Person:Joane Stroud (1)

Married in England. Picture of the church they were married in is included in Photo Album section.

Joane Strode was the last of the long Strode lineage in our family tree. She grew up in Shepton Mallet, Sommersetshire and married Thomas Mildenhall in August of 1649 at Aldbourne, Wiltshire, a county adjacent to Somerset.

He was from Mildenhall, a borough located in the northern part of Wiltshire known as the Marlborough Downs, a hilly area just north of the Salisbury Plain where the famous megaliths standing stones of Stonehenge are found. The area was noted for Mildenhall oaks, which were especially suitable for making mallets. The logs also were easily split into planks, each one a mirror image of the other -- the origin of term "a splitting image" to indicated an exact likeness.

Thomas was one of the four children of Francis Mildenhall and a grandson of Sir John Mildenhall. Sir John served as England's ambassador to India and died there in 1614. An interesting sidelight with respect to the family enclave of centuries ago is a reference in Sir Winston Churchill's last book wherin he mentioned silverware that was found buried beneath the floors of Mildenhall Castle. The castle was later converted into a college.

Thomas and Joane became the parents of nine children over a 15-year period between 1656 and 1669. They lived in the Parish of Ramsbury, either in or near Mildenhall, until sometime after 1675 when they came to America and set up residence in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Several of the children joined their parents in coming to America. All of the family members who came tot he new world spelled the name Mendenhall, owing to a misspelling in church records, while those who remained in England continued to spell it Mildenhall. The children who came with them prospered in this country: Mary wed Nathaniel Newlin, an Irish immigrant who became a major landowner in southeastern Pennsylvania. Benjamin was a minister and busy wheelwright in Chester County; he was married to Ann Pennell, who immigrated from England with her parents in 1683. John, who married Elizabeth Maris, granted land in 1697 for the Friends Concord Meeting House of the Concord Mills. Margery became the wife of Thomas Martin, a wheelwright, who came to America in 1685. Moses came to this country but later returned to England, sending back to his family the deed for 500 acres he had acquired while here.

The Mendenhalls apparently became members of the Quaker faith in England as indicated by the records of the Marlborough and Reading Monthly Meetings, a commitment they found easier to continue in William Penn's Pennsylvania.

Deciphering the dates of early Quaker records is a bit of a challenge for historians as they began with March as the first month of the year and the days of the week were numbered rather than named. This system remained in effect until 1752 when the reckoning of dates was changed to the generally accepted use of January as the first month.

Joane died in Pennsylvania in 1683; Thomas had passed on a year earlier in England, where he apparently had returned on business.

A footnote: About a hundred years after Joane and Thomas left for America, the Strode estates in England passed from the family when an inheriting surviving daughter married Thomas Chatham, who became lord of those lands. (Taken from: "A Family History", by Donovan Faust)

1. ↑ Transcribed copy of Thomas Mildenhall's will.
2. ↑ Transcribed copy of Margery Stroud's will.
3. ↑ Mendenhall Family Association Newsletter, Vol. 6,
   p. 12-13.
4. ↑ A. Donovan Faust (Foust). A Family History: The Ancestors of Thomas Wilson Faust. (1997).