#52 Ancestors 2024 Week 16 Step: Mary Skinner's Four Marriages and the Intermarriages of her Step-Children

My 7X-great grandmother, Mary Skinner, married four times and saw multiple intermarriages between the children of her four husbands. The picture above is not of her wedding, but I think it suggests the lively household that witnessed her fourth and final marriage with Dr. James Weems.  Between them they had 14 children under 21 at the time of their marriage.  I imagine it was quite a lively affair. 

Mary Skinner, born about 1703, was the eldest of the eight children of Dr. William Skinner and his wife, Elizabeth Mackall, of Calvert County MD. She grew up at his estate "The Reserve" with five younger brothers and two younger sisters and is named along with them in the 1715 will of her grandmother, Mary Mackall. (Note: Dr. William Skinner was the son of Robert Skinner and Ann Clarke (my 9X-great grandmother), about whom I have previously written.)

Mary's first marriage, about 1720, was to Robert Wheeler, the son of Roger Wheeler. Mary and Robert had two children: Elizabeth (about 1724) and Roger (about 1722).  Robert was dead by February 1728, age about 30, when his estate was administered by his wife, Mary. 

By 1730, Mary was still administering Robert Wheeler's estate, but was then shown as the wife of Joseph Wilkinson. Captain Joseph Wilkinson was born in Durham, England, about 1690 and began his naval career as an apprentice to his brother John who was a master gunner in the British Navy.  Joseph was later the captain of the ship, Judith.  Joseph and Mary Wilkinson had two children: Joseph (about 1730) and Elizabeth (about 1732). Captain Wilkinson died at sea in February 1735, on his way to England to settle his brother John's estate.  Captain Wilkinson was buried in St. Anne's Cemetery in Limehouse. He left a will that named his son and daughter and appointed his brother-in-law, John Skinner, as the guardian to his children.

Cedar Hill

Within a few years, by 1738, Mary had married Major Thomas Crompton, a wealthy landowner in Calvert County MD. Major Crompton and Mary had four children: Ann (about 1738), Thomas (about 1740), Mary (1741), and Catherine (about 1742). Major Crompton owned the property called "Bigger" after its first owner and later built or expanded "Cedar Hill," now listed on the National Register as one of the last surviving examples of cruciform architecture. 

The Maryland Gazette noted the death of Major Crompton in December 1744. 

About 1746, Mary Skinner Wheeler Crompton married for the fourth time to Dr. James Loch Weems, a prominent merchant and plantation owner in Calvert County. Dr. Weems also served in the Maryland legislature and as a sheriff and justice of the peace in Calvert County. 

James and Mary had no children together, but even so, the Weems house was full.  There were six Weems children in the household from Weems' first marriage to Sarah Parker, ranging in age from 4 to 15.  Mary brought eight children into the marriage ranging in age from 3 to 21.  Must have been quite a lively household. Dr. Weems also took on the management of the estates of Mary's three previous husbands. Given all the minor children involved, the estate management was quite complex.

That close family living resulted in several marriages among the stepsiblings.

About 1750, 16-year-old Susanna Weems (my 6X-great grandmother) married her stepbrother, Roger Wheeler and had four daughters with him: Mary Wheeler (my 5X great grandmother through her marriage to Dr. John Thomas Bond), Elizabeth Wheeler, Sarah Weems Wheeler, and Ann Weems Wheeler (also a 5X-great grandmother through her marriage to Daniel Kent, and the mother of Governor Joseph Kent, about whom I have written elsewhere). 

Sadly, Susanna Weems Wheeler died in 1761, shortly after the birth of her daughter Ann. Roger Wheeler died soon after in 1763. As a result, the four Wheeler girls were raised by their grandfather Weems, adding even more to the already large household. 

Billingsley

About 1753, Elizabeth Wilkinson married her stepbrother William Loch Weems. They had one daughter, Willimina Weems, 1754. Elizabeth died about 1757, and William Loch Weems married Amelia Chapman of Virginia in 1758 and had three sons and two daughters with her: Nathaniel Chapman Weems (1760), James William Loch Weems (1761), Sarah Louise Weems (1762), Dr. John Weems (1768), and Wilhelmina Chapman Weems, who was one of the four Weems wives of Henry Wright Gantt, about whom I have previously written.  William lived and died at Billingsley, an estate in Prince George's County MD inherited from his father.

About 1759, John Weems married his stepsister, Catherine Crompton, the first of his four marriages. I have previously written about this marriage because I had to do considerable research to determine which Crompton daughter John had married.  John and Catherine had three sons and two daughters together: James (1760), Mary (1765), Sarah Margaret (1766), William Loch (1772) and John Crompton (1777). After Catherine's death in 1781, John married Elizabeth Miller of Philadelphia (1784), Alice Lee (1788), and Mary Swan (1792).  He had seven children in his fourth marriage and emigrated with that family to Louisville KY, where he died in 1813 and is buried there in Cave Hill Cemetery. 

So, Mary Skinner's four marriages produced a marriage between a child of each of her first three marriages with a child of her fourth husband, James Weems. 

Mary Skinner Wheeler Wilkinson Crompton Weems died in Calvert County MD in 1769. Dr. James Weems died at his son’s home—Billingsley—in 1781.