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- "Clues to the identity of Martha, the wife of Gideon Mead (Enos, Jonathan, John, John), may be found in the journal of her grandson, Reuben McBride, now available in the L.D.S. Library in Salt Lake City; leading to the conclusion that Martha was a daughter of Jonathan and Abigail (Mead) Fiske of Greenwich, Connecticut. Among the relatives listed in Reuben McBride's journal are his great-uncles and great-aunts, i.e. brothers and sisters, with their spouses, of his four grandparents: Samuel and Margaret McBride, who emigrated from Ireland before 1766 to Saratoga County, New York, and Gideon and Martha Mead. By tradition, Margaret's maiden name was Brown, leaving only Martha's surname in question. Two of the great-uncles were Jonathan and David Fisk, which suggests that they were related by blood rather than by marriage, and just might be brothers of Martha. Gideon Mead, born about 1744, belonged to the Greenwich, Connecticut, family, and finding a Fisk family of the same period and area, with children named Jonathan, David and Martha, was not difficult. They were among the six minor children named in the will of Jonathan Fiske who died in Greenwich in 1756, their mother being Abigail Mead, a daughter of David and Abigail (Leosee) Mead. Although there is no birth record or marriage record for Martha, she was a minor in 1756 and apparently of legal age when she sold her inheritance in 1767, signing the documents with her mark. With the sale of her property, Martha Fiske disappears from the genealogical scene, but three years later, Martha, wife of Gideon Mead, gave birth to her second child Abigail in Nine Partners, Dutchess County, New York. Logically, the sale of Martha's property might well have coincided with her marriage to Gideon Mead and their removal to a new home in Nine Partners." [Virginia McBride, "Martha Fiske, the Wife of Gideon Mead." The American Genealogist, July 1969.]
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