The Will of Thomas Oldale of BucksCo PA

The will of Thomas OLDALE of BucksCo PA proves that the wife of Joseph Dungan was Mary Oldale not Ohl. The father of Thomas Oldale and Mary Dungan is also mentioned in the will as Lemuel Oldale, living at Burlington NJ. He is buried in the Pennepack Cemetery with the initials L.O. but no date.

Lemuel's son(or was it brother, I forget) Samuel ODELL moved to VA and is the ancestor of the ODELL's of Missouri. Lemuel's father Samuel was a settler of Burlington Co NJ probably from Sheffield England where Oldales are found today. Samuel was a carpenter and sued his quaker neighbors when they would not pay for the bridge he built over the A___ Creek. Samuel and Lemuel moved to Bristol PA, where Lemuel helped build the first gallows. Back in Burlington the court records show that he was given 25 or 50 lashes in 1693 after propositioning his minor stepdaughter Elizabeth Hartley. That makes him one of the first convicted child molesters in America. However, he must have been rehabilitated as he later sold beef cattle to William PENN's provisioner. Our search at Sheffield ENGL shows that Elizabeth was probably 18 years old at the time and the stepdaughter of Samuel's Wife (Mary Malam). We do not know whether Samuel's wife was dead at the time but Samuel was perhaps only technically Elizabeth Hartley's guardian.

It is possible that Lemuel married Elizabeth Hartley as he and his wife Elizabeth were baptized at Pennepack the year before Mary Oldale was born. More research is needed.

Both Battle's history of Bucks Co and Frederick Dungan's epic Dungan biography are wrong about the surname of Mary wife of Joseph Dungan. The error probably rests on a single misreading of an old tombstone during the 19th century.

My Marple-Oldale lineage is given at

http://revolution.3-cities.com/~gjansen/marple.html