Obadiah Benjamin GUMBLETON

He was a seafarer who travelled to America in the early 1700s. Myron C. Banks, who has researched the origins of immigrants into Bath County, North Carolina in the early 1700s, found one headright of Thomas Dearham in 1702 with the name of 'Obediah Benj. Gummelton'. It seems likely that Obadiah Benjamin settled in North Carolina and never returned to live in England.

Obadiah’s father, John, died in 1703, and Obadiah was the residual beneficiary of his will, but the will went on to say “but in case he die before me then out of the said residue of my estate I give to my said sons in law [actually stepsons] John and James Garrett and each of them one hundred pounds”. There must therefore have been a great incentive for John and James Garrett to find out what had happened to Obadiah, especially if it could be proved that he had died. They placed a notice in the London Gazette, as follows: Whether Obadiah ever received his inheritance is unknown, but he was still alive at this time. Some years later, in 1724, the Stamford Mercury has a list of recent shipping disasters that includes “Also the Phoenix, Obadiah-Benjamin Gumbleton, Master, from Hamburgh to Yarmouth and Leghorn, was drove a-shore near Yarmouth.” It is not known if Obadiah survived the wreck.