Baker Family Tree

Chapter 30 - The Pirate Adam Baldridge

2012-01-26T11:09:00.000-08:00

Almost all the family trees on Ancestry.com that list Jemina Collins (1736-1770) and her sisters and brother, show that their mother was the daughter of the notorious pirate Adam Baldridge. There is a question as to whether or not the mother’s name was Sarah or Elizabeth but no one seems to question that their father’s name was Abraham Collins and their maternal grandfather was the pirate Adam Baldridge. Jemina Collins was my 5th great grandmother and the great, great grandmother of my great grandmother Helen Rappleye Baker. Jemina Collins married Nathaniel Seeley (1732-1770) in 1752. This chapter will discuss two subjects. The first subject will consist of a simple and brief description of the life of Adam Baldridge. The second subject will be an analysis of the evidence as to whether or not we are descendants of the pirate Adam Baldridge.

It is actually impossible to write a story of the complete life of Adam Baldridge since nothing is known of his life before the 1690s or after the early 1700s. Of his early life and his later life we can only guess as to his activities. Adam Baldridge was probably born in England around 1660 although some have suggested that he may have been born in New York or on the island of Jamaica. Both of these locations seem unlikely however as the majority of the English speaking privateers and pirates operating during this period of history in the late 1600s were born in either England or Scotland. In an historical record of New Castle, New Jersey dated 1706 we find that a man named Adam Baldridge was listed as a donor for the construction of a Presbyterian church. Assuming that this is the same Adam Baldridge which appears to be the case, his affiliation with a Presbyterian church suggests that Adam Baldridge was of Scottish descent or possibly even born in Scotland as was his contemporary, Captain William Kidd. It is impossible to know the nature of his upbringing in England although the fact that he could apparently read and write suggests that he was intelligent and that he might have had some schooling. Furthermore, his personality was not that of an uncouth, swashbuckling individual who we might visualize as the typical pirate. In fact, after his “retirement” in New York in the late 1690s, he was described by the governor of the colony as a “sober and responsible man.” This again suggests that he was not the product of the London slums and he may very well have grown up as the second or third son of a hardworking English family who felt that it was in their son’s best interest to “go off to sea.” It is possible if not likely, that as a teenager young Adam Baldridge joined the crew of a merchant ship or possibly a privateer. Whatever the case, the fact that by 1685 Adam Baldridge was in Jamaica strongly suggests that at some point, his career had turned to that of a privateer, pirate, or slave trader.

We know that Captain Henry Morgan, one of England’s most famous privateers, began his career around 1662. A privateer differences from a pirate only in that the privateer is authorized by the government to be a pirate. In other words, the English government authorized Henry Morgan to prey on the ships of other countries such as France during wartime and in return the privateer agreed to share some of its pirated bounty with the government. In effect the privateer acted as a “private” naval force and in Morgan’s case, for England. The only thing wrong with this program was that the fine line between being an authorized privateer and being an outright pirate was often crossed. Henry Morgan was back in England for three years from 1672 to 1675 before he shipped out again and by 1680 he was in Jamaica acting as the defacto governor of the island which by that point had become the base of operations of most of the privateers and pirates operating in the Caribbean. Jamaica and its capital city, Port Royal, was also the main distribution point for most of the African slaves entering the Americas. Whether or not Adam Baldridge ever served on a ship or in a fleet under the command of Captain Henry Morgan is not known although the proximity and the historical timing of the two men might suggest that possibility.

On 25 August 1698, in a deposition taken of one Samuel Perkins in the matter of the possible piracy charges again a Henry Every, Perkins stated when describing Adam Baldridge that “. . He was informed [that Adam Baldridge] had formerly killed a man in Jamaica, and thereupon turned pirate about 13 years ago [in 1685].” As far as I know this hearsay evidence is the only mention of Adam Baldridge being in Jamaica as of 1685 and being forced to leave the island as a result of the killing of another man. Presumably Adam Baldridge served on a privateer, pirate, or on a slave trading ship between the year 1685 when he departed Jamaica and 17 July 1690, the date he arrived on the ship Fortune at St Mary’s Island located off the northeast coast of the Island of Madagascar. There is no evidence however, that he was anything other than a member of the crew on that ship or other ships during this period and there is no evidence other than the hearsay evidence presented by Samuel Perkins, that Adam Baldridge was a pirate either before or after his time in Jamaica. Furthermore, I could find nothing about Richard Conyers, Commander of the ship Fortune upon which Adam Baldridge sailed into St Mary’s other than he was the commander of a ship that traded in slaves. If he was also a pirate, he did so without achieving any lasting historical notoriety. There is no evidence to support the writings of historians that Baldridge was a pirate before he began his career on St Mary’s Island.

The Fortune’s mooring in July of 1690 in the calm inlet bay located at the southwest end of St Mary’s Island located off the northeast coast of Madagascar was probably a necessity since after months at sea they must have needed to replenish their food supplies and make repairs to their ship after its long 2,500 mile sail from the Americas. The plan for the Fortune and its crew after completing the repairs was to sail to nearby Fort Dauphin on the southeastern end of Madagascar where they would load their ship with slaves for transport back to the Americas. Apparently, despite its greater distance from the Americas, it was less expensive to purchase slaves from the Island of Madagascar than it was to purchase slaves on the west coast of Africa. In both cases, slave trading in the late 1600s and the 1700s was immensely profitable. Adam Baldridge and two other members of the crew of the Fortune elected to stay behind on St. Mary’s Island. As an historical aside, slave trading was banned by Spain in 1542, by France in 1789, by Britain in 1807, and by the United States in 1808. On the other hand, slavery itself was not outlawed by Britain until 1833, by France until 1848, and by the United States, home of Democracy and freedom, until 1865. In the 1690s slave trading was a perfectly legal if not respected profession.

We learn from the transcript of the deposition submitted by Adam Baldridge on May 5, 1699 to Lord Bellomont, Governor of the Colony of New York, and subsequently presented to the Lords of Trade in New York, of Adam Baldridge’s activities on St. Mary’s Island from 1691 until he left the island in July of 1697. The governor and the Lords of Trade beginning in 1699 were investigating on behalf of the British government piracy and illegal trade as well the possible role played by the previous colonial governor. The previous governor, Benjamin Fletcher, was accused of illegally accepting bribes for allowing privateers to sell their goods in the New York Colony without first paying the required British tariff on imported goods that were not shipped from England on British ships. Whether or not Adam Baldridge had a master plan when he decided to remain on St Mary’s Island is not known. A master plan was also not likely nor was it likely that he had been sent to the island by New York merchants to set up a trading center. We do know however, that in the short period of time of only six and a half years, he managed to build a major trading enterprise that took him from being penniless to being wealthy and from being obscure to being notorious. We also cannot help but note that he got into the business of trading with privateers, pirates, slave traders and wealthy New York merchants at precisely the right time and he got out of the business at an equally opportune time. Furthermore, despite the questionable nature of his business, he retired a wealthy man and he was never incarcerated nor hanged for the crime of piracy as were so many of his contemporaries including Captain William Kidd.

Why Adam Baldridge elected to remain on St Mary’s Island seems obvious in hindsight. The island was a tropical paradise endowed with the natural bounty of the land and sea. It was surrounded by long sloping coconut rimmed sandy beaches, crystal clear turquoise waters, coral reefs, and a sea with an abundance of rich marine life. The land was covered with lush tropical growth including an ample supply of fruits trees such as banana, pineapple and citrus trees loaded with oranges and limes that were highly prized by the mariners to prevent scurvy. The island also had plenty of fresh water and edible wild animals. The inhabitants of St Mary’s and Madagascar were called the Malagasy and they were for the most part peaceful farmers who raised chickens and cattle and grew rice. It is interesting that despite the proximity of the island to the African coast most of the native inhabitants were of Indonesian descent whose ancestors had migrated westward by sea to the island centuries earlier. Baldridge selected as a place to set up shop, the large inlet bay at the southwest end of St Mary’s Island where he had spent time over the previous few months with the crew of the Fortune. The inlet bay was calm and deep enough for the mooring of ships yet shallow in some areas allowing the wooden vessels to be hauled up onto the sandy beaches for careening and resealing the ship bottoms. The bay was virtually landlocked as it was surrounded by land on three sides some of which was elevated that allowed for good visibility of incoming ships and later for the placement of guns for the defense of the settlement. At the mouth of the bay was a sandy island and further offshore were coral reefs both of which added to the difficulty of accessing the bay by unwanted intruders (such as England’s Royal Navy who attempted and failed to take the settlement in 1699). Perhaps Adam Baldridge immediately recognized the island’s potential as a natural stop over point for merchants and pirates when he elected to remain on the island in January of 1690.

Adam must have known from the start that to survive on the island he needed to make friends with the native inhabitants. What he discovered after making contact with the natives of St Mary’s was that they were constantly subjected to raids by other Malagasy natives from mainland Madagascar. Baldridge in his May 5, 1699 deposition reported that he endeared himself to the St Mary’s natives by leading them in a “War” against the Malagasy natives from the mainland. The word war in this case is a little misleading since the purpose of the raids or attacks was not to capture land and kill enemies. The mainland Malagasy were more intent on stealing livestock and capturing woman and children for use as wives and slaves. Again Baldridge reports in his deposition that by May 1691 he “returned from war”. . . “after helping them redeem their wives and children.” Obviously his superior modern weaponry, his willingness to use the weapons, and his leadership and knowledge of the ways of battle were major factors in his and the natives of St Mary’s success. Clearly he had made friends with the local people on the island and in gratitude for his help they gave him cattle (70 head per his deposition), several “wives”, and slaves to help him build his home. He went on later with the help of native labor to build a stockade, additional living quarters, warehouses, and eventually on the top of one of the overlooks, a fortress complete with guns purchased from passing pirates. The fortress overlooked and protected his private pirate bay and compound.

In late 1691, after the construction of his new settlement was well underway, Adam Baldridge sent a letter probably by way of a passing ship on its way back to America, to a wealthy merchant and slave trader named Frederick Philipse who operated out of the New York City area. Some historians believe that it was Philipse who had actually sent Baldridge to St Mary’s in the first place to set up the pirate trading post, although I could find no evidence to support that belief and since Baldridge had been previously in the slave trading business or at least with the crew of a slave trader, it does seem likely that he would have had prior knowledge of the unscrupulous merchant Frederick Philipse. In Baldridge’s letter to Philipse he offered to sell him slaves for 30 shillings each, a cost well below the average 3 or 4 pound price paid for slaves in Africa, and a fraction of the 30 pound selling price for a slave back in America or in the Caribbean. Adam Baldridge eventually turned his island fortress into a major trading center for pirates but it was the slave trading business that was the glue that held the business together. In Philipse’ own words, slave trading was the key, “For negroes in these times will fetch thirty pounds and upward in the head . . . It is by negroes that I find my “cheivest Proffitt”. All other trade I look upon as by the by.”

According to Adam Baldridge’s deposition his first major trade with a passing ship took place in October of 1691. The ship, a slave trader named Bachelors Delight, stayed in the bay where the crew careened their ship for about a month before departing for Madagascar to collect slaves for transport back to the Carolinas. During this period, Baldridge traded some of his cattle for five guns for his fortification, and for flour and bars of iron. Thus began Adam Baldridge’s brief career as an entrepreneur and a major trader. In August of 1693 in answer to Baldridge’s letter, the ship Charles owned by Frederick Philipse arrived from New York laden with items that Baldridge could trade to the pirates, items such as gunpowder and ammunition, clothing and boots, various types of tools, sail cloth and rigging supplies, rum, wine, and beer, tar for sealing the ship bottoms, and even books. In the ensuing four years, Adam Baldridge would grow rich trading the items sent by Philipse as well as meat, fruit, and salt produced on his island to the pirates in exchange for their plundered goods, items such as looted gold, silver, diamonds, and jewels, silks, ivory, and exotic textiles, dyes, spices, drugs, and slaves taken from Moorish ships and ships owned by the East India Company. The pirates captured the ships on their trade routes between India and the Arab ports along the Red Sea. Baldridge benefited in the transactions by offering goods and supplies needed by the pirates and the pirates benefitted by finding a buyer for their looted goods plus a safe place to relax, careen their ships, and obtain the supplies needed before they returned to the sea. Frederick Philipse, the New York merchant benefited because he obtained at a low cost the valuable goods plundered by the pirates as well as a cheap supply of Madagascar slaves for trading once his ships return to America. Unfortunately, piracy was illegal per English law and ironically in the end it was the pirates who were the only big losers. Not only was their occupation risky, but many of them were captured, prosecuted and hung. On the other hand the unscrupulous Frederick Philipse lived out his life in America as a wealthy man although he was eventually removed from the Lords of Trade. Our great grandfather Adam Baldridge returned to America also a wealthy man to live out the remainder of his life.

The busiest years at the Baldridge’s “Pirates Paradise” were 1694 through 1697 where sometimes as many as one-half dozen ships were moored in the inlet harbor or resting on the sanding beaches being careened by their crews. Some historians write that as many as 1,500 pirates lived full time on the island at one point although this figure is probably greatly exaggerated. To the benefit of the pirate colony on St Mary’s, a major earthquake on the Island of Jamaica in 1693 destroyed the city of Port Royal. Previously to that point, Port Royal had been the main rendezvous location for pirates in the Atlantic Ocean and its destruction as well as the general demise of the piracy business in the Atlantic and Caribbean Oceans encouraged pirates to look to the Indian Ocean for more lucrative targets. Madagascar and the Island of St Mary’s off its west coast were ideally suited to capture the new business. Whether or not Adam Baldridge recognized the new opportunity is unknown although it is more likely he was just lucky and in the right place at the right time. The real and more interesting question is whether he anticipated the slowdown of his trading empire that was approaching. In 1697, England and France signed a treaty of peace ending years of war. With the war ended, England was no longer in need of privateers that had been commissioned to attack the enemy’s ships. As we mentioned earlier, the British Governor of the Colony of New York had been handing out commissions to privateers who he must have known were using their ships to attack all vessels regardless of the nationality of the ship. This was piracy. The governor, Benjamin Fletcher, was paid for issuing the commissions and he grew wealthy simply looking the other way and ignoring the illegal trading. With the ending of the war however, the British government turned their attention to stopping piracy and the illegal trading of goods with the Americas in violation of the Navigation Acts. Governor Fletcher was recalled to England and a new governor was sent to replace him. Shortly after the arrival of the new governor, Richard Coote, Earl of Bellomont, a major investigation of piracy began. At the same time, the wealthy merchant and slave trader, Frederick Philipse, was removed from the Board of Trade. This all began shortly after Baldridge’s departure from St Mary’s Island.

While some historians believe that Adam Baldridge left St Mary’s Island and his trading empire because “He blew it,” and “He got to greedy” which resulted in his making a colossal mistake that forced him to leave the island and return to New York. This may very well have been case and the fact that upon returning to New York he tried to convince the new governor to establish St Mary’s Island as a new colony thereby effectively circumventing the Navigation Act, strongly suggests that he did not intentionally leave his island paradise. Nevertheless, his decisions in July of 1697 also suggest a man prepared to depart. His first action was to purchase a major interest in the brigantine ship Swift that had stopped at St Mary’s for trading and careening. His second action was the most controversial as he then tricked many of the local natives on the island, men, women, and children, by inviting them to come out to the Swift which was moored in the harbor and join him in a celebration party. His crew then proceeded once the natives were on board, to haul the natives below deck, slip shackles on their wrists and chain them to the walls. They were being sold into slavery. Baldridge and the crew of the Swift immediately departed from the island. According to Baldridge in his 1699 deposition, he learned later that the island natives in retaliation for his trickery (not his words for he never acknowledged what he had done) killed 30 of the white men who remained on the island and burned the settlement to the ground. Here is where I have trouble believing that Baldridge did not intentionally leave St Mary’s. Could he have been so incredibly stupid as to believe that his actions would not destroy the important symbiotic relationship between himself and the island’s native population? Might it be a more likely scenario that he knew that the immense and immediate profit that he stood to gain by selling the natives into slavery was in his best long term interest especially if he foresaw the possibility that the pirate trade might be in its decline. We will never know whether Adam Baldridge’s departure from St Mary’s was intentional or not. We only know that per his deposition, he left the Madagascar area in October 1697 eventually arriving in New York where his name first appears in the colonial records in November of 1698.

In other colonial records we learn that his ship the Swift was reported to have run aground in March of 1698 off the coast of North Carolina near the village of Currituck. When the ship was finally located by the colonial authorities it was found abandoned but undamaged and “all provisions and stores robbed”. It is far more likely that the ship had not been robbed but following the grounding of the ship, the pirate crew had scattered taking with them everything on board. Whether or not Adam Baldridge was onboard when the Swift made its unintentional landing is unknown although it would seem likely. The ship once recovered was seized by the authorities, hauled back into the sea, and sailed back to the port of New York. Adam Baldridge sometime in the middle of 1698 learned that his ship had been seized. His name is mentioned several times in the Colonial records including in one dated 26 November 1699 wherein he appealed to the Court for the return of the Swift. Unfortunately I was unable to learn whether Baldridge ever recovered the Swift although it appears unlikely. There was ample evidence that the vessel had been engaged in the act of piracy. What is strange however is that the colonial authorities maintained the right to hold the ship, but they were never able to arrest and convict Adam Baldridge of piracy. In March of 1699, “The Council of Trade and Plantations” ordered the Colonial Governor, Lord Bellomont, to prosecute Adam Baldridge for piracy. It was after all a well known fact that he had operated the pirate trading post at St Mary’s in Madagascar. Almost comically however, Lord Bellomont reported back to the Council two months later that he was unable to prosecute Baldridge for want of a “good judge.” Apparently all of the good judges had been or could easily be bribed and Baldridge obviously had the means to do so. In return for not being prosecuted Adam Baldridge agreed to give his 15 May 1699 deposition and in doing so he implicated others as being guilty of piracy.

There is some evidence that once Adam Baldridge returned to America and discharged his problems with the New York authorities, that he did not entirely give up his career as a privateer or pirate. In the Colonial Records of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia dated 12 November 1703/4, there is recorded a discussion as to whether or not to return to New Jersey the five French prisoners captured by “Ball and Baldridge Privateer” who had landed and discharged their prisoners in Egg Harbour, New Jersey. The Council decided to return the prisoners. Nothing was mentioned about the other items pirated from the French ship by “Ball and Baldridge Privateers” that were not returned. Another interesting observation that might suggest that Adam Baldridge, merchant, continued as a privateer/pirate was his purchase on 27 July 1699 of a 500 acre island, then named “Melcum Island,” located in the middle of the Delaware River off the western border of New Jersey near the village of Salem. Was Adam Baldridge trying to recreate another St Mary’s Island for the purpose of trading his captured goods? We can only guess as to his motives. There is no documentation that he ever occupied the island or used it to store trading goods. What we do know is that on 28 April 1702 he sold the island which at that point had been renamed “Adams Forest Island”. Perhaps he had realized that his business plan was flawed. There is also a record of an Adam Baldridge purchasing a house and land in Salem, New Jersey on 3 October 1701 and in this record Adam is referred to as a “Salem Merchant”.

There are obviously a lot of things about Adam Baldridge’s behavior that are disgusting. Two issues that have been discussed were his trickery of the St Mary’s island natives when he lured them to a party on board his ship the Swift and then bound them in chains and sold them into slavery and then several years later he implicated (ratted out) his compatriots in his deposition to save himself from his own prosecution.

Adam Baldridge’s first and only known marriage was to Elizabeth Buckmaster, the wife of Edward Buckmaster. Their marriage ceremony was held at the Fort of New York sometime between 7 September 1699 and 8 October 1699. Edward Buckmaster like Adam Baldridge was a pirate and he was arrested as such in New York City in June of 1699. Colonial records indicate that on 25 August 1699, Buckmaster escaped from prison and to the best of my knowledge, he was not heard from again. Apparently his wife Elizabeth thought that with her husband now out of the picture it was reasonable for her to remarry even if she was not officially divorced or widowed. Prior to this marriage there is another record showing that on 2 December 1684 an Edward Buckmaster married a Margaret Mathews. Assuming that this is the same Edward Buckmaster, it suggests that Margaret must have died and Edward remarried his second wife Elizabeth. We know from other records that Edward Buckmaster had a least three children born between the years 1685 and 1687. We know this because after Edward’s departure (escape), his wife Elizabeth placed all three of Edward’s children into indentureship. The first child was indentured on 7 September 1699 and she signed the papers under her name Elizabeth Buckmaster. When the other two children were indentured on 9 October 1699, she signed her name as Elizabeth Baldridge and in one case, Adam Baldridge signed as a witness. Clearly the newlywed Elizabeth Baldridge wanted to begin her marriage without the burden of taking care of the children of her former husband. If we are to believe that the marriage of Elizabeth and Adam Baldridge produced at least two children as will be discussed, then I think we must assume that Elizabeth was probably younger than both her first and second husbands who were both near 40 years of age in 1699. Placing young children into indentureship was not particularly common in early America. Many of the early immigrants to America arrived from England as indentured servants and their indentureship was the manner in which they paid for their passage. I suspect that parents in America who placed their children into indentureship were poor and could not afford to pay for their care. In the case of Adam and Elizabeth Baldridge however, they were not poor, quite the opposite, and Elizabeth probably a flighty girl in her late twenties, just did not want to care for Richard, Hannah, and Mary Buckmaster, who were all under the age of 14. Adam Baldridge, not a man of high character as we have seen, either went alone with his new wife or encouraged her decision to give up the children. If Adam and Elizabeth are my great grandparents I am ashamed of their behavior in this regard.

There are two other mentions of Adam Baldridge in the Colonial records worth noting one of which is actually a positive suggesting that perhaps as Adam got older he had mellowed. The first is a mention of Adam and Elizabeth in the will of Griffith Jones of Kent County, Delaware dated 2 May 1703. It lists in the will that his beneficiaries were “Wife: Elizabeth. Sons: Griffith and Thomas. Daughter: Elizabeth. To: Elizabeth, daughter of Adam Baldridge . . .”. It goes on to list Adam Baldridge as one of the executors of the will. Griffith Jones’ will provides us with two pieces of information. First, Adam Baldridge’s wife appears to be the daughter of Griffith and Elizabeth Jones and secondly, Adam and Elizabeth had a daughter who they named Elizabeth who was born sometime between October of 1699 and May of 1793. Another intriguing but unsolved mystery is who was John Jones, the man who purchased from Adam Baldridge the 500 acre island in the Delaware River. It is too much of a coincidence not to believe that he was a relative of Elizabeth Jones Baldridge. John Jones is listed as being from New Castle, Delaware. The latest historical document that I could locate naming Adam Baldridge was dated 1706 and it lists him in New Castle, Delaware as one of the donors to a fund for the construction of a new Presbyterian Church. Hopefully by this point in his life Adam Baldridge had settled down with his wife and children and mostly abandoned his unsavory life.

History records the names of only two of the possible children of Adam and Elizabeth Jones Baldridge. That Elizabeth Baldridge was their daughter is pretty well documented per the will of Griffith Jones previously mentioned. Their other child was probably a son who they named Adam Baldridge. Unfortunately the son’s name appears only once in the Colonial records and that is in a copy of his will that was prepared on 1 October 1777 in New Utrecht, Kings County, Long Island. There are no known documents that support the belief that these two men were father and son although obviously the commonality of their names and the fact that Adam Baldridge Jr. was born in the early 1700s about the time Adam and Elizabeth Baldridge were having children suggests a relationship. The will of Adam Baldridge, the possible son, that was probated after his death in 1780 does provide us with the intriguing suggestion that one of Adam Jr’s sisters, possibly Elizabeth Baldridge, married a man named Abraham Collins. It appears that both men, Baldridge and Collins, lived in the western end of Long Island at some point in their lives and they must have known one another. They were also about the same age as Abraham Collins was born around 1698 and Adam Baldridge was born about 1704. What is really intriguing however was that Adam Baldridge Jr left the bulk of his estate to the three daughters of Abraham Collins, an action that strongly suggested that there was a family relationship and not just a friendship that bound the two men together. Furthermore, the relationship between Adam Baldridge and the Collins family was long lasting since Abraham Collins had moved to Blooming Grove in Orange County, New York by the 1730s and he died there in 1756. Additional, the will of Adam Baldridge lists each of the Collins daughters by their married names, “I leave to Sarah Coleman, Jemina Seata [Seeley], and Elizabeth, formerly the wife of David Cameron. . all of my estate “ which indicates he obviously had stayed in touch with the girls after their father’s death again suggesting that they were his nieces. There is one more circumstantial but compelling piece of evidence that supports the belief that Abraham Collins married a daughter of Adam (the pirate) and Elizabeth Baldridge. It has to be more than a coincidence that Abraham Collins and his wife named their first son Adam and their second daughter Elizabeth, after their grandparents? Incidentally, Adam Collins was not mentioned in Adam Baldridge’s will because he had died in 1770, seven years prior to the preparation of the will. It was a very common practice in this period of history to name children after their grandparents.

There is unfortunately one unsolved mystery before we can announce unequivocally that Adam Baldridge, the pirate, is the grandfather of the children of Abraham Collins including Jemina Collins, my 5th great grandmother. On 11 August 1728 the marriage of Abraham Collins to Ann Major was written into the records of the Grace Church in Jamaica, Queens County, Long Island. If this Abraham Collins is the father of Sarah, Elizabeth, and Jemina Collins all of whom are mentioned in the 1777 will of Adam Baldridge Jr, then we have to question the Abraham Collins’ supposed marriage to the daughter of Adam Baldridge. Since the first daughter of Abraham Collins, Sarah Collins, is believed to have been born around 1728 close to the date of Abraham’s marriage to Ann Major, it hard to imagine that Ann Major died and Abraham Collins’ remarried all in the span of a year or less. Nevertheless, historians and genealogists in order to justify their belief that the Collins’ girls were descended from Adam Baldridge have assumed that Ann Major must have died young and Abraham remarried before any of his children were born. Unfortunately, I could not find any records containing either a death date for an Ann Major Collins or a marriage date for an Abraham Collins marrying a woman named Baldridge. All of this clouds the issue of whether the Collins girls were descended from the pirate Baldridge which in turns spoils my ability to brag that I am the 7th great grandson of a 17th century Pirate. On the other hand, no one can prove that I am not descended from a pirate so we will just leave it at that.

Chapter 29 - Thomas Welles (1590-1660)

2012-01-13T14:44:00.000-08:00

My 10th great grandfather Thomas Welles was born near the small farming village of Stourton in County Warwickshire, England around the year 1590. Stourton is located on the edge of what today in England is called the Cotswolds, an area in southwest England consisting of rolling green pastured hills (“wolds”) dotted with small sleepy “typical English” towns where the houses, stores, churches, and fences are constructed of the local honey-colored limestone rocks. At the time of Thomas’ birth, the area where he spent his early life was the sheep raising capital of the European world. It is probably safe to assume that his family and the four generations of Welles that preceded him and were known to live in Stourton, were all sheep farmers, a prosperous industry that undoubtedly enabled the family to live a rather comfortable lifestyle. There is no evidence that suggests that the Welles family were titled or bore a coat of arms although clearly Thomas Welles should be classified as a Yeoman, an English term that describes a respected class of English common man, a freeholder; a man born free. The activities of Thomas Welles in his later life in Connecticut and the quantity of both English and Latin books listed as part of his estate at the time of his death, clearly indicates that he was highly educated and while no evidence exists as to his actual educational experiences, it is entirely possible that he attended university, possibly at Oxford located only 28 miles southeast of his home in Warwickshire.

Fifteen miles north of Stourton is the City of Stratford-upon-Avon, home of William Shakespeare and the site of the original Globe Theater. Shakespeare was around twenty-six years old at the time of Thomas Welle’s birth in 1590 and he was just beginning his career as England’s greatest playwright. As most of Shakespeare’s plays were written and performed between the years 1589 and 1613, it would seem that Thomas would have been very much aware of the existence of the playwright and the Globe Theater and despite the fact Thomas was twenty-six years old when Shakespeare died in 1616, it is very unlikely that he ever traveled the fifteen miles to Sratford to attend a performance. Thomas Welles married my 10th great grandmother, AliceTomes, a year earlier in July of 1615 and he no doubt had his hands full managing the farm. I suspect however, that the real reason that he did not attend a performance was that his conversion to Puritanism had already begun and entertainment such as attending Shakespearian plays at the Globe Theater were activities that were shunned by the Puritans. In fact, shortly following the beginning of the First English Civil War, the Puritans in 1644 demolished the Globe Theater no doubt to show their displeasure of this ungodly enterprise.

Unlike most of my ancestors who immigrated to American in the 1600s, we know considerable about the family backgrounds of both Thomas Welles and his wife Alice Tomes. Alice Tomes was born in Long Marston, in County Gloucestershire (now part of County Warwickshire) around the year the 1593. Historians have discovered members of the Tomes (or Tommes, Toms, or Tommys) family living in the Gloucestershire area as far back as the early 1400s beginning with a William Tomes (possibly Alice’s great grandfather) who was recorded as a contributor to the Guild of Stratford-upon-Avon in 1442 and executed a lease (an indenture) for a manor on Marston from the Abbey of Winchcombe in 1479. The history of the area “of the convent in Gloucestershire” which includes the Manor of Marston goes back to the year 798 with the beginning of the construction of a great monastery which was to become The Abbey of Winchcombe for Benedictine monks. For the next 700 plus years, the monastery remained in existence although changing and growing in size substantially over the many centuries. Its major source of income over the period was derived from the “rents” it received from the leasing of the land surrounding the monastery which included not only all of the great manors in Gloucestershire but also all of the towns, the buildings, basically everything was owned by the “Church”, meaning the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church. Beginning in 1535, this all began to change when King Henry VIII declared the Church of England separated from the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church. His declaration in effect dissolved the great monasteries in England beginning in 1536 including the Abbey of Winchcombe, wherein all of its land holdings and leases became the property of the English crown including no doubt the land occupied by the Tomes family.t and the Globe Theater and despite the fact that Thomas was twenty-six years old when Shakespeare died in 1616, it is very unlikely that he ever traveled the fifteen miles to Stratford to attend a performance. Thomas Welles married my 10th great grandmother, Alice Tomes, a year earlier in July of 1615 and he no doubt had his hands full managing the farm. I suspect however, that the real reason that he did not attend a performance was that his conversion to Puritanism had already begun and entertainment such as attending Shakespearian plays at the Globe Theater were activities that were shunned by the Puritans. In fact, shortly following the beginning of the First English Civil War, the Puritans in 1644 demolished the Globe Theater no doubt to show their displeasure of this ungodly enterprise.

The Tomes family had probably been leasing land from the Abbey for many generations perhaps even before William Tomes’ lease of 1479. We also have learned that Alice’s grandfather, John Tomes (ca1510-1548) spent his entire life in Long Marston and his name is recorded on an “indenture” (lease) granting lands in 1536. In 1566, Queen Elizabeth I, daughter of King Henry VIII and Queen of England between 1558 and 1603, granted lordship of the Manor of Marston Sicca to Robert Dudley, Lord of Leicester with all its rights to the “late Monastery of Winchcombe Abbey” thereby making Lord Dudley the owner of the land on which sat the Tomes’ Manor home thereby granting him the right to collect rent from the Tomes family as well as others.

Robert Dudley is an interesting character in British history. He was not only a nobleman, a favorite and a close friend of Queen Elizabeth, but he was also known to be a “suitor of the Queen’s hand” and some historians believe also a secret lover (in bed that is) of Elizabeth I, the “Virgin” queen. The fact that she granted him in 1566 the valuable lands surrounding the Manor of Marston that the Crown had earlier stolen from the church, proves that even in merry old England it pays to know people in high places. Anyway, in 1677, Lord Robert Dudley leased a portion of theManor of Marston to Alice Tomes’ father, John Tomes, my 11th great grandfather, for the princely sum of 1,180 pounds, 58 shillings and 4 pence. It was here on the Manor of Marston that Alice Tomes was born in 1593.

Unlike Alice’s husband, Thomas Welles, whose conversion to Puritanism caused him to get in trouble with the English crown (principally King Charles I who reigned from 1625 to 1645) and his cohorts at the Church of England, the Tomes family remained firm loyalists. In fact Alice’s half-brother John Tomes by her father’s second wife became somewhat famous in British history when he harbored Charles II for one night in 1651 at his home on the Manor of Marston when the dethroned King was fleeing from the forces of Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans intent on killing him at the close of the English Civil War. King Charles II eventually managed to flee England for France but he later returned to regain his throne in 1660.

Fortunately there has been much written about the ancestry of Thomas Welles although some of the earliest histories, notably the “Brief History of the Welles, or Wells, Family” written by Albert Welles and published in 1848, incorrectly or at least without any evidence, relates that Thomas Welles was descended from one of the knights of William the Conqueror, one Lord Richardus de Welles who was granted the “Manor of Welles” by King William I and charged with the responsibility of supplying bread to the King. The author then goes on over the next 16 pages of the 27 page document describing all of the Welles’ nobility who were descended from this first Lord Welles. Other than the commonality of the Welles’ name, there is no historical evidence that connects Thomas Welles and his descendants including myself to British nobility.

Almost all that we know about the ancestry and the early life of Thomas Welles in England comes from one unusual source. In 1648, a nephew of Thomas Welles, a John Welles, filed a lawsuit in the English courts claiming that the land that Thomas Welles sold just before he emigrated to America with his family in 1635 actually belong to him, John Welles, by his right of inheritance from his late father, Robert Welles, brother of our Thomas Welles. The pleadings and the lengthy depositions that followed in 1650, provides us with a fairly detailed description of Thomas Welles, his ancestors beginning with his great grandfather, and his immediate family. Anyone interested in reading a English translation of the original legal proceedings written in Latin can read “The English Ancestry of Gov. Thomas Welles of Connecticut” written by Lemuel A. Welles and reprinted by the New England Historical and Genealogical Register in 1926.

We learn from the legal proceedings that Thomas Welles was the son of Robert Welles who is believed to have been born in 1540 in Stourton in Whichford Parish in County Warwickshire, England. Only three children are known to have been borne to Robert and his wife Alice: Robert Jr (whose son John brought the legal proceedings mentioned above), Alice (or Mary), and Thomas. Thomas outlived his older brother Robert who died in 1627 and Thomas was named as a joint executor in his brother’s will. The father Robert Welles died in 1617 and he is buried in the churchyard at St. Michael’s Church in Strouton. A photo of the church as it appears today is shown below. One of the statements that I read about Robert Welles reported that he was a wealthy ship owner and a staunch Puritan. I found no reliable source that supported this statement and based on the fact that he was buried at St Michael’s Church and despite that fact that his son Thomas became a Puritan, it seems unlikely that Robert, the father, was a Puritan at the time of his death.of his death.

