John Bainbridge, Jr.

• ****No Brother EDMUND mentioned in his father's will*****(Mentions MOTHER Alice, DAUGHTER Sarah, SON John)
  

"Lindley is a village and civil parish in the Harrogate district of North Yorkshire, England. It is near Lindley Wood Reservoir and 1 mile north of Otley. In 2001 the population of the civil parish of Lindley was 52. The population was estimated at 50 in 2015"

Friends' Plot and the Oldest Extant Gravemarkers Written by Richard A. Sauers is the historian at Riverview Cemetery in Trenton, New Jersey.

Three ledgers: an unknown burial, John Bainbridge (1657-1732) and Sarah Bainbridge (1660-1731) John Bainbridge and his wife Sarah are interred in Section A, Lot 387½.

Riverview Cemetery incorporates the Friends' burying ground that was established by the Chesterfield Monthly Meeting in 1685. While the earliest gravemarkers, if any, have long since disappeared, the oldest extant markers are for John Bainbridge and his wife Sarah.

John Bainbridge, born November 2, 1657, in Yorkshire, England, and Sarah Clows, born August 27, 1660, in Cheshire, England, were married at Middletown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on August 15, 1685. When he died on February 14, 1732, his will directed that a marker be erected over his grave "and on it be put the day and year of my death and my age", and another over that of his wife who died the previous year on March 25, 1731.

In keeping with his wishes, the epitaph on his weathered ledger notes "In memory of John Bainbridge, who died 1732, age 75. He was a gentleman of great merit, having the confidence of the people, he was called to fill many important offices in the colony."

His public career spanned six years from 1710 to 1715 and included positions in both Burlington and Hunterdon counties—remember, there was no Mercer County until it was formed by an act of the state legislature from portions of Burlington, Hunterdon and Middlesex counties in 1838—as high sheriff, justice of the peace, and a judge of the Court of Common Pleas.

John Bainbridge - son of the immigrant John. Married Sarah Clows (This has also been spelled Clowes) on the 15th of June 1685 at Middletown (now Langhorne), Bucks County, Pennsylvania. They were both members of Friends (Quakers) as they were married at 'meeting' of Friends. Proof is the "American Marriages before 1699". Sarah was born in 1665 and died March 25, 1732. John first appears in the official records in a deed dated 1685/6 when he is described as "John Bainbridge, Jr., a carpenter of Chesterfield, West Jersey." In another deed dated 1695/6 he is called a yeoman of East Jersey. In 1700 he and Sarah were said to be from Maidenhead, Burlington County. On March 18, 1698/9 John was among those named in a grant of 100 acres to be used for a meeting house, cemetery and a school house located at Maidenhead. Some presume this indeed was the beginning of a Presbyterian Church so he and Sarah probably left the Friends not long after their marriage, possibly as early as 1705. A lot of 'speculation' exists over the exact date of his switch from the Friends to Presbyterian. John became, in later life, a true public servant holding many offices and has an impressive list of accomplishments becoming not only a prominent land owner but earning the title of "Gentleman."

• http://www.bufordfamilies.com/Bainbridge.htm