♀Mary (surname unknown)

Mary (died before 7 July 1671) was the wife of John Wadleigh, a planter of Saco and Wells on the coast of Maine. She was the ninth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Mary Wadleigh.

Her maiden name and her origins are not known, though her daughter Mary was born at Bristol, in England. She is said to have been absent from meeting in 1654, and she was still living on 18 April 1664. Three children are known: Robert, Mary, who married Thomas Mills, and Joanna, who married Jonathan Thing. She had died by 1671. When John Wadleigh made his will on 7 July 1671 he asked for “the place of my burial to bee by my wife her grave who is now deseced”.

Notes

Sources

Her absence from meeting in 1654 and her being alive on 18 April 1664 come from the Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire (Noyes, Libby and Davis), entry Wadleigh 2, John, p. 707. Her death before 7 July 1671 rests on her husband’s will of that date, printed in Province and Court Records of Maine, vol. 2 (ed. Libby, 1931), pp. 244–245, which names Robert, Mary Mills and Joan Thing as his children. Neither source names the mother of the children; no other wife of John Wadleigh is known. Her daughter Mary’s birth at Bristol comes from the Montreal baptism of Mary’s own daughter Martha Mills in 1693, which names Martha’s mother as “Marie Wadele native of Brestol near London”.