Jonathan Singletary [Jonathan Dunham/alias Singletary]
Time Line 


This data was gathered by Pat Junkin, a Dunham family researcher.

€1663 Jonathan Singletary and Edward Clarke witness the will of Theophylus Satchwell
€1665 At the close of the summer Philip Carteret having been appointed governor of New Jersey, settled at Elizabethtown, which he made the seat of his government; dispatched agents into New England to publish the constitution and invite emigrants…several from Newbury…and settled in a township, which, in honor of the Reverend John Woodbridge of Newbury, was called Woodbridge...among the emigrants: Capt. John Pike, Thomas Bloomfield, Stephen Kent, George March, John Bloomfield, Nathaniel Webster....
€1665 Jonathan Singletary testifies about a fence in Haverhill.
€1670/1 Grant of land made to Jonathan Dunham alias Singletary in Woodbridge if he is to build a grist mill.
€1671 New Jersey Colonial Documents Vol. I, 18 May 1671. Jury impaneled: Capt. Nathaniel Saple(?), Samuel Hopkins, John Bishop, Samuel Hayle, Capt. Thomas Young,  Mr. Jonathan Dunham, William Douglas, Lawrence Andreas, Hans Dedrick, Adrian Post,
John Berry, Jr. Mathew Bunn... Foreman of the Jury was Mr. Jonathan Dunham.
€1671 Jonathan Dunham alias Singletary named overseer of highways.
€1672 Patent: The Lord Proprietors to Jonathan Dunham of Woodbridge, carpenter, for:
1.  a house lot of 9 acres E. of Meeting House Green;
2. 48 acres W. of the parsonage lands, N. of Thomas Lennard;
3. 120 acres of upland N. of William Cotter;
4. 36 acres of meadows not yet laid out. [Ref. Liber 1 p. 129.]
€1673 Member of the NJ Assembly
€1673 War between the British and Dutch and English surrendered New York. English petitioned Dutch to take control of East New Jersey. Dutch appointed John Ogden as governor. Carteret had returned to England leaving his residence virtually empty. In September, Ogden filed complaint against Robert Vauquelin (alias Lapriere), Surveyor General of East New Jersey, charging theft of Carteret’s property and also filed against Jonathan Singletary for refusing to obey the commands of the new Dutch controlled government. Singletary was fined £5.  (See entry under date of 7 September 1677.)
€1673 Stephen Kent of Woodbridge sells Jonathan Dunham alias Singletary [written just so and sometimes only Jonathan Dunham] parcels of land and marsh. Stephen Kent was a brother to Richard Kent Sen., maltster, of Ipswich who came to Newbury in 1635. Stephen, who migrated to Woodbridge, had married Anne [d. 1660], then Eleanor widow of William Scadlock. His son Stephen Kent was born 6 Mar 1648.
€1674 English regained control of New York and New Jersey.
Jonathan Dunham, Capt. John Pike, Samuel Moore defended interest of Woodbridge in a boundary dispute between Woodbridge and Piscataway.
Jonathan Dunham was executor of will of Obediah Winter alias Grabum.
€1675 Assessor
€1677 In an article by Noreen C. Pramberg in The Essex Genealogist, Aug. 2001, p. 144-147, she gives the date of this as 7 September 1677: “He (Jonathan Singletary) was arrested on 7 September 1677 with Robert Lapriere by Sheriff John Ogden for removing goods from Governor Philip Carteret’s house and was condemned for this and called a “mad man” by the Council of War for Achter Colony.  [Capt. Benajah Dunham of Piscataway was a member of this council. John Pike of Woodbridge was also a member of this council.] 
€1679 Jonathan Dunham and Samuel Dennis took inventory of estate of Thomas Bloomfield
€1683  Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, edited by Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, M.D., originally published in Boston in 1856.  This is from Volume VI 1678-1691,
 page 113-114: Court Session July 1683, Govr. Hinckley.
  (Transcribed from the book as exactly as possible by Gratia Dunham Mahony, 19 April 2004)

   "Wheras Jonathan Dunham, allies Shingleterry, hath longe absented himselfe from his wife and family, tho advised and warned by authoritie to repaire to them, and for some considerable time hath bine wandering about from place to place as a vagabond in this collonie, alsoe deseminating his corrupt priniples, and drawing away annother mans wife, following him vp and downe against her husbands consent; and att last hee meeting with and accompaning a younge woman called Mary Rosse, led by inthewsiasticall power, hee said hee must doe whatt shee bad him, and according did, both of them, on her motion, att the house of John Irish, att Little Compton, kill his dogg, against the declared will of the said Irish; and although hee put them out of his house, yett they would goe in againe; and according to theire anticke trickes and foolish powers, made a fier in the said house, and threw the dogg vpon it, and shott of a gun seuerall times, and burnt some other thinges in the house, to the hazard of burning of his house and younge children, keeping the dores and not opening them to the said John Irish when hee come with some of his naighbours to rescue the same; to the disturbance of his maties peace comaunded, and aganst his lawes.
   This Court centanced the said Jonathan Dunham to be publickly whipt att the post, and required him to depart forth with out of this collonie, which if hee delay to doe, hee shalbe tooke vp by the constable where hee doth vnessesarily stay, and be againe whipt and sent out of the collonie; and soe serued as oft as hee shall vnessesaryly returne into it to deseminate his corupt principles.
   And the said Mary Rosse, for her vnciuell and outrageous railing words and carriages to the Deputie Gour, and afterwards before the whole Court, superaded to her former anticke actings as aforsaid, is centanced to be whipt and conveyed from constable to constable out of this gourment towards Boston, where her mother dwells." 

€1682-3 Trial at Plymouth. The incident with Mary Rosse. The circumstances of this are curious indeed. That a man of stature would suddenly leave his home in New Jersey to go to Plymouth to support Mary Rosse daughter of John and Mary Ross of Boston, leaves one to wonder whether this was a member of his family or a connection of religious zeal. The original record relating to his associations with Mary indicate a protective nature to her, indeed both Jonathan and his wife Mary gave her a house in New Jersey. Roger Williams and his Baptists, Anne Hutchinson¹s Antinomians, and Ranters (an evangelical spirit that had flourished among Puritans in eastern Lincolnshire) were condemned by the Congregational clergy and the campaign to suppress dissidents had taken the form of witch hunts beginning in 1647. Which of these had Jonathan found so attractive that he may have left hearth and home to preach abroad?
 [See comments below and material in the section of this document written by  Cotton Mather] 
 
12 Dec. 1689 Jonathan Dunham … “being frequently abroad in parts remote” executed a legal document to put his property in the care of James Seaton for the benefit of his family,… he specifically mentions sons Jonathan, David, Benjamin and son-in-law Samuel Smith.
Esther (Hester) Dunham b. c. 1659; d. Woodbridge NJ 14 Aug. 1690, m. 1680 as his first wife Samuel Smith b. Barnstable MA April 1644, son of John Smith and Susanna Hinckley.  Samuel Smith married second in Woodbridge 8 Jan. 1692 Elizabeth Pierce by whom he had a number of children among whom was Shubael Smith b. 2 Jan. 1692/3 m. Prudence Fitz Randolph, and had Mary Smith b. 27 Dec. 1716/17 who m. Jonathan 4 Dunham (Benjamin 3 Dunham, Jonathan 2 Singletary/alias Dunham, Richard 1 Singletary).

€1694 Power of Attorney John Gibb now of Sussex annexed to PA, mariner, to Jonathan Dunham of Woodbridge general agent....

€1701   Chosen Deputy to the General Assembly representing the Woodbridge District.