GEN-MEDIEVAL-L Archives

From: "Clagett, Brice" <>
Subject: Beall/Magruder/Pottenger/Mullikin
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 11:53:01 -0500

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.

This thread:

• Beall/Magruder/Pottenger/Mullikin by "Clagett, Brice" <>