We also learn from the court proceedings and the depositions taken in 1650 that Thomas Welles (then spelled as Wells), was Robert’s father and our Thomas Welles’ grandfather. Thomas’ first wife’s name was Elizabeth and together they had at least two children, Robert born in 1540, and a sister Ann. This Thomas Welles died in Strouton in 1658. Thomas Welles’ father is believed to be Robert Welles who is known to be taxed In Whichford in 1523. If this Robert Welles is our Thomas Welles’ great grandfather who was also probably born in Whichford Parish around 1500 and is known to have died there in 1577, then at least four known generations of Welles spanning over a 100 year period lived in the area of Strouton, in Whichford Parish in County Warwickshire, England prior to Thomas Welles’ departure to America in 1635. Confused? It goes like this: great-grandfather believed to be Robert Welles (ca 1500-1577), grandfather Thomas Welles (ca1520-1558), father Robert Welles (1540-1617) to Thomas Welles, born around 1590).

Thomas Welles, a future governor of colonial Connecticut and my 10th great grandfather, clearly had a comfortable upbringing at least by late 17th century standards in England. His father was a prosperous farmer and a member of the rapidly rising middle class in England, a country whose population hitherto for centuries had been composed of a relatively few wealthy aristocrats and churchmen who oversaw a large population of mostly struggling poor men, women and children. Despite the fact that Robert Welles, Thomas’ father, was not a member of England’s upper class, he was in a position to afford the cost of educating his second son. We know from Thomas’ activities in his later life that he could read and write both in English as well as in Latin. These and other skills learned by Thomas in England were later recognized by his compatriots in Connecticut resulting in his election to positions of clerk of the general court, Treasurer of the Colony, Secretary of the Colony, and ultimately to Governor of Connecticut.

We can only speculate as to how Thomas Welles met his future wife Alice Tomes. Alice Tomes is believed to have been born in Long Marston whereas Thomas Welles was born in Stourton. Both of these villages are located within the present day County of Warwickshire, England and are located only 14 miles apart. However, in the late 1500s, 14 miles was a relatively long distance and the Tomes family and the Welles family would not have considered themselves neighbors nor would they have been members of the same parish church. Furthermore, Alice and Thomas did not meet one another in school and in fact there is evidence that Alice Tomes was not even educated or at least she signed her name with a mark rather than a signature. The most likely explanation as to how they met was that their fathers who were both prosperous farmers in the area, knew one another, and arranged for their son and daughter to meet and a marriage eventually followed. Alice no doubt brought a dowry to the marriage and Thomas was presented by his father as a marriage gift, a large farm in nearby Burmington. His father, Robert Welles, had inherited the farm that he gave to Thomas from his uncle Walter Welles who had both outlived his wife and his only brother and had died childless in 1577. Since Thomas was the second son of Robert Welles Sr. his older brother Robert Jr. would normally have inherited Uncle Walter’s property when his father and mother died. That being the case, Robert Jr as well as Robert’s mother Alice were also signators on the deed granting the farm to the younger brother Thomas. To their benefit, the newlyweds Thomas and Alice Tomes Welles began their married life that commenced shortly after the deed was signed on 5 July 1615 with a modestly large sum of money and a fully operating farm. Historically when we think of our ancestors leaving England and Europe for the New World during the 17th century, we imagine them as poor immigrants who were escaping poverty and sometimes persecution and that despite the terrible unknowns that they faced, they maintained the hope that they would find better living conditions in America. Twenty years after their marriage, Thomas, Alice, and their six children departed for the New World leaving behind what for the most part was a good life. They did not fit this stereotype image that we have of our typical early American immigrant nor did most of the other immigrants who migrated to New England from England during the period of 1630 to around 1637.

Thomas and Alice Welles were to have six children born at their home in Burmington who survived birth. The exact dates of the births of each of their children is not known although it is believed that their first child and daughter Mary Welles was born in either 1617 or 1618, their second child Ann Welles, my 9th great grandmother, was born in 1619, and their last child Sarah Welles was born around 1631. When the Welles family boarded the ship for America in the late summer of 1635 the parents were in their 40s and the children ranged in ages from 4 to 17 years old. The family had a nice home in an area surrounded by friends and relatives. They had a comfortable income and their children were young and in excellent positions to expect to have a good future life in mid-17th century England. It therefore begs the question as to why Thomas Welles would leave his home in England with his family to settle in the wildernesses of the New England colony in America. Obviously he did not leave England for economic reasons.

In the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution it states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” This “establishment” clause in our Constitution is interpreted to mean that our government is prohibited from establishing a national religion or prohibited from favoring one religion over another. It is no accident that this clause was included in the first amendment. Our founding fathers when they authored this document written about 150 years after the first immigrants arrived in New England, were fully cognizant as to the reasons that families like the Welles family left England. Historically in England and in other European counties for that matter, there was only one recognized national religion. In the case of England, it was the Church of England with the King at the head of the church. While other forms of worship were sometimes tolerated depending on who sat on the throne, some kings being more tolerant than others, under the reign of King Charles I which began in 1629 the intolerance of Puritanism gradually increased culminating with King Charles enthroning William Laud as the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633. Laud as head of the Church immediately set out to get rid of all ministers within the Church of England who he considered to be a threat to the orthodoxy of the church. The rising population of Puritans in England believed that individuals could read and interpret the scriptures for themselves and they opposed the pompous trappings of the church, the huge cathedrals, and the gold and silver and wealth of the church believing that all were unnecessary. It followed that many of the ministers and congregation within the Church of England were trying to adapt to these “radical” changes in approach away from the current church orthodoxy whose foundations were based on the strict structures of the Roman Catholic Church. Laud believed that only the ministers of the Church were capable of interpreting the scriptures and he vigorously set out to eliminate what he considered to be the religious distinctiveness and excesses of the Puritans. The Puritans believed that William Laud along with King Charles I and his Catholic queen were attempting to push the Episcopal Church of England back towards Roman Catholicism. Persecutions and arrests of puritans by the forces of Laud rapidly increased after 1632 and it was not surprising that Thomas Welles, a devote Puritan, found it necessary to follow the other Puritans who had left England to seek religious freedom in America beginning in 1630.

William Laud and King Charles did not understand the unpopular positions that they had taken. Both individuals were caught up in their belief that they had absolute authority. William Laud believed that the Church of England was the absolute and sole religious authority in England and that he as the head of the Church made all of the religious decisions and no other forms of worship were to be tolerated. King Charles I believed in absolute monarchy. He believed that he had the ultimate governmental authority and he was not limited by any constitutions or rules of law. History ultimately proved that they were on the wrong side of public opinion. William Laud was arrested in 1641 and ultimately beheaded in 1645. King Charles 1 was beheaded in 1649. Another interesting historical irony was to follow. At the end of the English Civil War that began in 1642, the Puritans gained control of the English government. Their own intolerances displayed during their term of power which ended in 1659 resulted in the restoration of the monarchy and the crowning of King Charles II in 1660. Also ironic and worth noting was that the Puritans in America beginning in 1630 also displayed their own intolerances towards others of differing faith and political beliefs. Their harsh treatment of Native Americans during this early period of American history is particularly appalling.

Thomas Welles and his family set sail for America in the late summer of 1635 sometime after August 20th when he signed the deed transferring the ownership of his English property. The family no doubt arrived in the Boston area by mid-fall of the same year. No known ship’s manifest survives that records their passage, however based on Welles’ financial position it is likely that his family, some of their servants (most of whom were likely indentured servants), and a large quantity of their household furnishings as well as food for the trip occupied a large portion of the ship. It is also likely that Thomas Welles made arrangements before he left England for someone to meet him when they arrived and take the family and their possessions and servants to temporary housing. The first colonial record of Thomas Welles in America was a listing that included his name as the head of a household in Newton (or “Newe Towne” and now Cambridge) Massachusetts dated February 1636. Thomas Welles probably joined the congregation of the First Parish Church in Newton then under the leadership of the Rev. Thomas Hooker almost immediately upon his arrival in America. It is not clear whether Welles had meet Thomas Hooker in England prior to Hooker’s departure to America in 1633 although he must have been aware of the notorious Thomas Hooker, who was a prominent spokesman for Puritanism in England and a target of William Laud’s. Hooker had escaped to Holland to avoid being arrested by the Anglican authorities prior to his leaving for America. Thomas Welles, himself a prominent Puritan back in England, was probably among old friends in Hooker’s Newton congregation.

The Rev. Thomas Hooker was not happy with conditions in Newton, an opinion probably shared by many if not by most of the members of his congregation including Thomas Welles. The soil in the area was not good for farming nor were there large plots available for purchase in the rapidly growing community. Furthermore and more importantly, he found himself incompatible with the thinking of the other religious leaders in Massachusetts particularly over the issue of their rigid requirements for joining the Church such that one had to be a “freeman” to be eligible for membership. The Reverent Hooker believed in universal suffrage meaning that membership in the church should not be limited to the select few in the community who were acceptable to the church leadership. By 1635, Thomas Hooker had determined that he must lead his congregation out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to the new lands being settled along the great river in Connecticut.

Before the arrival of the first white settlers in Connecticut in the first half of the 17th century, the land was a place of gently sloping hills and valleys that were largely covered by forests and inhabited by abundant species of animals including numerous tribes of Native American Indians. With few exceptions especially when compared with the wars and pestilence that were to follow the arrival of the white man, these Native Americans lived in relative peace and harmony with their surroundings. The Indians of Connecticut were a resourceful people living largely off the land as hunters, fishermen, and agriculturists. These Native Americans gave the state its name as Connecticut comes from an Indian word “Quinatucquet” which means “Beside the Long Tidal River.” The long tidal river referred to by these Native Americans is the Connecticut River which runs through the center of the state. It was the fertile lands along the Connecticut River that first attracted the white man.

The first European of record to explore the Connecticut River was Adriaen Block, a Dutch explorer who sailed along the Connecticut coast and up the Connecticut River in 1614 and claimed the area for the Dutch. By the 1620s, the Dutch who already had settlements in New York had pressed their claims to the land and established trading posts along the Connecticut coastline and along the Connecticut River for a few miles inland. In 1633, they purchased a parcel of land from the Indians and build a fort and trading post on the east bank of the Connecticut River in what is now the present site of the City of Hartford. Unfortunately for the Dutch their interests in Connecticut were primarily in the commerce of fur trading and when the land hungry Puritans from the Massachusetts Bay Colony migrated westward into Connecticut in search of new farmland, the Dutch claims to the area were quickly dissipated. In fact, in early 1633 the Dutch governor in New Amsterdam was presumptuously notified by letter that the King of England had granted his loyal subjects the river and the country of Connecticut. It is no wonder that the Dutch referred to the English settlers of New England as “Jankes” which in the Dutch language means robbers or pirates. The term Jankes quickly became anglicized to become “Yankees”.

In the year 1632 the Indian tribes living along the Connecticut River invited the English of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to send settlers to their area. Ostensibly they hoped that the white settlers would bring peace to the area as their superior weapons would dissipate the constant threats from their warrior neighbors, the Pequot Indians to their east and the Iroquois and Mohawk Indians to their west. The governor of the Plymouth Colony, Edward Winslow, made a personal overland exploratory trip to Connecticut to the area that was later to be named Windsor located about fifty miles north of the mouth of the Connecticut River at Long Island Sound. Governor Winslow liked what he saw in Connecticut and the following year in 1633, he sent a team of men under the leadership of William Holmes to set up a fort and trading post at Windsor (then called Matianuck by the Indians) located only seven miles north of the Dutch trading post that had been built only a few months earlier. Needless to say, the Dutch were not happy about the competition for the fur trade and so they sent men north of the new English fort to try and win the friendship of the Indians. Unfortunately, one of their men carried smallpox which quickly infected the Indians and by the time the plague had run its course by early 1634, three-quarters of the River Indian population were dead. Obviously this situation did serious harm to the relationship of the white men and the Indians not to mention the harm done to the fur trading business. The town of Windsor was to remain populated by Puritans from Plymouth Colony until 1635 at which time a group of settlers from Dorchester, Massachusetts arrived under the leadership of the Reverent John Warham.

In the summer of 1634, a group of “Ten Adventurers” led by a Captain John Oldham, a merchant and Indian trader from Watertown, Massachusetts, travelled through the wilderness of western Massachusetts and eastern Connecticut along an old Indian trail referred to by historians as the Old Connecticut Path. The 100 mile trek of these Adventurers and their families along the old Indian trail from Watertown to their new home on the banks of the Connecticut River, took them at least two weeks of hard travelling. Their new settlement that they were later to name Wethersfield was located in a deep bend of the Connecticut River where the rich alluvial soil along the river was perfect for farming and the surrounding forests would provide the needed lumber for building houses.

The town of Hartford (initially named Newtown) was the third of the original major settlements along the Connecticut River founded by Puritans from Massachusetts. The new settlement of Hartford was located about midway between the Windsor settlement to the north and the Wethersfield settlement to the south. It was to this site of the future town of Hartford that some 25 men, some with families and their supplies travelling under the direction or at least under the inspiration of the Rev. Thomas Hooker, set forth from Newton, Massachusetts in October of 1635. Their goal was to lay claim to the land on the west side of the Connecticut River directly across the river from where the Dutch had established a fort a few years earlier. Their trek along the old Indian trail took about ten days, however by the time they arrived into this wilderness area very cold weather had set in and they struggled to build shelters consisting of not much more than “dug-outs” or caves dug in the sides of the hills. Despite the lack of food and the hard conditions they managed to survive the winter. Of the original 25 settlers of Hartford, now known as the “Adventurers”, five of them were my great grandfathers: William Goodwin, William Kelsey, Thomas Scott, Timothy Stanley, and Edward Stebbins.

It was Thomas Hooker’s plan to send out this vanguard group of men in late 1635 to establish their claim to the land (which actually was dubious since the land had not been clearly purchased from the local Indians), layout the lots, and then once he received formal approval of the new settlement from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, he would follow in early 1636 with the remainder and the majority of the members of his Newton congregation. Within this later group were Thomas Welles and his family. The second wagon train set out on the trail in late May of 1636. The group consisted of one hundred members of the congregation with their families, their servants, farm animals, wagons, and so forth all as necessary to begin a new life. The scene of such a large group of the Newton citizens moving west must have amazing sight for the residents of the area. Thomas Welles was around 45 years old when he began his new life in Hartford, Connecticut.

There are two old maps available that show the division of the lands in Hartford and the names of the lot owners. The map above shows the ownership of the land in Harford as it appeared in 1640. The individuals whose names appear on this map are considered to be the original “Founders” of Hartford. There is also an earlier map showing the layout of the lots as they appeared in 1636 after the arrival of the first two groups from Newton. Both maps are very revealing for they show that the original settlers were not only well organized but they appeared to have cooperated with one another with respect to the land distribution. There are no records that I could find that describe disputes between the members of the congregation over the land selections. This is probably due in large part to the efforts of the Rev. Thomas Hooker. Most of the lots are of similar size, the town is organized around a meeting house (which also served as their “church”), and while it is not obvious from the maps, the history of Hartford tells us that the land around the town identified as “meadow(s)” and “pasture” were set aside areas for all members of the community to use for grazing their farm animals and growing their crops.

However, in the earlier 1636 map, the “South Meadows” is identified with the following notation: “Large upland, meadow and swamp lots of Andrew Warner, George Wyllys, Thomas Welles, John Webster, William Whiting, and John Haynes.” This notation on the map suggests that some of the wealthier citizens in early Harford were able to set aside (they purchased) some of the surrounding meadow land area for their own exclusive use. The Thomas Welles family was one of these wealthier families. It is also significant to note that the home lots immediately west (above on the map) of the South Meadow is where four of the six families listed above had built their homes. The road facing their home lots was later named “Governor Street” for a reason that will be obvious. The first governor of the Colony of Connecticut took office in 1639 and per the “Fundamental Orders”, the colony’s constitution that was written and adopted in 1639, governors were to be elected for 12 month terms but expressly prohibited from serving consecutive terms. In the first twenty years of the colony, George Wyllys served one term, Edward Hopkins served seven terms, our Thomas Welles served two terms (one in 1655 and one in 1658), and John Webster served one term. In total, in the first twenty terms of the office of governor, a resident of Governor Street filled the seat on 11 occasions. It is not apparent from looking at the lots on Governor Street what made them more valuable although apparently this must have been the case. The greater value was perhaps due to a richer soil, heavily wooded lands (trees for building houses) or the property was sited at higher elevations above the flood plain of the Connecticut River, or simply the properties’ proximity to the South Meadow, but whatever the reasons many of the top leaders in colonial Harford chose to live on this street including my great grandfather, Thomas Welles.

There is one other very fascinating observation to be made about Thomas Welles and his neighbors on Governor Street. Thomas Welles is an ancestor of mine on my mother’s side of my family. John Marsh and his family who lived immediately next door to the Welles family are ancestors of mine on my father’s side of the family. John Marsh is the great grandfather of my 7th great grandfather, Timothy Baker. There is more. Across the street from the Welles family lived the James Cole family. James Cole is my 10th great grandfather also on my mother’s side of the family. Of the names of the original proprietors listed on the “Founders Monument” in downtown Hartford, 24 of the men and one woman listed are my direct ancestors from multiple branches of my family tree. This was a remarkable coincidence and to think that I have never been to Hartford.

In January 1639, the leaders of the three Connecticut towns of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield met, drafted and approved a document known as the Fundamental Orders which basically outlined the individual rights of the citizens in the Colony of Connecticut. This document is considered by many historians to be the first constitution writing in the Americas and it was to serve as a guideline during the writing of the U.S. Constitution. Its importance is emphasized by the State of Connecticut who proudly call itself the “Constitution State.” Thomas Welles’ importance as a public servant in the government of the Colony of Connecticut cannot be understated. As Secretary of the Colony from 1640 to 1649, it was he who transcribed the Fundamental Orders into the official colonial records (in his own handwriting). His other offices include the following and it is worth noting that he is the only man in Connecticut’s history to hold all four top offices: governor, deputy governor, treasurer and secretary.

Member, Court of Magistrates 1637-1654

Deputy Governor of the Colony of Connecticut 1654, 1656, 1657, 1659

Treasure of the Colony of Connecticut 1639

Secretary of the Colony of Connecticut 1640-1649

Commissioner of the United Colonies 1649

Governor of the Colony of Connecticut 1666, 1658

What we learn here is that Thomas Welles’ upbringing and schooling in England was of the highest quality. Not only did he come from an apparently wealthy family but he was also highly educated and could read and write. Obviously he would not have been appointed Secretary of the Colony if his writing ability was poor. We also see in Thomas Welles a talent to lead. He was elected to the office of Deputy Governor or Governor on six different occasions and he served on the Court of Magistrates for eighteen years. Many of our elected legislators in the United States today serve for multiple years in public service but in their case they are paid for their services and somehow manage to earn major dollars beyond just their government salary. On the other hand, Thomas Welles served continuously without pay in various governmental positions from 1637 to 1658, only two years before his death on January 14, 1660. His name appears on almost every page of the Connecticut Colony Records during this entire period. One of the more interesting positions that he was asked to perform as a member of the Court of Magistrates was to serve as one of the judges in the witchcraft trials of Mary Johnson, Joan and John Carrington, and Lydia Gilbert in the years 1648, 1651, 1654. Thomas Welles may have been highly educated and devote but apparently he had no qualms about the verdict when the jurors found each of these individuals guilty of witchcraft and ordered their executions. Obviously we must be willing to judge historical individuals like Thomas Welles and slave owner George Washington based on the morals in place during their period of history rather than on our own morals of today.

Thomas Welles’ wife Alice Tomes Welles died of unknown causes sometime on or before 1646. It is an unfortunate truth that women in earlier history are often ignored in the colonial records and the actual year of Alice’s death and the location of her burial are unknown. What is known is that in 1646 Thomas Welles married for the second time the 56 year old Elizabeth Deming Foote, widow of Nathaniel Foote of Wethersfield who had died two years earlier in 1644. While both Thomas Welles and his new wife were in their 50s and both still had young children living at home, Thomas Welles made the unusual decision especially in the 1600s to leave his home in Hartford and move into Elizabeth’s home in Wethersfield. Thomas Welles remained in public service after his marriage to Elizabeth and his move to Wethersfield and both of his terms of office as Government of the Colony of Connecticut occurred after his move to Wethersfield. The remarkable coincidence about the marriage of Thomas Welles to Elizabeth Deming Foote is that both individuals are my 10th great grandparents. I am descended from Elizabeth Foote, the daughter of Nathaniel Foote and Elizabeth Deming and the wife of Josiah Churchill, and I am descended on a separate family branch, from Ann Welles, the daughter of Thomas Welles and Ann Tomes and the husband of Thomas Thompson. Nathaniel Foote and his wife are among the original settlers of Wethersfield and Nathaniel’s name is included in the list of the “Ten Adventurers” who settled Wethersfield in 1635.

The burial location of Thomas Welles is unknown but in all likelihood it is in Wethersfield. The site of Thomas Welles home on Governor Street in Hartford, later renamed Popieluszko Court, is now a rather rundown industrial area of Harford. Some of the original land owned by Nathaniel Foote in the 1600s in Wethersfield is now the site of a Connecticut State prison. Despite these dismal changes to our landscape, Thomas Welles remains one of the important historical figures in American history.

Chapter 28 - My Baker Ancestors - Part III

2010-10-16T13:32:00.000-07:00

My 6th great grandfather, Matthes Baker, was born in his parent’s home near the village of Maidenhead, New Jersey in the year 1710. The small rural agricultural community of Maidenhead was founded only a few years earlier in 1697 and while still sparely populated compared with its neighboring communities of Trenton (then called “The Falls of the Delaware”) located about 10 miles to the south and Princeton located about five miles to the northeast, by the time of Matthes’ birth the area had grown significantly since its founding only 13 years earlier. Maidenhead’s location on the “King’s Highway” midway between Philadelphia and New York meant that overland travelers passing between these two major capitals in our country’s early history would have passed through Maidenhead. Despite the town’s location, Maidenhead, that was later renamed Lawrenceville in 1816, still remains to this day a relatively small town and it is generally considered a bedroom community for both Trenton and Princeton. During Matthes Baker’s life, George Washington and his army marched through Maidenhead chasing the British following the Battle of Trenton that was fought on 26 December 1776 and then once again on 2 January 1777 following the Second Battle of Trenton when Washington marched to meet the British at the Battle of Princeton fought on 3 January 1777. Lawrenceville is noted today primarily as the location of the Lawrenceville School, one of the largest, oldest, and most exclusive preparatory schools in the United States. The school was founded in 1816 only six years following the death of Matthes Baker.

Thanks to the efforts of professional genealogist Fred Sisser III who has extensively researched our Baker family in New Jersey, we have a pretty good outline of Matthes Bakers’ life at least with respect to what information is available from the public records such as land purchases, court cases and the like. Matthes was the third born child of Timothy and Susannah Matthews Baker. It is impossible to know whether his name was originally intended to be Matthew after his mother’s maiden name, Matthews, and it was just a misspelling of the name, or the family intended it to be an abbreviation of the name. Whatever the original intent it is known that Matthes himself in later life wrote his name as “Matthes”. Public records on the other hand spelled the name in many variations including Mathias, Mathis, Matthew, Mathes, and Matthis. Spelling was not one of the strengths of our early countrymen as unfortunately they lacked a workable “spell check” system or perhaps a good education.

The young Matthes undoubtedly worked on his family’s farm almost from the day he learned to walk. He also at a young age would have attended school probably during the winter months when his services were not as frequently required on the farm. While clearly he had learned to write as he signed his name on documents instead of making his “mark” as did so many others of his time, it is probable that he was not highly educated. We learned from the public records that his occupation was that of a “Cordwinder” or shoemaker. It was not unusual for fathers during this period of our country’s history to arrange for their sons, particularly their younger sons, an apprenticeship with a local tradesman so that their son could learn a skilled trade. In some cases this meant that the son would actually live with the tradesman during the period of their apprenticeship which we learned was the case with my great grandfather Samuel Harpending who learned the trade of “Hatter” or making hats as I described in this family history blog in Chapter 9. An apprentice was similar in nature to an indentured servant although there was no forced employment contract as was the case of the indentured servant. The tradesman in lieu of not having to pay the apprentice was expected to teach him his trade. The indentured servant was in reality a slave with a predetermined freedom date. The apprentice was an unpaid employee who could leave at any time. While it is likely that Matthes served as an unpaid apprentice for a period, just when he completed his training is unknown although it was undoubtedly completed well before his 28th year when he married Judith Wood on 28 August 1738.

Judith Wood, my 6th great grandmother, is a mystery woman in our Baker family line particularly with respect to her ancestry which is unproven. There is also the mystery as to just how she came about meeting and marrying Matthes Baker. At first glance I thought that it would be relatively easy to uncover Judith’s ancestors. Not only were members of the Wood family numerous and prominent on Long Island in the late 1600s, but Matthes’ grandmother, Susannah Strickland, married a Timothy Wood in 1651 prior to her marrying Matthes’ grandfather, Samuel Matthews, after Timothy Wood’s early death in 1659. Not only that, but Susannah’s sister, Elizabeth Strickland, my 8th great aunt, married Timothy Wood’s older brother Jonas Wood. The Wood brothers’ father was Edmund Wood, a Puritan, who with his three sons and two daughters immigrated to America on the ship James that landed in Boston in August of 1635. The family lived in Massachusetts before moving to Wethersfield, Connecticut in 1637 and later to Stamford, Connecticut in 1641. In 1644 the Wood family with a group of other settlers from Stamford crossed the Long Island Sound to establish a new Presbyterian community on the north shore of Long Island. They named their new community Hempstead. Joining the Wood family in the new community was John Strickland who was to be Matthes Baker’s great grandfather (and my 9th great grandfather) and his family. Despite the close connection between the Strickland family and the Wood family and the marriage of Matthes Baker’s grandmother Susannah Strickland to Timothy Wood, after many hours of research of the descendants of Edmund Wood, I was unable to confirm that Judith Wood was a descendant of Edmund Wood.

Judith Wood is believed to have been born in Newtown, Long Island (later renamed Elmhurst) around 1710. The names of her parents have not been identified although there were many families with the surname of Wood during the time period of her birth who were members of the Presbyterian Church of Newtown. One family stands out as likely parents: a Timothy Wood (who died in 1763) and his wife Judith (who died in 1751). Timothy is a very common name in the family line of Edmund Wood and Judith Wood might very well have been named after her mother Judith. Even if these individuals are Judith Wood’s parents, I still could find no clear connection to Edmund Wood although it is a fact that many of Edmund Wood’s descendants settled in the western Long Island communities of Newtown and Jamaica.

Another Judith Wood mystery has yet to be solved. How did Matthes Baker, a young man living and working in Maidenhead, New Jersey meet and marry the young Judith Wood living in Newtown, Long Island? Even with today’s modern highway system the two communities are 70 miles and 1-1/2 hours apart by car and in 1738 it is unlikely that Matthes would have had any reason to have been in Newtown. Despite the fact that his mother, Susannah Matthews, was born in Jamaica, New York located only a few miles from Newtown, she had moved to Maidenhead when she was still young and it is doubtful that she was still close to any relatives living in Newtown or Jamaica. On the other hand, there were Wood families living in the area of Maidenhead in 1638 and it is possible that they made Matthes’ parents or Matthes himself aware of the availability of Miss Judith Wood in Newtown and a marriage may have been arranged. However Matthes and Judith met, the First Presbyterian Church of Newtown recorded the marriage of Matthes Baker to Judith Wood on 27 August 1738.

There is still however another small mystery. The New York State records show that a marriage license was issued on 24 August 1738 to Matthew Baker of Maidenhead and Judah Wood of Newtown. It would be hard to argue that this is not our family’s marriage license especially since their marriage occurred only three days after the license was issued (although their names were spelled as Matthis and Judith in the church records.) But then in these same New York State records it shows another marriage license issued on 11 October 1738 to a Samuel Gosline and a Judah Wood of Newtown who was listed as born in 1707. Further research revealed that this same Samuel Gosline of Newtown died on 23 December 1738, a little over two months after the issuing of the marriage license between himself and “Judah” Wood. I have no idea if the two Judah Woods were the same Judith Wood although it is hard to believe that there were two Judah Woods about the same age, both living in Newtown at the same time, and both applying for marriage licenses less than two months apart. If they are the same person and I believe that they are, the only explanation that I can offer is that the recorded dates were wrong with respect to the actual date of the application and that a marriage was arranged between Matthes Baker of Maidenhead and Judith Wood of Newtown after her expected marriage to Samuel Gosline feel through. It is possible of course that Samuel had been ill for a long period prior to his death which resulted in his marriage to Judith Wood being delayed and then cancelled. If only we could go back in time and find out what really happened and who arranged the marriage.

Matthes and Judith returned to Maidenhead shortly after their marriage and their first child, a daughter Judith, was born about one year later. It is not known where Matthes and his wife and child were living in Maidenhead when their child was born although it may have been at his parent’s home, not an uncommon practice in this period of history. What is known is that Matthes Baker purchased seven acres of land just south of Maidenhead in 1740 and obtained a mortgage from the “Hunterdon County Loan Office” in Maidenhead Township to cover part of the purchase cost. Unlike mortgages in the present day, mortgages in the early 1700s (and as late as the early 1900s) were usually for a short period of time, typically between five years to ten years, and covered no more than about 50% of the purchase cost. Also unlike today, the amount of the mortgage and the annual payments was determined by the estimated income expected from the property. Since agriculture was the common source of income, what the lender was willing to lend was determined by estimating what the borrower could generate in income from the sale of crops and livestock. With only seven acres Matthes would not have expected to earn much income from agricultural pursuits so it is not surprising to discover that he applied for a license to operate a tavern in May of 1741. He operated the tavern from 1741 until around 1749 at which time he sold his property and probably the tavern business, paid off his mortgage, and with his family moved to Hopewell Township adjacent and to the northwest of his birth home in Maidenhead Township.

Matthes and Judith Wood Baker are known to have had only four children: Judith born in 1739, John born in 1741, my 4th great grandfather, Timothy Baker born in 1742, and William born about 1745. Timothy Baker, Matthes’ father, died in 1747 and per the terms of his last will and testament that he had been written earlier in 1639, he left his son Matthes some of his valuables including money. It was probably his inheritance that allowed Matthes to pay off his mortgage on his land in Maidenhead and purchase 147 acres in Hopewell Township where he moved his family and built a home and farm around the year 1749. Having sold his tavern, Matthes renewed his career as a shoemaker in Hopewell. His name is mentioned at least twice that I could find in the church records of the First Presbyterian Church of Hopewell. In both instances once in 1753 and again in 1769 his name was included in a list of donors to the church fund. It is not surprising to learn that in both instances the amount of his donation was modest but probably very generous when we take into account that his income as a tradesman shoemaker and small farmer was also modest. For example, in the 1769 list we find the name of John Hart who along with other families including Matthes’ parents and the Hunt family had immigrated to West New Jersey from Western Long Island in the 1690s. John Hart was recorded as having donated 15 English pounds to the church in 1769 whereas Matthes Baker donated only one English pound. We are not related to John Hart but we know that Matthes and Judith Wood Baker’s daughter, Judith Baker, married a Robert Lanning whose mother Martha Hart, was the first cousin of John Hart. It seems that the Bakers and the Harts would have known each other. Why is this worth mentioning? John Hart from Hopewell, New Jersey was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and during the Revolutionary War on June 22nd and 23rd in 1778, George Washington and 12,000 of his troops camped on his land.

Matthes Baker was 68 years old in 1778 and therefore it is unlikely that he physically participated with the local militia during the Revolutionary War. Nevertheless he and his family were close to the war activities in New Jersey including the two battles of Trenton and the nearby Battle of Princeton fought in 1777. Furthermore their family was subjected to the almost continuous movements of both British and American troops nearby their home and church throughout much of the war. Matthes Baker is on record as having sold linen and “stockens” to the Hunterdon County Commissioner of Clothing in December of 1777 and offering wheat towards the war effort in April of 1780. The sale of linen and stockings suggests that Matthes’ shoemaker business may have expanded to include other mercantile goods and the offer of wheat obviously suggests that his farm was in operation during the war unlike the farm of his neighbor John Hart whose farm is known to have been burned by the British.

Matthes Baker died in October 1788 at the age of 78. The fact that he died intestate, or without a written will, suggests that he may have died unexpectedly. His wife Judith and his youngest son William were appointed as the administrators of his estate. The list of some of his assets at the time of his death paints an interesting picture of the times. This list includes “Andirons [with] brass tops”, a gun, “Tobacco”, “Cyder & Whiskey, and a “Negro Girl.” As a descendant of Matthes Baker, I certainly hope that there items were not his most treasured possessions. Judith Wood outlived her husband but the date of her death and where she and Matthes are buried is unknown.

My 5th great grandfather Timothy Baker was born at his parent’s home near Maidenhead in Hunterdon County, in Western New Jersey on the 8th day of December in the year 1742. We know nothing about the early life of Timothy although we can assume that he worked on his family’s farm in Hopewell Township when he was young. We also know that he married a local girl when he was around 30 years old in the year 1733 who we know only by the name of Deborah. In an assessment of the Hopewell district taken in 1781 he is listed in the assessment along with his brother William and his father. Based on the list we assume that he was either still living at his parent’s home at the time or was living nearby. We also know that by 1786 following the Revolutionary War, Timothy and his family had moved east to the adjacent County of Somerset and then a few unknown years later probably following the death of his father in 1788, Timothy purchased 126 acres of land in Readington Township located about 30 miles north of his birth home in Maidenhead. There they built a new home and farm and worked and lived for the remainder of their lives. Based on a listing of Timothy’s assets at the time of his death in 1810, mostly farming equipment, crops, and animals, he spent his adult life as a “husbandman”, an old English term that defines the occupation as one of a farmer.

