:84-85, Cook says from Queens Co. Deeds, Liber B2, pp. 148-49, recorded 28 April 1706). The apparent contradiction in the portion may be due to Jonas having previously sold a third of his original purchase. The assignment to Creed and Whitehead might have been a mortgage except that they turned around and on 10 April 1677 sold it to John Skidmore (Frost, "Jamaica," 1:74, from 1:86). This does not seem sufficient evidence of Martha's ancestry.
      44. Some time ago Harry Macy, Jr., raised the possibility that Jonathan's wife Martha was a daughter of Timothy Wood, based on the will of John Strickland. Strickland's will gave Jonathan Mills and John Loum's eldest daughter each a cow and later said, "it is to be understood that those two cows mentioned to John Loum's daughter & to Jonathan Mills were my wife's and she gave them as she saw good" (Matthew Wood, "English Origins of the Mitchell, Wood, Lum and Halstead Families," NYGBR, 120[1989]:9; Anderson, "Great Migration Begins," 1786). In "Descendants of Timothy Wood, of Long Island," (NYGBR, 132[2001], 37-45), Matthew V. Wood, Jr., concludes that Martha was indeed the daughter of Timothy Wood and granddaughter of John Strickland. .
      52. Queens Co. Deeds, as transcribed, B2:176 from B2:512-14.
      53. Queens Co. Deeds, C:49-51.
      54. Cook, 25, and Edward C. Mills, 1:4, who both probably had it from James H. Mills.
      55. See the discussion below under the section for Jonathan's son Samuel3 Mills. On 18 February
      1717 Timothy Mills of Smithtown, mentioning "my father Jonathan Mills of Springfield," quitclaimed on the same land to Peter Nostrant alias Garrassin (Queens Co. Deeds, C:141). If Jonathan had died, the deed probably would have called him "deceased."