11643. Mills

Outline

1. John Mills (ca. 1597–1678) m. Susanna ____ (ca. 1595–1675); Sudbury, Suffolk, Eng.; Boston, Braintree, Mass.
2. Mary Mills (ca. 1617–1692) m. James Hawkins (1610–1671); Boston, Mass.

Sources

Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620–1633, 3 vols. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995), 2:1259-62, provides an introduction to this family. It is largely repeated in Robert Charles Anderson, The Winthrop Fleet: Massachusetts Bay Company Immigrants to New England, 1629–1630 (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2012), 467-9.

Patricia Law Hatcher, The Family of Phillip (Sole) Sales of the Winthrop Fleet, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 168 (2014): 43-57, at 48 and n. 20, observes that John belonged to the ministerial company of Rev. John Wilson, which originated in the adjacent parishes of Sudbury All Saints and Little Waldingfield, Suffolk. Hatcher then notices the following entries for John Mills in the All Saints parish register:

• married first, 5 Feb. 1615[/6] Catheryn Scotson
• married second, 15 Jan. 1628[/9] the widow Whitlocke
• birth of son John, 2 Oct. 1629; died young, before baptism of another son John at Boston, Mass., 1630 [sic] (3 June 1632, according to Anderson, Great Migration Begins, 2:1261)

With respect to John’s two English born-children—evidently Mary and Susanna, though not named as such—Hatcher adds that they are known only from their [later] presence in New England; he likely had more (all quotations from 48 n. 20).

We may accept this geographical placement of John Mills preliminarily, because it is well supported in light of the known origins of the other members of Wilson’s company (tabulated at 48). The suggestion that he was the same man who entered both of the marriages at All Saints is more difficult to admit, especially in the absence of other baptisms or burials in his family before 1629. More evidence is needed to confirm or disprove the claim, along with its implication that Catherine was the mother of Mary Mills.

Related surnames

5821. Hawkins