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Descendants of Thomas Minall (Ramsbury)


Generation No. 4


6. THOMAS4 MINALL (THOMAS3, THOMAS2 MINOLL, THOMAS1) was born Abt. 1657 in Marridge Hill, Ramsbury, and died 1729 in West Hendred, Berks.. He married MARY //.

Notes for T
HOMAS MINALL:
THE WILL OF THOMAS MINALL 1729

To son Thomas all my estate at Marridge Hill, also my stock and goods in and upon my said estate
To son Nicholas my estate in West Hendred wherein I dwell being a college house holdern from Corpus Christi College, Oxford also my stock and household goods
To son Stephen £100 to be paid by son Thomas out of estate at Marridge Hill
To daughter Israel £40; also £100 to buy some estate for her
To daughters Isobel and Joan one guinea each
To my six grandchildren £5 each at age 21, paid by Nicholas out of West Hendred estate
Residue to sons Thomas and Nicholas equally, and appointed joint executors
2nd February 1728
Witnesses John Wise, Stephen Mildenhall, Elizabeth Findbone
Probated 3 May 1729

More About T
HOMAS MINALL:
Occupation: Yeoman
Probate: May 1729
Residence: West Hendred, Berks.
Will: February 22, 1728/29
     
Children of T
HOMAS MINALL and MARY // are:
9. i.   THOMAS5 MILDENHALL, b. 1683, West Hendred, Berks.; d. March 1738/39, Marridge Hill, Ramsbury.
  ii.   NICHOLAS MILDENHALL.
  iii.   STEPHEN MILDENHALL.
  iv.   ISRAEL MILDENHALL.
  v.   ISOBEL MILDENHALL.
  vi.   JOAN MILDENHALL.


7. BENJAMIN4 MINALL (THOMAS3, THOMAS2 MINOLL, THOMAS1) was born April 14, 1662, and died February 1739/40 in Concord, Pennsylvania. He married ANN PENNELL 1689.

Notes for B
ENJAMIN MINALL:
BENJAMIN MENDENHALL
(Mildenhall/Mendinghall)

ASSEMBLY: Chester Co. 1714

[From Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume Two, 1991, pp. 689-91;
Found at Salt Lake City, FHL 974.8 P3h]


b. 14 Apri1 1662, Ramsbury Parish, Wilts., Eng. arr. by April 1685. d. c. April 1740. Father: Thomas Mendenhall (d. 1682). Mother: Joan Stroad/Strode (Mendenhall). m. 1689 Ann Pennell (d. 1749); children: Ann (b. 1690); Benjamin; Joseph; Moses; Hannah, m. (2) Peter Grubb, son of John Grubb; Samuel; Rebecca; Ann (b. 1703), m. John Bartram, son of William Bartram; Nathan; Robert, m. Phebe Taylor, daughter of Philip Taylor. Brother-in-1aw: Nathaniel Newlin.* Offices: Chester Co.: tax assessor, 1717; Concord Twp.: viewer of fences, 1686; constable, 1693-94.'

Benjamin Mendenhall, an English Quaker yeoman and wheelwright of Concord Township, Chester County, who served one term in the Assembly, primarily devoted his energies to the service of his religion rather than to local or provincial politics and government.

Mendenhall was born in April 1662 at Marridge Hill, in Ramsbury Parish, east of Marlborough, Wiltshire. Most likely he was raised in a Quaker family; at least three of his eight siblings were married under the care of Reading and Warboro Monthly Meeting, Berkshire, and two others were also Quakers. His older brother, John Mendenhall, had settled in Pennsylvania by February 1683, when he had 300 acres surveyed in Concord Township, Chester County. Benjamin Mendenhall had arrived in the colony by 17 April 1685, when he was present at his sister Mary's marriage to Nathaniel Newlin.2

Apparently incomplete records of Mendenhall's real estate transactions, combined with the inexactness of late seventeenth and early eighteenth century surveying techniques, preclude a complete picture of Mendenhall as a Chester County land holder. However, he most certainly acquired substantial holdings in Concord, Thornbury, and Bradford townships. Slightly over a year after his arrival in Pennsylvania, Mendenhall secured his first land in the colony, a 250-acre tract in Concord Township conveyed to him by his brother John.3 Along with his father-in-law Robert Pennell, Mendenhall obtained 650 acres on Brandywine Creek in two separate acquisitions in 1702 and 1703. They sold 100 acres of the tract later in 1703, and in 1711 Pennell sold his share to Mendenhall. Mendenhall also acquired tracts in Chester County of l25 acres (which he sold in 1699), 250 acres, and 325 acres. He conveyed a tract of undetermined size to his brother Moses.4

