An American Family History

Zedekiah Bonham was born about 1707 at Maidenhead, Hunterdon County, (now Lawrence, Mercer County), New Jersey. He was the son of Hezekiah Bonham and his second wife.

His first wife was Sarah Compton. She was the daughter of Jonathan Compton and Esther Martin.

Zedekiah and Sarah had a daughter Sarah Bonham Fitzrandolph (1728, married Malachi Fitzrandolph).

His second wife was Ann Martin. Ann was the daughter of Benjamin Martin and Philoreta Slater. Her sister, Elizabeth, was his brother Nehemiah’s second wife.

Zedekiah and Ann had two daughters:
Zerujah Bonham (1731) and
Katrin Bonham (1735).

The Seventh Day Baptist Church first gathered at the Martin home.

He died in 1760 in Piscataway.

from History of the First Baptist Church of Piscataway
Stelton, New Jersey, 1889, by Oliver B. Leonard, Esq.

Among the brave and bold passengers of the Mayflower was a representative of the Martin family, who sought "the wild New England shore for freedom to worship God." One of this familiar name was among the first planters to make a permanent settlement in this colony of conscience. John Martin, a Piscataway grantee of 1666, came here from the Piscataqua district in New Hampshire, where he lived as early as 1648 with the ancestors of the Dunns, Drakes, Langstaffs, and other old and respected families of that locality. The Martins came to stay, as a numerous line of descendants testify from that remote day to the present.

Planter is an archaic term for a settler. Plantation was a method of colonization where settlers were "planted" abroad. A plantation is also the kind of large farm that was the economical basis of many American Colonies and owners of these farms were also called planters.