The Revolutionary War had a profound impact on American families beyond just the obvious loss of husbands, sons, and brothers. Before the war, the “West” was considered to be almost everywhere other than the immediate coastal colonies. Central and western New York and Pennsylvania and the future states of Ohio and Michigan were mostly Indian occupied lands or lands loosely controlled by the British military. The Revolutionary War changed everything. Suddenly inexpensive and fertile land became available and by the early 1800s thousands of settlers from all of the colonies flooded west to buy up this new land now considered part of the new United States of America. What this meant to families, families like the New Jersey Bakers, was that sons, daughters, and cousins moved away from where their families had lived for generations. Timothy and Deborah Baker had eight children born between the years of 1776 and 1796 including my 4th great grandfather and their 5th child, Francis Baker who was born in 1787. Of their eight children at least four of them left New Jersey and probably never returned. Their second son John after his wife died moved to Ohio with his son Timothy and then later to Indiana. Their 3rd son Matthes moved to Seneca County for a short period before returning with his family back to New Jersey. Elizabeth Baker, their first daughter moved to Ohio with her husband Cornelius Low. Their 5th child, Francis Baker, my 4th great grandfather, moved to Seneca County, New York with his wife Sarah and their newborn son Elijah. The youngest child of Timothy and Deborah Baker, William, moved to Ohio with his wife and children. This mass migration was happening to families throughout the new United States but fortunately for Timothy Baker, most of his children moved away after his death at the age of 67 in 1810. Timothy is buried in the cemetery behind the Reformed Church of Readington. Deborah Baker who died in 1817 lies in her grave next to her husband.

While Revolutionary War battles took place in all of the original thirteen colonies, the future State of New Jersey had more than its share of battles that totaled by some estimates more than 100. If skirmishes are also counted, the number of war battles and skirmishes would number in the hundreds. Some historians write that one of these many battles in New Jersey was a major turning point in the war. This relatively small encounter known as the Battle of Trenton fought on 26 December 1776 was a major victory for the Americans after a long string of major defeats. American patriots prior to the Battle of Trenton knew only that their General Washington was good at retreating but on the day after Christmas in 1776 everything changed. The prelude to this Battle of Trenton is known to every American school child. George Washington and his army had to cross a cold and icy Delaware River in the late night hours before their early morning surprise attack on the sleeping Hessian soldiers stationed in Trenton. The surprise attack resulted in a decisive victory for the Continental Army. As a result of this victory and Washington’s attacks on the British that followed shortly after the Battle of Trenton both at Maidenhead and the surrounding area and at the Battle of Princeton fought on 3 January 1777, the morale of the American soldiers as well as the local population and later the country, rose dramatically. Before Trenton, Washington was very concerned that many of his men were not going to re-enlist but following the victories everything changed, enlistments increased, and there was new hope in our country of an ultimate American victory.

Washington’s army crossed the Delaware River and landed near the village of Titusville in Hopewell Township located a short distance from the homes of Matthes and Judith Wood Baker and their son and daughter-in-law Timothy and Deborah Baker. While Timothy was in his early 30s at the time of the Battle of Trenton and he might very well have already been training with the Hunterdon militia during that period as were most men his age, it is unlikely that he was involved in any way with the battle at Trenton or any of the battles and skirmishes leading up to the Battle of Princeton on January 3rd. Washington army was composed primarily of men who were not a part of the state militias who Washington and his officers considered mostly untrained, undisciplined, and unreliable as soldiers. We know that some New Jersey militia were present at the important Battle at Monmouth (New Jersey) fought on June 28th in 1778 and even at the Battle of Princeton, but Washington made sure that they were never placed in significant positions that would place his fulltime army at risk. Nevertheless, the New Jersey militia played a major role in the Revolutionary War especially in New Jersey. While Washington’s army fought the battles, it was the men of the New Jersey’s militia who made the British troops’ lives a misery. They were like mosquitoes in the woods. Every time that a group of British soldiers was sent out to forage for food or to find wood for their fires, they were ambushed by small groups of militia soldiers. It was impossible for the British to maintain small outposts within the state for they were constantly harassed by members of the state militia who would strike fast and then depart equally as fast. These were the types of actions that were particularly suited for the “wing-it” style of the state militias who soon became hated by the British but appreciated by George Washington who knew that the local militia were keeping the British constantly on edge thereby lowering the British army’s morale.

Even if we did not have documentation, we could assume that Timothy Baker and his brothers served as militia soldiers during the Revolutionary War. Unless one were a Loyalist or a Quaker which the Bakers were not, it was the absolute duty of every young man to fight for his country against the hated British. They fought not so much against the British Empire since England was their mother country, but against the arrogance of the British in America and in particular the arrogance of the British leadership and military in America.

The only official record of Timothy Baker’s Revolutionary War service was for the period of 4 October 1777 through 31 October 1977 when he served as a Private in the First Regiment of the Hunterdon County Militia under Capt. William Tucker and under Capt Israel’s Troop of Horses that mustered on 6 October 1777. This was enough for the Daughters of the American Revolution to accept Timothy as a Revolutionary War Patriot, their number 501487. It is likely and even probable that he served on other occasions possibly with his brothers and male cousins and he may have even be present at the Battle of Monmouth in 1778. Thanks to the recent efforts on the part of Frederick L. Baker III and his late grandfather Frederick Baker (1874-1957), a great, great grandson of Timothy Baker, was I made aware of Timothy Baker’s involvement in the War. Frederick Baker obtained back in 1948 a letter from the State of New Jersey, Department of Defense certifying as to Timothy’s war service in October of 1777 based no doubt on war records on file in their New Jersey office. The full extent of Timothy Baker’s war service may never be known although as purely antidotal evidence I offer this observation. The birth of the first child of Timothy and Deborah was in 1776 (before the Battle of Trenton) and their second child was not born until late 1779. The lag time between the two births could very well suggest that Timothy was preoccupied with matters of the war.

My 4th great grandfather, Francis Baker, was born at his parent’s home in Readington Township, New Jersey in the year 1787. Based on our knowledge that he was a shoemaker as an adult, he was, like his grandfather, probably trained as a shoemaker through the apprenticeship program during his teenager years. Francis at the age of 24 married 18 year old Sarah Bogart, daughter of John M. Bogart and Sarah Ann Schenck, sometime during the year of 1811 and in December of 1812 their first child, Elijah, was born. Elijah, my 3rd great grandfather, was named after his Uncle Elijah, his father’s older brother. The exact year that Francis Baker and his wife and child left Readington Township, New Jersey for a new home in Seneca County, New York is not known although on 11 February 1814, the records of Seneca County show that a mortgage was taken out by Francis Baker for 100 acres of land, Lot 80, in Ovid Township in Seneca County. Obviously the family had arrived into the area sometime earlier, possibly by mid-1813. Seneca County, located in the Finger Lakes Region in Central New York, had been first settled beginning around 1790 and many of its earliest settlers were of Dutch ancestry who had migrated from New Jersey. Clearly Francis was familiar with the opportunities available in this still relatively new community. Land was less expensive than in New Jersey and the need for trained tradesmen like shoemakers was greater. Furthermore Francis was not the only member of his family to recognize the advantages of relocating to Seneca County. Francis’ and Matthes’ older brother John Baker appears in the 1800 Census records in Seneca County and according to the county’s historical records John Baker sold his land in Seneca County to his brother Matthes Baker around 1814 and presumably John immediately returned to New Jersey. It would seem likely that Francis Baker and his wife and child and Matthes Baker and his wife and children moved to Seneca County from Readington in New Jersey together along with Francis’ in-laws and Sarah’s parents, John M. Bogart and Ann Schenck Bogart and all of her brothers and sisters. The Bogart family is listed in the 1820 US Census in Seneca County as are the Francis and Matthes Baker families. For whatever reason and it may have been related to his financial difficulties which hounded with him for most of his life, Matthes Baker sold his land in Seneca County in 1824 and returned to New Jersey.

My 4th great grandmother, Sarah Bogart, was a descendant of many prominent Dutch American families whose lineage could be traced back to early Dutch immigrants who arrived in New Amsterdam in the early to mid-1600s. Sarah’s mother, Ann Schenck, was the great, great granddaughter of Jan Martense Schenck (1631-1687) who arrived in New Amsterdam from the Netherlands in the year 1650 at the age of 19 along with his brother and sister. Jan Martense was granted land in 1660 in Amersfoort on Long Island (later renamed “Flatlands” and now part of Brooklyn, New York). Shortly after his marriage in 1672 to Jannetjie van Voorhees, he purchased land with a crist mill where in 1675 he built a new home for his family. It is this house for which Jan Martense Schenck is most remembered. The land and home remained in the Schenck family until 1784 at which time it was sold by Ann Schenck’s grandfather and my 7th great grandfather, John Schenck (1705-1784). The home remained standing until 1950 at which time the home was scheduled to be demolished to make way for a new school. The Brooklyn Museum recognized the historical significance of this almost 300 year old Schenck House, one of the oldest standing houses in the New York City area, and in 1952 they dismantled the home and later reassembled the original sections of the house on the 4th floor of their museum where it is still exhibited to this day. The 1891 photo of the Schenck House shown above shows a relatively small home particularly when we note that Jan Martense Schenck and his wife raised eight children in this house.

We also find in Sarah Bogart’s and Ann Schenck’s ancestry the names of Joris Janssen Rapalje and his wife, Catalyntje Trico, who arrived on the first ship of new immigrants to New Amsterdam in the year 1624. Chapter 1 of this Baker Family History Blog tells the story of my Rapalje ancestors. What is most interesting about discovering that Sarah Bogart was a descendant of Joris Rapalje and his wife is that I first researched the Rapaljes after learning that my great grandmother, Helen Ely Rappleye, wife of Asbury Harpending Baker, was a descendant of Joris and Catalyntje. What I have now learned is that her husband Asbury, who was the great grandson of Sarah Bogart, was also a descendant of the Rapalje family which would make my great grandparents “kissing” cousins of sorts. I suspect that for many Americans today who have ancestry lines back to early America, overlapping family trees are not that uncommon. Joris Janseen Rapalje and his wife Catalyntje Trico are both my 9th as well as my 10th great grandparents.

The earliest immigrant to arrive in America in my Bogart family line was a Cornelius Corneliszen Bogaert who arrived in New Amsterdam on or before 1640. While there is plenty of genealogical and history websites that cover Cornelius, most of the information furnished on these sites are all over the place and contradictory with respect to the “facts”. For example, his birth year is reported as being as early as 1617 to as late as 1637 and the date and location of his marriage varies considerably. Some family trees have him married in Holland, some in America. Some family histories list his oldest son born in Holland despite the fact that the son was born in the early 1650s well after his reported 1640 immigration date. What these disparities reflect is the terrible recordkeeping on the part of the Dutch authorities as well as the fact that typically the early Dutch immigrants arrived in America without surnames thereby making it more difficult to trace them in the early historical records. We have discussed this situation in other chapters. Unlike the English who very early on in history had adopted the custom of using surnames such that we know that the sons of Timothy Baker were all named Baker, and their sons also carried the name Baker, the Dutch on the other hand used a “last” name that was a variation of the father’s proper name. For example, Cornelius Corneliszen Bogaert was really named Cornelius Corneliszen after his father Cornelius Theuiszen. His grandfather’s name in turn was Teunis Gijsbertiszen after his father Gijsbert, and so forth. This is just an assumption but the name Bogaert was added as a surname after the Dutch immigrant arrived in America and then adopted the English custom of using surnames to identify the family. Often the new Dutch surnames had an historical basis for the family. It is believed for example that Cornelius’ grandfather was called Teunis Gijsbertiszen in Den Boogaertman which literally interpreted from Dutch means Teunis, son of Gijsbert, “Man in the Orchard” which I guess identified where he lived or grew up. Whatever really happened, what we find in history is that numerous new Dutch immigrants into New Amsterdam used the surname Bogaert and many of them had common first names which obviously has lead to trouble when researching our Dutch ancestors. Combine this with the terrible recording keeping, no ship’s passenger lists, and lost church records, it is no wonder why no one knows for certain the actual birth year of Cornelius Bogaert or the date of his arrival. This is all quite in contrast to the English custom of keeping detailed civil and church records beginning in America with the Pilgrims in Plymouth in 1620.

What we do know about Cornelius Corneliszen in den Boogaertman, my 9th great grandfather, is that he eventually settled in what is today Albany, New York where he married and raised a family. His death is clearly established as 25 July 1665. His grandson, Cornelius Bogaert (1682-1728), moved to the area of Readington, New Jersey in the early 1700s with his wife and stepsister, Cornelia Delamater (daughter of his father’s second wife), and their two young children. Cornelius Bogaert, my 7th great grandfather, is included in a list of early church elders and deacons of the Reformed Church of Readington in the years 1719, 1721, 1724, and 1727. He died in 1728 after fathering eleven children including my 6th great grandfather, Jacob Bogaert (1720-1777) who was born in 1720 in Readington, New Jersey. In the History of the Reformed Church at Readington, NJ 1719-1881 three generations of my Bogart ancestors are mentioned, Cornelius as mentioned above, his son Jacob who joined the church in 1774 and was an Elder in 1775, and John Bogart (1752-1836) and his wife Ann Schenck who joined the church in 1794. It would appear that some of the Bogart family trees both on the Web and on Ancestry.com that list both Jacob and John as living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania may be incorrect.

The vast majority of the church members listed in the History of the [Dutch] Reformed Church Readington would appear to be of Dutch heritage and it would not surprise me that the services at least in the early years of the church were in Dutch and most of the members of the church spoke Dutch as their primary language. In the 1930 book “Memories” written by my great grandfather about his ancestors and his own life, he describes his great grandmother as speaking English with an accent that he believed was a German accent. He also thought that his great grandfather’s name was John. We know today that his great grandmother’s name was Sarah and Sarah was the daughter of Ann Schenck and John M. Bogart. My great grandfather, Asbury H. Baker, was probably correct that his great grandmother Sarah Bogart spoke English with an accent although the accent was Dutch and not German. Where Asbury was incorrect was that his great grandfather’s name was Francis and not John although in his defense he may very well have been recalling the name of John because John Bogart was his great, great grandfather.

It was not unheard of or forbidden, but in 1812 it was probably not that common for a Presbyterian man of English descent to marry a Dutch girl whose family were members of a Dutch Reformed Church. That fact that the Bogart and Schenck families had been in America for at least five generations but still spoke Dutch as their primary language strongly suggests that the Dutch in America during this period in American history had not lost their Dutch identity in American. It is unlikely that Francis Baker and Sarah Bogart were introduced to one another by their parents nor did they meet in church. I believe that Francis’ education which consisted mostly of his vocational training in shoemaking as well as their age difference of six years makes it doubtful that they attended school together as youngsters. When and how they met and fell in love is unknown. What we do know is that they were married in late 1811 or early 1812 in Readington Township, New Jersey and they gave birth to their first child, my 3rd great grandfather, Elijah Baker in December of 1812.

Their departure from Readington to their new home in Lodi in Seneca County probably began in the spring or early summer of 1813. They were most likely accompanied by a group of other settlers including Francis Baker’s brother Matthes and his family and Sarah Bogart Baker’s parents, John and Ann Schenck Bogart as well as a guide and other settlers from the Readington area and maybe other towns in New Jersey. The exact path of their travel to upstate New York is subject to speculation but it is very possible that they traveled the same route that General John Sullivan and his army took during the Revolutionary War when he was sent to the area of the Finger Lakes by General Washington to destroy the Indians and their villages centered around Seneca and Cayuga Lakes. These Indians supported by Loyalist troops had been terrorizing the American settlers in north central Pennsylvania and southeastern New York State. Basically the trip was about 300 miles long and followed old Indian trails that began on the Delaware River at Easton, Pennsylvania and traveled westerly to the Wyoming Valley near the present day city of Wilkes-Barre on the Susquehanna River. Their caravan of wagons then followed the Susquehanna River north to its intersection with the Chemung River where they continued west along the Chemung until they arrived at the present day city of Elmira. From Elmira they followed the same trail travelled by General Sullivan and his troops northward along the Catherine Creek until they reached Seneca Lake and their new home on its eastern shore.

What we know about Francis and Sarah Bogart Baker from this point forward is based on a few recorded dates and a lot of conjecture. We know that Francis Baker obtained a mortgage on 11 February 1814 and paid the mortgage off on 4 October 1821. We also know that on 2 April 1820 Francis and Sarah sold a portion of their land that they had purchased in 1814. Presumably they constructed a home on their land, probably a log home, and they were living there when the US Census was taken on 7 August 1820. The census shows that by 1820 they had three young sons under the age of ten. One of these sons was Elijah Baker who we know was born in 1812. Another son we believe was Timothy Baker who was born in 1816 and later moved to Michigan. The only other son who we have identified and who may have been included in the 1820 census is a Schenck Baker. Unfortunately we have no information about Schenck other than his name was mentioned in my great grandfather’s book “Memories” along with a statement in the book that implied that Schenck later moved to Michigan. My great grandfather also wrote that his great grandparents had seven sons but under the circumstances that I will describe below only three of his sons have been identified and really only Elijah Baker is a for-certain child of Francis and Sarah other than a daughter Henrietta who died in infancy and is buried next to her parents. One other possible son has been identified by the name of Claudius Coan Baker who was born in 1822 in Seneca County and was named after a local doctor, Claudius Coan who lived near both Francis Baker and his brother Matthes. It is not clear, but some circumstantial evidence suggests that Claudius Coan Baker may have actually been a son of Matthes and his wife and therefore Francis’ nephew.

Unfortunately Sarah Bogart Baker died on 28 June 1827. She was only 33 years old when she unexpectedly passed away and the cause of her death is unknown. Her oldest child at the time of her death was only 15 years old and if she had seven children, which cannot be confirmed, Francis was left with a household of small children. Obviously he could not manage this situation by himself and still maintain his career as a “travelling shoemaker”. Typically we find under these circumstances that the surviving spouse soon remarries after the death, however despite his relatively young age of 40, there is no evidence that Francis ever remarried. Considering the relatively large size of families in the early 1800s and the fact that Francis was no doubt an established person after13 years in the community, it is surprising that he never remarried. If he were not my ancestor I might want to jump to the conclusion that he had a character flaw, perhaps an alcohol problem, a personality problem, or an appearance problem that might have made him a poor candidate as a husband for a young or recently widowed women. There is however no evidence whatsoever to support this type of conclusion. What we do know or believe is that Francis “farmed out” his children to other families in the community and as a result the names of his children other than Elijah and possibly Timothy have been lost in history. Were it not for the fact that both my grandfather and my 2nd great grandfather were both named Charles Schenck Baker which clearly identified my relationship to Francis’ mother-in-law, Ann Schenck Bogart, plus a recent DNA test that tied me to the Baker line back to Edward Baker, I might not have been able to confirm that Elijah Baker’s parents were Francis and Sarah Bogart Baker.

Hopefully, Francis Baker stayed in touch with his children at least while they continued to live in or near Seneca County. However strange, it appears that he never in his later life moved into the home of one of his children. In the 1850 and the 1860 US Census we find Francis Baker living with the Nevius family in Lodi Township in Seneca County. In the 1840 Census where only the name of the head of the household was identified in the census, we find a man living with the Nevius family who was of Francis’ age and older than both John and Rachael Nevius. This unidentified man was probably my 4th great grandfather, Francis Baker. There appears to be no close family relationship between the Nevius family and Francis Baker although John Nevius and his wife grew up in Readingtown Township in New Jersey and John Nevius who was only a few years younger than Francis may have known Francis or more likely Sarah Bogart when they were both younger. It still seems strange that Francis’ son Elijah Baker, who by 1850 was running a successful mercantile business in the nearby village of Burdett, did not provide a home for his retired father. Again in the 1860 census Francis remained with the Nevius family despite the fact that John Nevius had died and only Rachael was left to take care of the then 73 year old Francis. Honestly, based on the few facts that we have at hand, I must draw the conclusion that there may have been a strained relationship between Elijah and his father. Francis may have never shown much interest in his family after his wife died and most of his sons in their earlier years moved away from Seneca County to find new lives in the “West”. It is interesting however, that despite the possible “strained” relationship between Elijah and his father, Elijah named two of his children after his parents, one Francis and one Sarah.

Francis Baker died on 9 June 1876 and he is buried in the MacNeal Cemetery in Lodi Township alongside his wife Sarah and his in-laws John and Ann Schenck Bogart.

If you are interested in reading more about my Baker ancestors following Francis and Sarah Baker, I invite you to read Chapter 9 of this Baker Family History Blog.

Chapter 27 - My Baker Ancestors Part II

2010-09-07T05:17:00.000-07:00

My 7th great grandfather Timothy Baker was born in December of 1675 in Northampton, Massachusetts and according to Baker family historian, Nelson M. Baker, who published in 1867 “A Genealogy of the Descendants of Edward Baker,” Timothy Baker, the son of Timothy and Grace Marsh Baker, “died in infancy.” Fortunately for the thousands of living descendants of Timothy Baker including yours truly, Nelson M. Baker was wrong about the early demise of young Timothy. In Nelson Baker’s defense however, we admit that the absence of historical records mentioning our Timothy Baker in Northampton, Massachusetts might very well have led to the conclusion that he must have died at a young age. Since we know virtually nothing about Timothy from the time of his birth until he appears in historical records in New Jersey in 1707, what I am about to relate about his early life is based on pure speculation. It is not fantasy however, as historical facts and logic plus the few facts that we know about his family during this period of his life makes the following account of his early life a realistic possibility.

Timothy Baker was born during a turbulent period in American history. Only a few months before his birth, the Native Americans in New England staged a major rebellion against the white colonists. The Indians of this area had been remarkably peaceful considering that since the landing of the Pilgrims in Plymouth some 55 years earlier the white English settlers had been gradually absorbing their land and the traditional source of their food supplies. This changed however by late 1675, when the Indian tribes under an Indian leader that the settlers were calling King Philips, led a series of surprise attacks against the villages in the Connecticut River valley. Timothy’s father, Ensign Timothy Baker, played a major role during the war, later called by historians the King Philip’s War, not only by his helping to organize the defense of their community of Northampton but also through his leadership role in the militia counterattacks against the Indians villages. Unfortunately, for the first six months of Timothy’s life, his father was rarely home. Equally unfortunate, Timothy’s mother, Grace Marsh Baker died in Timothy’s first year of life. Were it not for Timothy’s grandparents, Joan and Edward Baker, who stepped in as surrogate parents to raise him in the early years of life, Timothy would likely have been “farmed” out to live with another family.

Joan Baker was around 58 years old when her grandson was born. She had seen her own share of hardships as a young woman growing up in New England in the early 1600s. She knew the difficulties of raising children under these hard conditions having raising nine children of her own. For the first three years of Timothy’s life his grandmother’s face was the first one that he saw when he verbally expressed his hunger or other discomforts. Timothy also recognized his grandfather who frequently rocked him to sleep in his grandfather’s favorite chair. Even his grandfather Marsh, his mother’s father, was not too old then in his mid-60s, to occasionally visit his young grandson from his nearby home in Hadley.

All of this changed to some extent when his father remarried in early 1678. Timothy’s new stepmother at first was very attentive towards her new stepson although he remained somewhat unsure at least initially as to her role in the family. Unfortunately for Timothy and for his gradually improving relationship with his new stepmother, when Timothy was four years old, his stepmother gave birth on 3 February 1680 to her first son, John Baker, and out of necessity almost her full attention was redirected to the care of her newborn. Timothy was forced once again to retreat to his grandmother for his daily needs and love and affection. Over the next nine years, Sarah Hollister Baker and Timothy’s father, Timothy Senior, were to have four additional children. Timothy was no doubt well cared for by his father and stepmother during these years but he was older than his stepbrothers and stepsisters which meant that he did not develop a strong bond with any of his siblings. He was four years old when John was born and fourteen years old by the time that his youngest stepsister was born. We have no way of knowing just how close a relationship Timothy maintained with his family, however the fact that Timothy left his home in Northampton and migrated to New Jersey by the time he was thirty, added to the fact that he apparently did not stay in contact with his family and is not mentioned in his father’s will, suggests that the relationship was not strong. Furthermore, none of his stepbrothers and sisters followed Timothy either to the New York or to the New Jersey area. The fact that Timothy appears to have so strongly divorced himself from his family in Northampton when he moved to New Jersey has for many years led family genealogists to conclude that the Timothy Baker who was well established in New Jersey in the early 1700s was not related to the Timothy Baker born in Northampton in 1675. Were it not for the close matching of DNA between descendants of one of the sons of Timothy and Sarah Hollister Baker and some of the descendants of Timothy Baker of New Jersey that showed both were likely descendants of Edward Baker, we would be unable to conclude, as we now have, that the Timothy Baker from Northampton and the Timothy Baker of New Jersey were one and the same individual.

Two special events occurred during Timothy’s early life that may have profoundly influenced his later action of moving away from Northampton. His grandfather, John Marsh, who lived in Hadley, Massachusetts close to Timothy’s home in Northampton, moved to Hartford, Connecticut when Timothy was around twelve. John Marsh who had lost his wife many years earlier and was living alone, at the urging of his daughter, Hannah Marsh Loomis, moved to Hartford to live with his daughter and her family. Timothy was surely saddened when he learned of his grandfather’s death at the end of 1688 and he probably did not understand until later the significance of what his grandfather wrote in his will: “I give to my grandson Baker of Northampton, five pounds, when he shall attayne to the age of one and twenty years.”

An even greater impact on Timothy’s life occurred a few years earlier, when his grandparents Edward and Joan Baker moved away from Timothy’s home in Northampton and returned to their former home in Lynn, Massachusetts. His devotion to his grandparents and in particular his grandmother, must have been enormous and when they left Timothy who was probably no older than ten, he must have been devastated. It was even harder when he learned of his grandfather’s death in 1687. There is no record of his grandfather bequeathing Timothy anything when he died and Timothy is not mentioned in his grandfather’s will. Furthermore when his grandmother died a few years later in Lynn in 1693, there is no record of her leaving Timothy anything in her will. It is my belief however, that before Timothy’s grandparents left Northampton to return to Lynn they left something of value to their grandson Timothy that he would receive at the time he came of age. While neither grandparent Marsh or Baker would have left Timothy a large sum of money, I believe that what he did receive when he reached the age of twenty-one allowed him to leave his home in Northampton and travel south down the Connecticut River towards Long Island and ultimately overland to New Jersey.

It is impossible to know whether religion played any role in Timothy’s decision to move away from Northampton. Timothy’s father became a “freeman” in 1676 at the age of 29 and therefore was recognized as a member in good standing of the local Congregational church. Timothy was no doubt raised as a Puritan and he would have attended church services in the Congregational Church from the time he was an infant in his grandmother’s arms. There are no historical records suggesting that Timothy was a strong proponent of change within his faith that might have compelled him to seek another area more conducive to a freedom to choose how he might worship. It is well known however, that Timothy Baker when he was settled in New Jersey was a member of the Presbyterian Church. How and why he changed churches is a matter of some speculation although I do not think that such a change was “unlikely” as suggested by Richard Herbert Tivey, Governor General of The Society of the Descendants of the Founding Fathers of New England, when he was asked whether or not he believed that the Timothy Baker of Northampton and the Timothy Baker of New Jersey were one and the same person. He concluded that because the two Timothy Bakers were of different faiths it would be dangerous to conclude that they were the same person. Since we now know that they were the same person, it appears that somewhere between Northampton and New Jersey, my 7th great grandfather, Timothy Baker, changed from being a Congregationalist to a Presbyterian.

I cannot purport to be an expert on comparative religions and I acknowledge that when I state that the basic tenets of both the Congregational Church and the Presbyterian Church in the 1600s in America were very similar, I may very well be oversimplifying the facts. Both faiths believed that the word of God was expressed in the bible and that unlike the Church of England and the Catholic Church it was not necessary to have priests, bishops, or popes interpreting the word of God and the manner in which one was to worship. A major difference however, between the Congregational Church and the Presbyterian Church was that the Congregational Church believed in local control and that each church hired its own leaders and determined how it was to manage its own affairs, its forms of worship, and so forth. The Presbyterian Church on the other hand, believed in a more centralized control for the church where church policies were determined by a group of leaders from various Presbyterian churches where a consensus of opinions determined church policy. One of the unfortunate disadvantages of the Congregational Church in early New England particularly in the greater Boston area was that the congregation was often subject to the power of a single theocratic leader whose style of leadership might border on tyranny. One man often under the guise of the word of God and the power he was granted could determine who could join the church and how everyone in the community ran their personal as well as their public lives. The founding of Windsor and Harford in Connecticut, as well as other communities in Rhode Island and on Long Island were all the result at least in part, of groups of Puritans trying to escape instances of the out of control tyranny of theocratic Congregationalism. Other than the area controlled by the Dutch around present day New York City, much of Long Island was settled by Puritans turned Presbyterian beginning as early as 1640 with the founding of Southampton at the east end of the island. Jamaica closer to New York at the west end of the island was founded by Connecticut settlers in 1657. In a history of Long Island it is noted that “Almost all these English settlements were made by Presbyterians and from Jamaica east this was the prevailing denomination.” These early settlers from southern New England who migrated into Long Island were primarily Congregationalists who evolved into Presbyterians. It was not a massive conversion to another faith. It was more of a transformation as to how they wanted to change and manage their faith from an unchecked liberalism to a less radical conservatism. When Richard Herbert Tivey stated that it was unlikely that a Timothy Baker would convert from Congregationalism to Presbyterianism as he moved from Massachusetts to New Jersey, he must have missed the rise of Presbyterianism and the decline of Congregationalism in America beginning in the late 1600s. Whether or not Timothy Baker consciously left the Congregational Church in New Northampton to find a more acceptable church in Long Island or New Jersey we will never know. What we do know is that the transformation appears to have been made without any apparent conflict in his life.

Timothy Baker probably migrated south down the Connecticut River sometime after his twenty-first birthday and after he collected whatever money he inherited from his grandparents or was granted to him by his father when he came of age. His departure if this assumption is correct would have taken place around 1697. Unfortunately, nothing is known about Timothy Baker between the time that he left Northampton until he met and married his wife, Susannah Mathews, in Maidenhead (now Lawrenceville), New Jersey in 1703. We can speculate that his original intentions were to settle on Long Island, possibly in the Jamaica area, where he would have known that many other families from Northampton and from other Connecticut communities had settled beginning in 1657. He may also during this period have spent some time at the home of his Aunt Hannah Marsh Loomis (his mother’s sister) and his Uncle Joseph Loomis in Windsor, Connecticut. His uncle Joseph Loomis was a deacon in the First Church in Windsor, a church that under the guidance of the Rev. Samuel Mather began in the mid-1680s a merger of his Congregational church with another congregation of Presbyterians. The end results of the merger for the combined church meant an increased number of parishioners and more importantly, a more liberal policy going forward for church membership. One of the criticisms of the early Congregation church in New England was that its strict requirements for become a “freeman” that signified membership in the church, also severely limited membership in the church and without a church membership families were unable to have their children baptized. Timothy Baker’s exposure to the First Church in Windsor may very well have encouraged his acceptance of the Presbyterian form of worship at his new home in New Jersey. Another important factor in Timothy’s decision to accept the Presbyterian faith was probably the fact that his future wife and her family were Presbyterians.

Timothy Baker’s future wife and my 7th great grandmother Susannah Mathews was born in Jamaica, New York on Long Island in the year 1679. We know very little about the origins of Susannah’s father, Samuel Mathews, other than he was probably born in England and he was an early immigrant in the Long Island area. His name first appears in historical records in 1655 where he is mentioned in Court Minutes of New Amsterdam. Shortly thereafter in March of 1656, he appears on a list of residents living in Hempstead, Long Island and again in 1656 when his name appears with thirteen other petitioners requesting permission from Governor Stuyvesant of New Amsterdam to settle on land that the petitioners had purchased from the local Indians. Permission was granted and Samuel Mathews with other settlers most of whom had emigrated from Connecticut, settled in what eventually became the town of Jamaica located about 10 miles west of Hempstead. Around 1660, Samuel Mathews married Susannah Strickland, the daughter of John Strickland also living in Hempstead. John Strickland, my 9th great grandfather, was one of the original founders of Hempstead in 1644. Historical records show that he first arrived in America in Salem, Massachusetts from England in 1629 and by 1630 he was one of the earliest settlers in Charlestown where he became a freeman by 1631. The historical records are unclear as to his movements before his arrival in Hempstead in 1644 but what is known is that he brought with him his entire family consisting of one son and seven daughters one of whom was Susannah Strickland who was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts around 1630. Prior to marrying Samuel Mathews, Susannah Strickland was married to Timothy Wood of Hempstead. She married Timothy Wood in 1651 and bore two children with him before he died in 1659. What is interesting here is that Susannah Strickland’s grandson, Matthes Baker (son of Timothy Baker and Susannah Matthews), married a Judith Wood of Jamaica, Long Island and while it seems likely that Timothy Wood and Judith Wood would somehow be related as yet no genealogists including myself have determined their relationship.

Susannah Mathews’ father Samuel Mathews died in early 1695 when Susannah was around 14 years old. Her mother shortly after a brief mourning period for her late husband, married for a third time, a man named Ralph Hunt from nearby Newtown, Long Island. Young Susannah Mathews then accompanied her mother, her new step-father, Ralph Hunt, and possibly her older brother Samuel Mathews Jr. , her sister Mary Mathews as well as some of Ralph Hunt’s brothers and a brother-in-law to a new home in Maidenhead, New Jersey. Ralph Hunt may have planned the move to Maidenhead even before he married Susannah Strickland Wood Mathews as his name appears in public records for land purchases with his brother-in-law, Theophilus Philips, in Maidenhead beginning as early as June of 1694 as well as on numerous other occasions over the course of the next decade. According to the historical narrative “Genealogical and Personal Memorial of Mercer County, NJ” edited by Francis Bazley Lee in 1907, Ralph Hunt was a “Pioneer of Maidenhead”, and a “Prominent man in the community and well known as Captain.” The narrative also portrays that Maidenhead “contained best agricultural land in the state” which if true certainly explains why so many settlers from Long Island as well as Connecticut flocked to the area to buy land from the Quakers who had originally purchased the land in the 1670s. The name “Maidenhead” was given to the area by Quakers but the village that bore the name was later changed to Lawrenceville by the New Jersey legislature in 1816 as apparently they were embarrassed by the suggestive nature of the old English name. I must admit that I spent an inordinate amount of time researching Ralph Hunt primarily because I found it difficult to believe that Ralph Hunt was over twenty years younger than 63 year old Susannah Strickland Mathews when they married. Furthermore there are no records to indicate that he was married prior to marrying Susannah. There seems to be ample evidence that they married despite their age difference. When the husband of Susannah’s daughter, Thomas Smith, died in 1702 he appointed Ralph Hunt, “my father-in-law”, as executor of his estate. Furthermore in a land sale recorded in Maidenhead dated October 16, 1700 there is a notation with respect to the sale: “Ralph Hunt with wife Susanna.” On the other hand, when Ralph Hunt died in 1733 his will referred to his wife Elizabeth and their children. In another record I noted that Ralph Hunt and Elizabeth were married in 1712. In 1712, Susannah would have been around 80 if she were alive which obviously she was not, and Ralph would have been in his late-50s. Ralph apparently had enough spunk left in him to marry a much younger woman after Susannah’s death and father children most of whom were still minors when he died.

