Born by about 1570, based on estimated date of marriage. Came from Boston, Lincolnshire, to Massachusetts Bay in 1633 & settled in Charlestown. Died in Charlestown between 23 April 1638 (when he received his Mystic Side allotments) and 30 December 1638 (when his son Edward held five and three-quarters shares in the stinted common, being the combination of what he and his father had held in 1637).
Married by about 1595 Martha Bulkeley, daughter of Reverend Edward Bulkeley, and sister of Reverend Peter Bulkeley∼Abraham Mellowes and Martha Bulkeley were married about 1596 in Odell, Bedfordshire.\
Source: Anderson's Great Migration Study Project

Christian Pettit was not related to the Mellows family. Please correct the entry to remove her name. People "correct" correct information on Family Search, citing this Memorial as their source. Thanks.
Primary sources are unambiguous: Christian's husband Thomas Pettit was indentured to Oliver Mellows for 3.5 years and received a Boston house lot for his work (and likely 2 trans-Atlantic passages). Thomas's brother John was indentured to Mellows for 1.5 years. Like Thomas, he received a Boston house lot and quickly became an influential community leader.

I. PRIMARY & SECONDARY SOURCES EXPLICIT IDENTITY PETTIT AS INDENTURED TO MELLOWS, NOT RELATED TO HIM.

A. Oliver Mellows was a gentleman and a wealthy cloth manufacturer. He emigrated in summer 1633. Three and half years later, Thomas Pettit was granted a Boston house lot: On 8 January 1637, Boston officials agreed that “Thomas Pettit, having served with our brother, Olyvar Mellowes, this three years and a halfe, shall have a housplott granted unto him" [1]. This record shows the Pettits emigrated in summer 1633; servants generally emigrated with their employers.

B. Historian Charles Bell explicitly identifies Pettit as Mellows's "journeyman," not his relation [2]. In guilds, journeymen rank between apprentices and master craftsmen, exactly the point in the trade that Pettit would’ve been at age 24 (or thereabout) when he signed on with Mellows [3].

C. In his 1987 book "Coming Out" for Cambridge University Press, Professor David Cressy points to Thomas Pettit as an example of "how ex-servants might be treated if they were lucky," adding that grants like Pettit's "were rare after the first few years of settlement" with most ex-servants living "obscure lives as wage-earners or small landowners" [5]. (Spoiler alert! The Pettits were anything but "obscure.")

D. In his influential book "Coming to America" (2nd ed, 2019), historian Roger Daniels singles out Thomas Pettit as a "success story": he turned his labor into land, which made him eligible to vote and hold office [6]. He did both.

E. Contemporaneous Exeter land deeds identify Pettit (a town founder) as "Goodman Pettit": "Goodman Pettit 6 acers [acres] 30 poole butting as aforesayd. Mr Wheelwright 80 acers butting as aforesayd" [7]. The title "Mr" or Master was reserved for people of high social status or learning, like Exeter's minister, Rev John Wheelwright. The title "Goodman" was used for most people, including tradesmen like Pettit. If Christian were known to be related to the Mellows, she and her husband would not have been called Goodman and Goody Pettit [8].

II. NO PRIMARY SOURCE IDENTIFIES CHRISTIAN AS A MEMBER OF THE MELLOWS FAMILY

A. Both a 1633 passenger list and the Mellows's entry in "The Great Migration" identify their family as Abraham Mellows, Martha Bulkeley, and 4 children: Edward, Anne, Catherine, and Oliver [9, 10]. Because Bulkeley (and therefore her children) descended from an English king, their genealogy is well established and well documented [8]. It doesn't include a Christian in the immediate or extended family.

B. Family Search user William Gorman contributes his own research, noting that Christian isn’t identified as a Mellows “in any of the respected books covering immigrant ancestors descending from royalty, such as Ancestral Roots, Magna Charta Sureties, or Gary Boyd Roberts's The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants.”

III. COMMON-SENSE QUESTION

Thomas Pettit's brother John was indentured to Oliver Mellows for 1.5 years. If Oliver Mellows were related to Christian, why would he have forced her husband to remain in service twice as long as his brother John, whom no one thinks married into the Mellows family?

SOURCES

1. "Records Relating to the Early History of Boston," Boston Registry Department (1876): page 22. https://archive.org/details/recordsrelating14unkngoog/page/n35/mode/2up
2. Charles Bell, "The History of Exeter" (1888): p 42.
3. On journeymen, see "The New England Colonies," p 6. www.peaster.net/cms/lib/TX01000798/Centricity/Domain/359/Ch.3Sec.2.pdf
4. David Cressey, "Coming Over: Migration and Communication Between England and New England in the Seventeenth Century," Cambridge UP (1987): p 63.
5. Roger Daniels, "Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life," 2nd ed, Harper Perennial (2019): p 46.
6. Bell, "The History of Exeter," p 436.
7. See Donna Gawell's discussion of the Puritan's use of the titles Mister/Master and Goodman/Goody. donnagawell.com/2017/08/14/if-you-were-a-puritan-what-would-be-your-title/
8. Mellows immigration documentation is available in the Small genealogy. www.gsmall.us/Family/Carol/getperson.php?personID=I01259&tree=Carol#cite2.
9. See "The Great Migration: 1620-1635" entry for Abraham Mellowes, vol 2, G-0 (1995): p 1248-1250.

All sources linked to the following Family Search profiles (free access):
Thomas Pettit https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/sources/MF3L-JQC
Christian Pettit https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LTGV-33P