John DAY, JR

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From: http://genforum.genealogy.com/day/messages/6164.html
I think I may be able to help. Boddie's book, 17th Century Isle of Wight, says this:
"Mary Bennett, married first, ______ Day, secondly, Thomas Bland, and on the 12th of Sept. 1668, 'Mary Bland, widow, aged 36, married Luke Cropley, aged 35.' She is mentioned in Governor Richard Bennett's will, 12th April, 1675, as "My cousin Mary, wife of Mr. Luke Cropley of London." She was living in 1701, as she is mentioned in the will of Captain James Day of Isle of Wight, her son, as 'my ever honored mother Mrs. Mary Cropley. (Note: Dr. Rupert Taylor of Clemson College, S.C., a descendant of Mrs. Mary Bennett-Day, states that she may be the wife of John Day of Fulham, Co., Middlesex, gent., whose will is shown in the printed Calendar of the Court of Hustings, London, page 771, dated Sept. 15, 1657. John Day mentions wife, Mary, sons John and James, daughters Ann and Elizabeth [Tyler's Mag., Vol 16, p. 241]0.'"
This entire passage comes from Boddie's book, chapter 15, "The Genealogical History of the Bennett's of Wivelscombe, Somerset and Isle of Wight," pp. 266-288.
Boddie is mistaken in claiming this John Day is from Middlesex. His will was probated there, but that is only because Mary Bennett was from there and her substantial dowry is included in his will. Her father, Edward Bennett, who is an ancestor of this line, is quite a story himself. The fifteenth child of a tanner in county Somerset, he married well, Mary Bourne, and wound up with a large shipping business based in London. He was a Puritan, as was Mary. He was an elder in the Puritan church in Holland which eventually became the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock in 1620. He did not come with the Pilgrims. However, he DID transport some 600 immigrants to the New World for the Virginia Company, many of them Puritans. In 1621 he received a patent for his own land in Isle of Wight, and named his plantation "Bennett's Welcome." His brother Robert and some other Puritans ran the plantation while he continued to run the shipping business. His daughter, Mary Bennett, married John Day, who was actually born in Virginia in 1621. His parents, John Day and Elizabeth Mason, actually came to Virginia in 1620 on the "London Merchant." His name appears in the Virginia Muster of Feb 7, 1624 They married in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England in 1619, came to Virginia in 1620, and had John, their first son, in 1621.
I would recommend that Day researchers that descend from the John Day/Isle of Wight Line purchase or borrow Boddie's book, "17th Century Isle of Wight." It's been reprinted and is available on the internet. It doesn'e say much more about the Days than what's quoted above, but you'll learn a lot about the Bennetts and the Bournes, who are all ancestors of ours.
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