We also find in the early land records of Mercer County the names of Joseph and Thomas Smith. While the two Smiths were probably not related, as it is believed that Thomas was born in Bedford Village in the Town of Brooklyn and Joseph in Jamaica, Long Island, they were later to become brother-in-laws. Joseph Smith married Mary Mathews possibly in Jamaica before they moved to Maidenhead. Thomas Smith moved to Maidenhead around 1696 and later married my great grandmother, Susannah Mathews, Mary’s sister, around 1697. They had two children together and she was apparently pregnant with a third when her husband Thomas Smith, “weke of body,” died in November of 1702. Susannah was in her early twenties when she lost her husband. She was not however, left destitute as her young husband had already acquired land and other “Goods and Chattels” in Maidenhead before his death and her older brother Samuel Matthews when he died young in 1700 left his entire estate to his sisters Susannah and Mary. His estate consisted of “three valuable deeds”, 400 acres in Hunterdon County (later Mercer), New Jersey and two parcels totaling 275 acres in Kent County, Delaware. Fortunately for Susannah Mathews Smith, now a widow with infants, along came a nice man from Northampton, Massachusetts named Timothy Baker and they married probably sometime in mid to late 1703.

New Jersey is somewhat unique when compared to the other early American colonies in that the largest portion of its earliest settlers were immigrants from other established colonies instead of newly arrived immigrants from England and Europe. In 1680 the total population of New Jersey is estimated to have been only 3,400 with most of the communities located in New Jersey’s northeast near New York City and Long Island. In the next 20 years New Jersey’s population soared to 14,000 largely made up of Quaker settlers from the Philadelphia area and New England settlers migrating from Connecticut and Long Island. Prior to 1664, New Jersey was claimed by the Dutch although for the most part the land was occupied by Indians. When the English took control of New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, the King of England granted the lands between New England and Maryland which included the future states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, to his brother, the Duke of York who was later to become King James II. The Duke then granted New Jersey to two of his loyal friends and later Pennsylvania to William Penn. New Jersey was then divided into East and West Jersey as shown on the above map. Lord Berkeley who was granted West Jersey, sold almost immediately his western portion of New Jersey to a group of wealthy Quakers in England, one of who happened to be William Penn. These Quakers subdivided and resold the land in large acreages mostly to newly arriving Quakers settlers. The first settlers in the Maidenhead area were Quakers from Buck County, Pennsylvania located just across the Delaware River from West Jersey. They purchased the land in the year 1690.

The economy of the American colonies during this period of our country’s history was based predominately on agricultural. Since family farms in the 17th and 18th centuries required large sections of land and since the population was growing rapidly more as a result of internal growth than immigration, it is not surprising that more and more young families were moving inland in search of available and affordable land. Between 1680 and 1720 the population of the American colonies grew from 151,500 to 466,200. New Jersey during this same period had a population growth from 3,400 to 29,800. It is not surprising that many settlers chose to relocate to, in the words of William Penn, the “good and fruitful land” of the Delaware River Valley. Thanks to the generally peaceful nature of the Native Americans in the region in large part due to William Penn’s magnanimous attitude towards the Indians, the threat of Indian attacks was virtually nonexistent. The climate in New Jersey was more temperate than in New England and less hot and humid in the summers than in the Virginia colony to the south. It matched closely what many of the new settlers remembered of the climate in their English homeland. The Delaware River was wide and deep enough that it allowed large ships to travel upriver from the Atlantic Ocean northward a distance of 200 miles until the river reached an area that they named “The Falls” where further river passage was impossible. The area that they called The Falls soon became a population and commerce center. The name of this early settlement was later changed from The Falls to Trenton. Another attribute of this Delaware River Valley was the large numbers of small river and creek tributaries that laced the land on both sides of the Delaware. These rivers and creeks not only supplied water to the farmers but they were a source of food and transportation. One of these small creeks that meandered northward from the area of “The Falls” (Trenton) was named Shabakunk Creek. It was along a small brook tributary called Little or Lesser Shabakunk Creek near the new community of Maidenhead that Timothy Baker and his new wife Susannah Mathews and her small children eventually settled. Timothy’s first land purchase in 1707 was described as “Lyeing & being between y’ Greater Shabbetunk & y’ Lesser Shabbetunk.” The general location of his land holdings is shown on the map above somewhere in the area between the two Shabakunk creek tributaries in the present day Township of Maidenhead.

While the first land purchases in Maidenhead were made by Quakers from Bucks County in the year 1690, by 1694 large land sales were well underway mostly to new settlers who had followed the old Indians trails from Long Island communities such as Newtown, Jamaica, and Hempstead to this new developing land in West Jersey in the Delaware River Valley. Almost all of these new settlers in Maidenhead were Presbyterians whose parents had originally relocated from New England to Long Island and New York in the mid-1600s. By 1697, Maidenhead with its growing population was officially established and by 1698 there were enough Presbyterian settlers to warrant religious worship and The Presbyterian Church of Maidenhead was organized. It was originally referred to as “The Maidenhead Meetinghouse” as the first structure constructed served both as the church as well as a public meeting place in the same manner that the early Congregational churches in New England served this same dual purpose. The locations of the first two Presbyterian Churches in the area, one in Maidenhead and one in Hopewell are shown on the above map. Timothy Baker and his wife are known to have attended both of these churches.

The fact that Timothy Baker ended up settling in Maidenhead, New Jersey around 1700 or 1701 suggests that he may have lived for a period after he left Northampton, Massachusetts in one of the western Long Island communities, possibly Jamaica. Unfortunately no colonial records have been found that mention Timothy’s name between the year he is mentioned in his grandfather’s will in 1687 and his first land purchase in Maidenhead in 1707. We can only surmise that he left Northampton after his 21st birthday around 1697, spent several years at least in one of the Long Island communities possible living with a family and working as a farm hand, and then around 1700 he relocated to Maidenhead probably following other settlers from Long Island who had chosen to make the journal to this new settlement. There is no evidence that Timothy had the benefit of wealth through inheritance or otherwise which might explain why he was “lost” during this period of history. There is no surviving evidence that he purchased land in either Connecticut or Long Island nor are there any surviving church records that mention a Timothy Baker during this “lost” period of his life. It was not until after he married and thus obtained a certain amount of wealth via his wife’s inheritances from her brother and her late husband that Timothy’s historical presence reemerges in the public records. I suppose we must give credit Timothy for his good marriage.

Beginning with the recording of Timothy Baker’s land purchase in Maidenhead in November of 1707, his name appears in the public or church records almost every year from 1707 until his death at the age of 71 in 1747. We learn primary from his Last Will and Testament that Timothy and Susannah had seven children, four boys and three girls. True to the customs of the day and to the joy of later family genealogists, the couple named their children after their relatives that typically began by naming their first born son and daughter after one of the child’s grandparents. In this case, their first son born in 1704 they named Samuel after Susannah’s father, Samuel Matthews. Their first born daughter born around 1707 they named Grace after Timothy’s mother, Grace Marsh Baker. Baker family historians for many years until DNA testing provided the conclusive answer, had trouble identifying the family origins of Timothy Baker of Maidenhead and his wife Susannah Baker. The clue to their origins as we now know was right in front of them by simply looking at the names of their children. Timothy and Susannah chose for the name of their second son a rather unusual name. They called him Matthes which obviously was a variation or possibly even a mis-spelling of Susannah’s maiden name Matthews. Matthes was born in 1710 and as you will learn in the next chapter, he was my 6th great grandfather. It is interesting to learn that they chose for the name of their third son, the name Thomas in honor of Susannah’s first and late husband, Thomas Smith.

Timothy Baker’s prominence in the Maidenhead community is well reflected in both the public and church records. He is listed over the years in a number of positions including that of Constable, Surveyor of the Highways, Overseer of the Poor, Overseer of the Roads, and Justice of the Peace. He also served in 1719 on the first grand jury held in Maidenhead. He was also a prominent member of the Presbyterian Church in Maidenhead. On several occasions his name is included in a list of church members who helped acquire land for the church and in 1733 he is listed as a church Elder.

The probate date of Timothy Baker’s will was 9 June 1747 which indicated that he died a short time earlier. We know that Susannah survived the death of her husband of 44 years although the year of her death is unknown. Presumably they are buried together but the location of their graves is unknown. It is likely however, that they lie together somewhere in the graveyard of Maidenhead’s Presbyterian Church beneath long lost stones that had marked their graves.

In the next chapter of this blog on our family’s history I will continue with the story of my great grandfather, Matthes Baker.

Chapter 26 - My Baker Ancestors Part 1

2010-07-30T10:51:00.000-07:00

My great grandfather, Asbury Harpending Baker, began his book “Memories” which he published in 1930 with a description of what he knew about his great grandfather. He writes:

“My great Grandfather on my father’s side was John Baker whose birthplace or residence I do not know. His occupation was that of traveling shoemaker, which took him from house to house where he would remain as boarder and lodger until the whole family, old and young, were supplied with foot wear for the year. I do not know at what age he died nor where he is buried. He had seven sons of whom I know nothing with the exception of my grandfather whose name was Elijah, and who died at the age of sixty-five, in Seneca County.”

My great grandfather further writes about his ancestors on his father’s side in subsequent paragraphs: “One brother of my grandfather [Elijah Baker], named Schenck, was a powerful man and a noted wrestler”. About his great grandmother he offers us the following: “My great grandmother on my father’s side was of German parentage and spoke English imperfectly.” Obviously Asbury Baker did not know much about his great grandparents other than his great grandfather was named John Baker who worked as a traveling shoemaker and his great grandmother was German, possibly a recent immigrant, and because they named one of their sons Schenck, her maiden name may have been Schenck. All in all, that was not much to go on. One initial thought that I had was that perhaps my Baker ancestry was not English as I had always presumed, but was actually German or even Dutch and the name Baker was an anglicized version of the German Becker or the Dutch Bakker.

The first break that I had in the search to learn more about my Baker ancestry came when I discovered in an 1850 US Census record in Seneca County, New York a man with the name of Francis Baker who listed himself as age 63, born in New Jersey, and working as a “Shoemaker.” While this man was not named John Baker, the shoemaker occupation matched and from other census records I learned that Elijah was born in New Jersey in 1812 which would have made Francis Baker 25 years old when Elijah was born. While these facts were not much to go on to confirm that Francis was the actual father of Elijah, the data suggested that Asbury may have been wrong when he wrote that his great grandfather’s name was a John Baker. During another search of existing family trees on Ancestry.com I found a tree listing a Francis Baker married to a Sarah Bogaert but with no details such as dates and places, however and because of Sarah Bogaert’s Dutch name I preceded very optimistically to list on my family tree that the parents of my 3rd great grandfather Elijah Baker were Francis Baker and Sarah Bogaert. This was in 2007.
My real break came in June 2010 when I received an e-mail from Fred Baker who had seen my family tree on Ancestry.com. Fred had been searching for over a decade for the parents of his Baker ancestor, his 3rd great grandfather Claudius Coan Baker, who he knew had been born in Seneca County in 1822. Fred had reason to believe that the parents of Claudius Coan Baker might be Francis and Sarah (Bogaert) Baker. Whereas I had more or less guessed as to the identity of Elijah Baker’s parents based on very circumstantial evidence, Fred Baker had been researching for many years for his Baker ancestry and he had the benefit of research reports from professional genealogists, area historians, and shared information that he had received from other Baker family members. Furthermore, Fred had a DNA test which confirmed that he was a descendent of Bakers from New Jersey and Massachusetts. Fred sent me copies of the numerous reports that he had obtained over the years and using this information I was able to conclude with an almost certainty that Francis Baker and Sarah Baker were my 4th great grandparents.

The evidence falls in three categories: names, places and dates. In a partial listing of burials in the Mac Neal Dutch Reformed Cemetery in Seneca County (sent to me by Fred Baker) are the names of Sarah and Francis Baker including their birth and death dates. Also on the list and buried nearby the Bakers are the graves of John and Ann Bogart and their death dates and their ages at their death. If Sarah Baker’s maiden name was actually Sarah Bogart then I concluded that John and Ann Bogart might very well be Sarah’s parents. Continuing my research, I located a site on the Web that contained an extensive listing by David Kipp Conover (over 200,000 names) of the descendents of one Wolphert Gerretse Van Kouwenhoven. On the list I found that Ann SCHENCK was the 4th great granddaughter of Wolphert, the wife of John M. Bogart (Bogert), and the mother of five children including Sarah Bogart. The birth and death dates listed for Ann Schenck and her daughter Sarah Bogart matched the dates on their death records at the Mac Neal Dutch Reform Cemetery in Seneca County. As we learned from Asbury’s book “Memories,” his grandfather Elijah had a brother named SCHENCK and Elijah Baker named his first born son Charles SCHENCK Baker. The name Schenck is unusual enough especially to be combined with an English given and surname, as to suggest that it was a family name. In this case, my great, great grandfather Charles SCHENCK Baker was named for his great grandmother, Ann SCHENCK Bogart.

It probably was not a coincidence that Elijah Baker and his wife Susan Osborn Baker named two of their children Francis and Sarah after Elijah’s parents and named another child George after Sarah’s brother George. Furthermore, it is also probably not a coincidence that Elijah Baker was named for his uncle Elijah Baker, Francis Baker’s older brother. Francis Baker and his father-in-law John Bogart both appear in the 1820 US Census records for Seneca County, New York. In these same records, Francis Baker is listed with three young males in his household under the age of ten one of whom was probably Elijah Baker who in 1820 would have been eight years old. It is possible and even likely that Asbury Baker simply mixed up the name of his great grandfather when he referred to him in “Memories” as John Baker. His recollections of the name John may have come from his hearing the name of his great, great grandfather John Bogart. The fact that Francis Baker listed himself in the 1850 US Census as a shoemaker is more evidence to prove that Francis and Sarah Bogart Baker are the most likely parents of my 3rd great grandfather, Elijah Baker.

As I previously stated, in June of 2010 I was contracted by Fred Baker. Fred was hoping that I might have documentation to confirm that his ancestor Claudius Coan Baker was also a son of Francis and Sarah Baker. He went on to tell me that through DNA testing and correspondence with others with the surname Baker, that he has proven that he is a descendant of Bakers in both Colonial New Jersey and Massachusetts. Fred further sent me a report from a genealogist that had been hired to uncover early historical documents relating to three generations of Bakers in New Jersey including three of the sons of a Timothy Baker: John, Matthes, and FRANCIS BAKER, who were known to have lived in Seneca County in the early 1800s. Fred Baker convinced me that I also should take a DNA test. The results of my DNA test proved that I am genetically related to Fred and we share common Baker ancestors in both New Jersey and Massachusetts. What follows is my story of our Baker family that begins with Edward Baker in the early 1600s.

Edward Baker (c. 1610 – 1687)

My 9th great grandfather Edward Baker first appeared in historical records on March 14, 1638 when he was admitted as a “freeman” in Saugus, (later Lynn) Massachusetts. The year of his birth and the year of his arrival in America have never been determined although some family historians write that he arrived with other Puritans under the leadership of Governor John Winthrop who sailed into Massachusetts Bay with a fleet of ships in the spring and summer of 1630. More recently, genealogists have uncovered historical documents of an Edward Baker who was baptized on 2 February 1613 in Staffordshire, England who they believe was the same Edward Baker who immigrated to New England. In fact however, the location of Edward’s birth in England is widely disputed ranging from Staffordshire in central England, to Suffolk County in southeast England, to Devonshire County in southwest England. His estimated birth year is also in dispute. Truth is we have no concrete evidence as to when and where he was born or when he arrived in America. We can only speculate using common sense and logic.

Edward Baker was probably born to a middle class English couple who owned land in southeast England very possibly in Suffolk or Essex County. Many of the earliest Puritans who immigrated to New England in the 1630s were known to have come from Suffolk and Essex Counties including Governor John Winthrop who was born and raised in Essex. Edward’s parents were probably Puritans. Furthermore, Edward was most likely not their oldest son and he would have known that upon the death of his father he would not be inheriting the family land. Edward was undoubtedly a young unmarried man when he immigrated to America, probably in his early or mid-twenties, and as such he was easily incensed (a trait of youth) by the harsh treatment of Puritans in England that began in earnest when King Charles I gained the throne of England in 1625.

The Puritan movement in England actually began in the middle to late 1500s during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. At the time, the Church of England was the only authorized church in England and laws were passed to curtail the rise of other forms of Protestant ministries such as practiced by the Puritans. For example, laws were passed that required all English subjects to attend church on Sundays and the only authorized church they could attend was the Church of England. Fortunately for the Puritans the laws were loosely enforced and in fact during Elizabeth’s reign and later during the reign of her successor King James I, many of the prominent members of the British Parliament were Puritans. All of this dramatically changed when King Charles I ascended to the throne upon the death of James in 1625. While Charles’ efforts to curtail the growth of Puritanism in England was only a small part of his contentious history as King of England which ended abruptly with his execution in 1649 following seven years of civil war in England, it was enough for the future governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, to write “ . . . Evil times are coming when the Church must fly into the wilderness.” The evil times he was referring to was the harsh treatment of the Puritans and the wilderness that Winthrop chose to “fly into” lay on the Charles River and the future City of Boston. In the spring of 1630, Governor John Winthrop set out from England with a fleet of eleven ships and over 700 passengers bound for the New World. The majority of these passengers were Puritans.

Early Baker family historians have asserted that Edward Baker was a passenger on one of the ships traveling with the Winthrop fleet in 1630 although there is no evidence to support this assertion. While no original passenger lists exist from this time period, the more recent lists of likely passengers arriving in 1630 created by historians does not included the name of Edward Baker. Furthermore, no mention of Edward Baker appears in the early colonial records until he became a freeman in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1638. The principle requirement of becoming a freeman in the 1630s is that one had to become a member in good standing of a Congregational church. The vast majority of the earliest Puritan settlers arriving in New England in 1630 became freemen by 1631. The likelihood that Edward Baker arrived in the Boston area in 1630 and then stayed “under the radar” and avoided joining with his fellow Puritans the Congregational church until 1638, is extremely unlikely. More likely is that Edward Baker immigrated to the New World sometime between 1635 and 1637. While there is no way of knowing for certain, it is estimated that the population around Massachusetts Bay and the Charles River in the new towns of Boston, Charlestown Dorchester, Roxbury and Salem to the north was somewhere around 8 to 10,000 by the time that Edward Baker arrived in America. While the area where Edward Baker eventually settled near Saugus, Massachusetts was settled as early as 1629, it is probable that by 1638 when Edward was granted 40 acres of land near Saugus, this area was one of the closest areas to Boston where large plots of land were still available.

We have no way of knowing Edward Baker’s exact date of birth. What we do know is that he had to be at least 21 years old when he became a freeman in 1638. We also know that he is listed in a history of Lynn as one of its earliest settlers which might suggest that he may have settled in that area as early as 1635 and may have been older than 21 by 1638. If we arbitrarily give him an age of 28 in 1638, or born in the year 1610, then he would have been 47 years old when he moved to Northampton, Massachusetts in 1657 and 77 years old when he died in 1687. I believe that assuming that Edward Baker’s year of birth was around 1610 is a realistic assumption.

We know almost nothing about our 9th great grandmother, Edward’s wife, including her name. Early records are conflicting with respect to her name and she is listed in a few documents as either Joan or Jane. Her difference names may simply reflect the writer’s inability to spell the name Jane or Joan. Joan (we will call her Joan) was probably younger than Edward as 28 would have pretty late for her to marry and she was undoubtedly the daughter of a Puritan couple who had immigrated to America after 1630. They married in 1637 and together they had eight children born between the years 1638 and 1657. If Joan was 40 years old when her last child was born, her birth year would have been around 1617. If that is correct she would have been 20 years old when she married 28 year old Edward Baker.
The couple settled on a 40 acre parcel of land located about five miles south of the existing city of Saugus, Massachusetts now located in present day Essex County just north of the City of Boston. Edward’s land was largely on the south side of a hill that rose to an elevation of 180 feet above the nearby Saugus River and the Massachusetts Bay. Edward and Joan’s neighbors called the area of his farm, Baker’s Hill. Quite to my surprise, the name Baker Hill has survived for over 372 years and the site of the original Baker homestead which is still today a residential neighborhood, is identified on MapQuest as Baker Hill. [The photograph to the left was taken by Barbara Baker in the 1980s at the bottom of Baker Hill. Note the street sign identifying Baker Street.] In 1638, their land was probably covered with large pine trees and rock outcroppings. The soil since it was not along the coastline was probably largely clay embedded with numerous rocks and boulders. This was definitely not a land ideally suited for farming but they made it work and they raised their children most of whom survived to adulthood. The fact that Edward was granted only 40 acres of land which is somewhat smaller than the typical grant to an English “gentleman,” was probably a reflection of his stature or lack of stature in the community. While he was undoubtedly a man of some means since there is no record or suggestion that he immigrated to America as a servant and he no doubt paid for his own passage on the ship to America, his young age and his background probably did not make him in any way exceptional. Despite the term “Freeman,” the early Puritans in America did not treat all of their members equally. Grants of land with respect to size and location were determined by ones wealth and status in the community and as the historical records reflect, there was not always agreement among the Puritan settlers with respect to the land distribution. In any case, Edward Baker must have really struggled to make the land work. Nelson M Baker writes in his “Genealogy of the Descendants of Edward Baker” published in 1867 an eloquent description of Edward’s land and his efforts: “The hill to which his name was first given, has known no other, and yet stands, “rock-ribbed and ancient,” an enduring monument to the God-fearing, liberty loving and hard-working pioneer who gave us this godly heritage.”

As it was not uncommon at the time, it should not come as a major surprise to discover that Edward Baker in 1657, then in his late 40s, sold his property on Baker’s Hill and moved with most of his family to Northampton, Massachusetts. While Northampton had been settled only a few years earlier in 1654, the many other settlements located in the beautiful and fertile Connecticut River Valley had long been home to Puritans many of whom had moved from the Boston area as early as 1635. Hartford and Windsor located about 40 and 48 miles to the south of Northampton respectively were both founded in 1635 and Springfield, where the founders of Northampton first called home was first settled in 1636 and was located 20 miles south of the new village of Northampton. Even in the mid-1600s, the Connecticut River made travel between these four cities relatively easy. While Edward’s reasons for leaving his home in Lynn (formerly Saugus) may have been motivated by religious differences with the Puritan leadership in Lynn, as this was one of the major reasons for the founding of both Hartford and Windsor by earlier Puritans, another and maybe more compelling motive for his move may have been to take advantage of the opportunity both for himself and his sons to purchase excellent land in a new growing community for a fraction of the cost that he received when he sold his land in Lynn. In the above map of 1639 settlements in New England, Northampton was located just north of Springfield and just across the Connecticut River from Hadley. Lynn, Massachusetts was located between Boston and Salem on the east coast of Massachusetts.

In Nelson M. Baker’s history of Edward Baker and his descendants and in a history narrative of Northampton written by James Russell Trumbull in 1898 we learn that Timothy Baker was a large landowner in Northampton. By the early 1660s he owned several grants of land that he had received from the town plus several additional lots that he purchased. His estate is identified as being on the south side of Elm Street running westward from the intersection of Elm and Prospects Streets. We also learn that his son, Joseph, owned land that he obtained from his father on both sides of Henshaw Avenue where it too intersects with Elm Street. [The Loomis homestead in the above picture was built around the same period that Edward Baker built his home in Northampton and it probably closely reflects the appearance of the Baker home. Joseph Loomis who owned this home in Hartford, Connecticut was the brother-in-law of Edward’s son Timothy.] Unless one is familiar with Northampton, the location of Edward’s property does not mean much until we realize that today his property forms a large portion of Smith College. Smith College in Northampton is a premier liberal arts college for women where many famous American women including Barbara Bush, Nancy Reagan, Julia Child, and Gloria Steinem are listed as alumni. Another bit of interesting history about the early Baker family in Northampton is that they planted a lot of American Elms on their property. One very large elm planted at the intersection of Prospect and Elm Street was for many years referred to as “Baker’s Elm.” There is no doubt that all of the elm trees along the old roadway bordering the Baker land accounted for the street’s name, Elm Street.
Edward Baker is credited with being one of the earliest settlers in Northampton. During the many years that he lived in the village he held numerous important town offices and remained for years a “respected and influential” citizen of the community. Virtually all historians and family genealogists write that sometime before his and his wife’s death, Joan and Edward Baker returned to Lynn, Massachusetts. While this makes absolutely no sense from what we know about the exceptional life that Edward and Joan had made for themselves in Northampton, the fact that his Will was recorded in Lynn on 16 October 1685 and his burial on 17 March 1687, it is pretty hard to refute the fact that they had returned to Lynn. Perhaps his actions before his death will help us to understand why he and Joan returned to Lynn. First, before they left Northampton they made certain that both of their sons, Timothy and Joseph, were well situated and owned their plots of land in Northampton. While there is no record of what Edward provided to his other children still living in Northampton before they departed for Lynn, it is likely that he had transferred other items of value to the other siblings of Timothy and Joseph. Edward and Joan Baker may have returned to Lynn to be with their other children and grandchildren who continued to live in and around the Lynn area. While this is only a guess, what we do know is that Edward’s Will listed only a few of his children and the assumption is that he had provided for most of his other children not mentioned in his will prior to preparing the document. Nelson M. Baker writes in Edward’s biography with respect to Edward’s will: In his will “He exhorts his family to live peaceable and pious lives, and desires for himself a decent funeral, suitable to his rank and quality while living.” Edward Baker was clearly a man who placed a great value in his life on the importance of his family and on his religious beliefs. Joan Baker died on 9 April 1693, six years after her husband. The burial location of Edward and Joan Baker, my 7th great grandparents, is unknown although it is assumed that their remains lie in Lynn, Massachusetts.

Timothy Baker (1647-1729)

My 8th great grandfather Timothy Baker was ten years old when he moved from his home in Lynn, Massachusetts to his new home in Northampton. Timothy was the fifth child born to Edward and Joan Baker and the only home that he had ever known was their large clapboard sided farmhouse on the side of the hill that everyone was calling Baker’s Hill. His father had tried to explain to all of them, his brothers and sisters, why they were moving but Timothy did not understand. The Baker family planned their move for months and Timothy helped his family, although reluctantly, to pack the wagons with their family belongings, farming tools, seeds, and other implements that they would need to begin a new life. Timothy knew nothing about where they were headed. He did not know that they would be traveling with other families and with a guide to show them the way. He did not know about the hardships that they might encounter and he did not know that while the trail that they would follow was well worn by other families that had preceded them, it was a rough road filled with deep ruts, and that sometimes after heavy rains, the trail was virtually impassable. Furthermore, the possibility of encountering Indians or unsavory characters on the trail was omnipresent and required that his father and older brother Joseph carry their firearms at all times. The distance they had to travel was over 100 miles and even if the weather remained dry during the entire journey, the group with their loaded wagons, and their farm animals and young children most of whom walked, would move very slowly. Their guide expected that it could take as long as three exhausting weeks before they would arrive at their new home in the town of Northampton. Fortunately for Timothy once the trip began, the excitement of the trail even in the confusion of the wagons, cattle, horses, and people seemingly everywhere, made him soon forget what he was leaving behind.

By the time Timothy Baker had reached his early twenties he could barely remember leaving his home in Lynn and the hard overland trip to their new home in Northampton. Much had changed since their arrival in Northampton in 1657. With the help of their new neighbors their land had been cleared, crops planted, and their new home built. Timothy’s father had become a prosperous farmer and a well respected member of their church and community. In early 1663, Timothy’s older brother Joseph married Ruth Holton, and Timothy’s father built for his son Joseph a new home located near his parent’s home on Elm Street. Timothy, as was required by all young men in his community joined the Northampton militia and he was quickly elected by his peers to the position of ensign. In the early years of our country local militia leaders were elected rather than appointed. This arrangement usually resulted in either a respected member or a wealthier member of the community being elected. Unfortunately the results of an election did not always end up with the most qualified and knowledgeable person left in charge. Timothy probably had little to no training leading a militia unit especially in a fight against the Indians, however the fact that he was elected reflects that he had become at his early age a respected member of his community.

In January of 1672, Timothy then around 24 years old, married Grace Marsh age 17. Their marriage united two important families in the Northampton area. Grace Marsh was the granddaughter of John Webster one of the original founders of Hartford, Connecticut. John Webster had moved to Hartford in 1636 and he soon became one of its principle leaders serving in many important positions between 1639 and 1659 including being elected governor of the Colony of Connecticut in 1656. In 1659, John Webster following a dispute with the Congregational Church leaders in Hartford, led a group of fellow dissenters who were called “withdrawers” (as they withdrew from the church) to the recently settled town of Northampton, 40 miles upriver from Hartford. John Webster and his wife Agnes Smith are my 7th great grandparents as well as bring ancestors of Noah Webster who is known for having a “way with words”. John Webster later settled in Hadley, Massachusetts located across the Connecticut River from Northampton, where he died in 1661.

Also a member of the “withdrawers” was the Webster’s son-in-law, John Marsh who had married their daughter Ann Webster in 1640. Grace Marsh, their youngest daughter born around 1655, traveled with her parents, siblings, and grandparents in the move to Northampton. John Marsh was also a prominent citizen in Hartford and he is recognized along with his father-in-law as one of the Founders of Hartford. Both of their names are engraved on a monument in downtown Hartford commemorating the founding of the city in 1635 and honoring its original settlers. Incidentally, many of the other names on the “founder’s monument” are also my direct ancestors mostly on my fraternal grandmother’s side of our family.

In would be nice to believe that the young 24 year old Timothy Baker met and fell in love with the lovely 17 year old Grace Marsh and following a whirlwind courtship they married in front of hundreds of friends and relatives in a picturesque white clapboard church in the center of town in Northampton. If Timothy and Grace were members of the Church of England this scenario might have been possible, but they were Puritans and for Puritans getting married was a civil union not a religious one, and marriages were officiated by a town magistrate usually in the home of the bride or groom’s parents. Furthermore, it was not considered an occasion, the marriage, worthy of celebration and as such the wedding was not usually followed by a large gathering of family and friends honoring the new couple. Sadly, it is possible that Timothy and Grace may have hardly known one another before they were married. Their fathers both prominent members of the community may have decided that it was time for their children to wed so they prepared a (marriage) contract between their two families that spelled out important matters such as financial issues between the families and the couple, when and where the wedding was to take place, and so forth. As a matter of tradition the bride was permitted to reject the proposed groom but she rarely exercised this right. The Congregational church unlike the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church did not believe that marriage was a sacred rite administered by the church. Puritans believed that the only holy sacraments were those mentioned in the Bible, baptism and communion, and therefore they believed that marriage despite its importance in Puritan life, was purely a civil function to be performed by the local magistrate. And so they were married on January 16th of 1672.

The next four years for Timothy Baker and his family was pretty much a nightmare filled with disappointments. Timothy and Grace’s new life together began with great hopes for the future. As promised, following the marriage, Timothy’s father, Edward Baker, deeded his home and land over to Timothy with the understanding that the parents would remain living in the home along with the newlyweds. Then in late spring of 1672, Grace announced that she was expecting their first child. In early 1673, a baby daughter who they named Grace after Grace’s grandmother, was born but the baby was not well, maybe born prematurely, and she died on a cold winter’s day in February 1673. The family was devastated but they knew that early childhood deaths were not uncommon and they forced themselves to look to the future. Timothy continued to stay busy both running the farm, serving on various civic committees, and several times a week engaging himself with the other local Northampton men in military training and sentry duties. Finally in early 1675, Grace again announced that she was pregnant with their second child.

The period between 1675 and 1676 was a frightening time for everyone in the southern New England colonies. Many of the Native America tribes finally fed up with their ill treatment by the white colonists who were gradually taking their land and their food supply, waged a fierce rebellion against the English communities across the entire region. The rebellion or war is called by historians the “King Philip’s War” named after the Indian leader who the colonists were calling King Philip. From a statistical standpoint this war that is rarely studied in schools today, was one of the bloodiest and costliest wars in the history of North America. Not only were more than half of New England’s ninety towns including Northampton assaulted by the Indians but of the 52,000 English colonists in the area approximately 800 were killed or about 1.5% of the total English population. The Indians fared even worse in the conflict for they lost about 15% of their estimated population of 20,000 with around 3,000 warriors and their families killed. Northampton and the nearby communities of Hadley across the river, and Hatfield about 5 miles upstream from Northampton were all major targets of the Indians during the approximately 12 to 13 months of fighting. This was not a conflict in the traditional sense of war for both colonists and Indians indiscriminately killed women and children in addition to the male combatants. Numerous English towns and Indian villages were burned and food supplies destroyed. In the end, the English colonists were declared the winners but in reality, no one was the victor and the economy was left in shambles.

Through much of the latter half of 1675, Grace Marsh Baker, pregnant with child, faced weeks at a time not seeing her husband for as an ensign in the militia Timothy was often away. Attacks against the local towns near Northampton began in September of 1675 when the Indians ambushed and killed about 70 militia men near south Deerfield (just north of Northampton) in a conflict now called Bloody Brook. Another battle occurred at Hatfield about six miles from the Baker home on October 19th and it is likely that Timothy was with his militia during this fight. For the Baker family however, the war really hit home when on October 28, 1675 a surprise attack by Indians in Northampton resulted in the brutal slaying of Timothy’s older brother Joseph as well as Joseph’s young son. They were killed while working in the fields by their farmhouse. Joseph was 35 when he was killed, his son was only 9. It is hard to know how often Timothy Baker was home during this period or whether or not he was home when his son, Timothy (my 7th great grandfather), was born just before the end of the year 1675. Unfortunately, the war, the cold weather, the constant threat of an Indian attack, and the shortage of food all took their toll on Grace Baker who, probably already weakened from the birth of her second child, was unable to gain the strength needed for her recovery and she passed away on February 10, 1676. Timothy was no doubt devastated. He was exhausted from the war and the experience of watching his comrades slain, he had lost his daughter, he had lost his brother and his nephew, and now he had lost his wife of only four years. It was much to endure although as history records, Timothy Baker continued to serve in his local militia and serve his community.

