Note: The Ziebarth genealogy was written in 1997. As of 2025 I have found records that cast substantive doubt on the connections John Ziebarth drew connecting our Magill line to the family that owned Gill Hall. For one, Ziebarth states that brother Capt. John Magill (1716-1792) and Robert Magill 1717 - ca. 1745) were the sons of John Johnston Magill (1662-1701) and Arabella Susan Hamilton (ca. 1675 - aft 1718). Just these dates present problems, as they have the two brothers born years after their suggested father's death. I also loctaed the online site www.westminster-abbey.org which has details on people buried in the abbey. These include Arabella, who it states died in 1708; also that she had been married to John (Johnston) Magill and that the marriage was childless. I have left the connection of Capt. John Magill. Other items in the text of the book differ widely from the included charts. Ziebearth draws a cursory connection to Capt. John Magill's son, also John, eventually relocating from Ireland to Winchester, Virginia, where he and his son Charles were patriots in the American Revolution. Indeed there is are findagrave memorials for a John Magill and son Charles, natives of Ireland, in Winchester graves, with Charles having fought for the colonies in the Revolution. But Ziebarth states in another part of his book that John, son of Capt. John, was born in 1740 and died in 1827 in Ireland. The dates Ziebarth suggest for Capt. John Magill (1716-1792) are very close to those of the John buried in Winchester (1722-1792). Findagrave has the father of this John as Arthur Magill, and Ziebarth has Capt. John having a son names Arthur. Ziebarth has the Magill family seat as Tullcarne, County Down. The family on finagrave has it as County Antrim, which borders County Down. My conclusion is that our Middletown, Conn. Magills connect to those buried in Winchester, Va. but the connections are so uncertain that I have decided to make no connection between them. I have severed the connection between Capt. John Magill (1716-1792) and John Hohnston Magill and Arabella Susanna Hamilton. I have left some of the Magill family older than Capt. John Magill in the database in case conections can be established to them at a later date. I might even speculate that Capt. John Magill (1716-1792) and John H. Magill (1722-1792) might be one and the same person ( (EAD Jan. 24, 2025).
John inherited the family estate at Tullycarn, Ireland by 1727, at about age eleven. A sea merchant in the American and West Indies. He was probably in opposition to the King's repressive, anti-colonial, anti-Irish, anti-Presbyterian mercantile policies. Coupled with the ruinous state of Ireland's economy, these factors may have caused him to have a home in more than one port. There is little mention of his activities in the shipping records of the colonies or England. A search of Lloyd's Daily Lists over a twenty year period reveals only two "M'gill" with voyage arrivals, one at Cork in 1757 and one at what was possibly his home port of Newry in 1753, both originating in the Caribbean. Perhaps this absence of regular citations was the result of most of his voyages not clearing customs nor carrying hull insurance. Smugglers left few records. He apparently traded in rum and exports from the North American colonies.
Around 1765 John moved his base of operations to Middletown, Connecticut, a port similar to Newry with its upland situation, well-concealed form the open sea. There is, however, no evidence that he ever established permanent residence there. He and his first mate, nephew James Magill, were loyalists. By 1760 Middletown was the largest and most prosperous town in Connecticut., with a population exceeding five thousand. Seventeen of the families living on Main Street were engaged in the sea trade, principally focused on the West Indies, especially rum. Although loyal to the crown, it is said that in 1775 his ship put in at Boston just before the Battle of Bunker Hill . He tried in vain for some days to persuade the dockhands to help him unload his ship, which they refused to do unless his crew declared support for the colonial patriots. Captain John's reply to this was " Let the damned Yankees stew in their own juice!" Captin John was not heard from again in New England. One unsubstantiated family source asserts that he left his first wife well-provided for in Ireland, and married a second, Mary Clough, in Middletown. He apparently also left her, and may have been last heard of in Glasgow.
(Ziebarth, John. Direct conections : Ziebarth-McGill ancestry. New York : Ziemag Publishing, 1997, pg. 82).