Identified as a yeoman in existing deeds and other land records, Mendenhall was denoted a wheelwright in his certificate of marriage to Ann Pennell. Apart from any trade that he may have practiced, Mendenhall purchased from Nicholas Pile in 1711 a one-seventh share in Pile's Concord Mills. Whatever his occupation, Mendenhall became one of the highest taxpayers in Concord Township. From 1715 to 1732 he consistently ranked in the upper 10 percent of taxpayers in the township, and in six years he had the second highest tax assessment, outranked in four of those years only by his brother-in-law Nathaniel Newlin and once by Henry Oburn. Mendenhall received his highest assessment in 1720, but by the mid-1730s they had declined precipitously, and by 1739 he had vanished from the tax rolls altogether. When combined with the lack of bequests of real estate in his will, however, his disappearance from the tax rolls suggests that he had conveyed his lands to his children rather than that his circumstances had declined.5

Mendenhall's fairly limited participation in the public life of Chester County began a little over a year after his immigration, when he was appointed viewer of fences for Concord Township, along with Nathaniel Newlin. In 1693 and 1694 he was constable of Concord, in the latter year as a substitute for one Godwin Walter, who was subsequently ordered by the county court to pay Mendenhall 10 shillings for his time and trouble in serving as constable. At various times Mendenhall served as either a grand or petty juror in the Chester County court. In 1693 he presented the court with a petition from the inhabitants of Concord and Thornbury townships for a cart road to Chester, and a decade later he helped to lay out a county road. In 1701 Mendenhall and 112 fellow Chester County residents petitioned the proprietor for a fair to be held at Chichester twice annually, and in 1712 he joined in another broadly supported petition requesting that Chester be made a port of entry for the colony. In 1717 he was elected a Chester County tax assessor.6

Mendenhall's rather minimal service to Chester County was vastly overshadowed by his commitment to the Quakers of Concord Monthly Meeting. An overseer of Concord Meeting as early as 1706, Mendenhall was an elder of the meeting at the time of his death. For over 25 years, beginning in 1711, he regularly represented Concord Friends at Chester Quarterly Meeting. In 1723 he undertook a religious visit to Friends at Conestoga and Octoraro as part of a group that included Daniel Williamson, Ephraim Jackson, and John Wright (1667-1749). Mendenhall was also a delegate to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting five times between 1711 and 1729. His son Benjamin was accredited to the meeting of Quaker ministers in 1725, and Mendenhall himself attended Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Ministers and Elders three times, in 1729, 1730, and 1735. 7

The 1714 Assembly was Mendenhall's only foray into provincial office, representing Chester County. As a leading Quaker, he certainly favored the use of an affirmation rather than an oath in Pennsylvania's courts, but his view on the enactment of two separate affirmation laws by the 1714 Assembly has not been found. His attitude toward the best method for the province to raise money for government expenses remains equally obscure; ultimately, the 1714 Assembly enacted a penny per pound property tax and excises on imported liquors and slaves. In fact, Mendenha11's role in the business of the Assembly seems to have been fairly minor, a reflection of his slight local officeholding. In February 1715 he was one of six members, including his brother-in-law Nathaniel Newlin, appointed to examine the clerk's transcription of six bills that had passed the House; the committee was further ordered to present those bills and four others, related to establishing a court system in the province, to Governor Charles Gookin. The next month Mendenhall and John Swift were delegated to return four bills, including those for creating a supreme court and courts of common pleas, to Governor Gookin, along with the Assembly's response to the governor's amendments. They were further ordered to advise the governor that the House was willing to meet with him in conference over the bills if its answers did not give "ample Satisfaction." Toward the end of his term Mendenhall seems to have been somewhat laggard in attendance; on four occasions, when the Assembly reconvened following adjournments, he was absent.8

Possibly the closing years of Mendenhall's life were marred by ill health. When he made his will, on 20 September 1736, he described himself as "Indisposed and weak in Body." Nevertheless, the document was not probated until 14 April 1740. The precise date of his death is not known. As previously stated, Mendenhall had probably distributed his land among his children before drafting his will, for he did not bequeath any real estate. Instead, after granting his wife Ann the customary third part of his personal property, Mendenhall made bequests of personal property and cash totaling almost £170 to his children and his sons-in-law, together with a promise of 20 shillings to each grandchild alive at his death. His son Robert also received a "Servant Lad named King Roberts." As joint executors Mendenhall appointed his wife and his son-in-law Thomas Marshall. An inventory of Mendenhall's personal property, taken on 15 April 1740, revealed an estate worth over £760, including bonds, mortgages, and book debts of about £592 and such standard Quaker books as George Fox's journal, William Sewel's History of the Rise, Increase and Progress of . . . Quakers, and Edward Burrough's Works.9

Mendenhall's daughter Ann was the second wife of the noted colonial botanist John Bartram, son of William Bartram.10


--By Jeffrey L. Scheib


1. IGI; COMMR; CW&A, #703; Beeson, 77, The Mendenhalls, 1-2, 4; CCQSD; CCC, 74, 284, 336.

2. Beeson, The Mendenhalls; 2; Mendenhall FC, HSP; PATBk. A, I:336; COMMR.

3. Apparently, through poor surveying, the tract actually contained 294 acres (PATBk. A, 2:639-41; CCC, 318; PA, 2d ser., 19:402).