Conflicts between the colonists and the Native Americans continued in and around Northampton (as well as other areas within Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut) during the entire first half of 1676. Timothy Baker’s name is listed as one of the 150 or so combatants in a battle known as Falls Fight (sometimes called the Turners Falls Massacre) that took place on the morning of May 19, 1676. This particular conflict is one of the low points of the war but it profoundly illustrates the deep hatred that the English colonists felt towards the Indians (and the feeling was no doubt mutual.) In the early morning of May 19, 1676 a contingent of militia from the towns of Northampton, Hadley, and Hatfield surrounded an Indian village near the present day town of Turners Falls, Massachusetts, and in a surprise attack they killed approximately 200 defenseless Indians mostly women and children. There was apparently no attempt at mercy. Following the killings the soldiers then burned the Indian village and destroyed the food supplies. The Indian warriors were not at their village at the time of the attack, however as they learned about what had happened they counterattacked the retreating soldiers and managed to achieve some small amount revenge by killing a few of the fleeing militia. King Philip’s War was finally concluded following the death and beheading of King Philip and the signing of a peace treaty with the Indians in August of 1676. This forgotten war was one of many low points in the relationship between the American settlers and the Native Americans in our county’s early history.

Timothy Baker married his second wife Sarah Hollister Atherton in early 1678. Sarah was the widow of the Rev. Hope Atherton of Hatfield who had died the previous year. It is interesting to discover that Hope Atherton’s name appears along with Timothy Baker’s on the list of soldiers who were present at Falls Fight, especially when I realized that Hope Atherton had the title of Reverend. Apparently for the Puritans the death of an Indian women or child was not considered a sin by the church. Hope Atherton was only 30 years old when he died and one has to wonder if perhaps he died from wounds that he received in the previous year of fighting. Timothy and Sarah were to have five children including their oldest son John who eventually inherited the Baker estate following the death of his father. Timothy Baker continued to serve his community for the remainder of his life. He was eventually elected to the position of lieutenant in the militia, and he served as a “selectman” in the town on a number of occasions as well as serving “often on important committees, both of town and church.” Sarah preceded her husband in death dying in 1691. Lt. Timothy Baker lived to the ripe old age of 82 before finally passing away on 30 August 1729.

This is the end of Part 1. Part 2 begins with the life of Timothy Baker (Jr) (1775-17470

Chapter 25 – My Pennsylvania Ancestors – Part II

2009-10-13T08:40:00.001-07:00

Chapter 1 of the book “Freedom by Degrees, “Emancipation in Pennsylvania and its Aftermath” by Gary B. Nash and Jean R. Soderlund published in 1991, begins with the following sentence: “In 1811, ironmaker Colonel Thomas Bull of East Nanmeal Township, Chester County, registered with the county clerk a six month old black girl Haney. In doing this, Bull ensured that he could keep Haney as his servant [his slave] until she reached 28, which, if she did serve that long, would make her one of the last blacks in Pennsylvania to serve under the terms of the state’s gradual abolition act of 1780.” The chapter goes on to describe Colonel Bull’s other slaves, his “clinging to his slaves,” and “his continued interest in their labor. . .” The chapter further notes that “Bull resisted emancipation” and “It was for Thomas Bull and others like him that the [Pennsylvania] Assembly passed an abolition law that actually freed no slaves and could have kept blacks in bondage as late as the 1840s and beyond.” During his life that we will describe in detail in a future chapter, Thomas Bull was the manager of the Warwick Furnace, an iron forge in Chester County that was a major employer of slave labor before and after the Revolutionary War. Despite the fact that Thomas Bull was almost 70 years old when he registered Haney in 1811 as required under the terms of the [Pennsylvania] abolition act of 1780, he still steadfastly held to the institution of slavery and its symbol of his elevated social status. Despite the fact that Pennsylvania’s abolition act of 1780 was mostly an ineffective political compromise, it strangely achieved its intended results far faster than might have been expected under the terms of the act. At the peak of the slave trade in Pennsylvania in the year 1765, there were approximately 8,000 slaves. By 1780, the number had dropped to 3,750, and in 1810 only 795 were recorded. In 1810, the Chester County census counted only 7 slaves most of whom must have been owned by my 5^th great grandfather, Colonel Thomas Bull (1744-1837).

At first I thought that it was strange that no other writings that I reviewed about Thomas Bull, including a detailed family biography titled “Bulls of Parkeomink, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania and their Descendants” writing by James Henry Bull in 1907, made any mention of the fact that he was a slave holder. Then again, until recently, it was seldom mentioned in history books that such great Americans as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were also slaveholders. We definitely did not read about George Washington as a slaveholder in my 6^th grade social studies class in the late 1950s nor about Thomas Jefferson bedding his young slave girl and her giving birth to their son. Today we generally accept the fact that the majority of the population in our country in the 1700s and early 1800s looked at the institution of slavery as quite normal, therefore to judge my great grandfather harshly by our current standards because he was an advocate for slavery is probably unfair. That is not to say that the signers of our Declaration of Independence many of whom were slaveholders, did not wallow in the epitome of hypocrisy what with their signing a document proclaiming that “all men are created equal. . . with certain unalienable Rights . .” including “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (that document excluded of course the 500,000 black slaves living in our country as of July 4, 1776, and by “all men” what they really meant was all white European men that owned property and of course, women were excluded.) Some no doubt were troubled by this double standard although it does not appear likely that our Thomas Bull fell into that category. During the American Revolution thousands of slaves escaped from their American masters, masters who were both British Loyalists as well as American Patriots. These black men, women and children who ran away were hoping to gain their freedom by joining with the British military forces for protection. Unfortunately while some of the men found work serving as unpaid laborers for the British and a few actually served as soldiers, the rest including the women and children struggled to stay alive battling a lack of food and smallpox outbreaks in the camps. After the defeat of the British at Yorktown in 1781, almost all of the surviving escaped slaves were rounded up and returned to slavery although a relatively small number of slaves were given their freedom and removed on ships to places like Nova Scotia. It is estimated that only around 5,000 black men fought with the Americans during the war and even then many of these men were slaves that served in the war at the direction of their master. On the other hand, it is believed that over 100,000 African Americans (about 1/5 of their total population) fled their masters to join the British. The ultimate irony that we can draw from all of this is that had the British defeated the Americans in their War for Independence, slavery in the American colonies may have ended many years earlier and the American Civil War likely would not have taken place. While today it is “politically correct” to include the study of African Americans in our school textbooks, this inclusion is nevertheless long overdue and should not be the subject of criticism.

This chapter will continue the history of my early ancestors who immigrated to Pennsylvania during the period of William Penn in the late 1600s. I will begin by related the story of the Bull Family. For the record, the daughter of Thomas Bull married the son of William Farmar Dewees and as you may recall, the biography of William Dewees is included in Chapter 21, My Pennsylvania Ancestors – Part I

The Bull Family
Bull Generation #1 – John Bull (1674-1736):
The map to the left was prepared by Thomas Holmes and published in 1687 only a few years following the grant to William Penn of Pennsylvania in 1681. The map shows several interesting aspects of the history of Pennsylvania. First it shows how quickly Penn was able to parcel out the land. In only six years he had granted hundreds of thousands of acres of land to hundreds of new settlers. Secondly, this map is a “roadmap” of Pennsylvania as it existed in 1687 although there are no roads shown on the map with the exception of the streets in the new village of Philadelphia. Actually, the “roads” are shown in great detail on the map; however in this case the roads are called rivers, creeks, and streams. As we have learned and discussed in prior chapters, these rivers and streams were critical in the development of our country and the spread of our population. Philadelphia was built at the confluence of the Delaware River (shown running across the bottom of the map) and the Schuylkill River (shown in the center of the map running bottom to top.) The Schuylkill River served as the major transportation artery into early colonial Pennsylvania and its tributaries with their fast moving waters were used to power the early grist mills that ground the wheat and corn to make flour to feed the early settlers. The first tributary of the Schuylkill River shown on the map is the Wissahickon Creek where we learned in Chapter 21 that the Rittenhouse and the Dewees families constructed our country’s first papermills and the Farmar family constructed a major grist mill known today as “Farmar’s Mill”, a National Historic Site. Further upstream on the Schuylkill River we also learned of iron forges constructed along the river’s tributaries and in particular we learned of Valley Forge located at the confluence of Valley Creek and the Schuylkill River where my great grandfather William Dewees operated a forge and where George Washington encamped his army during the winter of 1777-78.

John Bull is mentioned in historical records for the first time in 1717 when he purchased land in the “Manor of Gilbert’s”. The Manor of Gilbert’s (shown on the enlarged section of the Holmes’ map to the right) was a huge plot of land (over 10,000 acres) that was set aside by William Penn for his own development. He named the land Gilbert after his paternal grandmother, Joan Gilbert, and it embraced the whole of the present day townships of Upper and Lower Providence and parts of Perkiomen and Worchester townships in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. The Manor of Gilbert’s was bisected by the Perkiomen Creek, another tributary of the Schuylkill. The intersection of the Perkiomen and the Schuylkill is located a short distance upstream from Valley Forge (identified as “Mountjoy” on the 1687 map) and not far from the land of Jasper Farmar shown in the lower right hand corner of the map.

The origins of the Bull family and John Bull in particular, is not known. Some Bull Family genealogists believe that the family emigrated from Radnorshire in Wales. The only evidence that is offered in support of this is that many of the earliest settlers in this region of the Perkiomen Creek were from Wales. Furthermore, Edward Lane who sold to John Bull in 1717 some of his 2,500 acres of land in the Manor of Gilbert plat that he had purchased from William Penn in 1701, was also known to have encouraged immigration and the sale of his land to early Welsh settlers most of whom were Quakers. I do not believe that this evidence is sufficient to state definitively that the Bull family origins were Welsh. It should also be pointed out that most of the Welsh settlement in Pennsylvania took place on the western side of the Schuylkill River in an area generally referred to as the “Welsh tract” which included parts of present day Chester County, Delaware County, and Montgomery County but east of the Manor of Gilbert area in present day Lower Providence township. The Welsh Tract consisted of around 40,000 acres and it is believed that by the year 1700 about one third of the 20,000 settlers in Pennsylvania had emigrated from Wales and spoke Welsh. It is very possible that John Bull was Welsh but I believe that it is more likely that he was from mainland England and possibly from Bristol, where Edward Lane is known to have lived. We further know that John Bull was a member of the St. James Episcopal Church [Church of England] located in present day Collegeville, a church that was founded by Edward Lane shortly after 1701, probably on land that Lane had donated. We really know little of the life of John Bull other than he was a farmer, a large landowner (some 400 plus acres on the Shippack Creek, a branch of the Perkiomen Creek), and a devote member of his church. The above sketch of St. James Church shows how it appeared when John and Elizabeth and their family attended services there in 1721. The original log building that first served as their church had burned and John Bull probably assisted with the construction of the new stone church shown in the sketch. John’s wife’s name was Elizabeth and her maiden name is unknown. The couple had six children including my 6^th great grandfather, Richard Bull who was born on the family farm in 1714. One of their sons, John Joseph Bull, my 6^th great granduncle, is believed to have married an Indian woman who converted to Christianity and together they moved to Ohio where they became missionaries.

John Bull died in November of 1736; Elizabeth is believed to have died on the same day as her husband possibly both of them succumbing to the same illness. Together they were buried in the old church cemetery next to the St James Episcopal Church located just to the east of the town of Collegeville in the small hamlet of Evansburg along the banks of the nearby Skippack Creek. Richard’s gravestone simply states: “Here lyeth the Body of John Bull, who died November 1736. Aged 62 years.” The engraving on the gravestone of Elizabeth has been worn almost smooth by time and is illegible.

Generation 2: Richard Bull (1714-1799)

Richard Bull, the third child and second oldest son of John and Elizabeth Bull was born in 1714 at his parent’s home located along the banks of the Shippack Creek in the present township of Lower Providence in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. As is the case with most of my early colonial ancestors, I learn of the life of Richard Bull primarily by reviewing the early church and land transaction records as well as any other available public records and from these small pieces of information I attempt to determine the value of Richard Bull’s life and his role in history. For example, on August 1, 1736 Richard Bull was among a group of 37 male members of the congregation of the St James Episcopal Church who filed a petition requesting the appointment of a minister for their small church in Collegeville. The church was located only a short distance from their home. Also signing the petition was Richard’s father, John Bull, his two brothers, Thomas, age 31, and William, age 17, and Richard’s neighbor and future father-in-law, Henry Pawling, and his future brother-in-law, Henry Pawling Jr. Richard was 22 when he signed the petition. From this document I draw the mental picture of a close family who probably all worked the family farm together six days a week and then every Sunday, the entire family together with Richard’s nephews and nieces, the children of his brother Thomas and his wife, all climbed aboard the family wagons for the short trip to the small church in the nearby village. It was probably at this Sunday service where Richard first met his future wife, Elizabeth Pawling, the daughter of their neighbor, Henry Pawling. The Pawling family had moved to the land immediately to the south of the Bull property when Richard was only two years old so it is very likely that Richard had grown up knowing young Elizabeth Pawling, who was five years his junior.

Only three months following the Bull family signing of the church petition requesting a minister, both Richard’s father and mother died suddenly. This was in early November of 1736. According to a biography titled “The Bull Family” written by James H. Bull in 1919 it was written that “Richard Bull first settled on the property left to him by his father’s will in Tredyffin Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania.” This one simple sentence in this extensive narrative of the Bull family caused me much confusion until I finally concluded that the author of the biography was probably unfamiliar with the geography of Pennsylvania and thus unaware that the Bull family property was actually located in the township of Lower Providence in Montgomery County located immediately to the north of Chester County. The vast majority of the Bull family trees uploaded to Ancestry.com show almost all of the children of Richard and Elizabeth Bull as having been born in Chester County and a few of the trees even list Richard Bull’s birth location as Chester County. I have concluded that Chester County is not where the family lived after the death of John Bull. They continued to live on the family farm along the Skippack Creek and they continued to attend the St. James Church until sometime shortly after 1760. Part of the confusion is caused by my not being able to find any St James’ church records for the period of immediately after 1740, although that is not to say that they do not exist. Richard Bull is listed as a vestryman of St James’ Church in 1740, however there is no record of his marriage to his childhood friend and neighbor, Elizabeth Pawling whom he married sometime between 1741 and mid-1743, and there are no records of the baptisms of his children born between 1744 and 1758. Of course, had the Richard Bull family actually moved to Chester County during this period, the records would be at another church. There were however, only two other Church of England congregations in this vicinity in the early 1700s, St David’s located near the village of Radnor in Delaware County about 20 miles to the southeast (noted as Mark C on map), and the Church of St Peter located in the northwest corner of Tredyffin Township in Chester County (noted as Mark B on map), located about 12 miles southwest of St James’ Church and their home (noted as Mark A on map below). Neither of these other churches record the Bull family as members of the congregation during this time period. The only real evidence that I could find that supports the believe that the Richard Bull family remained in Montgomery County after his father’s death and after 1740 is a listing in a newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, that is dated October 11, 1750 wherein Richard Bull advertises a reward of twenty shillings for the return of his “large bay horse” that was stolen from his field “last Saturday night.” The newspaper ad goes on to describe the stolen horse but more importantly it states that “Whoever will bring said horse to Richard Bull’s, or Henry Pawling’s [his brother-in-law], both of Providence township. . . .” therein stating that Richard Bull at least in 1750, continued to live in Montgomery County and not in Chester County as suggested in the narrative “The Bull Family” by James H. Bull. I dwell on this matter not only because I wasted a lot of time trying to discover where Richard Bull and his family lived between 1740 and 1760, but also to point out how important it is not to accept everything that is written in historical narratives as fact. One other interesting historical tidbit that I learned while researching these early “Episcopal” churches in colonial Pennsylvania is that prior to 1776 these churches were not called Episcopal churches as they are today. Prior to 1776, St. James’, St. David’s, and the Church of St Peter were all part of the mother Church of England which accepted the King or Queen of England as the head of the church. Naturally at the approach of the American Revolution, the concept of the King of England being the head of an American church became an extremely unpopular concept. One of the leaders of the revolt in this regard, was a soon to be general in George Washington’s Continental Army, General “Mad” Anthony Wayne, who as a member of the congregation of St. James’ Church in Radnor, made sure that anyone who did not support the American cause was to be quickly run out of the congregation of his church. The American Church of England was later to be called the Episcopal church whereas in Canada and in England today the Church of England is called the Anglican church.

We can only speculate as to why in 1760 Richard Bull sold his land in Lower Providence Township in Montgomery County, his home for 46 years, and moved his family south to West Whiteland Township in Chester County, near “The Church of St. Peter in the Great Valley” (noted as Mark B on map), where he purchased over 400 acres of land which in 1760 was still in large part covered with forests. It is possible that Richard made the move for financial reasons as perhaps he was able to sell the farmland in Lower Providence Township at a huge profit. It is also possible that he moved so that he could change churches as he may have been dissatisfied with the leadership at St David’s. The only way that we will know his motives for certain will be to ask him and for the time being that will have to wait until later (much later I hope.) In 1763, Richard Bull was selected as a vestryman at the Church of St Peter and he served in that role until 1771. It is also recorded that in 1775 the Richard Bull family donated 76 English pounds for new pews for the church. The Church of St Peter in the Great Valley is shown in the above photograph taken shortly after the end of the Civil War. The construction of the original stone church was completed in 1744 and looked when completed much the same as the photograph although somewhat smaller. The church’s location was only two miles northeast from the site of the Paoli Massacre, a Revolutionary War battle fought in September of 1777 and both British and American casualties of that battle are known to have been buried in the churchyard. There is also strong circumstantial evidence that the then-abandoned St Peter’s church building located less than three miles west of Washington’s encampment at Valley Forge in 1778 was used as a crude hospital for the Continental soldiers. The church is still in existence and is in use each Sunday. It is set in a rural area on the valley hills surrounding the Valley Creek that winds its way northeast to the area of Valley Forge where it joins the great Schuylkill River. While Richard Bull left the area of the church and moved westward in the early 1770s, it should be noted that his oldest son, Thomas Bull, my 5^th great grandfather, remained a member of the Church of St Peter and served as a vestryman of the church from 1787 through 1799 and occupied the prominent No. 2 pew. This pew may have been purchased by Richard Bull for his son in 1775 as it is not clear Richard Bull was still living near the church as late as 1775.

It is astonishing that Richard Bull after only a little over a decade of living in the “Great Valley” in West Whiteland Township once again put his land up for sale. In the November 2, 1774 issue of “The Pennsylvania Gazette” his ad reads in part: “To be sold by the subscriber, a plantation, of 150 acres of good limest one land, lying in the Great Valley, about two miles from the Sign of the White Horse, 28 miles from Philadelphia, and 20 miles from Chester; it having about 80 acres cleared, all well fenced and in good repair, also two good dwelling houses, barn and stables, and other convenient outhouses, and about 20 areas of good watered meadow, and more may be made; also a good or chard; the whole well timbered and watered; the right is indisputable . . . .” It goes on to note than an additional 100 acres is included and the purchase can be made by applying to Richard Bull, “living on the premises.” His land finally sold in 1775 and his son John Bull purchased a portion of his father’s land.

Richard Bull’s move with his two sons Henry and William to the Raccoon Valley located northwest of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania must have been premeditated. While the historical records are confusing and contradictory it appears that land was purchased in this area by the Bull family as early as 1763. In a history of the Bull Family it was noted that land was “warranted in the name of William Bull” on March 13, 1763 although this is conflict with information published on the historical website written by Perry County, Pennsylvania which states that the land was purchased by his brother Henry in 1763. In 1763, William was only 5 years old and his brother Henry was just 16 years old and I believe that it is safe to assume that it was their father who negotiated and purchased the land in the name of one of his sons, probably Henry. The location of their land is near the present day village of Donnally Mills and according to MapQuest the distance from their home in Chester County to their new land in Perry County is approximately 120 miles (Mark A to Mark B on map). Historical records seem to agree that on this new property between the years 1765 and 1767 a 3-story grist and saw mill was constructed of limestone followed afterwards by a stone dwelling. Since we know that Richard Bull was still an active member of the Church of St. Peter through 1771 which is the last year that he served as a vestryman and we also know that he occupied his home until 1775 at which time his land was sold, it appears that he may have traveled back and forth and spent some of his time at Donnally Mills assisting his young son getting his business started before finally moving himself, his wife and possibly his youngest son William (now 17) to Donnally Mills in 1775. Richard Bull was 61 years old in 1775 and pretty old to start his life again in what was mostly a wilderness area in the years just prior to the start of the American Revolution. The trip or the hard life in this new land may have cost Elizabeth Pawling Bull an early death, for there are no records of Elizabeth after 1775 and she is not buried with her husband in the Bull Hill Cemetery in Donnally Mills. Richard Bull however, was resilient for he lived until he reached the age of 85 finally passing away in 1799. The mill constructed by Henry Bull in the late 1760s still stands to this day (see photo). It was originally called Bull’s Mill although the name was changed to Donnally’s Mill when Henry sold the mill to Michael Donnally in 1836.

Before I continue this history story to the next generation on the interesting life of my 5^th great grandfather, Thomas Bull, I think that it is worth diverting for a few paragraphs to narrate the history of Thomas Bull’s maternal grandparents and his great grandparents, the Pawling Family.
Generation #1: Henry Pawling (Birth date unknown - died 1692),Grandfather of Elizabeth Pawling, the wife of Richard Bull:

Henry Pawling arrived in America at an interesting time in American history as well as New York City history. On August 27, 1664, Henry, described in an historical account as “a gallant young Englishman of means, education, and enterprise”, was on board one of the four British war frigates that sailed into New Amsterdam’s harbor and demanded the surrender of the city and the land called by the Dutch as their New Netherlands. Two months later in October, the Dutch director-general, Peter Stuyvesant, formally ceded control of the city to the British commander and as we know, the city was later renamed New York after the current Duke of York (future King James II) and brother of the English King Charles II. Henry Pawling’s engagement in the takeover of the Dutch-controlled lands in North America marked the beginning of the Second Anglo-Dutch War. This war unlike so many wars caused by religious intolerances and struggles over the control of land, was a conflict caused primarily by mercantile competition and control over overseas trading routes. Furthermore, the Dutch controlled land in America represented for the British merchants, a much desired and lucrative trading partner once the Dutch were removed. The war itself which consisted mostly of naval battles, latest only until 1667, and except for the British retaining the City of New York under the terms of the Treaty, the Dutch immerged from the war as victors. The Dutch Republic was for the next few years at the “zenith of its power” with the world’s most powerful navy. In 1673, the Dutch briefly recaptured New Netherlands during the Third Anglo-Dutch War however, under a treaty signed in 1674, the city was again relinquished to English rule. Henry Pawling was to remain in America for the remainder of his life.

There are no records of where Henry Pawling lived in England. Some genealogists list him as hailing from Padbury in Buckinghamshire County, England although most historians now believe that our Henry Pawling is not the same Henry Pawling from Padbury who purchased land from William Penn in 1681 and shortly thereafter immigrated to Philadelphia. If Henry spent any time in London which no doubt he may have, he was very fortunate to have escaped the Black Plague which began in the spring of 1665 and at its climax killed seven thousand people in a single week. He also missed the Great Fire of London which started in September of 1666 just as the Plague was subsiding and burned for four days destroying much of London before it finally burned itself out. The date of Henry Pawling’s birth is unknown although the vast majority of the family trees on Ancestry.com list his birth date as 1650. Considering however, that he arrived in New Amsterdam in 1664 as a soldier and possibly as an officer, it seems extremely unlike that he was only fourteen years old at the time. Furthermore, if he were born in 1650 he would have been only 42 when he died in 1692 which is certainly possible in the 17th century, although the 1692 death date and the 1664 arrival date strongly hint to a more likely birth date of around 1640 or earlier. On the other hand, if Henry Pawling was born in 1640 he would have been 36 years old when he married 21-year old Neeltje Roosa on November 3, 1676 and 52 years old when his last child was born. I guess that I will have to be satisfied that I will never know the birth date of my 8^th great grandfather. Fortunately, we do have many colonial records of Henry Pawling’s life in America.

Henry Pawling’s name first appears in the records when he was appointed to help layout lots in the town of Esopus (also known as Wiltwyck and later changed to Kingston) in November 1668. The village of Wiltwyck [“Kingston”] was located on a site of land where the Rondout Creek meets the Hudson River. This land was thought to be first used by Dutch fur traders in the early part of the 17^th century. The first major settlement of Kingston occurred in 1652 when 60-70 settlers moved down from Fort Orange (Albany) and set up farms along the fertile flood plains of the Esopus and Rondout Creeks. In 1658, the Dutch authorities in New Amsterdam responded to Indian threats by sending soldiers to the settlement to aid in the construction of a stockade fort around the village (see sketch of the stockade to the left.) In 1660, the Aeldert (Albert) Heymans Roosa family, newly arrived from Holland, preceded up the Hudson River and settled in Kingston. With Albert Roosa were his wife and eight children including the future wife of Henry Pawling, my 8^th great grandmother, Neeltje Roosa who in 1660 was about seven years old. In 1662, the Roosa family moved to the new settlement of Hurley (then called Nieuw Dorp) located along the Esopus Creek about four miles west of the stockade at Kingston. In 1663, the local Indians attacked the village of Hurley and the stockade at Kingston burning many homes, killing at least eighteen men, women and children, and kidnapping ten more (some report as many as 45 were captured) including two of the children of Albert and Wyntie Ariens Roosa. Albert was among the military party that subsequently subdued the Indians. Fortunately, the two Roosa children captured by the Indians were eventually returned. After the English gained control of New Netherlands in 1664, the new British governor, Richard Nicolls, placed a Captain Daniel Brodhead in command of the Kingston area. Apparently Brodhead mistreated the Dutch citizens in the area for in February 1667, the Dutch “burghers” revolted against the tyrannical conduct of Brodhead and his soldiers in what became known as the “Mutiny of Esopus”. One of the leaders of the revolt was my 9^th great grandfather, Albert Heymans Roosa. He and others were subsequently arrested, tried, and found guilty and they were sentenced to be banished from the colony. Their sentence was later rescinded and Captain Brodhead who admitted to his ill-behavior was suspended from his command (and three months later he died.) It was in this volatile environment that our Henry Pawling was instructed by the governor to go to Kingston.

It is generally accepted that Henry Pawling was intelligent and well educated, and a “very influential man and a leader in public affairs” and a man of property. He probably was respected by his Dutch neighbors and hopefully by his father-in-law, Albert Heyman Roosa, and he obviously learned to speak fluent Dutch although he is known to have encouraged the Dutch Reformed church to offer services in both English as well as Dutch. It is believed that he was also able to speak the local Indian dialect. He was first ordered to proceed to the Kingston area in 1668 to help layout lots and to induce the English soldiers now living in the colony to settle in the area. He was also a member of a commission organizing the new villages of Marbleton, Hurley and Kingston and in 1669 while still serving as a British officer, he was made an “officer over the Indians” presumable with the responsibility of hearing Indian grievances and keeping the peace between the local Indians and the colonists. In 1670, Henry was commissioned to be “captain of the foot company”, the militia, for the towns of Marbleton (Mark C on map), Hurley (Mark B), and Kingston (Mark A) which was to immediately assume the responsibility for the security of the villages. At the same time the Crown soldiers that were garrisoned at Kingston were disbanded and encouraged to purchase land in the area.

Obviously the young and maybe impressionable Neeltje Roosa would have viewed Henry Pawling as an ideal choice for a husband despite his being a decade older. Everyone in the community knew Henry (although they may have known him as Henderick Palingh). Furthermore, Neeltje’s father was a sergeant in the militia and served under Captain Pawling, as did her older brother. Henry and Neeltje married on November 3, 1676 and they made their home in Marbleton about eight miles west of Kingston. Together they were to have eight children including their 7th child and youngest son, my 7^th great grandfather, Henry Pawling Jr. who was born in 1689. Henry Pawling Sr. served as High Sheriff of Ulster County for four years beginning in 1684. Prior to his death in 1692, he was granted four thousand acres of land in Dutchess County (on the east side of the Hudson opposite Kingston)noted on early maps as the “Pawling Purchase.” Unfortunately he died before he was able to profit from the grant. The property was left in his will to his wife. Neeltje outlived her husband by over 50 years. Henry and Neeltje are excellent examples of how in America, people of two different cultures, English and Dutch, speaking different languages and attending different churches could marry and prosper, have children, and spread their inherent individual strengths into future generations.

Generation #3: Henry Pawling Jr. (1689-1739):

We learned in Chapter 21 of our family history blog, that my ancestor William Dewees lived on and owned during the American Revolution a portion of what today is the Valley Forge National Historic Park. I was pleasantly surprised to learn in my research of the Pawling family that my 7^th great grandfather, Henry Pawling Jr., also owned a portion of the land that is presently within the Valley Forge National Historic Park. His property was located on the north side of the Schuylkill River. Several portions of the park have as their northern border, Pawling Road, obviously was named after the Pawling family who were very early settlers in this part of Pennsylvania.

Henry Pawling Jr. was born in his parent’s home in Marbleton, New York in the year 1689. He was under three years old when his father died and as there is no evidence that his mother ever remarried, Henry was probably raised by his mother and may have lived at his mother’s home until at the age of 24 he married 21-year old Dutch girl, Jacomyntje Kunst, on June 26, 1713. It is not clear exactly which village the Pawling family lived in Ulster County although genealogists list their first three children as having been born in Kingston including their third child and my 6^th great grandmother, Elizabeth Pawling who was born on March 21, 1719. The only actual colonial record of Henry Pawling Jr. in Ulster County is his inclusion on a listing of soldiers in the “Marbleton Company of Foot” in an Ulster County Regiment of Militia in 1715. That that he served in a militia raised from Marbleton citizens suggests that their home was probably in Marbleton and not Kingston.

There is consensus that by September 1719, the Henry Pawling Jr. family had moved to their new home “in Lower Providence Township, on a plantation of five hundred acres at the confluence of the Schuylkill and Perkiomen [Rivers]. . .” Henry Pawling Jr. was only 30 years old when he moved his family from Ulster County, a distance of almost 180 miles. His older brother, John Pawling made the move with his family into Pennsylvania at almost the same time as Henry. The size of Henry’s land purchase (500 acres) and the location and quality of the land, described by one English diarist as “one of the most beautiful and healthful I have known either in England or America”, suggests that Henry Jr. was the beneficiary of some of his father’s wealth. If so blessed he nevertheless was able to prosper by his own efforts for it is written in a Pawling Family History that “. . Henry Pawling devoted himself to agriculture and reaped a competence. The inventory of his real and personal estate includes: eight slaves, eight horses, twenty-five cattle, thirty-one sheep and fourteen pigs.” Once again it is interesting to find another one of my ancestors as a slave owner and it is interesting to see that the slaves were included in a listing of livestock.

The Henry Pawling family, like the John Bull family their immediate neighbors to the north were early members of the St. James Church located near the present day city of Collegeville. Henry was listed as a vestryman in the first recorded meeting of the vestry in October of 1737 and he served in that capacity until his relatively early death in 1739. Henry is buried in the cemetery at St James Episcopal Church. The date and burial location of Jacomyntje is unknown although she may also be buried in a now unmarked grave in the cemetery at St. James. As we noted above their daughter Elizabeth married Richard Bull, the son of John and Elizabeth Bull. Thomas Bull, the son of Richard and Elizabeth Pawling Bull married Ann Hunter, the daughter of John Hunter and Ann Parry Hunter. Before we review the biographies of Thomas Bull and Ann Hunter, it is worth spending a few paragraphs discussing the parents and grandparents of Ann Hunter.

Generation #1: John Hunter (1667-1734):

John Hunter is the grandfather of Ann Hunter, my 7^th great grandfather, and my great grandfather Eugene Ferree’s 4^th great grandfather. We know almost nothing about the early childhood of John Hunter other then he was born in England in the year 1667 most likely to affluent parents in the gentry class. While some family historians have placed the year of his birth as 1664, the markings on his gravestone stated that he was 67 years old when he died in 1734 and I have seen no reason to question this statement. Historians also seem unable to agree as to exactly where he was born and how he ended up in Ireland. One common belief is that his “father was a prominent member of the Established Church of England” and “Upon the accession of King James II [who was a Roman Catholic] he moved to Rathdrum, Wicklow County, Ireland, to escape observation.” If this were the case, the move to Ireland would have taken place sometime after James II was crowned King of England in 1685. Even if we accept the fact that the family moved to Ireland around that time, it is unlikely a result of the fact that James II was a Roman Catholic. The Church of England was very powerful during that period and despite James’ attempts to encourage religious tolerances during his short reign such as allowing Catholics to serve as officers in the army and in civil serve positions, it seems doubtful that the Hunter family would have felt threatened by the Catholic King to the extent that the threat was a primary motive for relocating to “escape observation” especially to a county that was predominately Roman Catholic. In fact, one strong ally of King James II during this period was William Penn, himself a victim of religious intolerances. It seems a great deal more likely that the Hunter family head may have benefited from a grant of land in Ireland perhaps as a result of his father’s services in the military or in public service. This was a very common occurrence in this period of history and as you will recall both the William Penn family as well as my own Jasper Farmer family, were granted huge estates in Ireland for services rendered to the Crown. [See Chapter 15 of this Baker Family Tree history blog for more information on this subject.] There also seems to be a general consensus that the Hunter family lived in Northern England possibly in Yorkshire County where John Hunter’s brother Peter lived prior to his move to Ireland in the mid-1670s. I could find no convincing evidence however, to support the belief expressed by some family historians that John Hunter originally hailed from Medomsley in Durham County, England and was related to the prominent and ancient Hunter family that owned the estate known as Medomsley Hall. If there is a relationship, it has never been proven.

There are a surprising number of writings about the life of John Hunter although unfortunately many of the accounts are anecdotal in nature and many of the writings were probably based on earlier erroneous statements by others. While it is not unusual to find contradictions in historical accounts especially on the life of an individual who lived 300 years ago, in John Hunter’s case we find an unusual number of contradictions. The year of his birth, when and why he moved to Ireland, when he married his wife, the extent of his military career, when and why he emigrated to America, and the age and birth location of his children are all in question. In this historical account I have tried to offer my best interpretation as to the facts although I readily admit that there are valid reasons that others may disagree with my conclusions.

