Mary 'Maria' Dodd

Died 24 days after the birth of her son Samuel Dodd

Disputed origins

Is there any proof Daniel Dodd married Mary Wheeler in Concord, MA about 1644?

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1151682/there-proof-daniel-dodd-marrie...

GEDCOM Note

{One Name Study | name = Wheeler | category = Wheeler_Name_Study}

Biography

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wheeler-569

Mary Wheeler might or might not have emigrated to America with her half-brother Thomas Wheeler "of Wharley"" and other siblings and if she did, she "might" have been the woman who married Daniel Dod(d) in Connecticut but there is no proof of either of these scenarios. Further, there is no proof of the surname of Daniel Dodd's wife (see Marriage & Children section below). Therefore everything from her emigration onward is "uncertain" but is shown in the datasection simply to help with future research.

Birth and Baptism

Mary Wheeler was christened October 20, 1615 in Bourne End, Cranfield,Bedfordshire, England as the daughter of Thomas Wheeler "of Borne End" (see attached image). She was the daughter of Thomas Wheeler "The Elder" (self described in his own will) aka "of Borne End" (he owned property there and bequeathed it in his will to sons Timothy and Ephraim) and to his second wife and relict Rebecca Unknown.<ref>The Parish Register of Cranfield 1600-1812. Bedfordshire County Record Office 1943. https://archive.org/details/bedfordshirepari27bedf/page/3/mode/1up</ref>

Emigration

If Mary emigrated to New England, it may have been in the early 1630s,when her half-brother Thomas and wife Anne Halsey arrived prior to his being listed as a freeman in Concord in 1637. No primary record of her travels has been found.

Marriage and Children

Mary Wheeler and Daniel Dod "might" have married in New Haven, Connecticut about 1646. The sole source for her name as Wheeler appears to be a privately published book from 1864 about the Dodd family<ref name=Dodd>Genealogies of the Male Descendants of Daniel Dod of Branford Connecticut...], by Dr. Bethuel L. Dodd & John R Burnet, Daily Advertiser Press, Newark NJ: 1884; pg. 33 https://archive.org/details/genealogiesofmal1864dodd/page/32/mode/2up</ref> which does not include primary sources, and admits that this "conjecture" is based on the will of Daniel's son Stephen Dod(d) naming "Mary Wheeler, his cousin" in his will leading to the possibility that Daniel's wife Mary was surnamed Wheeler. However, "cousin" at that time could also mean niece, sister-in-law or possibly no marriage relationship at all as is seen by men referring to their "brother" in a will, who is later found to bea fellow member of church. This should obviously be treated as speculative unless true sourcing can be found. The 1940 work "Genealogy and history of the Daniel Dod family in America, 1646-1940" by Allison Dodd and Joseph Fulford Folsom does not address this issue but simply quotes the earlier work by Bethuel Lewis Dodd. [Genealogy and history of the Daniel Dod family in America, 1646-1940 https://archive.org/details/genealogyhistory00dodd/page/n25/mode/2up]

Torrey also lists this marriage but with her name in brackets indicating her name was not derived from a marriage record so he almost certainly was sourcing from one of these 2 mentioned works.

[New England marriages prior to 1700 Torrey, Clarence Almon, 1869-1962 FamilySearch New England marriages prior to 1700 Torrey, Clarence Almon, 1869-1962 AncestryImage

Their first child, a daughter named Mary (aka Mercy) Dod, was born in June 1647. The couple had 7 children, including a daughter that died at birth with no Christian name recorded.

