Martha Higgs
* Born: 1592, Shiplake, Oxfordshire, , England
* Marriage: Thomas Wilder Jan 1619
* Died: 20 Apr 1652, Hingham, , MA
She left Shiplake England for the Colonies on board the ship "Confidence", in 1638 bound for Massachusetts Bay and landed at Hingham. Since the Wilders had suffered religous persecution, it is believed that she sent her children, Thomas, Elizabeth, and Edward with friends to the New Colonies while she disposed of her effects and followed later. It is believed that she sold the estate, but would never tell her children to whom, to her son John, the heir of Sulham.
Martha Wilder left Shiplake in May, 1638, for the Colonies. In 1638 the ship Confidence sailed from Southampton, England with emigrants for Massachusetts Bay. In the list of passengers shown in the 1848 edition of The New England Historical and Genealogical Register includes " Martha Wilder, Shiplake, Oxfordshire, Spinster and Mary Wilder 111135, her daughter." We know nothing further of this Mary but the tradition that she married in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It is represented that they landed at Hingham, Massachusetts in November 1638, where her other children lived. The town records show that the town made grants of land for house, planting, pasture and meadow to Martha and Edward.
Widow Martha Wilder and her children Thomas, Edward, Mary and Elizabeth, are the head of the American line of Wilders. There is no proof that Martha Higgs was the wife of Thomas Wilder.
Thomas Wilder of Shiplake, married Martha (last name unknown), Neither Rev. Moses Hale Wilder, Justin E. Wilder nor Dr. Edwin Milton Wilder were aware of Martha's maiden name. The family name "Higgs" for Martha has been advanced in the past, especially in tabulations of early Mormons, plus others. More recently, in 1984, Grenice Disher hired a professional genealogist in London, England to investigate the origins of Martha with specific instructions to look for evidence linking her to the Higgs family. After some ten months of extensive research, it was concluded Martha's maiden name of Higgs could not be confirmed. Colleen Nielson, a Wilder descendant and careful researcher, quotes Savage's Genealogical Dictionary, page 373, and the History of Hingham, Massachusetts, LDS Family History Library, book 974.48/H1 V2h Vol. 2, and the LDS Archival Record as her sources to support her acceptance of Martha's maiden name as Higgs.
Martha married Thomas Wilder, son of John (3) Wilder and Alice Keats, in Jan 1619. (Thomas Wilder was born in 1584 in Shiplake, Oxfordshire, , England and died on 23 Oct 1634 in Shiplake, Oxfordshire, , England.)