King James II was crowned King of England and Ireland in April of 1685 and almost immediately many prominent groups in England, namely Protestant members of the English Parliament and nobility as well as the clergymen with the Church of England, were unhappy with both James’ expressed and demonstrated belief in “absolute monarchy” (the King cannot be wrong), and with his attempts to increase the influence of Catholics both in public administrative offices as well as in the military under the guise of creating religious liberties for his English subjects. James II was as a Roman Catholic very much out of step with his countrymen who were overwhelmingly Anglican (Protestant) and very distrusting of Roman Catholics and the influence of the Pope. Furthermore, his efforts to raise his own army very much disturbed many in the English Parliament and finally in June of 1688, a small group of Protestant nobles invited William of Orange, the husband of James II’s daughter Mary, to come to England from Holland with an army to remove James II from power. William and Mary were both Protestants. Prince William arrived in November of 1688 and James rather than do battle with William’s army elected in December to escape to France. In France, James with the support of the French monarchy quickly raised an army to retake the English throne. In March of 1689, James with his French troops invaded Ireland where he immediately gained control of the island with the support of the native Irish who were predominately Roman Catholics. My great grandfather John Hunter as a Protestant Englishman living in Ireland, was obviously threatened by James and probably in anticipation of the invasion by James and his French army, may have removed himself in early 1689 to England to join the English forces or he may have stayed in Ireland and joined a Irish Protestant regiment organized to resist James’ invasion army.

We do not know for certain which regiment John Hunter attached himself to but it may very well have been Wynne’s Regiment of Enniskillen Dragoons, a regimental unit of horse soldiers that was initially formed in northern Ireland of Irish Protestants who had fled James’ invading forces. It is also possible that John Hunter went to England and joined Dragoons units such as the 4^th and 5^th Royal Dragoon Guards that were originally organized in England by King James II before he fled to France. The 4^th and the 5^th Dragoon Guards were known to have accompanied William of Orange when he went to Ireland with his army in June of 1690. What we do know is that John Hunter rode into battle on July 1, 1690 with 3,500 other cavalry soldiers alongside William of Orange and helped William defeat James and his French and Irish Catholic allies at the Battle of the River Boyne. John Hunter was only 24 years old when he rode into battle waving his broad sword over his head and it is hard to imagine that at this point in his short life, it was not the most exciting day of his life. The Battle of Boyne was the largest battle ever fought on Irish soil. It consisted of James’ army of 25,000 (of which 19,000 were Irish Catholics troops) against William’s army of 36,000 composed of Dutch, Danish, Swiss, and Huguenot troops as well as English, Scottish and Protestant Irish forces. At the conclusion of the battle that left behind around 2,000 casualties, a surprising small number considering the number of combatants, James’ army was left in defeat and James, the former King of England, escaped to France never again to return to England and reclaim his title. In fact, James was to be the last ruler of England to be of the Catholic faith. The Battle of the Boyne is significant in English history not only because of the defeat of James and the French, but also because it established for the next 200 plus years English control of Ireland’s politics and land ownership.

Many of the family biographies of John Hunter write that John Hunter’s military career culminated with the Battle of the Boyne and they further credit him with commanding a squadron of Dragoons during the battle. His young age of only 24 and his obvious lack of military experience make both of these assumptions a very unlikely possibility. It is far more likely as reported by other historians that John Hunter remained in the military for the next twenty years fighting the French and Irish in Ireland following the Battle of the Boyne, and later in the 1690s under the command of King William III against the French in Europe, and following the death of King William, fighting with the English army under the famous British commander, the Duke of Marlborough, in the War of Spanish Succession during the first decade of the 1700s. It was as a result of his achievements during these long years of war that John Hunter eventually rose to the rank of Captain.

During the period of my 7^th great grandfather John Hunter’s life he was to be witness to a major change in the military power of England. Furthermore he was not just a witness to the changes but he was an active participant beginning with the “Glorious Revolution” in 1688 with the overthrow of England’s last Catholic King, King James II, the ascension of King William III, and the rising power of the English Parliament. King William III, the former William of Orange, sovereign Prince of the Dutch Republic and the other lowland countries, was to bring with him to the English throne (along with his wife Mary) the Dutch military forces which afforded him the power to defeat the French and Irish armies under King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. John Hunter is believed to be a standard bearer in the battle possibly in the cavalry unit known as “Coy’s Horse”, a regimental unit in King William’s army. When this regiment returned to England with King William after the battle, John Hunter remained in Ireland and joined the 5^th Royal Regiment of Irish Dragoons which for the next year continued to battle the French and Irish forces in Ireland (sans King James II and William III) until the French and Irish forces were defeated at Aughrim on July 12, 1691. The Battle at Aughrim is known to be the bloodiest battle ever fought on Irish soil with 7,000 casualties and 38,000 participants.

It is assumed that after the last battle in Ireland, John Hunter remained with his Regiment garrisoned in Fermoy in County Cork until they were deployed in April 1694 to France to fight with King William’s army. While it is not entirely clear when John Hunter married his wife Margaret Albin, my 7th great grandmother, most sources believe that it was during this period of relative peace in Ireland in 1693 that they married and had their first child, a daughter Mary, who was born in 1694 possibly after John’s deployment to Europe. John Hunter remained with the 5^th Dragoons fighting the French until peace was signed ending the inconclusive war in 1696 and the Regiment and John Hunter returned to Ireland.

Presumably John Hunter remained attached with his Regiment during the period of relative peace with France following the end of what is known today as the “Nine Years War” (1688-1697) or King William’s War here in North America, although no doubt much of his time was probably spent with his wife and growing family on their farm in Wicklow, Ireland located south of Dublin. By the time that war was again declared with France and his Regiment was marched back to mainland Europe in 1702, the Hunter family had grown to four children including my 6^th great grandfather, John Hunter Jr. who was born in Wicklow Ireland in 1698.

This new war, later known as the War of Spanish Succession because of the endorsement by King Louis XIV of France of his grandson’s claim to the Spanish throne, a claim that would greatly increase France’s power in Europe, began in 1701 and officially ended with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. The war was a world war in every sense of the word with the forces of the Grand Alliance consisting principally of the armies of Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, Prussia, Portugal, and Austria aligned against the armies of France, Spain, and Bavaria. It is estimated that over the course of the war over 500,000 men were engaged and tens of thousands of men were killed. Most of the major battles were large, savage, and costly in human life. History records that the Royal Dragoons of Ireland participated in all of the major battles of the war and in the “History Records of the Fifth (Royal Irish) Lancers” [or the Royal Dragoons of Ireland as they were known at the time] written by Walter Temple Willcox and published in 1908, John Hunter’s name is mentioned several times including the notations that he fought with the Irish Dragoons from 1694-1697 with the rank of Quartermaster, he held the rank of Cornet at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704 where he was wounded (and received extra pay as a result), and he fought with the rank of a lieutenant at the Battle of Malplaquet in 1709. It is fortunate that my 7^th great grandfather was not killed during this period considering the wholesale loss of life at the numerous battles fought over the course of the War of the Spanish Succession. At the Battle of Blenheim in 1704 there were over 30,000 casualties, at the Battle of Ramillies in 1706 there were estimated 23,000 casualties, at Oudenarde in 1708, 18,000 casualties, and at the last major battle of the war, and the most costly battle, the Battle or carnage at Malplaquet fought in 1709, there were 32,000 casualties in the one day battle that involved 160,000 combatants. The hip wound that John Hunter suffered at Blenheim while leaving him with a slight limp for the rest of his life, was far better than a loss of life that struck down so many of his fellow comrades. John Hunter may have left the Irish Dragoons after 1709 and the only further mention of his name in the records is as a Captain of Foot in 1713 near the end of the war. It is this title of captain for which he is best known in the family history accounts but it is abundantly clear that he did not hold the title of Captain at the Battle of Boyne in 1690 as is reported in some Hunter family history stories. John Hunter retired from the military sometime in 1713 and he returned to his farm in Ireland. He was 46 years old in 1713 and he was undoubtedly exhausted from his years in the military: his old wound probably still bothered him on a daily basis and he must have resigned himself to the fact that he was too old to ride his horse into battle waving his sword and firing his pistol at the enemy. The European community and British people were also exhausted both emotionally and financially from the long years of war. The years of war however had a profound effect on the balance of power. The power of France to dominate Europe had been broken and the greatness of England had been established. George I was crowned King of England in 1714 and the period of “The First British Empire” was at its beginning.

Every narrative about the life of John Hunter always mentions his enduring friendship with Anthony Wayne. The store is worth repeating not only because of the length of their friendship but also because Anthony Wayne was the grandfather of “Mad” Anthony Wayne one of George Washington’s prominent and favorite generals during the American Revolution. The two men probably meet sometime around 1689 when they both joined the Protestant forces in Ireland who were engaging the invasion army of James II. Both men fought together at the Battle of Boyne in 1690 and later in Europe in Dragoon units fighting under King William III and later under the Duke of Marlborough. As friends they probably retired back to their farms in Wicklow, Ireland about the same time to raise their families. While there is some disagreement as to whether or not they actually immigrated to America with their families on the same ship, there is no disagreement that they settled near one another near Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, or that their families attended the same church and shared the same pew, and that they and their families and many of the descendants are all buried near one another in the church graveyard. As one website described the relationship, it was “A Friendship that Endured” despite the extremes of their lives in war and in emigrating to a new world late in their lives. It is a remarkable story of friendship.

All of my ancestors emigrated from Europe or England to America and most of them emigrated in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. In almost all cases the reason that they emigrated to America was to seek religious freedom or to escape religious persecution in their homeland. In a few cases the reason for their emigration was economical such as the circumstance of an indentured servant or a family trying to escape poverty. In one case, one of my ancestors was transported to America as a prisoner, and another as a military officer who elected to remain behind in America rather than to return to his home in England. The reason that John Hunter elected to emigrate with his family to America in 1722 is not readily apparent. He was not seeking religious freedom for he and his family were members of the Church of England and while Ireland was predominately Roman Catholic where he lived, the political and financial power in Ireland at the time was in the hands of Englishmen who were all Protestants. Furthermore, he was not forced to leave Ireland purely for financial reasons as he obviously had the capital to afford the expensive trip to America, purchase 1,000 acres of land in Pennsylvania, and build a large family homestead. The reason for the family leaving Ireland is complex and probably speculative.

John Hunter was 55 years old when he embarked on the ship headed for America with his family and their friends, the Wayne family, in 1722. The youngest Hunter child, James, was only eight years old when he left his home. Their oldest daughter, Mary, had left for America a few years earlier with her husband William Hill, and while they had heard little from Mary in the interim, what she wrote about her new life in America was mostly positive. Mary and William had married in 1717 shortly before their departure. John Hunter was probably disgusted or at least disillusioned with the conditions he found in Ireland upon his return from the war. The country was in the midst of both political and social unrest. The tariff and trade restrictions placed by the British government on the export of Irish grown cattle and wool had lead to a gradual economic decline in Ireland that was aggregated even further by unreliable weather conditions that resulted in food shortages particularly among the poor Irish Catholics. The famous Irish author Jonathan Swift [“Gulliver’s Travels”], a contemporary of John Hunter and an outspoken critic of the English Parliament’s treatment of Ireland, wrote a pamphlet in 1720, “A Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture . .”, that attacked Parliament and proposed that Ireland refuse to export their products. Temple Scott wrote in his extensive footnotes to a 2008 electronic reprint of Swift’s famous pamphlet the following that may help to understand why the Hunter’s and the Wayne’s left Ireland, “An Impartial historian is forced to the conclusion that England had determined to ruin the sister nation. Already its social life was disreputable; the people taxed in various ways far beyond their means; the agriculture at the lowest state by the neglect and indifference of the landed proprietors; and the manufactures crippled by a series of pernicious restrictions imposed by a selfish rival.” The Hunter’s probably sold their land to an Englishman whose only intention was to subdivide and rent the land to Irish farmers. Absentee ownership of Irish land was very common in 18th and 19^th century Ireland.

Some writings by family historians and genealogists claim that the Hunter family immigrated to America in 1711 and not 1722. I believe that there is enough evidence to disprove or at least cast doubt on this earlier date. Most historians believe that the Hunter daughter, Mary, and her husband William Hill preceded the Hunter family to America. If this is true, Mary Hunter would have still be a child of only 14 or 15 when she married and moved to America in 1709 or 1710. This is most unlikely and most historians believe that they emigrated between 1717 and 1720. Furthermore, John Hunter is listed as one of the executors of his father-in-law’s will prepared in 1720 in Ireland. It does not seem reasonable to believe that his father-in-law would have made John Hunter an executor of his will, if nine years earlier John had moved to America. Incidentally, his father-in-law, James Albin, died in 1722 and while this may only be a coincidence, his death may have made it easier for the family to leave Ireland. We also know that the Anthony Wayne family emigrated to America in 1722 (or 1723 as some report). Anthony and John and their families were close friends and I have trouble believing that had John Hunter moved to America in 1711, his close friend Anthony would have waited more than a decade to follow. There is also a strong family tradition that the Hunter family with the Wayne family emigrated together in 1722. John Hunter’s great grandson, Edward Hunter (1793-1883), the 3^rd Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (in Salt Lake City, Utah), writing in his autobiography stated that his father told him that his grandfather, John Hunter, had crossed the Atlantic with Anthony Wayne. As I stated, I believe that John Hunter did not settle in Pennsylvania as early as 1711 and I believed that they traveled with the Wayne family to America in 1722.

The home pictured to the left was built by John Hunter for his family in 1722/23 near Newtown Square (Newtown Township) in Chester County (now Delaware County), Pennsylvania about twelve miles west of the City of Philadelphia. The John Hunter home is still in existence to this date and is currently owned by a private family. The Hunter Family joined the St David’s Church (then an Anglican church (Church of England)) located in Wayne, PA about four miles north of their home. Wayne, PA is named after General Anthony Wayne, grandson of John Hunter’s friend Anthony Wayne. The city was obviously not in existence when the Hunter and Wayne families joined the church in 1723. John Hunter is listed in the church records as having been a vestryman in 1725 and his family shared a common pew near the front of the church with the Wayne family which obviously cost the families a large donation to the church fund. John Hunter died at the age of 67 in April of 1734 and he is buried in the church graveyard. His friend Anthony Wayne followed him in death in the year 1739. They are buried near one another in the graveyard as are “four score” of John Hunter’s descendants as well as many of Anthony Wayne’s descendants. (St David’s Episcopal Church is pictured to the right).

In the next chapter of my Pennsylvania Ancestors, I will cover the life of John Hunter’s son, John Hunter Jr. and his wife, Ann Parry and her family. I will also narrate a biography of Thomas Bull who married the daughter of John and Ann Hunter. John Hunter is an ancestor of my great grandfather Eugene Hutchinson Ferree.

Chapter 24 - Henry Clinton Spaulding

2009-08-05T08:16:00.000-07:00

In early June of 2009, my second cousin, Liz DuBois, wrote to me after she had read some of my family history stories in this blog. Liz is the granddaughter of Henrietta Spaulding, the younger sister of my grandmother, Helen Spaulding. Fortunately for our family, Liz's grandmother and later her mother were great collectors of family photographs and newspaper clippings such as wedding announcements and obituaries. Over a period of several weeks Cousin Liz was kind enough to scan and e-mail me copies of many of the photographs and newspaper clippings in the collection that she inherited. The new information that she provided inspired me to write this additional chapter about our Spaulding family ancestors to supplement what has already been written in Chapters 4 and 12 of this blog. Incidentally, Cousin Liz, is a great family geneologist in her right and I have learned a great deal from her over the past several months that we have corresponded. Thank you Liz.

The exact date of Henry Clinton Spaulding’s move from Vermont to Elmira, New York is not known for certain. What we do know is that his parents Phineas and Matilda Tichenor Spaulding are recorded in a “History of Eaton County” as having settled in 1836 in Kalamo Township in Eaton County, Michigan. Whether or not Henry’s parents lived in Chemung County, New York prior to moving to Michigan is not known but what we do know based on Henry C. Spaulding’s obituary notice in the Elmira newspaper in 1902 is that he settled in Chemung County “at a very early age.” There is also strong evidence to support the belief that Henry’s older brother, Phineas Sargent Spaulding, was a resident in Elmira for a time for his name appears in a listing of Senators and Representatives from Michigan in the “Early History of Michigan” published in 1867 and next to his name in the publication it lists his “Post Office” as Elmira, which no doubt means the location where he resided prior to moving to Michigan. Furthermore, Ancestry.com, while not necessarily a reliable source, has Phineas S. Spaulding (Henry’s brother) marrying Maria Butler in Elmira in the year 1832 which if true suggests that the Spaulding family including 20 year old Henry Clinton Spaulding was in Chemung County as early as 1832. In 1832 Henry Spaulding would have been 20 years old which would agree with his obituary notice that he arrived in Elmira at an early age. Obviously when Phineas and Matilda Spaulding and presumably their son Phineas Sargent Spaulding and maybe some of the other Spaulding children moved to Michigan in 1836, then 24-year old Henry Clinton Spaulding elected to remain behind in the Elmira, New York area.

When Henry’s future wife, Clara Wisner, arrived in Chemung County with her family is even less clear, although I did find one Wisner family source that recorded that Henry Wisner and his family relocated to Chemung County from Orange County, New York in 1834. In 1834, Clara was only 12 years old and she was at that point obviously not the object of Henry’s affection. Unfortunately, the assumption that Clara Wisner was in Chemung County as early as 1834 is shaken somewhat by the words of Clara’s own obituary announcement in the Elmira newspaper in 1906 that states “On December 30, 1840, she was united in marriage to Henry C. Spaulding in Orange County, the newly married couple moved to this city [Elmira, Chemung, New York] the ensuing year.” If Clara, her parents, and her brothers and sisters moved to Elmira in 1834, why then did she return to Orange County for her wedding? There is no doubt that Henry was a resident in Chemung County prior to his wedding and if Clara was still living in Orange County up to the date of their 1840 marriage, it begs the question as to when and where Henry meet his future wife? I believe that the simple answer is probably the correct answer which is that Clara lived with her parents in Elmira sometime prior to 1840 where she met and fell in love with Henry Spaulding. The Wisner family with their soon-to-be son-in-law Henry Spaulding decided to return to Orange County for the marriage so that they could be with the rest of the Wisner family and their other relatives. [The above photograph of Maria Smith Wisner, Clara Wisner’s mother, was taken in 1895 shortly before her death.]

We learn a great deal about the early life and the character of Henry Clinton Spaulding from his 1902 obituary notice. We learn that he was first employed as a farm laborer and went on from there to work on the Chemung Canal as a boatman. He “worked hard and faithfully” becoming a commander of his own boat which at the time was considered a “very high position, winning his promotion and success by honesty and fidelity to duty.” Clearly Henry Spaulding, irrespective of the praises expressed in his own obituary, was an aggressive individual who was at the right place at the right time. The Chemung Canal, constructed between the years 1830 and 1833, connected Elmira via a waterway to Seneca Lake to the north and from there ultimately to the Erie Canal whose construction had been completed in 1825. At this time in our country’s history travel and commerce via waterways was the fastest and least expensive way to move people and goods from one place to another. The opening of the Chemung Canal gave the small community of Elmira the opportunity to open trade with almost the entire State of New York including the new major upstate commerce centers at Buffalo, Rochester, and Albany. Almost immediately following the opening of the canal the population of Elmira and the surrounding area experienced a rapid population expansion as Elmira became the commerce hub of the Southern Tier of New York State.

The Chemung Canal contained so many locks between Elmira and Watkins Glen that travel between these two communities took about two and one half days by barge to traverse. Conversely, passenger travel by coach on the roads between the two villages took considerably less time which resulted in the canal being used almost exclusively for hauling commodities, principally lumber, coal, and agricultural products. Henry Spaulding took advantage of an opportunity with the opening of the canal and by the year 1840 he owned and commanded his own canal barge and had earned the respected title of Captain Henry Spaulding. When Henry married Clara Wisner in December of 1840 he soon realized that if he remained the captain of his own barge, the long hours spent on the canal would keep him away from his wife and their future child. Clara announced in early 1841 that she was expecting. Henry withdrew from the canal business shortly after her announcement and opened up a lumber business that he located on the canal near East Fifth Street in Elmira. In the ensuing years his lumber business expanded greatly to include not only the sale of lumber and coal, that was hauled up from Pennsylvania, but also the manufacture and sale of millwork items such as window sash and doors as well as other millwork specialties such as trim and mouldings. The business was to become immensely profitable for the Spaulding family and provide employment for his son, and later for his grandson, and after Henry’s death in 1902, for his son-in-law, and his daughter, as well as scores of others. The H.C. Spaulding Co., Inc. was finally sold in 1948 after being in continuous operation for 107 years.

The population of Chemung County, New York in 1860 immediately preceding the Civil War was 26,917 of which approximately 8,700 of the citizens lived within the village of Elmira. In 1840, just before the opening of the H.C. Spaulding (lumber) Company, the Chemung County population was recorded to be 20,732. During the intervening years between 1840 and 1860 the population grew by 30% and during the following decade from 1860 to 1870 of which the first half of the decade our country was engulfed in the American Civil War, the population of Chemung County grew by another 30%. An even more amazing statistic is that during the peak of the Civil War, the town of Elmira had grown from a population of 8,700 in the year 1860 to a population of 16,000 in 1864 plus another “floating population” of between 10,000 to 12,000 individuals consisting primarily of Union solders and Confederate prisoners-of-war. As we can only imagine this huge increase in the population was very good for all of the businesses in Elmira including the H.C. Spaulding Co., Inc. We have very clear evidence that Henry C. Spaulding prospered as a result of the Civil War. Beginning in 1862, President Lincoln and the U.S. Congress enacted a law that created the Internal Revenue Service for the purpose of taxing American citizens to help pay for the war efforts. The IRS records for Elmira show that Henry C. Spaulding was taxed in the years 1863 through 1866 and that both he and his son, Charles H. Spaulding, earned an annual income in 1865 of $4,400. Considering that almost a century later I only earned $5,200 in my first full year of work following my college graduation in 1964, I can appreciate what a huge sum of money $4,400 must have been in the mid-1860s. The large profits from their business that generated these high incomes was due in part to very profitable government contracts awarded during the Civil War. Incidentally, the income tax during the Civil War taxed earnings up to $10,000 at a flat rate of 3% and for incomes over $10,000 at a flat rate of 5%. This income tax was repealed in 1867. The government thereafter until 1913 derived 90% of its revenues through taxes placed only on alcoholic beverages and tobacco. Things have really changed and just think how easy it would be for us today if we prepared our taxes based on a flat rate, especially a flat rate of only 3%. One other thing worth noting is that the population of Elmira peaked in the 1950s at around 50,000, and has declined to the present day population of just under 30,000. Chemung County began its decline in population in the 1970s. New York State during the period of 1990 to 2000 experienced a growth rate of only 5.48% ranking it only 42 of the 50 states in population growth and 50 of 50 states in the number of its citizens that migrated from other states during the previous five years. New York State is also one of the highest taxed states in the United States which accounts for the slowness of its population growth as well as the tremendous loss of industrial business in communities such as Elmira.

In 1861 at the beginning of the Civil War, Elmira, New York was chosen as a “main rendezvous point” and military training base in New York State due primarily to its canal and railway systems that made moving goods and soldiers into and out of the area relatively easy. It is recorded that 20,796 soldiers were gathered, trained, and dispatched from Elmira during the war with about half of that number processed during the first year of the war. By early 1864 however, the number of soldiers being processed had declined greatly as had the amount of business generated for the locals by their presence. What happened next was to make Elmira infamous for the decision was made to turn one of the original army training barracks into a prison camp for captured Confederate soldiers. In July 1864, the prison camp was opened. In only a matter of months the prison became overcrowded and at one point there were over 9,000 prisoners, 2,000 more than the 30 acre confinement was designed to hold. Within the enclosure were woodened barracks housing 3,873 prisoners. The rest of the prisoners were crowded into canvas tents. The winter of 1864-65 was particularly brutal especially for the almost 5,000 Confederate prisoners living in the tents and with shortages of warm clothing, food, heat, and medicine it was not surprising that many men died of exposure or to diseases such as smallpox. In total in the course of a little over one year, 12,122 Confederate soldiers were housed in the Elmira prisoner-of-war camp, that the soldier’s called “Hellmira”, and a total of 2,933 men lost their lives. This is a total loss ratio of 24.19% giving the Elmira prison the worst record of all of the Union prison camps and almost as horrific a record as the far more infamous Confederate prison in Andersonville, Georgia where 28.7% of the estimated 45,000 Union prisoners died. Ironically, most of the dead Confederate soldiers were buried in Elmira’s Woodlawn Cemetery where many of my ancestors are laid to rest including my grandparents, Charles S. Baker and Helen Spaulding, as well as Helen’s great grandfather Henry Clinton Spaulding and his family. In an article written by Michael P. Gray entitled “Elmira, A City on a Prison Camp Contract,” he lists many of the businesses in Elmira that received government contracts for supplying material to the prison. The list includes a lumber order dated March 1865 to H.C. Spaulding for 22,000 feet of lumber for use in building coffins. The coffins and the remains of the Confederate soldiers in Woodlawn Cemetery lie only a short distance from Henry Spaulding’s gravestone. [The photograph above was taken of the prisoner-of-war camp in Elmira in 1864 and shows the rows of tents that provided the only shelter for almost 5,000 prisoners during the 1864-65 winter.]

Henry and Clara Spaulding had three children, their two daughters Alice and Clara who were the good friends of Samuel Clemens’s wife, and a son, Charles Henry Spaulding who was born in 1841. Charles Henry Spaulding probably started working at his father’s lumber business at an early age and as we noted previously his income in 1865 based on his tax returns was $4,400. He would have been only 24 years old in 1865. Charles married Mary Catherine Sly in 1862. Mary Catherine was the daughter of Mathew McReynolds Sly and the granddaughter of John Sly one of the earliest settlers in the Elmira area. [The photograph to the right below was taken of Mary Catherine Sly in 1870, eight years after her marriage to Charles H. Spaulding. The painting to the left of Charles and Mary Catherine’s son Henry was completed around 1870 when Henry was around six years old] The Sly family would have been considered at the time one of Elmira’s prominent families. Charles and Mary Catherine had two children, my great grandfather Henry Clinton Spaulding, named after his grandfather, born in 1863 and Catherine Spaulding born in 1867. Considering the wealth of the Spaulding family during this period, the young couple must have lived in a large home in a good neighborhood in Elmira. Unfortunately, I have been unable to learn much about the life of Charles H. Spaulding other than he was listed as an Alderman in the 5th Ward in Elmira in years 1871 and 1872. Charles’ early death in 1875 at the age of only 34 probably accounts for the lack of information about his life. The cause of his death is unknown although he most likely died of one of the many sicknesses common in this period of our history. Catherine outlived her husband by 39 years and according to her obituary she lived for many years after the death of her husband at the family homestead built by her grandfather John Sly located at the intersection of Maple Avenue and Sly Street in Elmira. This home before it was torn down was located almost across the street from the home of her son Henry Clinton Spaulding and his wife Ella McBlain Reynolds. It was also located just up the street on Maple Avenue from the home of my grandfather Charles S Baker and the home where my father was born in 1916.

Henry Clinton Spaulding must have been devastated when his young 34-year son and business partner, Charles Henry Spaulding, died unexpectedly in 1875. Henry was 63 years old when his only son died and he was probably looking forward to turning over, if he had not done so already, the day to day running of the business to his son. Charles’ only son Henry was 11 years old when his father died although I suspect that his grandfather had already begun grooming his young grandson in the ways of their business. According to young Henry’s obituary, he graduated from school with honors and was valedictorian at the school commencement in 1883. Not unexpectedly, he joined the H.C. Spaulding Co. one week after his graduation and was given a share of the business. In 1886, young Henry married Ella McBlain Reynolds and they moved into a large fashionable home which they had built at the corner of Maple Avenue and Catherine Street across from present day Brand Park in Elmira. Their wedding announcement described the gifts received by the newlyweds and provides us a look at the affluence of the families attending the wedding. “The friends of the young people bestowed presents without stint. Four large tables were completely set with the costly silverware. Among the gifts was a solid silver tea service given by Miss Catherine Sly, a complete set of table cutlery of all descriptions, from the mother of the groom, a complete china dinner and tea-set from Mrs. H.C. Spaulding.” In 1887, my grandmother Helen Mary Spaulding was born followed two years later in 1889 by her sister, Henrietta Spaulding. Unfortunately and tragically Henry Spaulding like his father Charles, died at a young age for in April of 1889 at his Maple Avenue home he succumbed to typhoid fever. He was only 25 years old when he died leaving his grandfather H.C. Spaulding at age 75 without a male Spaulding heir to carry on with the business. He also left behind his pregnant wife Ella with one young daughter, my grandmother, aged 2. At the time of Henry’s death on April 12, 1889, Ella Spaulding was one month pregnant with their second child Henrietta, who was born eight months later on December 15, 1889. It is entirely possible that Henry was not aware that his wife was pregnant at the time of his death. [The photograph above was taken around 1893 and shows Ella Spaulding and her two young daughters, Helen Spaulding on the left, my grandmother, and Henrietta Spaulding on the right.]

One final controversy that needs to be addressed regarding the younger Henry Clinton Spaulding is the date of his birth. We have copies of two obituaries for Henry from different newspapers and both obituaries list his birth date as November of 1864, although one paper lists the 12th as his birth date and the other the 13th. To confuse matters even more, one of the newspaper states that Henry “was in his twenty-fifth year” when he died and the other newspaper seems to believe that he “was in his twenty-sixth year at the time of his death.” It is possible that they could both be right if we assume that a 1-1/2 year old child is usually described as being a one year old child but in the second year of life. The only problem here is that if Henry was 25 years old when he died (and in his twenty-six year), he must then have been born in 1863 and not 1864 as reported in his obituaries. If Henry was born in November of 1863, he would have been 25 years old when he died in April of 1889, just shy of his 26th birthday in November of 1889. If he was born in 1864 Henry would have been only 24 when he died. Furthermore, based on the dates when the 1870 and the 1880 US Census were taken and taking into account Henry’s age listed in the census records, both census confirm that Henry Spaulding had to have been born in 1863 and not 1864. While neither of the following observations offer proof as to Henry’s date of birth, it is worth noting that Henry’s wife Ella Reynolds was born in December of 1863, younger not older than her husband, and his parents were married 13 months before his birth assuming that he was born on November 12, 1863 as believed.

Henry Clinton Spaulding the elder outlived both of his sons and finally died on February 25, 1902. As it stated in his elegant obituary: “. . . all in all, a man whose life was a blessing to Elmira. His death rounds out an unusually long period of well-spent years. He goes to his rest and reward followed by the grateful recognition of his manly worth and noble example on the part of the entire citizenship of the city of his love and his home.” Henry Clinton Spaulding (1812-1902) was my 4th great grandfather on my father’s side of my family.

Chapter 23 - The Pattersons of Dartmouth

2009-06-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

Introduction
This chapter in our family’s history is a departure from the normal stories that I tell in this blog. The first major departure is that I did not write this chapter. It was written by my second cousin, once removed, Charles Arnold Patterson, known as Arnie by almost everyone, and it tells the story of his life and his family’s life growing up in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Why would this be of interest to us? Well, my grandfather, Douglas Ross Patterson, was born in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia in 1888 one of the six children of John Riddle Patterson. John Riddle Patterson was the second oldest son of John “Jock” Patterson and the younger brother of William Patterson, Arnie Patterson’s grandfather. As I pointed out in Chapter 10, my grandfather when he was young in Dartmouth was an avid athlete as were many others in the Patterson family as you will see described later in this chapter. Grandfather Patterson however, at the young age of only 25 in 1913 chose to leave his family and Nova Scotia and he accepted a position with the YMCA in Lockport, New York. The following story titled “Memories” written by Arnie Patterson tells the story of one the Patterson families that remained behind in Nova Scotia, a story that could very well have mirrored our own lives had Grandfather Patterson not moved to the United States. The individuals described in this chapter are my great uncles and aunts and second and third cousins and it is with great pleasure that I am able to include this story in my family history blog. A special thanks to Cousin Arnie Patterson for taking the time out to share his story with us.

Memories
By Charles Arnold “Arnie” Patterson

The Pattersons have played a prominent role in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia for more than 150 years. The progenitor of the clan, John “Jock” Patterson, a native of Paisley, Scotland, was somewhat of a celebrated local figure here, often seen clad in his kilts and his bagpipes crested. In that he fathered nine children with his wife, Margaret Leonard, a Dartmouth girl, meant that the reach of his clan has been both widespread and lasting. Any close examination of the history of our Patterson family would clearly indicate that they were not an academic or necessarily prosperous clan. Most were workmen, and many were involved in shipyard work as Dartmouth had a host of shipyards that build wooden ships on its Halifax Harbour front. My Memories will center largely on the Pattersons of Dartmouth. I think that I can add a new dimension to their already impressive tale, one more local and of a later date. [This photograph was taken of John “Jock” Patterson with his three sons. William, Arnie Patterson’s grandfather, is the tall boy in the middle. John, my great grandfather and my uncle Gene Patterson’s grandfather is the boy seated on the right. The third young boy standing on the left is John Patterson’s third son, Robert Patterson.]

My own father, Charlie, son of William, grandson of Jock, died in 1931 when I was only two years old. As such I did not know him although my mother, a story teller and a strong woman with an enthusiasm for life and an ambition for her four children, ages one to seven, kept my father alive with a continuing rendition of his life, especially his sporting triumphs. Our modest but very neat three bedroom home at 11 Sinclair Street in Dartmouth, near my father’s cherished Dartmouth lakes, was adorned with trophies and medals from my father’s athletic exploits. I still remember the scores of photos of him in his various sporting garb with his medals neatly displayed in our home.

