The wife of John Ward of Orange Co NC

This question has perplexed us for years.  Many figured her surname was Sutton, due to the name of John's son.  However, it was the discovery of a will in Baltimore that finally answered the question.
  Below is the will of Sutton Sicklemore, written in 1762.  It answers a lot of questions:

The first thing one notices about the will is that Sutton Sicklemore lists four daughters.  The wedding records for three of them are found in the Parish records.  But the one marriage most relevant to our purpose here is not.  It is this will that gives us our only evidence for John Ward's wife.
  "And also to my daughter Hannah Ward one Shilling Sterling and no more..."

   But the will provides us much more information that this!  A well-known 'trick' of families back then was to name a son or daughter after a relative in hopes of their being included in any inheritance.  This obviously worked very well here.  You can see the following line at the end of the will:

    "...and then the whole Estate be equally divided between my two Grandsons Samuel Sicklemore Peacock and to Sutton Sicklemore Ward."

    So we now have our confirmation for Hannah being the wife of our particular John Ward:  Their son has the unusual first name of Sutton!  In addition, we get one further cross-check.  Notice the name of the other grandson (named for Sutton Sicklemore's father)--Samuel Sicklemore Peacock.  Here we can shift to Orange Co NC two decades later and find the following wedding bond:

             

  Amazingly, John Ward is co-bonding (nephew) Samuel Peacock's wedding.  Once again, notice the mark John uses--it's exactly the same as the mark that was used in Baltimore by John Ward Sr!

 We can sum up like this:

  John Ward  of Orange Co, NC was married to Hannah Sicklemore.
  John was the son of John Ward Sr and Sarah Burrough--or of Richard Ward and Mary Gross.
  The parents of John Ward Sr and Richard were Joseph and Bridgett Ward.


  Sadly, there is no evidence (so far) for Bridgett's maiden name.  But there's a lot that can be said about the Sicklemores-
                                                                                                    (Kevin)