Edward Mills, Sr.

Edward was the son of John Mills of Braintree. He married three times, first to Mehitable Minot, then to Elizabeth Cary, then to Ruth Devin. (See sources here and text of will at: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=spraguege...)

"Edward Mills, M.A., born 29 June, 1665, was son of John Mills, of Braintree, husbandman, whose wife was Elizabeth Shove, probably sister of the Reverend George Shove, third minister of Taunton, Massachusetts. He taught the school in Dorchester from 1687 to 1692, under two contracts, respectively in 1687 and 1689, in one of which he was to have an annual salary of ,£20 in grain and £10 in money, and the improvement of the school land at Smelt Brook, and "the school meadow over the water," which is supposed to be "the piece of salt marsh at Farm-bar, containing 5 a. 3 qr. 22 r." He went to Boston, where he taught, partly under the patronage of the Society for Propagating the Gospel. He died on Tuesday night, 7 November, 1732, having "been a worthy School- Master in the Town upwards of Forty Years: Aged 67 Years, and was decently Interr'd," states the New England Journal, of 13 November, 1732, "on Saturday last, his Scholars Walking in Order before the Corpse."

He married Mehitable, born 4 and baptized 18 June, 1665, widow of Henry Messinger, and daughter of Stephen Minot, of Dorchester, whose wife was Truecross, daughter of Captain Richard Davenport, of the Castle. She derived her name, it is supposed, from being born in the year when the company of which her father was standard-bearer and Endicott commander cut the red cross from the flag, as a relic of Popish superstition. Mills's wife died 16 August, 1690, aged 25. That he was married again may be inferred from the suffix to his name when Samuel Granger was appointed by the Society for Propagating the Gospel "to succeed Mr. Edward Mills, Sen., lately deceased, to instruct the children of such indigent members of the Church of England, gratis, as are not able to pay the same."

"A Petition of Jacob Wendell, Esq., and Mr. Charles Apthorp, Merchants, Executors of the Testament of Edward Mills late of Placentia Merchant, deceased," for extending the time of the settlement of the estate, was before the Massachusetts House of Representatives, 16 June, 1739. -^n Inventory of the property of Edward Mills, Jr., is recorded in Vol. VIII. page 301 of the Suffolk Probate Records."

http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA337&lpg=PA337&dq=%22john+mills%2...

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