As youngsters growing up we were very conscious of our family’s heritage which while not monumental in any sense, was a matter of pride and distinction for all of us. Our great-grandfather, John Patterson, at age 62 traveled with the Nova Scotia battalion that went west to fight dissident Metis Indians in what became known as the Northwest Rebellion. Jock, who had fought in the Crimean War with his Scots regiment, the Black Watch, returned to his roots as he was the battalion piper. The Rebellion took place in 1885, 28 years after his retirement from the then British service. My father’s two uncles, Charlie and Alexander, better known as Sandy, were stars of the famous Dartmouth Chebuctos hockey club that won the Maritime senior championship for eight consecutive years between1887 and 1894. Sandy later toured Europe putting on speed skating exhibitions and he was sponsored by the Starr Skate factory of Dartmouth, at the time and for more than 65 years, the largest skate maker in the world. My own grandfather, William, brother of Charlie and Sandy, was manager of the old Dartmouth skating rink. When it was rebuilt in 1884, it was known at the time as one of the finest rinks in Canada. It was noted for its outside lighting and given its location on a hill overlooking Halifax Harbour, for the lighthouse that perched on the roof of the rink. Other relatives of note were a cousin, Lee Lennerton, who finished third in the Boston Marathon in the early 1900s when the event was less celebrated then it is today. My father’s oldest brother, Archie, took part in the Boer War in South Africa as a boy bugler with the Nova Scotia regiment. My father, Charlie, was a noted hockey player and the Maritime speed skating champion in the 1910 era. He was also a crack marathon runner and a singles sculler. [In the photograph above, Arnie’s father, Charles Patterson, is shown with the rest of his championship hockey team. Charlie is in the second row, second from the left.]

Every Armistice Day, November 11, our mother would parade us to the Post Office for memorial services. One of the highlights for us was that our Uncle Arch did the bugle calls although sometimes in a shaky fashion. It did not matter to us for we were proud of Arch since he was a veteran of the Boer and First War (WW1) and he had more medals than any of the other marchers. On the Memorial monument at that location were inscribed the names of my father, Charlie, and his four brothers, all of whom had served in the Canadian army.

My father’s first cousin, Reg Patterson, a son of Charles the First as he was later identified by sports writers, was the long-time Maritime singles sculling champion. When we left the house each morning to go to school, our mother and our coach and mentor, would say, “Stand tall, be erect, and remember, you are Pattersons.” Reg, who was later killed in an explosion at the shipyards, lost his sculling title in 1937. I can remember standing on the shore of Lake Banook rooting him on when a big, bronzed man by the name of Dan Wallace of the Halifax Jubilee club, put on a burst of rowing and defeated Reg and the rest of the field. Sometime later I encountered Reg and asked him, I expect plaintively, what had happened. He said with a smile and a laugh, “Arnie, the bottom fell out of my boat.” As little boys without a father but a proud, strong mother we were heightened by her encouragement which was constant. In later life, and through most of my life, it has been a natural habit of mine to hug my children and my grandchildren and tell them how good-looking and how smart they are. My mother’s example lingers after so many years.

Jock Patterson had five sons and four daughters. The sons were William, my grandfather, John, Eugene’s grandfather, Charlie, Alexander (“Sandy”) and Robert. The daughters names were Jane Anne, Margaret Alice, Hannah, and Emily. Charlie and Sandy worked at the Dartmouth Shipyards as caulkers in their early careers and both were later prominent members of the Dartmouth Volunteer Fire Department. Charlie’s sons, George and Robert, were later the Chiefs of the full-time fire force, and both were highly regarded. John, Douglas Patterson’s father, was the superintendent of a large Dartmouth estate owned by the owner of the Mott Chocolate company which sold its products throughout the world.

I recall meeting my grandfather, William, only once. I was about five years old and my mother took me and my brothers to see him shortly before he died in 1935. As the manager of the Dartmouth rink and Exhibition Hall, he was widely known. I have seen many pictures of him and he was always very formally dressed in a black business suit and per the style of the day his whiskered face was adorned with a large drooping mustache. [The photograph to the right was made from a newspaper clipping circa around 1900. The gentleman in the rear with the mustache is Arnie’s grandfather, William. The young boy in the front is Arnie’s father, Charles.] William had married Mary Ann Warner, who was of an old Dartmouth family whom we were familiar with throughout our lives. They had seven children, five boys, and two girls. The boys were Archibald, William, Ernest, Harry and Charlie. The girls both migrated and were married in the United States. Arch was a painter with the Canadian Coast Guard whose ships were moored on the Dartmouth side of the harbour. William, who fathered an energetic clan of his own, worked at the Dartmouth Shipyards. Earnest, I believe was also a shipyard worker, while Harry, who learned his father’s ice-making skills, went to Boston where he became the head icemaker for the then Boston Arena. Like so many of his clan he was a speed skating champion. My father as I will detail later, worked at the then new Imperial Oil (Exxon) oil refinery just outside of Dartmouth. His cousin John, Doug’s brother, was later the superintendent of iron workers at this big plant and was probably instrumental in helping my father get the job when he returned from World War I. Both were recruited to play hockey for Imperial which I am sure also helped them obtain a job at the plant.

All hockey players were given nicknames such as Duke, Twitcher, Toughie, and Dutchy. My father’s nickname was Donkey. The name was given to him by British soldiers garrisoned in Dartmouth who marveled at the way he fought for the puck as a when he was a youngster. My father was also an outstanding figure skater and he put on exhibitions between periods in the hockey games. When I was a youngster playing the game I had several old timers come up to me and ask me if I was going to put a figure skating exhibition. Alas, no. I was a very average skater. My father, Charlie, was pretty much a full time athlete although he was the paid coach of the King’s University hockey team at Windsor, 45 miles from Halifax. This was a job arranged by one of his old Dartmouth friends, Walter Regan, who had moved to Windsor to open up a grocery store. Walter, the father of Gerry, later a Premier of Nova Scotia, and the grandfather of our current Member of Parliament, Geoff Regan, both Liberals, was the manager of the Windsor Swastikas hockey team. The swastika was then an emblem of the Mic Mac Indians. {The swastika was not adapted as a Nazi symbol until many years later and of course the symbol henceforth and forever took on the connotation of evil.] Regan recruited Charlie to play for the Windsor team and also got him the job at the nearby university, a post that he held for two years before the breakout of World War I.

Given his family’s background in the military, my father and his brothers were early recruits in the World War I effort and he was dispatched overseas with the Canadian Expeditionary Force where he was to spend almost four years in the trenches in that dreadful war. He was to survive although he saw and took part in some of the heavy fighting on several fronts, including the Somme. I visited the Canadian trenches at Ypres about 15 years ago, some still intact, and was shocked with the reality of the war. What a horrible way for a young man to spend four years of his life. While I regret that I had never heard any of my father’s war stories from him directly, my mother provided some commentary. There were a few times when the troops were given sabbaticals in the British Isles and my father fell in love with Scotland and apparently knew many of the old Harry Lauder songs which were popularized during the war. They were mostly Scottish tunes. We also had medals that he won in a track meet staged by the Canadian Army in France. In a letter home to his father, William, he wrote “I was named the top athlete in the meet, so I guess there is life in the old boy yet.”

As mentioned I never knew my father, but my mother’s stories kept him alive for us. As well, he left a series of letters which portrayed a sensitive and dutiful fellow. Earmarked “Somewhere in France” the letters he sent home were direct from the trenches. Here is a letter that warmed my heart. As you may know Halifax was hit with a major explosion in 1917 when an ammunition ship collided with another large vessel. Several thousand people in both Halifax and Dartmouth were killed and the north ends of both cities, especially those on the harbour front, were flattened. My mother, Mary Sullivan, R.N., was then an army nurse, and among others was summoned to help with the injured.

Here are two of my father’s letters:

My Beloved Mary,

We received word yesterday of the awful disaster that has occurred in Halifax, and I have been sick with worry for you, my love, and your dear family but God grant none of you have been hurt, and O! That I were there with you in your trouble. I am also concerned about my dear old Dad, and those of my family in Dartmouth, but not so much as I am about you my own sweetheart, you are the world to me, and I would want to die if I thought you were among those killed. But something seems to tell me that you are safe, and I will keep up heart, and pray to hear that you are all right. But, O! It will be so long until I hear from you my love, and days will seem like weeks.

Nothing in this awful war has made me as downhearted as when I heard about the explosion. There must have been hundreds killed from what I have heard. I would send a telegram if I could, but there is no place to send one from here, so all I can do is to sit sadly and wait for the news, but O! I could only be there with you now. Mary, my own, if you want any money to help anyone who has suffered through this awful catastrophe, please let me know and I can send you two hundred dollars out of my book, and it would be good to help, and I will feel glad to know that I can do a little to relieve suffering.

Dear sweetheart , if it were not for you, I would have been killed long before this, as I have often thought that it did not matter about me, whether I died or not, but then I have always said to myself, perhaps Mary loves me, as I do her, and everything may come out right in the end. Then I would cheer up and be careful not to get into any more danger that I had to.

I am worried about Jack and Edie (Mary’s brother and sister-in-law) as I understand from the English papers that the greatest part of the damage is in the north end. My dear Mary if any of your dear ones were taken away (God forbid!) be brave and bear up: but I know you will as I know you as a lovely brave woman. I only wish I could share your sorrows as I have in the past.

You asked me in your last letter which I received a few days ago , and which gave me great joy as you mentioned the show “Charlie’s Aunt” which we saw the first night we met. Yes, dear girl, it is as fresh to me as the very night itself as are the memories of you, the only girl that I shall ever love.

I cannot realize the awful scenes which the explosion must have caused, and to think that you, my love, may be dead at this very moment. No, no, I know God will watch out for you as he has me.

Yours Boy Ever,
Charlie

Good news was to follow:

My Dearest Girl,
How thankful I am that you and all of yours, and my folks, were spared in this awful explosion. Suffered more in the two months after the explosion than I had in all my life before, as I could get no word from home at all, but now everything has come out all right. I am praying and longing for the end of this nasty old war, and be back home with you again. We will make for all we have missed, won’t we, my darling.

He had received three copies of old Halifax Chronicles which gave him the details of the explosion.

There is one other letter I would like to quote from, and one that I think shows his sterling character, and perhaps even a part of the courage of a hockey player.

Dearest Girl,
My only desire is to see the end of this, most terrible war, and be back home with you. These are terrible days here, and many a good fellow is going under in ferocious battles. I am sure we will soon see the end of it all, and the Boche will be beaten, and I will come home. I feel more than content tonight as we are in a nice, clean billet with lots of new straw to lie on, and I hope to get a good night’s sleep. I just wish I could stay here until the war is over: but I suppose someone else would have do my bit if I did.

He signed his letters: ”Your Boy Charlie.” These letters and other tell me a lot about our dear father than I ever knew. Of course he did get home but not after six months in an English hospital for injuries that were not specified. When he got home he married his lovely Mary in 1920. They were to have four children of which I was the third born. Three boys and a girl, my sister Jeanne, who is the oldest and who continues to live in Dartmouth at age 87. Brothers Bill and Laurie both died a few years back. We will all very close and at one point the three of us were involved in our family radio operations. Sadly Charlie died in February of 1930 from cancer which my nurse mother always contended was due in part to gassing during the war.

My father had been prudent and we owned our own home, and as well he had bought Imperial Oil stock which strangely my mother kept, or some of it at least, until her own death 36 years later. My mother went back to nursing as a nurse with the Victorian Order of Nurses in about 1935 as I suspect funds were starting to run low. Fortunately her mother, our grandmother, lived with us and played a big role in our upbringing.

Memories – Part Two

While much of my emphasis is on the family of William Patterson, Dartmouth was a close-knit community and did not experience major growth until the late 1950s when the bridge connecting Halifax and Dartmouth was completed. At the time of the start of the bridge construction, the first of two bridges which now span the harbour, Dartmouth was a town of about 12,000 people. In 1961, this home of the Pattersons was incorporated into city status with a population in excess of 65,000. In 1995 there was another major development with the passing of provincial legislation which amalgamated Halifax and Dartmouth, Bedford, Sackville and many other adjacent communities, giving the new Halifax Regional Municipality [HRM] as it is now called a population base of about 350,000. Much of the character of the old Dartmouth has been lost as a consequence and in fact, I am currently writing a book which I will title “Vanishing Dartmouth.” While the merger has basically been beneficial, it has in effect, in part at least, erased the individual identity of our one-time old harbour town. [The photograph shows Dartmouth as it exists today. It is easy to see from this photograph how and why watersports (hockey, figure skating, swimming, rowing) developed early in Dartmouth considering that the city is surrounded by water.]

There remain many Patterson families in the area, actually 114 in HRM, close to half of which are resident in Dartmouth on its neighboring Eastern Shore. Pictou County, located about 100 miles from Halifax, also had a number of Patterson settlers in the early day and their numbers have spread throughout the province. Four of William Patterson's sons, Arch, who had no children, William, Leonard and Charlie, remained in Dartmouth. Harry, as I mentioned earlier migrated to the U.S. William Jr.’s sons were well known to us and several of these cousins were our close friends. He had seven children, five boys and two girls. One of the girls, who would today be around 86, was singled out for her appearance and agility during WWII when she served in the Canadian Women’s Auxiliary Corps, a branch of the Canadian Army. His three younger sons, somewhat my age, were closer to us. One of these cousins, David, went to high school with us, and his brother Lenny was also close. Brother Tom, a few years older, was cited for bravery a few years back when he braved a wild storm to rescue a stranded fisherman on the Eastern Shore. The two older brothers, not as well known to us, were Raymond, a decorated WW2 hero, and Twitcher, who boxed professionally for a few years and also served in the war. They were all nice, easy-going men.

My father’s other brother, Ernest, lived some distance from us and as his family were older we never knew them well. Strangely, one of his sons, a man at least ten years older than me, played in senior golf tournaments when I myself was active. His name was Ernie and we were paired several times over the years. He had been a caddy master at Brightwood, the Dartmouth course, and was a strong player. Of the uncles, Arch was the closest to us. When we were small he used to come and take us for walks down at the lakes. I vividly remember him teaching us to skip rocks on the water. As well he told us tales of our father’s sporting exploits and of his own war experiences. He also tried to teach me how to blow his old bugle, a holdover I think from the Boer War. I proved an inept student.

Johnny Patterson, the brother of your grandfather, Douglas, a first cousin of my father, was considered by us to be an uncle as he and his wife, Kitty, were especially kind to us as children. As well he used to avail us the use of his nice cottage at Soul’s Lake on the Eastern Shore for our family outings. He also gave me his old hockey gear which I was delighted to receive but it was tattered and torn and ultimately found its way into the garbage can. One of my fondest memories of Uncle John as we called him, was that on leaving our house after a visit he would clasp our hands and deposit a quarter. A quarter then to us youngsters was a big reward. A short, stocky man, Johnny was an outstanding hockey and baseball player. A defenseman in hockey in had the nickname of “Toughie” Patterson and was known for his strong play. In baseball he played the “hot corner,” third base. His brother Doug was also a strong player and both played on Dartmouth teams with my father. The John Pattersons had two daughters, Doris, an R.N., who married and moved to Sarnia, Ontario, and Evelyn, who was later the Mayor of Fort Francis, Ontario. Her husband was a native of that community. Our families were somewhat intertwined. My sister bought Johnny’s camp at Soul’s Lake after his death and owns it to this day. Also of interest is that John and my mother, widower and widow, went to dinner, movies and wrestling matches together late in their lives. He was in all respects an exemplary man.

In that he had moved to the United States in 1913 we never knew his brother, Doug, although he was peopled in my mother’s stories, and as she told it he was one of my father’s major athletic rivals despite their close relationship. I think it was in the summer of 1939 when a big blue Cadillac pulled up in the front of our house on Sinclair Street. It was Uncle Johnny and Kit and as it turned out, Cousin Doug and his new bride. His first wife had died a few years earlier. My mother then prevailed upon me to do a rendition of the famed Foster Hewitt’s Toronto Maple Leaf hockey broadcasts which I did standing in the center of the room. At the time I was only ten. When I finished I remember my newly-discovered cousin applauding. When he was leaving he presented Laurie and I with leather-covered photo album books, and these were engraved with a Mountie on the cover. So forever after we referred to Douglas as our rich American cousin. We had had no further contact with his family over the years. They lived in Lockport, New York, where Doug, succeeding his father-in-law as president of a company reputed to be one of the largest wallet-makers in the U.S.

One day in the Summer of 1985 or 86 I had a telephone message from a man who identified himself as my cousin Gene who was stopping off with his wife, Piney, and another couple, on a quick visit to his father’s home town. His father was Douglas Patterson. As I was playing in a golf tournament at the time I did not have an opportunity to call him back. The next day however, I received a call from a Dartmouth woman, her maiden name was Roome, who told me that I had a cousin who was trying to reach me. She had known him when her husband was stationed in Norfolk with the Canadian Navy. As a liaison officer, Gene had been a captain in the U.S. naval reserve stationed in Norfolk. Anyway I finally reached him by telephone although found he was leaving the next day. In that their flight was not until night, I invited them to join me at the radio station which I owned in Dartmouth. As it turned out quite by coincidence, Gene’s wife Piney’s family owned a radio station in Norfolk, Virginia, where I was to later visit.

In that I had a lot of cousins and at the time was very busy working on a radio promotion, I really expected it would be a short visit. But when they entered my office they were clad, all four of them, in golf clothes. My wife Glo and I are both avid golfers. He was rather delighted to see our logo which proclaimed the company as Patterson Broadcasters. We quickly became engaged and I knew that Glo would love both of them. I invited them to lunch at a big pub I owned, the Village Gate, located in north Dartmouth. We traded stories and at one point, this after Piney telling me that his father Douglas was a domineering man, and not totally kindly, she said “Arnie reminds me so much of him. “ We had a laugh over that. After lunch we drove to my home in Bedford but found Glo enmeshed in a major wash as our daughter Carol had just arrived from studying in Moscow. It was a rather quick visit and simply an exchange of pleasantries. Before they departed, however, I took them to Moosehead Breweries of which I had been general manager some years earlier and we picked up a 24-bottle pack of Alpine beer. This intrigued Gene’s wife Piney as her formal given name was actually Alpine.

When we were at our place in Florida that winter, I had a call from Gene inviting Glo and I to visit them at their home in Virginia Beach. When I told Glo about the invitation she showed little enthusiasm. Hoping to convince her I added “but he is my cousin.” She promptly replied “you have known him for only a few hours and it would be difficult to stay with strangers.” She was adamant. I called Gene back and told him that we could not make it. He was disappointed saying that he was surrounded by Piney’s cousins, many residing in Virginia Beach and neighboring Norfolk, and he had never had a cousin visit. He added that Piney had prepared a special dinner party for eight and then added the kicker; we could get a golf game at his fine course there as well. Glo finally consented and we went and our two or three day cemented a warm and close relationship that lasted until their passings. They visited us in Nova Scotia twice, and we toured and had family parties, and we became somewhat regulars at Mountain Lake, their Florida winter home and a classic resort. Piney was very bright and Glo loved her. Gene was highly competent and so well organized that Glo commented to me “are you sure that he is a Patterson,” implying that I was a somewhat of a loose operator. We developed a real affection for the two of them, and I think it was mutual. They are very much missed. [A photograph of Arnie with his”rich American cousin” Gene Patterson is shown on the left above.]

Memories – Part Three

In Part Three of this tome I will deal singly and simply with the tales of the Charles Patterson family or Charlie Jr. as he was known in sporting circles. Charles Jr. was the nephew and not the son of Charlie Patterson, the original Chebucto. The younger Charlie was my father who was born in or about 1890 and died in 1930. As mentioned earlier, he married Mary Margaret Sullivan, a Halifax girl who had received her R.N. studying at the Sisters of Providence, Holyoke, Massachusetts. Her three years there turned her into an avid fan of the U.S. and American-related activities. When we were young we had photos of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and later of John F. Kennedy, posted on our kitchen bulletin board. The Prime Minister of Canada and the Queen were conspicuously absent. My parents had four children, Jeanne, now 87, William, who would be 86 had he not died in 1989 at 66, myself, Charles Arnold (Arnie), born 1928, and Laurie, born 1929, suws 1999 at age 69.

Our mother, a tall attractive woman, positive and outgoing, was a major force in our collective lives. She was both a mother and a father to us. We had a nice home on a quiet deadend street on which we played street hockey and generally cavorted with neighborhood kids, of which there were many. While we were not “well off," we were largely comfortable and our father had been prudent and left some stock and insurance monies. As well we owned our own home which proved a blessing. Our mother went back to nursing in 1935 as a public health nurse and was able to provide for the family. As her mother, our grandmother, also lived with us we were well cared for. Later in life when we were all grown up mother became the nurse and later the superintendent of a large summer camp for underprivileged children that was sponsored by the local newspaper, the Halifax Herald. Interestingly, I had spent a summer as sports director and counselor for Dartmouth underprivileged kids. I had just come out of high school at the time and this preceded my mother's tenure at Rainbow Haven, the Halifax camp. [As I write this Canada is playing Russia for the world hockey championships, 2009, and at this point they are tied 1-1 after the first period. We as a family are mad hockey fans, and in earlier times I was a hockey broadcaster. Glo has been a hockey fan since her early years. Your grandfather Doug was a very good player and I remember your uncle Gene telling me he had been the goaltender when he was at Cornell. Hockey is, of course, a passion in Canada, and we Dartmouthians claim that they game first saw light here on our Dartmouth Lakes. Russia won 2-1 Ugh!!]

While we lived modestly we had a great time growing up. The Dartmouth Lakes, only minutes away from Sinclair Street, were our playground winter and summer. We lived on the lakes in the summer, swimming and later canoe racing and rowing. The three boys were all members of Mic Mac war canoe crews, while our more dignified sister, Jeanne, paddled and swam for Banook, our across lake rivals. My father too had been one of the original members of the Mic Mac Amateur Aquatic Club, founded in 1923 and which continues today as a major factor in the sporting life of the community. I spoke at the club last year as they celebrated their 85th anniversary. Bill, as mentioned, had been president of the club years ago, and continued until his death as the leader in canoe racing. He was the first Commodore of the Maritime Canoe Association, and was later the first Maritimer to be named Commodore of the Canadian Canoe Association. We have an honour coming up which I will share with our many distant cousins. This summer a small park at the foot of the lake, next to the Mic Mac club, is being named "Patterson's Corner" this largely a tribute to Bill. It will be dedicated while the World Canoe Championships, a first for Dartmouth, are being staged on our lakes.

Jeanne and Bill were six and five years older than me, Laurie a year younger, only nine months old when my father died. Jeanne was a lovely girl, tall and good looking. After high school she took up stenography. At 21 she married her high school sweetheart, Carmen Moore, who served with the Royal Canadian Navy during the war. When he returned to civilian life he returned to university and became a pharmacist. He ran his own drug store for some years on Windmill Road in the north end of Dartmouth. Sadly Carmen died about 15 years ago. Jeanne, now 86, remains resident in Dartmouth. They have three children, a son Ian, a druggist like his father, and daughters, Deanne and Valerie. Deanne, who lost her Coast Guard husband in a helicopter crash, has four children, one of which, Lindsay, a nurse in the Canadian Navy, served time with the Canadian forces in Afghanistan. Val lies in Dartmouth with her mother. [The above photograph is of Arnie’s sister Jeanne.]

Bill, our big brother, was a very special man. He was almost as much a father to Laurie and me as he was a brother. He went to work after high school, first as a salesman for a grocery wholesale firm. On Friday nights he would bring home his pay envelope and hand it to my mother. His help played a major role in his two younger brothers’ chance for a university education which we both achieved. I graduated in journalism, Laurie in Commerce. Both of us went to Saint Mary's University in Halifax which was a Jesuit institution which since our time has become a major college. These were happy, fun-filled days and ones in which we played an active role. I was editor of the college paper, a vice president of the Student Council, and vice president of my graduating class. I never excelled in religious studies. As we had the Sisters of Charity from grade one through high school, and then the Jesuits, you could say that we had a full-scale Catholic education. As I look back on the years gone I realize that our local church, St. Peter's, and our parochial school by the same name, gave us a strong sense of identity growing up and at this late date I continue to have a conscious debt to those men and women who served us so well. [The photograph to the left that was taken in the mid-1930s shows older brother William in the center, Arnie on the left and the younger brother Laurie on the right.]

Bill stayed with sales all of his life, and for a period of 25 years he was the vice president and sales manager of our radio stations, CFDR and Q104 in Dartmouth-Halifax which operated under Patterson Broadcasters of which I was president. Laurie also worked at the station for a period as one of our star salesmen but left to establish he own sales agency. After graduating in journalism at Saint Mary's I joined the reportorial staff of the Halifax Herald papers in Halifax. More than 60 years later, looking back on my journalistic and broadcasting career, I feel as if I never had a real job. It was always so much fun and interesting. In my early days I also sidelined as a hockey broadcaster on a Halifax station, later my competitor, and as well during college days broadcast horse races for the Truro station. I continue to have a love for the two sports to this day.

The best decision that I have made in my now long lifetime was to marry Glorena Meta Hoadley in 1953. She was one of the city's beauties (this description would offend her, but true) and I met her through her employment with the public relations department of the Canadian National Railway in Halifax. We were to have our first daughter, Carol, a year later, [See photo to left and a later picture of Glo below] and shortly after we moved to Toronto as I accepted a job as a writer with the Toronto Telegram. I was making a $100 a week, modest money even in that age, but we had a great time. Early on I won the posting as a City Hall reporter for the paper and through this I had access to the Mayor's hockey and football tickets, invites to the civic receptions and other such plusses which made life fun. I was living like a millionaire. I later was to have several high-profile postings in public relations with several major Canadian companies, including the Dominion Steel and Coal Company, for which I was named "Public Relations Man in Canada" for my media management during the sad Springhill coal mine disaster which claimed 76 lives. This tragedy attracted media from all over the world. During this period we lived in Montreal, a delightful city.

Home was to call and I went home as General Manager of Moosehead Breweries in Dartmouth. This was a fascinating challenge as it was a new operation, a subsidiary of a successful New Brunswick company. We were to challenge Oland's Brewing a company that had been established in Nova Scotia for more than 100 years. With a much energized sales and public relations program, largely centered in sports, we took our fledgling company from an eight percent of the market to 38 percent in four years. But again another challenge loomed. I was to enter politics as the Federal candidate of the Liberal party. While we made a strong big, I lost but I enjoyed every minute of the battle. This was in 1968 and I ran again in 1974 with the same result and to the same sitting member, a Conservative. [Photo of Arnie campaigning is on the right.] I stayed very active in politics throughout the years and in 1979 took a year off from my then radio station duties to serve as Principal Press Secretary to then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. One of the best experiences of my working career, and during that period I saw just about every corner of Canada. As I write there is a Liberal candidate's sign on my lawn as we have a provincial election coming up shortly. [A photograph of Arnie Patterson with Canadian Prime Minister appears at the left.]

I have up to this point failed to mention what a consider one of the most important things I did in my life, and this was the founding of two radio stations in my home city of Dartmouth. The first, CFDR, in 1962, a good music station which we built into a 50,000 watt operation that received a national award in 1984 as the station in Canada who contributed the most to their community. The second station was a rock and roller, light years from our other operation but housed in the same building. It was founded in 1981 and gave us a strong reach into the younger audience. Jack Cruickshank and Vince Currie were shareholders in the early years but I purchased their shares in 1971. In 1987 I sold both operations to Newfoundland Capital as I wanted to pursue other things, and added to the fact that they made a substantial offer for the stations. I loved every minute of it but after 25 years I was ready to semi-retire. Shortly thereafter I took on the responsibility of writing a column on politics, business and other aspects of life, for the Halifax Daily News. This became a 20-year pursuit. In that I was only writing once a week it was an easy task.

One other issue that I have not commented on is my family. While attainment in various pursuits, along with making money, are perhaps important, nothing is as important as the rearing of your children. You can educate them, kiss them, give them your prejudices at the dinner table, but after that they are largely on their own. I have been blessed by my two daughters, both bright and successful. Much more is owed to their mother than me, but they have been a source of pride. Carol, our oldest girl, born in 1954, is a lawyer. Noteworthy is that she is the managing partner of Baker, Mckenzie practice in Moscow, Russia, with 280 people to manage. Baker is an international firm with offices in 38 capitals throughout the world. More noteworthy is that in recent days her firm, under her leadership, has been named the top law firm in the whole of Russia. Both domestic as well as international law firms were involved in competition for the prestigious Chambers Award which went to her Moscow-based office. Her sister, Lori, born in 1959, is Communications chief for the region's major transportation service, Metro Transit, and as well has served as general manager of this operation which carries sixty million passengers a year. Both have two children. Ian and Colin are Carol’s and Lori has Liam and Andrea our only granddaughter. My main job in life now is to spoil them. [The 2004 photograph above shows sisters Carol and Lori taken somewhere in the United States.]

I will close on a note which covers three generations. Last year I was elected to the Nova Scotia Sports Hall of Fame. As both my father's uncle Charlie and my own father, Charlie, had been inducted years ago, I became the third Charlie Patterson to be elected. My full Christian name is Charles Arnold Patterson. I have capsulated here but I should mention that one of our delights has been the 25 winters spent in Florida at Isla Del Sol, a golf community, in St. Petersburg.

For me life has been fun and I consider myself to have been very lucky.

Memories-Part Four

The Most Important Day of the Year.

I am not talking about Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter but rather about a birthday celebration, and that of Dartmouth. The citizens of Dartmouth have since 1895 marked the town’s birthday, Dartmouth Natal Day, with a wide range of events. It was a day as a child that we could hardly wait for. The affair started with the sounding of the horn at the fire station, a continuing blast. On this signal we would run down to Charman’s corner, a few minutes from our house, to watch the marathon runners trek in a six-mile event that went back to the start of the 20th century. Then off to downtown to catch the Natal Day parade. While it was not Macy’s, it with its local touches provided fun for all. The parade traveled over a route of about four miles and every section of it would be lined with spectators. Then off to the softball game, a Dartmouth team would be playing a team from out of town. The old Dartmouth Amateur Athletics grounds was the site of this event. Elsewhere there was a baby carriage contest and as well go-cart races.
The centerpiece, however, of this one day celebration, which we immodestly claimed as the best in the whole of Canada, were the activities at and around Lake Banook, this in the center of the city, and just minutes away from our house. Bill Lynch’s fair was a highlight with its Ferris wheel, the Merry-go-Round, swings, and assorted other rides. You could also buy fries, hot dogs, and hamburgs and there was a big bingo game as well as other booths featuring other games of chance. The Grace United Church women’s guild also offered lunch and dinner for the visitors and this located in an old ice warehouse. The ice, of course, is long gone. The major event though was the annual Natal Day regatta. This event involved canoe racing, rowing, and swimming races. Dartmouth had been a center for aquatic sports in the province for decades. The lakeside rivals the Mic Mac and Banook were contestants as were the North Star Rowing club from its northend harbour location, and crews from St. Mary, the Jubilee and North West Arm Rowing Club. All events were considered Maritime championship events. The two old boathouses were jammed with spectators, and the shores of the lake lined with other followers.

I should mention that the Patterson families played a major role in these activities and these covering a period of more than 100 years. Charlie and Sandy Patterson, earlier mentioned as hockey players, were also oarsmen and won the two-man rowing race at the first regatta staged in 1895. My father Charlie won the novice single shell in 1907, and a cousin, one of Charlie senior’s boys, Reg, won the senior singles event about six times. He was greatly acclaimed. All four children in our family paddled. Jeanne played for Banook, a slightly more sophisticated place than our Mic Mac, while Bill, Laurie and I were with the redshirts. Laurie was one of the top paddlers of his era. We continued to participate long after our paddling and rowing days were done. Bill was usually the chief referee for canoe events, Laurie coached junior war canoe paddlers, and I was the race announcer. Our mother was on the Miac Mac balcony watching.

As kids we would try to save money for the big day, this with the prospect of rides on the Ferris wheel, a hot dog, certainly a bag of peanuts and other delights. Our source of funds came from hunting for beer bottles, potato sacks that we could sell to Jacobson’s junk shop. We received three cents for the quarter bottles, one for the pints. And before we were active participants in the rowing and canoe events, we peddled peanuts by the bag to the spectators on the shoreline. The finale to this day of days was the fireworks display. The lake was ablaze with light. One of the most memorable fireworks display came in 1937 under the aegis of George Patterson, then a volunteer fireman. One of the spectators at Birch Cove dropped a cigarette butt on one of the bags of explosives and everything went up with one big bang. Two nearby houses were set a fire.
An event to remember.

Memories-Part Five

While this tale is already very long I will do an addendum as there are a number of stories that I did not tell.

One of them relates closely to the family and descendents of Douglas Patterson, our “rich American cousin.” When Gene and Piney were here on their third visit with us we took them to view certain sights including the boat clubs, parks, the site of John Patterson’s home, now long since a residential development with no traces of the old Patterson house. Also on the agenda was a visit to Christ Church, the old Anglican church where most of the Pattersons worshipped. We had arrived just after the regular tours were complete. But I became the guide and was telling them about the families that had their names inscribed on the church windows, and this under some depiction of Christ and his followers, when the guide, unknown to me, came up and said he had a photo to show us. It was of the 1906 or ‘07 Christ Church boys’ hockey team. Doug Patterson was in the front row. We marveled at the coincidence.

I think too that I omitted mention of my four grandchildren who I endeavor to spoil each and every day. Carol and Malcolm (Gray) have two sons, Ian, 26, and Colin, 21, both resident here where they have attended university, and Lori and Patrick (Daly) who have a son Liam, 19, going into second year at St. F.X., and Andrea, our only granddaughter, 16, who will be going into grade 11. [In the photograph to the left from the left are Colin, Liam, Ian, and Andrea.] They are the delight of our lives and we are all close-knit. All four are keenly interested in sport, Ian played varsity soccer at King’s University here, Colin played four years of varsity football at St. F.X on a scholarship, Liam, who is 26, played both football and rugby at his high school. That leaves Andrea who is as close to a full-time athlete as you can imagine. She plays on her high school’s soccer, tackle rugby, and field hockey teams. And she is also an excellent skier.
One Christmas, and we always gather in our house for the holidays, I said to Glo, this with the four kids assembled, that we were lucky. “Only one of them is funny looking.” With that Colin quickly replied “who looks like you Dada.”

That is the Dartmouth Patterson tale. Amen.

Chapter 22 - My Revolutionary War Ancestors Part 2

2009-03-25T08:31:00.000-07:00

In February of 2009 I received correspondence from one my distant cousins, Jan Starkweather Van Lyse, who asked me for my sources of information for John Starkweather, my third great granduncle and the son of my 4th great grandfather and our common ancestor, Elijah Starkweather. She had seen my family tree on Ancestry.com which led her to write. In the course of our back and forth correspondence Jan mentioned that Elijah Starkweather was a Revolutionary War soldier, a fact that I had previously overlooked. My original intent was to simply add this narrative on Elijah Starkweather’s war record to the biographies of my other Revolutionary War ancestors that are covered in Chapter 15 of my Baker Family History Blog at www.Bakerfamilytree,blogspot.com. Elijah would have been our Patriot #27, however as I researched Elijah, I discovered six additional ancestors that I had also missed when I first wrote Chapter 15 and I concluded that there was enough new information to justify writing this entirely new separate chapter.