4. PA, 2d ser., 19:365, 382-83; PATBk. A, 2:537-38; CCR, 105, 212; CDBk. C,3 : 89-91, 166-70; TP, 9: 1757; CCC,83.

5. CDBk. C, 3 :89-91, 143-50, 166-70; PATBk. A, 2:537-38; COMMR; CW&A, #703.

6. CCC, 74, 80, 123, 129, 134,146,279, 289, 336; CCR, 7, 39, 40,71, 102, 127, 146, 178; LPPC, 3; MDLP; CCQS.

7. COMMR; COMM, 5 July 1725, 6June 1740; CQM, 6 Aug. 1711-13 Aug. 1739 passim; PHYM, 1711, 1717, 1723-24, 1729; PHYMME, 20 Sept. 1729, 19 Sept. 1730, 15 March 1734/5.

8. Statutes, 3 :39-40,58-60, 112-21; Votes, 2:169,171-73, 180, 182, 184.

9. CW&A, #703.

10. Berkeley and Berkeley, Bartram, John Bartram's first wife, who died in 1727, was Mary Maris, daughter of Richard Maris.



More About B
ENJAMIN MINALL:
Emigration: 1682, Pennsylvania, USA
     
Children of B
ENJAMIN MINALL and ANN PENNELL are:
  i.   BENJAMIN5 MENDENHALL.
  ii.   ANN MENDENHALL, b. 1690.


8. MOSES4 MINALL (THOMAS3, THOMAS2 MINOLL, THOMAS1) was born November 24, 1666 in Marridge Hill, Ramsbury9, and died 1738 in Marridge Hill, Ramsbury9. He married ELIZABETH BACON May 2, 1690 in House of W.Cooper, Bishopston, Wilts.9, daughter of JOHN BACON. She was born Abt. 1672 in Marridge Hill, Ramsbury, and died 1737 in Marridge Hill, Ramsbury9.

Notes for M
OSES MINALL:
1685 Sailed in the "Welcome" to America with his married sister Margery Martin, her husband and three children, taking with him a deed of 500 acres of land in Pennsylvania.
Spent maybe 5 years in America and then returned to marry Elizabeth Bacon in 1691.
___________________________________________________________________________
WILL of Moses Minall, November 23, 1738

To my son Thomas ten shillings
To daughter Mary, wife of Robert Church five pounds.
To daughter Sarah, wife of Nicolas George, fifteen pounds.
To daughter Elizabeth, wife of Joseph Butler, ten pounds.
To son Joseph one hundred pounds.
To my daughter Hannah Watts ten pounds
To my son Moses all three inclosed grounds called by several names usrewood ground, batts ground and Great Paxlett in the parish of Ramsbury except about two acres in parish of Baydon, with the cottage at Marridge Hill now in occupation of Hannah Fisher, widow; also to Moses ground called Little Paxlett at Marridge Hill.
To son Moses one of my feather beds with bedstead and all furniture belonging, bolster, pillows, rug and blanketts etc.,and also £10 within 12 months. If Moses refuses to give executors a discharge for the £25 given him in his will by his late grandfather John Bacon wich I have already paid him, or if my executor be forced to pay him the same again, then premises given to Moses shall be given instead to son John, and I give instead to Moses one shilling.
Residue to son John, sole executor.
Witnesses James Smith, John Edwards (mark) William Baker.

More About M
OSES MINALL:
Burial: December 19, 1738, Lambourne Woodlands Friends Burial Ground9
Emigration: 1685, Pennsylvania, USA
Occupation: 1690, Yeoman9
Will: November 23, 1738

More About E
LIZABETH BACON:
Burial: August 31, 1737, Lambourne Woodlands Friends Burial Ground9
     
Children of M
OSES MINALL and ELIZABETH BACON are:
  i.   JOHN5 MINDINGHALL, b. November 22, 1691.
  ii.   THOMAS MINDINGHALL, b. April 21, 1694.
  iii.   STEPHEN MINDINGHALL, b. May 27, 1696.
  More About STEPHEN MINDINGHALL:
Burial: December 4, 1732, Ramsbury

  iv.   MARY MINDINGHALL, b. May 1, 1698; m. ROBERT CHURCH.
  v.   SARAH MILDENHALL, b. May 23, 1701; m. NICHOLAS GEORGE.
  vi.   JOSEPH MINALL, b. June 1, 1703; m. MARY LAWRENCE, September 20, 1728, Reading Monthly Meeting.
  vii.   ELIZABETH MINDENHALL, b. May 28, 1707; m. JOSEPH BUTLER.
  viii.   HANNAH MINDENHALL, b. May 28, 1707; m. THOMAS WATTS.
  ix.   MOSES MILDENHALL, b. November 18, 1717.


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