Judge Wendell married, in 1762, Mary, a daughter of Edward Jackson, who graduated at H. C. 1726, married Dorothy Quincy, and was a merchant of Boston. He was the son of Jonathan, who was a brazier and nail-maker, and married Mary Salter, March 26, 1700, lived in Boston, and left an estate of about £30,000. He was the son of Jonathan, who married Elizabeth---- and settled in Boston. He was born in England, and was the son of Edward, born in 1602, who emigrated from White Chapel, a parish in London, to this country about 1642, took the freeman's oath, May, 1645, and in 1646 purchased of Gov. Bradstreet a farm of 500 acres of land in that part of Cambridge which is now Newton, for £140. For his second wife he married March 14, 1648, Elisabeth Oliver, widow of Rev. John Oliver, the first minister of Rumney Marsh, (Chelsea,) and daughter of John Newgate of Boston. He was one of the most respectable men of the Colony, and was much engaged in public life. He died July 17, 1681, aged 79. Judge Wendell had several children, most of whom died young. Oliver and Edward never married, and have deceased. Sarah married the Rev. Dr. Abiel Holmes of Cambridge, by whom she had five children; namely, Mary Jackson, who married Usher Parsons, M. D., of Providence, R. I.; Ann Susan, who married Rev. Charles W. Upham of Salem; Sarah Lathrop, who died 1812, aged 6 years; Oliver Wendell, M. D., of Boston, who married Amelia Lee Jackson, daughter of Hon. Charles Jackson of Boston; and John, an Attorney at law, living in Cambridge.
For the above facts we are indebted principally to the late Rev. Dr. Holmes of Cambridge, and Francis Jackson, Esq., of Boston.
HON. JONATHAN LAW, GOVERNOR OF CONNECTICUT.
[The facts in this Memoir were obtained through the obliging instrumentality of Prof. Kingsley of Yale College.]
Jonathan Law, Governor of the Colony of Connecticut, descended from Richard Law, who came from England in the year 1640, and was one of the first settlers in the town of Stamford, Ct., in 1641. He left one son, Richard, who afterwards moved to Milford in that State, where his son Jonathan, his only son and the subject of this Memoir, was born, Aug. 6, 1674. His mother was Sarah, daughter of George Clark, Sen., a planter. He was educated at Harvard College, then the only Academical Institution in New England, and received his degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1695. The law was the profession which he selected, and after passing through the course of studies usual at that period, he was admitted to the bar, and fixed his residence in his native town in 1698. He soon became distinguished as a lawyer and an advocate, and after a few years was made Chief-Judge of New Haven County Court. This office he held for five years, and in May, 1715, he was transferred to the Bench of the Superior Court of the Colony, as one of the Associate Judges, where he continued, with the exception of one year, till 1725. At the annual election in 1717, he was chosen an Assistant, an office of great trust and importance, being ex officio a Legislator, a member of the Governor's Council, and a judicial Magistrate throughout the Colony. This station he resigned in 1725, on his election to the office of Lieutenant-Governor, and the same year he was appointed by the General Assembly CHIEF-JUSTICE of the Superior Court, both which offices he held until the year 1742; when he was elected Governor, and continued in that office until his death, which, after a short and painful sickness of three days, occurred at Milford, Nov. 6, 1750, at the age of 76 years. He left seven sons and a widow, his fifth wife.