RRETURN

JOHN BENNETT

ORIGIN: Unknown
MIGRATION: 1630
FIRST RESIDENCE: Marblehead
ESTATE: John Bennett assessed in a Marblehead tax list of 1 January 1637/8 [ 1:63]. On 14 November 1638 four acres upon John Peach's Neck at Marblehead, being formerly granted, was laid out [ 1:74].
   Administration on the estate of John Bennett granted to widow Margaret on 30 June 1663. The inventory of his estate, taken 29 June 1663, totalled £76 2s., of which £50 was real estate, "a house, lot and fence." "The estate was to remain in the widow's hands, save the house and land appraised at £50, which after the widow's decease was to go to her daughter Mary, wife of Elias White, and to her daughter's maid's child [i.e., "maidchild"] Joane by her first husband, Christopher Codner" [ 1:415].
BIRTH: By about 1612 based on estimated date of marriage.
DEATH: Marblehead by 29 June 1663.
MARRIAGE: By 1638 Margaret _____; she was b. about 1606 (deposed 22 March 1666/7 "aged about sixty-one years," and 26 September 1670 "aged sixty-four years" [ 4:115, 281]; d. after 13 January 1673[/4] and before June 1684 [ 5:279, 9:240].
CHILD:

   i   MARY, b. 2 September 1638 [ 1:74]; m. (1) by about 1655 Christopher Codner; (2) Marblehead 26 June 1661 Elias White; (3) by November 1665 Richard Downing.

ASSOCIATIONS: In 1663 Mary (Bennett) (Codner) White refers to Richard Downing, later to become her third husband, as her cousin [ 3:311]. He does not seem to have been related to Emmanuel Downing, and there is no other clue as to how he might be related to Mary.
COMMENTS: On 23 June 1684 John Peach testified that "John Bennett, deceased came with him into New England in the same ship in 1630, and his wife Margaret some years after came and lived with him many years in Marblehead, where they had one daughter born, called Mary, and never had any other" [ 9:241]. (This lawsuit has much additional detail about the Bennett family [9:239-41, 464-65].)
   On 2 July 1633 John Bennett was "fined 10s. for being drunk at Marblehead" [ 1:106]. "John Bennett of Marblehead fined 10s. for taking tobacco in the meeting house on the Lord's day," 29 November 1653 [ 1:320].
   On 24 November 1663 the court at Salem "taking into consideration the case of Elias White and Mary his wife, and weighing all things seriously, upon the deliberate hearing of the parties, together and apart, and the evidence, declared that it would not be offensive to the court for her, the said Mary, to marry another man" [ 3:110]. Among the documents supporting this decision is the testimony of "Margaret, in behalf of her daughter Mary White, the wife of Elias White," regarding "his insufficiency concerning the marriage state and her desire of being freed from him," and the evidence of John Thorning "that Richard Downing had kissed Mary White many a time and shown other marks of affection. Also that he saw Ellis Whit[e] drink to his wife but she refused to drink, and answered that she would rather pledge her cousin Downing than him" [ 3:110-11]. In June 1664 she was called Mary Codner [ 3:76, 158], but by November 1665 she had married Richard Downing [ 3:295].
   Savage says that John Bennett lived briefly in Windsor and New London, but this seems highly unlikely. These records must pertain to another man of the same name.