Upon his first wife Mary Williams’ death, Henry Middleton was left without a companion to help with his many estates and, more importantly, no mother for his six young children. Susannah, the youngest, had turned one year old just days before her mother’s death. This dilemma was resolved the following year when Henry married Maria Henrietta Bull (1721-1772), the daughter of the former Lieutenant Governor William Bull and Mary Quintyne. Maria Henrietta was a suitable wife for the widower Henry, having served as hostess for her father. She also assumed the role of the only mother the three youngest Middleton daughters would know.

On March 1, 1772, after ten years of marriage, Maria Henrietta Bull Middleton passed away at the age of forty-nine and was buried at what is now known as Old St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Charleston County, just a few miles downriver from Middleton Place. She was much loved and respected, as evidenced in August 1772, when her stepson Arthur named his first daughter Maria Henrietta in her honor.