Now the arguments for Sarah Pottenger and Mary Mullikin: From: "Clagett, Brice" <[email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 2:21 PM Subject: Beall/Magruder Nat Taylor's comments on Magruder are right on the mark, and I fully agree with them. As to the wives of Samuel Magruder and John Pottenger: it is true that Sarah Bell and Mary Bell were transported to Maryland, though it seems unlikely that they were sisters since Mary came in 1660 and Sarah not until 1675. While it is possible that they were relatives of Col. Ninean Beall, the notion that they were his nieces is pure guesswork. Mary Bells/Bealls came to Maryland in Ninean's wake, and the relationships are mostly unknown. The idea that Samuel Magruder's wife Sarah was nee Beall probably originated with Samuel's having named a son Ninean Magruder, but that falls far short of proof. (Ninean is a not-uncommon Scots saint's name; Col. Ninean Beall was the most prominent Scots settler in Maryland and a close neighbor, and presumably friend, of the Magruders.) The idea that John Pottenger's wife Mary was nee Beall depends wholly on the assumption that Samuel Magruder married Sarah Beall, the known fact that Samuel Magruder and John Pottenger were brothers-in-law, and the speculation that Sarah and Mary Beall were sisters. I have concluded that John Pottenger's wife was in fact Mary Mullikin, daughter of James and Mary Mullikin, Scots settlers in Calvert Co., MD. The evidence is circumstantial but, in my opinion, conclusive. This has not yet been published, but will be. It follows that John Pottenger and Samuel Magruder were not brothers-in-law through their wives or through a marriage of Pottenger to Magruder's sister. By a process of elimination it would appear that Magruder married Pottenger's sister. And indeed John Pottenger had a sister Sarah, baptized at Lambourn, Berkshire, on April 28, 1659, with no burial or marriage recorded for her there. I conclude that she came to Maryland with her brother and married Samuel Magruder. Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 11:53:01 -0500 From: "Clagett, Brice" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Subject: Beall/Magruder/Pottenger/Mullikin Several people have asked for my reasons for concluding that John Pottenger married Mary Mullikin and Samuel Magruder married Sarah Pottenger. Here is a brief summary. Mary Mullikin of Calvert Co., MD., widow of John Demall (Demarell) and of James Mullikin, made a testamentary deed in 1667 in which she named her children John Demall (jr.) and James (jr.), Mary and Elizabeth Mullikin. Archives of MD. 57:216. John Demall (jr.), in his will of 1725, named his "cosen" Robert Pottenger. MD. Calendar of Wills 6:36. (This reference was called to my attention many years ago by Douglas Richardson.) Mary Mullikin's will shows that John Demall (jr.) had no full brothers or sisters but did have three half-siblings through his mother's second marriage, to James Mullikin. The inventory of John Demall (jr.) in 1727 named Thomas Mullikin as next of kin. Thomas Mullikin was a son of James Mullikin jr. John and Mary Pottenger had a son Robert Pottenger, who, being the only man of that name in Maryland at the time, was obviously the "cosen" named in John Demall (jr.)'s will. Chronology indicates that Robert was a generation younger than John Demall jr., making an uncle-nephew relationship most likely. No marriage or other post-1667 record has been found of Mary Mullikin, daughter of James and Mary, under that name. An exhaustive study of the Pottengers in England fails to suggest any way in which Robert Pottenger could have been related to John Demall jr. through Robert's father. See Neil R. Thompson and Paul C. Reed, "The Ancestry of John Pottenger, Immigrant to Maryland in 1684," TAG 68:139 (1993). It is concluded that the Pottenger-Demall relationship came through Robert Pottenger's mother. The obvious inference is that John Pottenger's wife, Mary, was Mary Mullikin, half-sister of John Demall jr. Samuel Magruder named "my brother John Pottenger" in his will. If John Pottenger married Mary Mullikin, the only way in which Magruder and Pottenger could be brothers (-in-law) is if Magruder's wife Sarah was Pottenger's sister, and as shown previously John Pottenger did have a sister Sarah who is otherwise unaccounted for. Nat Taylor asks how we can foreclose the possibility that Magruder's wife was a Mullikin. The answer is that Mary Mullikin named no daughter Sarah in her testamentary deed of 1667, and there seems no reason to believe that she had other children not mentioned.