1. Mary Dod b: 16 Jun 1647 in Branford, New Haven, Conn.; married AaronBlachly about 1666 in Conn. They joined the family move to Newark; but, after a few years, returned to Connecticut.
2. Daniel Dod b: 1649 in Branford, New Haven, Conn.; m. Phebe Brown in Newark NJ in 1679; It's a family tradition he died from a fall off a load of hay in about 1714
3. Ebenezer Dod b: 11 Dec 1651 in Branford, New Haven, Conn.; d. ca. 1675 in Newark NJ; left no son
4. Hannah Dod b: Jun 1652 in Branford, New Haven, Conn.; m. Solomon Fowler, Guilford Conn.
5. Unnamed daughter Dodd b: 29 Mar 1653; d. just after birth.
6. Stephen Dod b: 16 Feb 1655 in Branford, New Haven, Conn.; m. Sarah Stevens in 1678 in CT; died in Guilford, CT in October 1691.
7. Samuel Dod b: 02 May 1657 in Branford, New Haven, Conn.; left motherless at 24 days old; m. Martha Atwood in NJ in 1688; died in Essex Co.NJ, ca. 1714.

Death and Estate

Mary the wife of Daniel Dodd died on May 26, 1657 in Branford, New Haven, Connecticut,<ref>Connecticut, U.S., Town Death Records, pre-1870 (Barbour Collection) Vol. 3 pg. 61Branford Vital Records 1644-1850 https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1063/images/VBMDUS...</ref> less than a month after her son Samuel (who lived) was born. Her husband, Daniel Dod,Sr., died 9 years later, in January 1666, leaving the younger children orphans. They petitioned the Orphan's court that "Richard Lawrence and Lawrence Ward might be their guardians and have administration in trust granted to them in their behalf..." This was granted and shortly thereafter all the living children except Hannah (already married) and Stephen, who chose to live with his sister Hannah, moved with a family group to Newark, New Jersey. <ref name= Dodd /> (page 34 for all information in this paragraph).

Research Notes

Some genealogies make this Mary the daughter of emigrant Thomas Wheeler of Wharley and later Massachusetts and Connecticut.He had no documented daughter Mary; the main source of that mistake was "The Wheeler Family in America" by Albert G. Wheeler who assumed without sources that the Mary Wheeler who married Dodd was Thomas' daughter. However, he was not aware at that time of Thomas parentage and therefore did not know that Thomas had a sister Mary who was born in 1615. William Wheeler (see references) also stated that the emigrant Thomas had a daughter "Maria" who was "mentioned in her father's will but her name was not given" which was incorrect (the will is abstractedon page 20 of the R.D./G.B. Wheeler work listed in the reference section) although she WAS mentioned in her actual father's will which canbe seen on his wikitree profile.#A lingering theory re: emigration is that instead, she married John Billington on 16 Oct 1634 in Cranfield and did not emigrate. Note that this was not the Mayflower emigrant John Billington. Most people working on the Wheeler family believe that this is not true and that Mary's niece Alice Wheeler, daughter of Thomas the emigrant is the one who married John Billington, matching that marriage register. The contrary theory was that the marriage register incorrectly called her "Alice" and is based on the idea that the "Alice Wheeler, daughter of Thomas" who died in Concord, Massachusetts on 17 Mar 1640/41 was indeed the only known "Alice" born to either Thomas the emigrant or his father Thomas of Borne End. So as of now, the Alice who died in Concord on that date is considered to be unidentified.

Sources

• The genealogical and encyclopedic history of the Wheeler family in America" by Albert G. Wheeler page 200 https://archive.org/stream/genealogicalency00amer#page/200/mode/2up*"Wheeler Family History" by Raymond David Wheeler and Gordon Boyce Wheeler, incorporating the earlier research by Albert Wheeler, William Wheeler, Donald Lines Jacobus and John Insley Coddington along with original primary research, page 13 referencing the marriage to John Billington by Alice Wheeler https://www.wikitree.com/photo.php/9/91/Wheeler_Name_Study-4.pdf*The Genealogy of the Wheeler Family by William Wheeler 1919 Page 4 baptized Oct. 20, 1615. (Mentioned in her father's will but her name notgiven.) https://archive.org/stream/genealogyofwheel00whee#page/n42/mode/1up* Fifty Great Migration Colonists to New England and Their Origins. Author: Threlfall, John Brooks Publication: author, Madison, WI, 1990.
• d. May 26,1657 in Branford, CT. Source: CT Town Records, pre-1870, Barbour Collection
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/168062142/mary-dodd

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