Martha WILDMAN

Abt 1668 - Aft 1728  (60 years)

• Name	Martha WILDMAN  [1, 2, 3, 4]
  	When Martha (Wildman) Ambler embarked upon widowhood in November 1711, her husband had ensured that she and their three children were well taken care of. With acreage and a dwelling house, JohnAmbler's estate was worth nearly a thousand pounds. That property and Martha's dower rights meant she would be able to live comfortably. But a year later she was remarried and all that she possessed went under the control of her new husband Edward Bach, newly arrived from England. This marriage turned out to be an unfortunate decision. The law giving married women property rights inConnecticut would not be in place for nearly 150 years, and Edward would make "a prey of the Good Estate left her." Successfully obtaining an absolute divorce in Connecticut during this time meant that one had to prove "adultery, desertion, fraudulent contract, and seven yeas' absence without word." Martha may have been able yo provide proof of all of those claims to be granted her 1721 divorce but inexplicably she did not pursue legal means to rid herself of this grasping husband..... The widow Martha Ambler, with two minor children at home, married Edward Bach (Beach/Batch) in November 1712. The couple does not appear to have had children. By 6 March 1716, three years into the marriage, Edward wrote a letter to Martha asking that she "discharge" him from their marriage. Edward wrote of the "unhappy match" and "the Trouble that has befallen both you and I" and that he "cannot be contented: with her. He wrote the letter from Huntington, nearly thirty miles away, and requested that she oblige him and grant the discharge or "if you are Cross and will not send me a discharge you must take what follows." Despite the yhreat of "what follows," it appears Martha did not filed paperwork with the courts until several years later. There are claims that Edward Bach had a child with Mercy June of Stamford before Edward's request to end his marriage to Martha. that child Mindwell Batch (or Bach), was born about 1713 or 1714 based on a 1733 deed from her mother and Mindwell's own marriage hat year. It is possible she was born a year or two later, closer to the time of the 1716 letter from Edward. Mindwell June's mother, Mercy June, later married Richard Chester (Cheester/Chessier) at Stamford on 1 March 1718/9. the couple had one child, Mary, likely born about 1720. By September 1721, five years after Edward's request for "discharge" from the marriage, Martha petitioned the Superior Court in Fairfield, making three damning claims against Edward: 1) Edward was still married to a woman in England, (2) he had already married a second time in Connecticut, and 3) he had spent all that was left to her by John Ambler. She claimed a "totall neglect of Duty" and his "extravagancy and ill husbandry" were reasons for praying for a divorce. Three men of Stamford verified her claims, Samuel Wood, Samel Hait/Hot, andRichard Chessier (who by then had been married to Mercy June for over two years), testified that they were "sorrowfully acquainted" with Martha who had been "almost nine years past unhappily married to Edward Batch a Stranger newly (or was said) come then out of England" who had a living wife and children in England and now a wife and child in the new country. According to the testimony Edward had absent seven years, meaning he had left Martha's household in the winter of 1714. Even though they had not lived together, Edwrd legally had access to whatever Martha possessed during his absence.Since Mercy June was married to Richard Chester by this time, the "wife and child in the new country" presumable are yet another woman and her child, though no marriage record for Edward other than the Bach-Ambler one was found. Edward is not found in later records in Stamford or Fairfield County. [1]
  Birth	Abt 1668  [1, 3]
  Gender	Female
  Fact	Daughter of Thomas Wildman   [1, 4]
  Death	Aft 12 Nov 1728  [1, 2]
  Person ID	I61466	Main Tree
  Last Modified	25 Feb 2023

  
  

  Family 1	John AMBLER,   b. 18 Feb 1667/68, Stamford, Fairfield County, Connecticut d. 04 Nov 1711, Stamford, Fairfield County, Connecticut (Age 43 years)
  Marriage	1695	Stamford, Fairfield, Connecticut, USA   [1, 2, 3]
  Children	+ 1. John AMBLER,   b. 15 Feb 1695, Stamford, Fairfield County, Connecticut d. Aft 28 Nov 1766, Danbury, Connecticut (Age > 71 years)  [Birth] + 2. Stephen AMBLER,   b. 22 Jun 1698, Stamford, Fairfield County, Connecticut d. 11 Jul 1779, Stamford, Fairfield County, Connecticut (Age 81 years)  [Birth]   3. Martha AMBLER,   b. 17 Mar 1700, Stamford, Fairfield County, Connecticut d. Bef Dec 1737 (Age 37 years)  [Birth]
  Family ID	F06433	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	25 Feb 2023

  
  

  Family 2	Edward BACH,   b. England d. Bef 14 Apr 1720
  Marriage	Nov 1712	Stamford, Fairfield Co., Connecticut   [1, 2]
  Family ID	F31563	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	25 Feb 2023

  
  

• Sources

  [S13830] Connecticut Ancestry 2023 February Vol. 65 No. 3. [S03473] The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 1933 Vol. 64 No. 1 January. [S00041] "Descendants of Richard Ambler" at USGenWebProject - Fairfield County, Connecticut. [S01785] Donald Lines Jacobus, Ancestry.com: History and Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield, (Name: Name: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc.;;).