BONHAM. The first of the Bonham family in West New Jersey was Hezekiah Bonham. His son Uriah Bonham settled in the neighborhood of Rosemont and married Anchor Fox, daughter of George Fox. The Bonhams generally lived in Kingwood Township for many generations thereafter.
The Bonham Family Tree: https://goodspeedhistories.com/the-bonham-family/
Hezekiah Bonham, born 1667 to Nicholas Bonham and Hannah Fuller of Barnstable, Mass., moved to Maidenhead Township in New Jersey when it was still a part of Hunterdon County. Some of his descendants settled in Kingwood Township, others in Clinton Township, others in Amwell Township. Hezekiah died in Maidenhead in 1739 at the age of 71. One of the distinctive things about this family is the naming pattern—it’s very biblical.
There has been a Baptist Church in Locktown since the early 19th century, and a cemetery associated with it. The church and the cemetery were located on land belonging to Daniel Rittenhouse, whose home was a short distance west of Locktown on the Kingwood-Locktown Road. Most of the names in this cemetery are of families that lived nearby in Kingwood and Delaware Townships, many of them descendants of original German immigrants. Many of the original stones are now missing, even ones that were inventoried in the 1940s. Old cemeteries are hard to preserve.
As a follow-up to my recent article on the history of the Locktown Christian Church, here is a list of the people known to be buried in the cemetery adjacent to the church.
A visit to this interesting cemetery will quickly reveal that there are many graves here that are unmarked. So it is impossible to know who might be the earliest person buried here. The earliest gravestone is for Charity Alley who died in 1843, although Cornelius Williamson Carrell might have died a couple years before that. Oddly enough, Ms. Alley comes first on the list. The last known grave to be added was for Arthur E. Jungblut in 1999.
One of the most notable people in the neighborhood of Locktown in Hunterdon County was Daniel Rittenhouse. His life makes an interesting story, which we know something of thanks to the collection known as The Rittenhouse Papers, on file at the Hunterdon County Historical Society.
This article is about one of Delaware Township’s most secretive burying grounds, and is part of a series on Delaware Township cemeteries. It is also a follow-up to my series of articles on Buchanan’s Tavern, since Archibald Buchanan was buried here.1
At the first town meeting, the Township Committee voted that $1,000 was to be raised for making and repairing roads. Municipalities were responsible for their roads, while the county took responsibility for the bridges. Generally, it was the landowners along the roads who maintained them, so you can imagine what condition they were in: dust in the summer, mud in the spring and downright impassible in the winter, unless you had a sleigh. The township named many people to be Overseers of Roads. It’s hard to say exactly what their responsibilities were. Most likely, they managed the work that was ordered by the Surveyors of Highways.
Despite the scandal involving Malakiah Bonham and Mary Fox, Malakiah Bonham still had good relations with the Fox family.
Mary Fox, born about 1738 in Kingwood Twp., was the second daughter and sixth child of George Fox (iii) and his wife Mary. Her older sister was Anchor Fox who married Uriah Bonham. We know very little about Mary, except that when she was about 18 years old, in 1756, she got into trouble. Sad to say, this story is more about the man who got her into trouble than it is about Mary. Historical records are woefully silent when it comes to women.
The trouble with writing about families is that the stories get more complicated as you move through the generations. Here is a brief summary of the children of Uriah Bonham and Anchor Fox.
1. Amos Bonham (1752-1817)
2. Dinah Bonham (1756-1810)
3. Mary Bonham (c.1758-c.1838)
4. Hannah Bonham (c.1760-aft 1790)
5. Zedekiah Bonham (1762-1835)
This post will continue the saga of the Fox family in Hunterdon. This time the subject is the first child and first daughter of George (iii) and Mary Fox. Her name was Anchor, and she was born about 1728, probably in Kingwood Township.
