Mara Bucke, [parentage in doubt-do not merge]

http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Bucke_Richard_1581_or_1582-ca_1624 Bucke may have returned to England at least once. It is possible that his wife died and that he remarried, perhaps to a woman named Bridget. Bucke had three sons and one daughter born in Virginia between 1611 and 1620. Two of these children won some notice in their own right. Mara Bucke, the eldest, was the subject of a case heard in the General Court in 1624. Following testimony regarding rumors that David Sandys, a minister, planned to steal the thirteen-year-old away from her guardians' house and marry her, the court instructed her guardians to give security that they would thwart any marriage attempts. Benoni Bucke, born in 1616, proved incapable of managing his inheritance and, deemed "the first Ideott found in that plantation," became in 1637 the first subject of a commission to determine competency. The names given the four children born in the colony reflect the possible Puritan philosophy of Bucke as well as the hardships he endured in Virginia: Mara (bitter), Gershon (expulsion), Benoni (sorrow), and Peleg (division).

http://www.virtualjamestown.org/essays/brown_essay.html Dale's laws present a grim picture of working life in Jamestown for the colony's female minority. With their rations tied to the performance of traditional female employments like sewing, laundering, cooking and cleaning, but lacking necessary supplies (adequate thread, wash basins, soap, brushes) or the assistance of female neighbors and kin, English women probably found little to be cheerful about in the New World. Although the sex ratio meant that even a woman with few marital opportunities in England might prosper through marriage in Virginia, such a lopsided ratio also might have increased the odds of being assaulted, kidnapped, raped, or pressed into early marriage. Such conditions persisted in the colony until at least the 1620s, as the case of Mara Bucke attests. Bucke, the thirteen-year old orphan of minister Richard Bucke, was at the center of a struggle in 1624 that pitted her guardians, brother-in-law John Burrows and sister Bridget Burrows, against the overseers of her deceased father's estate. Several neighbors heard rumors that a prominent Jamestown resident-they suspected the Reverend David Sandys-planned to "steale Away" Bucke from the Burrows's plantation on the south side of the James River. Perhaps as a preventive measure, Bucke's guardians tried to arrange a marriage with a man they preferred, the reluctant Mr. Richards. Acting on behalf of the overseers of Richard Bucke's estate, the Court took security from Burrows to insure that neither he nor his wife would permit "any motione of marriadge to be made" by their charge. The Reverend Sandys, for his part, successfully sued the parties who suspected him of planning to kidnap Bucke. Bucke, who was described as "dull" witted by two witnesses, remained in the care of Burrows until at least the age of fifteen, after which time she disappears from the records. (6)

This Marah Buck, wife of John Atkins is likely attached here in error as a child of Rev. Richard Bucke.

She is likely NOT the same as the Mara who was the first Bucke child born in Virginia, who was involved in a legal dispute over a marriage attempt at age 13, and who was described as dull witted, and who disapeared from the records after age 15.

http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Bucke_Richard_1581_or_1582-ca_1624

Ricard Bucke had three sons and one daughter born in Virginia between 1611 and 1620. Mara Bucke, the eldest, was the subject of a case heard in the General Court in 1624. Following testimony regarding rumors that David Sandys, a minister, planned to steal the thirteen-year-old away from her guardians' house and marry her, the court instructed her guardians to give security that they would thwart any marriage attempts.

http://www.virtualjamestown.org/essays/brown_essay.html

Mara Bucke, the thirteen-year old orphan of minister Richard Bucke, was at the center of a struggle in 1624 that pitted her guardians, brother-in-law John Burrows and sister Bridget Burrows, against the overseers of her deceased father's estate. Several neighbors heard rumors that a prominent Jamestown resident-they suspected the Reverend David Sandys-planned to "steale Away" Bucke from the Burrows's plantation on the south side of the James River. Perhaps as a preventive measure, Bucke's guardians tried to arrange a marriage with a man they preferred, the reluctant Mr. Richards. Acting on behalf of the overseers of Richard Bucke's estate, the Court took security from Burrows to insure that neither he nor his wife would permit "any motione of marriadge to be made" by their charge. The Reverend Sandys, for his part, successfully sued the parties who suspected him of planning to kidnap Bucke. Bucke, who was described as "dull" witted by two witnesses, remained in the care of Burrows until at least the age of fifteen, after which time she disappears from the records.