Jonathan Singletary Dunham

Jonathan Singletary Dunham (January 17, 1640 – September 6, 1724) was a prominent early American politician and settler of Woodbridge Township, New Jersey.[1][2][3] He is President Barack Obama’s eighth great-grandfather and the first of Obama’s ancestors to be born in North America.[4][5][6][7]

Contents

Life

Jonathan Singletary Dunham was born to Richard Singletary in Newbury, Massachusetts on January 17, 1639/40.[2][6][8] He married Mary Bloomfield (great-grandaunt and great-great-grandmother of eventual governor Joseph Bloomfield for whom the township of Bloomfield, New Jersey is named after).[9][10][11], also from Massachusetts.

Possibly due to an unsubstantiated family legend about his father being the lost heir of the House of Dunham, Jonathan Singletary added the last name Dunham which he used interchangeably with Singletary. He and his wife migrated to Woodbridge Township, New Jersey (the first Township of New Jersey, which was chartered on June 1, 1669 by King Charles II of England),[12] where they were granted 213 acres (0.86 km2) of land by the newly appointed Governor of New Jersey.[3][13] Upon this land, Jonathan Dunham built the first grist mill in New Jersey. He later received a bonus of 203 acres (0.82 km2) and acquired many other tracts of land in New Jersey and Massachusetts.[10][14] After finding success with his mill operation, Dunham became a politician, serving as the Clerk of the Township Court, overseer of the highways, and was elected to the New Jersey Provincial Congress in 1673.[15][3]

Death and legacy

He died in Woodbridge, New Jersey in 1724.[6] The house the Dunhams built in 1671, the Jonathan Singletary Dunham House still stands and currently serves as the Rectory of the Trinity Episcopal Church in Woodbridge, New Jersey.[16][17]

Notable descendents

References

  1. ^ "SINGLETARY to DUNHAM FAMILY HISTORY, STORIES and TIMELINE". http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~grannyapple/DUNHAM/jnodunhamhouse2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~grannyapple/DUNHAM/SINGLETARY-DUNHAMhis.html&usg=__a8sWtp1bU77ZjOK17TDmJ-aKbcI=&h=301&w=400&sz=32&hl=en&start=9&sig2=yU7-T3VUOPdaGXNmQwSNtw&um=1&tbnid=753OMBT8JSERcM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djonathan%2Bsingletary%2Bdunham%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1&ei=3Fc1SpmhIMeVlAeZyb2qCQ. Retrieved 2009-06-06. 
  2. ^ a b Charles Henry Pope (1900). The Pioneers of Massachusetts. p. 416. 
  3. ^ a b c "The SINGLETARY-DUNHAM HISTORY, NOTES, & RESOURCES". http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~grannyapple/DUNHAM/SingletaryDunhamHistory.html. Retrieved 2009-06-06. 
  4. ^ Fornek, Scott (2007-09-09). "Obama Family Tree". Chicago Sun-Times. http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/familytree/545440,BSX-News-wotreea09.stng. Retrieved 2009-06-06. 
  5. ^ "Interactive Family Tree". Chicago Sun-Times. http://www.suntimes.com/images/cds/special/family_tree.html. Retrieved 2009-06-06. 
  6. ^ a b c Reitwiesner, William Addams. "Ancestry of Barack Obama". http://www.wargs.com/political/obama.html. Retrieved 2008-10-09. 
  7. ^ "The Pedigree of Jonathan Singletary Dunham". http://fabpedigree.com/s068/f673991.htm. Retrieved 2009-06-06. 
  8. ^ "Interactive Family Tree". Chicago Sun-Times. http://www.suntimes.com/images/cds/special/family_tree.html. Retrieved 2009-06-06. 
  9. ^ "The Pedigree of Jonathan Singletary Dunham". http://fabpedigree.com/s068/f673991.htm. Retrieved 2009-06-06. 
  10. ^ a b Ed. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff and David Pulsifer (1968). Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England. 
  11. ^ Anderson, Robert Charles (1995). The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633: Great Migration Study Project (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society. 
  12. ^ John P. Snyder (1969). The Story of New Jersey's Civil Boundaries: 1606-1968. p. 174. http://openlibrary.org/b/OL5688289M/story-of-New-Jersey%27s-civil-boundaries%2C-1606-1968. 
  13. ^ "JONATHAN SINGLETARY-DUNHAM FAMILY LINE". http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=grannyapple1939&id=I0049. Retrieved 2009-06-06. 
  14. ^ Anderson, Robert Charles (1995). The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633: Great Migration Study Project (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society. 
  15. ^ James Robert Woods, Laurence Charles Baxter, Sue Spotts, Sue Cooley (1984). William and Eliza (Johnson) Woods of county Antrim, Ireland: their descendants and some allied families. 
  16. ^ "A Brief History of Trinity Parish". http://www.trinitywoodbridge.org/AboutTrinity.html. Retrieved 2008-10-09. 
  17. ^ http://www.wthpc.org/WHS%20map-3.pdf
  18. ^ Trimble, Scott. Donham Family History. STST Productions, August 1995. Accessed: 25 April 2010.