Samuel, Jamaica, Long Island 1690s, wife Burrows/Burroughs
Samuel Darling of Jamaica, Long Island, New York of the 1690s, is often said to have married a Priscilla Burroughs/Burrows.I think this is half correct in two ways.I have been puzzling over the Burrows-Darling connection.
My theory (and it needs further evidence before being accepted) is that Samuel Darling was actually married twice. His first wife was a Burrows (first name unknown), and they had two daughters, named Clement and Hannah. These two girls are mentioned in the will of their maternal grandmother, Mary (Higby) (Burrows) Oakley from about 1711 in Monmouth County, New Jersey (see NJ Calendar of Wills). Given the fact that Clement was married to a man named Neff at about that time, I have estimated the girls' births were about 1691 and 1693. Their grandmother is very specific that these two girls are to share equally that portion of certain goods that they are also splitting with their aunts, which makes me believe their mother had died, probably soon after the birth of the younger of the two girls (e.g., ca. 1693/94). I believe Samuel Darling, a young widower, then married for a second time to Priscilla (maiden name unknown) and had four or more additional children (I have seen listings of Abigail, Priscilla, Samuel and another son). Then, Samuel himself died about 1710, leaving a widow Priscilla who is mentioned in the Town Records of Jamaica. His death, however, left the two daughters of his first marriage as total orphans, with just a stepmother. Their grandmother chose to help them financially by remembering them in her will. But this all only makes sense if their mother was dead, and so the widow Priscilla could not be their mother. Mary (Higby) (Burrows) Oakley was no relation, of course, to Samuel's children by Priscilla, and so they are not mentioned in her will.
Alternatively, I understand that Samuel had a brother named Thomas, who might have married a woman named Mary (maiden name unknown) and that Thomas was in Jamaica about 1700?? If so, then perhaps Thomas married a Mary Burrows??
At any rate, the name Priscilla is totally foreign within the Burrows family of the Long Island area at that time.
Any thoughts?
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