Patriot #27: Elijah Starkweather (1756-1847):

The last of the major service-pension act benefiting Revolutionary War veterans was passed in the U.S. Congress on June 7, 1832. Prior pension acts starting with the first pension legislation in American history signed on August 26, 1776 limited pensions to officers and later amended to include disabled and indigent soldiers. The act in 1832 however, for the first time made pensions available to all veterans or their widows who could show that they served at least six months. The size of the actual benefit was determined primarily by rank and length of service. In the year 1832 alone, 33,425 new pension applications were submitted which is an extraordinary number considering that the war had ended 49 years earlier. Were it not for these applications and the detailed information provided therein most of our ancestors’ Revolutionary War experiences would be lost in history. This was particularly true in the case of my ancestor Elijah Starkweather, who served in his state’s militia on four separate occasions spanning from 1775 to 1779. His total time in the militia however, added up to only 7-1/2 months as each new enlistment period was of short duration and was followed by a discharge. This was a very common occurrence for militia enlistees. Elijah Starkweather’s application dated July of 1833 consisted of almost five pages of a handwritten narrative that described his history in the military including the dates of each enlistment, the location of the service, the officers’ names under whom he served, and his dates of discharge. In Elijah’s case his application was prepared by others in the form of a deposition and it is suggested from the application that he may not have been able to write since he signed his name with his mark. The application however, does state that he was “now perfectly blind and in poor health.” The application further states that he was 78 years old in 1833.

It is interesting that in his application Elijah stated that he was not clear as to his birth date. He believed that it was 1755 which as it turns out was not correct. Considering that today many of us know the time of day that we were born and almost all of us celebrate our birthday in one form or another each year, poor Elijah was not even clear what year he was born. He was aware however, many years later when he prepared the pension application, that he entered the service in the Connecticut militia “as a substitute for his brother Joseph Starkweather” in Cambridge, Massachusetts in May of 1775 “soon after the Battle of Lexington” that was fought on April 19, 1775. He served in and around Cambridge for a period of three months at which time “his brother returned to said service,” replaced him, and Elijah was discharged. During the period that Elijah served in the Boston area, the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought and while it is possible that he was present at the battle, it seems unlikely since first he failed to mention this fact in his application, and secondly only around 1,500 Americans were at the battle site on June 17, 1775 whereas it is estimated that at the time there were upwards of 15,000 State militia in the area and most of the militia soldiers remained on their lines that were surrounding Boston. The map above shows how the Boston area looked in 1775 with Cambridge on the Charles River to the west of Boston, Bunker (Breeds) Hill to the north across the bay, and Roxbury to the south located on the only road leading out of Boston.

Elijah Starkweather re-enlisted in the spring of 1776 and “he marched with said company to Cambridge and from there to Roxbury.” Roxbury as shown in the map above guarded the main road out of Boston thus preventing supplies at least by land from reaching the British stationed in Boston. The superiority of the British navy (the Americans had no navy to speak of) allowed the British troops in Boston to be supplied by sea. In July of 1775, George Washington assumed control of the American forces surrounding Boston and one of his earliest orders was to direct the movement of artillery from Fort Ticonderoga to the Boston area. Fort Ticonderoga had been captured from the British on May 10, 1775. Washington ordered the guns placed on the hills at Dorchester Heights across the bay to the east of Boston so that they would be in a position to bombard the City of Boston and the British. The British realizing that they would soon be in a position of weakness once the guns were in place evacuated Boston on March 17, 1776. Elijah Starkweather stated in his application “that he was stationed there at the time Boston was evacuated by the enemy and saw them sail out of the harbor.” This must have been a joyful occasion for all of the American troops surrounding Boston. Since the purpose of his pension application was to convince the federal government that he was qualified for a pension, he must have felt that adding the following statement in his application would help his cause: “. . . he saw and knew Gen Washington, Gen Putnam, Gen Green, Gen Lee, that he was personally acquainted with General Putnam. . .” As a private in the militia it is doubtful that he was “personally acquainted” with any generals but I am pleased that he felt comfortable stating his positive relationship with General Putnam even if the relationship was only in his own mind. Elijah Starkweather was again discharged for a second time after serving for only a 1-1/2 months. The British at this point had departed Boston.

Elijah Starkweather served in the militia on two additional occasions. He re-enlisted for a third time in the spring of 1778 where he again served for a period of 1-1/2 months, this time at Fort Griswold located near the village of Groton in New London County in Connecticut. Here he claims to have been “. . employed guarding and repairing said fort. . .” His final enlistment according to his application began in February of 1779 when his militia unit was ordered to march to Providence, Road Island “where he was stationed at the College.” [Elijah does not state the name of the college although it was probably Brown University that was first established in 1764 and was known to be the site of a French infantry encampment before they marched to Yorktown and helped the Americans defeat the British in 1781.] Here again he served for a total period of 1-1/2 months at which time he returned home for the final time. Elijah Starkweather’s application qualified him for a small pension that he continued to collect until his death in 1847 at the age of 90. Not bad for a guy who probably never fired a bullet in the direction of the enemy and who stated in his pension application in 1833 fourteen years earlier, that he was “now perfectly blind and in poor health”. His brother Joseph Starkweather, who is my 4th great granduncle, is also recognized as a Patriot in the American Revolution. The daughter of Elijah Starkweather, Adaline, married John J Yawger. Adaline Starkweather Yawger is the great grandmother of my grandmother, Florence Adaline Ferree.

Patriot #28: Alexander Miller (1748-1843):

At least five of my great grandfathers fought in the same regiment, Colonel John Hathorn’s Fourth Regiment of the Orange County [New York] Militia. Hathorn’s second in command in the regiment was my great grandfather Lieut. Col. Henry Wisner, listed as my Patriot #1 in Chapter 15. Two of the captains in this same regiment were also my great grandfathers, Capt. Peter Bertholf, Patriot #2, and Capt. John Wisner, my Patriot #3, both also covered in Chapter 15. Recent research has discovered four additional great grandfathers who served in the 4th Regiment: Privates Alexander Miller, Abraham Bennett and his son Abraham Bennett Jr., and Joseph Smith. There are as many as another half dozen great granduncles who served in this same regiment including Alexander Miller’s two brothers, Capt. Andrew Miller and Ensign William Miller.

Most history books covering the Revolutionary War describe the actions of George Washington and his Continental army. Unfortunately, there is very little taught in schools about the activities of the state militia units despite the fact that the majority of Revolutionary War patriots were enlisted in state militias not under the direct control of General Washington. Washington correctly believed that without a full time army he could not have won the war, however it is also true that without the local militia units like the Orange County 4th Regiment, the war would also have been lost. Militia soldiers were part time soldiers who were called up for service on an as-needed basis. For example, if one of their local communities was threatened in some way, or if fortifications required building or repair work, or if the Continental Army needed support, the militia would be called up to accomplish the task and once the task was completed, the militia units would be discharged. It was not unusual for a period of service to be as short as two weeks and rarely did service in the militia last more than six continuous months unless of course, the militia soldier continued to re-enlist. Unfortunately, the disadvantage of the militia units was that they were not well trained, they did not gain much in the way of battle experience, and in most cases their commitment to their farms and their families took precedence over their commitment to winning the war. We are fortunate that my 5th great grandfather, Alexander Miller lived long enough to have submitted his application for a Revolutionary War pension, for his application document provides great insight into the military life of a typical militia soldier. His application was submitted in 1832.

Alexander Miller was only seventeen years old when he enlisted in the 4th Regiment of the Orange County Militia in late April of 1775. It was an exciting time in the small village of Florida where the Miller family lived. The news of the engagement on April 19th between the American militia and the British regulars at Lexington and Concord near Boston had the recruiters busy signing up new recruits. Militiamen in the 4th Regiment were drawn from men living in the area surrounding Warwick and the nearby village of Florida located in the southern part of Orange County about 70 miles north of New York City. All of the Miller brothers enlisted including Alexander’s two older brothers, Andrew who was made a captain, and William who enlisted as an ensign. Alexander probably had no idea why the British army and the militia around Boston were fighting, but the thought of getting away from his father’s farm chores and the small coins that was promised when he signed his name on the enlistment papers were enough to excite his young mind about the possibility of going to war.

According to Alexander Miller’s long and detailed pension application which he filed in 1832, he served in the 4th Regiment of the Orange County Militia for a total period of 25-1/4 months that spanned from 1775 to late 1781. He was discharged for the final time shortly following the British defeat at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. He was either drafted or he re-enlisted on at least a dozen different occasions during the six year period serving mostly as a private when he enlisted and as a sergeant when he was drafted back into service. It does not appear from the description of his service that he ever fired a gun in battle during the war. Most of his activities seemed to be defensive in nature such as constructing or guarding frontier forts along the upper Delaware River on Orange County’s western border and at the forts along the Hudson River such as Fort Montgomery. The major charge for the Orange County militia was to protect their community from the threat of attacks from Indian and Loyalist (Tory) forces that were constantly raiding frontier communities during the entire course of the American Revolution. Alexander Miller mentioned in his application that he was part of a militia force that was rushed to support the 4th Regiment at the Battle of Minisink. Minisink Ford where the battle was fought was on the western border of Orange County near the banks of the Upper Delaware River. The battle was fought between a force of around 60 Indians and 27 Tories under the command of Joseph Brant, a Mohawk war chief and a Captain in the British army, and a contingent of 120 Orange County militiamen who were under the command of Col. John Hathorn. The Indians and Tories carried the day leaving 44 of the militia soldiers dead. There does not seem to be any reason to question Alexander Miller’s assertion that he was in the vicinity of the Battle of Minisink when it was fought although his application gives the time of the battle as August or September of 1777 whereas the battle actually occurred on July 22, 1779. He was 74 years old when he prepared his application, over 50 years after the battle took place, and he probably needs to be granted the benefit of the doubt for his dating error considering the passage of time. In any case, he was granted a pension for his war services. After the war in March of 1795, the Alexander Miller family moved to Tioga County in northern Pennsylvania. In 1813, the family moved to the village of Groton in Tompkins County, New York. When Alexander’s wife died in 1829, he lived with several of his children at their homes in Tioga County and Steuben County, NY until his death in 1843. He is believed to be buried in the Barbours Corners Cemetery in Horseheads, New York. Alexander Mill is my ancestor on my Grandmother Helen Spaulding’s side of our family.

Patriots #29 and #30: Abraham Bennett (1715-1790) and Abraham Bennett Jr. (1742-1795):

That joining the local militia during the American Revolution was sometimes a family affair is well illustrated in the case of the Bennett family. Not only did Abraham Sr., my 6th great grandfather, enlist at the age of sixty but also at least four of his sons joined including Abraham Jr., my 5th great grandfather, and his younger brothers Benjamin, Thaddeus, Thomas, and Gershom. Gershom was only 13 when he enlisted. The list of men who served in the 4th Regiment of the Orange County Militia includes ten men with the surname of Bennett including Abraham Sr. and his sons as well as his brother, Ephraim and his sons. It is also known that Abraham Jr.’s younger brother, Benjamin Bennett, my 5th great granduncle was one of the 44 militiamen killed at the Battle of Minisink on July 22, 1779. Since neither Abraham nor his father lived to apply for a pension in 1832, we know no details of their activities during the War although it seems likely that they served much in the manner that Alexander Miller served as described above. Revolutionary War payroll records confirm that both men can without question be listed as Patriots. It is likely that the Bennett family and the Miller family were acquainted not only because they lived in the same small community but also because one of Abraham Jr. son’s, Comfort Bennett, married one of the daughters of Alexander Miller, Abigail Miller. Comfort, who was born at the close of the war, was too young to have enlisted. The portraits above are those of Comfort Bennett and his lovely wife Abigail. The Bennetts are also my ancestors on my Grandmother Helen Spaulding’s side of my family.

Patriot #31: Joseph Smith (? – 1846)

Despite the fact that Joseph Smith, my 5th great grandfather, was alive in 1832 there seems to be no record that he filed an application for a pension based on his Revolutionary War service. As a result we know little about his war record other than it is clear that he served as a private in the 4th Regiment of the Orange County Militia along with many other men with the surname of Smith some of whom were no doubt his relatives. The only payroll record that I could find for Joseph Smith lists him serving in Capt. Colvill Shepard’s Company in Col. John Hathorn’s Regiment of the Orange County Militia during the time period of June 12th through the 19th in the year 1779 “on an Alarm at Minisink.” This is the time period a month preceding the Battle of Minisink that was fought on July 22, 1779. There is no evidence that Joseph was present at the battle or any other records that I could locate to define his service although no doubt he was engaged in other military activities during the course of the war. [A photograph of the monument honoring the soldiers that died at the Battle of Minisink is shown on the left]. It is important to note that Joseph Smith married Sally Hallock, the daughter of John Hallock, another Revolutionary War soldier, my Patriot #32, and Joseph and Sally Smith’s daughter, Maria Smith, my 4th great grandmother, married the grandson of Henry Wisner, the Lieutenant Colonel of the 4th Regiment, and the grandson of Peter Bertholf, one of the captains in the 4th Regiment. Both Wisner and Bertholf are my ancestors. Joseph and Sally Smith are believed to have died and been buried in Chemung County, New York. Joseph Smith is also my ancestor on my Grandmother Helen Spaulding’s side of my family.

Patriot #32: John Hallock (1751-1842):

In 1833, John Hallock, my 6th great grandfather, submitted his application for a pension based on his Revolutionary War service. Despite a rather detailed description of his service his application was rejected and he was denied a pension. It is not clear why the government decided that he was not qualified although it was probably based on his inability to furnish any documents such as discharge papers or other documentation attesting to his service. All that he did include with his application papers were depositions from his neighbors attesting to his honestly and their belief that he serviced during the war. One of the depositions was submitted by his son, John Hallock Jr., who had served eight years as a United States Congressman from the State of New York, but even this document from a known Congressman failed to sway the government officials. Despite the rejection of his application for a pension, there seems to be a general consensus that he served in the military. John Hallock was accepted as a Revolutionary War Patriot by the Daughters of the American Revolution (D.A.R.), Volumes 1-40, Index Book 15513. In the “History of the Minisink Region” written by Charles E. Stickney and published in 1867, his service in the Revolutionary War is acknowledged. Finally, in a history of the Hallock family, “A Hallock Genealogy” written by Lucius H. Orient in 1928, the author lists dozens of members of the Hallock family that serviced during the Revolution including John Hallock, as well as his brothers Daniel, Zachariah, and Richard.

John Hallock and most of the other male citizens of his hometown, Southold located at the far eastern end of Long Island, joined the First Regiment of Minutemen of the Suffolk County Militia in April of 1776 shortly following the British evacuation of Boston. It was widely believed at the time that the British would next invade New York and consequently General George Washington now commanding a new Continental army, marched from Boston to the defense of New York. Many of the citizens of Long Island including those living near the small village of Southold were in panic and quickly packed their belongings and in some cases even their livestock, abandoned their homes, and sailed across the Long Island Sound for safety in Connecticut. This was quite a remarkable change for the large extended Hallock family since the immigrant father of their family, William Hallock, had first settled in the Southold area back in 1640, 136 years earlier.

The British landed on Staten Island off the west coast of Long Island in July of 1776 and over the next month and a half they reinforced their troop strength until it reached to over 30,000 men. In the meantime, John Hallock with his militia regiment marched the almost 100 miles from their home in Southold to the west end of Long Island to join with the rest of General Washington’s forces which numbered around 10,000. Hallock’s company under the command of Colonel Josiah Smith consisted of around 100 men. It is unclear from John Hallock’s application exactly what troop movements his company was engaged in after they reached Brooklyn and after the British landed on Long Island on August 22, 1776, however his testimony that “. . we came within half a mile of the British army. . .” suggests that their militia was part of the American force that marched to meet the British along the western coastline road on Long Island on August 27th. The Americans once they realized that they were greatly outnumbered by the British, quickly retreated in a less than orderly fashion back to the main American forces that were positioned at Brooklyn Heights. On August 28th it poured rain and the British who now had the Americans surrounded at Brooklyn Heights held their position as a battle in the rain and mud was thought to be impossible. As you can see from the above map showing the troop movements during the Battle of Long Island, Washington’s forces at Brooklyn Heights were trapped and appeared ready for a major defeat. They were in much the same position as the British soldiers were on the beaches at Dunkirk in the early part of World War II. However, just as Hitler had hesitated to attack at Dunkirk, the British commander, General Lord William Howe, delayed attacking the Americans during the day of August 29, 1776. Had Howe attacked as his officers recommended, the British would have most likely have quickly and completely defeated the American army and ended the American Revolution on August 29, 1776, less than two months following the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But General Howe did not attack which gave Washington a chance to evacuate his forces by boat after dark on the night of August 29th sailing across the East River to Manhattan Island. They were aided in their evacuation by a miracle for a dense fog and a wind that prevented the British ships from entering the mouth of the East River allowed the American to escape undetected. John Hallock was evacuated with the others, and once on Manhattan Island, his militia was disbanded and he was told to go home and help his family.

In his pension application John Hallock stated that he “went home and removed his wife leaving all his effects” behind and “that he came to reside in the town of Blooming Grove in Orange County. .” Washington’s Continental Army eventually evacuated New York and conceded the city to the British which they occupied until 1783, several years after the British surrendered at Yorktown in 1781. John Hallock was to reside for the remainder of his life in Orange County, New York, however his military obligations were not finished with the American defeat at the Battle of Long Island. Shortly after his arrival at his new home in Blooming Grove, John was drafted into the First Regiment of the Orange County Militia under the command of Captain Thomas Horton. According to his application he spent a total of two years with the Orange County militia mostly with duties helping to construct forts along the Hudson, particularly Fort Montgomery on the northern border of Orange County. Fort Montgomery was strategically located on the Hudson in a position to prevent British troop movement via boats up the Hudson River. The strategic location of Fort Montgomery was recognized by the British and in October of 1777, the British under the command of General Sir Henry Clinton attacked and captured the fort. It was interesting to read in the “History of the Minisink Region” [Minisink was where the Hallocks retired after the war] that John Hallock was not at the fort when it was attacked. It states that “His brother Daniel was acting as his substitute at the capture of Fort Montgomery in 1777, and narrowly escaped being taken prisoner.” Captain Thomas Horton of the First Regiment was killed at the Battle of Fort Montgomery. Some of the many forts constructed along the Hudson River are shown in the drawing to the left. John Hallock died many years later in 1842. John Hallock was the father-in-law of Joseph Smith and my ancestor on my Grandmother Helen Spaulding’s side of our family.

Patriot #32: Jacob Coapman (1740-1810):

Unfortunately, very little historical information is available about Jacob Coapman’s Revolutionary War service although the existence of Jacob Coapman is well documented as having lived in Dutchess County during the period of the Revolutionary War and his name appears on a Revolutionary War Pledge that he and others signed on August 15, 1775, shortly following the Battle of Bunker Hill. His name is also mentioned a number of times in the records of Christ Church, an Episcopal church in Poughkeepsie, and in the tax rolls in Dutchess County, where his name appears in 1774, 1775 and 1777. It follows therefore, that the Jacob Coapman whose Revolutionary War payroll record for the period of October 6th through October 28th, 1777 listing him as a private in Capt. John Van Buntschoten’s Company of Col. Brinckerhoff’s 2nd Regiment of Militia of the Dutchess County Militia is the Jacob Coapman who is my ancestor. Other than this single payroll record I could find no other evidence that Jacob Coapman was a Revolutionary War Patriot. It is likely however, that he served on more than this one occasion guarding the frontier against attacks from Indian and Loyalist troops and assisting in the construction of forts along the Hudson River. One of Jacob Coapman’s brothers, Johannes Coapman, is listed in the 4th Regiment of the Dutchess County Militia and it is interesting to discover that Johannes Coapman’s wife, Seletje LeRoy, was the sister of Jacob Coapman’s wife, Maria LeRoy. We also find that another great granduncle, Abraham Coapman, served in the Tryon County Militia (Tryon County is now Montgomery County). Jacob and Maria Coapman are my 5th great grandparents on my mother’s side of our family.

Patriot #33: Asa Johnson (1735-1791):

Asa Johnson moved his wife and three children to Rutland, Vermont from Connecticut in the summer of 1770. He was 35 years old. The small farming community of Rutland had been settled in 1767 only a few years before the arrival of the Johnson family. Asa’s wife, Thankful Cowles Johnson, had in fact been pregnant when they moved to Rutland and their fourth child, a daughter named Chloe Johnson, was born only a few months after their arrival. Chloe was the third child and the first female child born in Rutland. Only one payroll record with Asa Johnson’s name exists in the federal archives, however it confirms that Asa Johnson can be claimed as a Revolutionary War Patriot. This payroll record covers the time period of October 21st through October 30th of 1781 when Asa served as a private at Castleton, Vermont in Capt. Nathaniel Blanchard’s Company of Militia in Col. Thomas Lee’s Regiment. Asa’s son Benjamin, aged 23, is also listed as having served during this time period. Castleton is located about nine miles west of Rutland. While it is likely that Asa Johnson served more than these few days in October of 1781, there is no evidence to suggest that he was involved in the capture of nearby Fort Ticonderoga on May 10, 1775 with Nathan Hale and his Green Mountain Boys, or involved in any of the other activities of the Green Mountain Boys such as the ill-fated attempt to invade Canada. It is very possible however, that Asa Johnson fought at the only battle that took place in Vermont during the war, the Battle of Hubbardton, that occurred on July 7, 1777. Nearby Rutland where Asa Johnson lived was the headquarters of the “Republic of Vermont” during a part of of the Revolutionary War and it is probably that Asa was involved in the construction and guard duties at the local forts including Fort Rutland constructed in 1775 and Fort Ranger near Rutland constructed in 1778. A sketch of Fort Rutland as it appeared during the Revolutionary War is shown on the above. Asa Johnson died at the relatively young age of 56. He was my 5th great grandfather on my mother’s side of the family.

Summary

I am unable to determine with any degree of accuracy the total number of my great grandfathers who participated in the American Revolution. Of the thirty-three Revolutionary War Patriot ancestors that I have so far uncovered, most of them were my 5th great grandfathers although a few were 6th great grandfathers and at least one was a 4th great grandfather. In seven cases, the Patriots were father and the son teams. My best guess at this point is that from 70 to 80 of my great grandfathers were between the ages of 16 and 60 during the Revolutionary War and all of them may have been soldiers in the war assuming of course, that they were living in this county at the time, were not British Loyalists, or did not object to the war for religious reasons (Quakers). Of the 70 to 80 great grandfathers mentioned above, I have identified at least 20 that were not living in America at the time of the war, another five that were Quakers, and at least one who was a Loyalist. If I subtract these twenty-six men from a total of say 76 possible participants, that would leave 50 great grandfathers who may have fought in the Revolution. Since thirty-three great grandfathers have already been identified, then somewhere in the range of seventeen have yet to be identified. What bothers me the most is that I have not yet been able to uncover my Revolutionary War great grandfather who carried the surname of Baker.

Chapter 21 - My Pennsylvania Ancestors-Part 1

2009-01-16T07:37:00.000-08:00

Dewees and Farmar Families

When I was in grade school in the 1950s we were required to memorize the names of all of the states and the state capitals. When our grandson, Cory Andrew Baker, was only six years old he could name the states by looking at their shapes only and he could place them in their correct location on a map of the United States. One interesting thing that we were not taught in school was the origin of the state names. Did you know for example, that 29 of the 50 states have Indian names, 6 states have Spanish names such as California and Florida, 9 states are named for European royalties, such as Louisiana named for King Louis XIV of France, the Carolinas named for Charles I of England, Virginia named for the “virgin” Queen Elizabeth I of England, and New York named for the Duke of York. Three more states have place names such as New Jersey named after the Isle of Jersey in England, one state has a French name, Vermont or “vert mont” meaning “green mountain” and one state is named after an American hero, the State of Washington. There is one state however, named for an individual who was not an American hero and not a member of any European royalty. This individual had in fact been in and out of prison on four separate occasions during his life, had inherited money at his father’s death but had died broke, and at one point in his life he was the largest private landowner ever in the history of the United States, owning over 45,000 acres. His name is so well known that an insurance company is named in his honor, schools carry his name, his likeness is on the can of Quaker Oats, and a state bears his name. This state of course, is Pennsylvania, named for William Penn. [To be factually accurate, Pennsylvania was actually named in honor of William Penn’s father.]

William Penn is not one of my ancestors, but his influence on the course of American history and on the lives of many of my early ancestors justifies the inclusion of this brief narrative on the life of this great man. Penn was born in London, England in 1644 to the wife of an English Admiral into a family of relatively well-to-do Anglican Royalists. His father, Sir William Penn, was not only a popular and skillful naval commander, he was also adept at political survival during his career having served as a Commander in the English Navy not only during the period of the Commonwealth of England under the Puritan leadership of Oliver Cromwell but also under the restored monarchy of King Charles II in 1660. In 1665, Sir William Penn, as Captain of the English Fleet, served under the Duke of York, later to become King James II of England, in the 2nd Dutch-Anglo War. William Penn’s father’s fame and popularity with the English crown, both King Charles II and later King James II, and with many of the members of the British Parliament, was to help his young son, William, in his future years.

Young William Penn who was fluent in both Greek and Latin was expected to shine when he was sent to Oxford to study in 1660 at the age of 15. His refusal however, to honor the Anglican traditions and rituals at Oxford as well as his association with members of the “Society of Friends” (nicknamed Quakers) angered his father and led him to remove his son from the school at the age of seventeen. Young William later returned to Oxford but he was subsequently expelled for his continued refusal to adhere to the imposed stricter religious requirements of this Anglican school such as the required daily chapel attendance. Subsequently, at the age of eighteen his parents sent William to Paris hoping that time abroad would cure William of his “unnatural piety by leading him into temptation,” however these temptations failed to influence William and after two years in Europe, William returning to London. He studied law for a brief period and then in 1666, he was sent to Ireland to manage his father’s estate. Unfortunately for his parent’s peace of mind, William met up again with the same Quaker preacher who had influenced him while at Oxford, and William Penn quickly became caught up in the Quaker cause. At the age of 22, he publically declared himself a member and formally joined the cause of the Religious Society of Friends.

The Quakers were Christians; however they differed substantially from Anglicans in the manner in which they practiced their faith. They rejected most of the rituals of the church particularly in their belief that individuals could speak directly with God without the necessity of using professional clergy as intermediaries. Obviously, this belief greatly angered and threatened the hierarchy of the Church of England. Quakers believed that all men were equal in the eyes of God. They also refused to swear oaths of allegiance, refused to remove their hats or bow when appearing before public officials or social superiors, and they were outspoken pacifists. In the ensuing years, William Penn’s charisma and intelligence combined with the fact that he was a prolific writer of letters and pamphlets, made him the recognized first theologian, theorist, and legal defender of Quakerism, providing its written doctrine and helping to establish its public standing. His strong advocacy on behalf of Quakers was not without problems for Penn for on at least four occasions in his life he was jailed for his actions and radical teaching including eight months in the Tower of London in 1668 and six months at the infamous Newgate Prison in 1671. Fortunately, his father’s influence prior to his death in 1670 and William Penn’s own charisma and his social and financial standing in England (he inherited a large sum of money when his father died) helped to mitigate his problems with the authorities. Furthermore, he was not thought to be a political threat and in fact, he remained on good terms for most of his life with many members of the English Parliament as well as with the Crown, both with Charles II and later with his brother, James II.

What is truly amazing however, is that William Penn was granted in 1681 by the British Parliament and by the King of England, the sole proprietorship of an immense tract of land in America in what is now the State of Pennsylvania. This act forever shaped the course of American history. Historians suggest that there are a number of possible reasons why William Penn was successful in obtaining the charter for Pennsylvania. It has been suggested that the British government by granting the land to Penn had hoped that the Quakers would leave England. It has also been suggested that the land was granted in lieu of the repayment of a debt owned by Charles II to William Penn’s father, the debt obligation passing to William Penn with the death of his father. Neither of these reasons however, appear to be the principle motives for granting Penn this immense tract of land. A more likely scenario is that the British government was eager to colonize America with English subjects thereby creating a new trading partner for English goods and at the same time strategically keeping the lands out of the hands of the Spanish, French or other foreign entities. By granting the land to Penn, they achieved these goals without cost to the British government. The government also knew that Penn was friendly with the Duke of York (later to become King James II) who was concurrently the proprietor of New York immediately to the north of “Penn’s Land”. With Penn to his south, it ensured James a friendly neighbor.

Penn’s efforts to organize his new colony began immediately as word spread about the new land available in America. “To attract settlers in large numbers, he wrote a glowing prospectus promising religious freedom as well as other material advantages which he marketed throughout Europe in various languages. Within six months he had parceled out 300,000 acres to over 250 prospective sellers, mostly rich London Quakers. Eventually he attracted other persecuted minorities including Huguenots, Mennonites, Amish, Catholics, Lutherans, and Jews from England, France, Holland, Germany, Finland, Ireland, and Wales.” [Chapter 6 in this family history blog tells the story of the Ferree family and their purchase of land from William Penn in the early 1700s.]

In the fall of 1682, Penn boarded the ship “Welcome” and departed on a two month long voyage to America and his new colony. He was to remain in Pennsylvania for two years working non-stop setting up the laws and political structure of the colony, locating and helping to layout the new city of “Brotherly Love”, Philadelphia, and formulating and signing treaties with the local Indians. In August of 1684 he returned to England to continue his work there. In February of 1685, King Charles II died and was replaced by his brother, King James II (the former Duke of York). James was a family friend of the Penns but he was also a Roman Catholic and somewhat sympathetic to the plight of the Quakers. When he was deposed in 1689 and replaced by Anglican King William and Queen Mary, William Penn’s political influence immediately disappeared. As a result of his support of James II, he was under suspicion of treason and forced into hiding and even briefly lost control of his colony from 1692 to 1694. William Penn however was resilient and after four years of hiding his arrest warrant was rescinded and a new patent was signed restoring Pennsylvania as Penn’s personal property.

William Penn and his family returned to Pennsylvania in 1699 with the full intention of remaining there for the rest of their lives. Penn fully expected to occupy his days in his role as governor but still have plenty of time to spend with his family at their comfortable estate at Pennsbury Manor. In the intervening 18 years since his first visit, Pennsylvania had grown rapidly and now had nearly 18,000 inhabitants and Philadelphia over 3,000. But troubles back in England and the threat again of a possible loss of his charter forced him to return to England with his family in 1701. Unfortunately, Penn discovered upon his return that he was facing financial ruin. Not only had his oldest son lived a dissolute life and run up huge gambling debts, but Penn himself faced personal financial ruin when he learned that his financial advisor had cheated him out of thousands of pounds. His financial problems further were compounded when he discovered that many of the generous loans he had made in his life were not being repaid. Furthermore, the financial benefits he had hoped to receive from his investments in Pennsylvania had not materialized. In 1706, William Penn found himself briefly in debtor’s prison but thanks to a group of Quakers who helped raise money to pay his debts, he was released. His efforts to sell Pennsylvania back to the crown were cut short in 1712 when he suffered a stroke. A second stroke several months later left him unable to speak or take care of himself. He slowly lost his memory and finally William Penn died penniless in 1718. This was truly a very sad ending for one of America’s greatest benefactors. In 1984, President Ronald Regan acting upon an Act of Congress, declared William Penn and his wife to be “honorary Citizens of the United States.” I am surprised that it took so long.

This chapter tells the story of some of my early ancestors who purchased land from William Penn or his agents. In the following two chapters (Parts I and II) we learn of Garrett Dewees who arrived from the Netherland in 1690, of Edward Farmer who arrived with his parents from Ireland in 1685, of John Bull, the Welshman who arrived with his family in 1685, of Henry Pawling who moved to the land that his father, an English soldier in the forces of the Duke of York, had purchased from Penn in 1681, to John Hunter who moved to Chester County in 1711, and finally to Llewellyn Parry from Wales who arrived with his father in 1683 and settled on the land that Penn referred to as his “Holy Experiment”, his province of Pennsylvania.

The Dewees Family

The origin of the family surname of DeWees is unknown although it has been clearly documented that the ancestor of all Dewees families in America is Garrett (or Gerret, or Gerrit) Hendricks DeWees who arrived in New Amsterdam from the Netherlands with his wife around 1663. While this should clearly demonstrate that the surname “DeWees” is Dutch, we have noted in previous chapters in this family history blog that the use of surnames by the rural Dutch was not in practice in the 1600s. Garrett [son of Henrick] Hendricks was in fact named after his father, Hendrick Adrianense, who in turn was named after his father, Anriane Heyndricks. So where did the surname DeWees originate? I believe that no one knows for certain. One theory is that the family soon after their arrival in America may have assumed the name of one of their ancient French Huguenot ancestors who used the name “D’Ewees”. Another undocumented source suggested that the Dewees family were descendants of Jan Pietre (born 1563), the only son of French Hugenots who died when he was very young. When Jan Pietre was adopted by a family they gave him the name “de wees”, which means “orphan” in Dutch. Nice story, but it is probably mostly myth. Incidentally, I should mention that our Dewees ancestors are in the family tree of my great grandfather, Eugene Hutchinson Ferree. Great Grandfather Ferree’s father’s name was David Dewees Ferree and his great grandmother was Elizabeth Dewees.

Dewees Generation #1: Garrett Hendrick (1640-Abt 1700):

Garrett Hendricks, age 21, married 18-year old Sijske (or Sytie, or Syntia, or sometimes written as Zytien) in the Dutch Reformed Church in Lieuwarden, Netherlands on September 28, 1662 less than a year before they emigrated to the New World into the port of New Amsterdam where they disembarked in the summer of 1663. Garrett’s father, Hendrick Adriaensz, a Dutch seaman, had died only a few years earlier in the East Indies in 1661 and it seems likely that he had left his son little in the way of an inheritance. So Garrett and his new wife left their Dutch homeland to seek a new life with new opportunities in America. Their first home was a small stone structure built against the walls of the old Fort Amsterdam constructed many years earlier at the southern tip of Manhattan Island. Unfortunately, perhaps as one of our county’s first cases of eminent domain, they were forced to move as their house was scheduled to be torn down to make way for the construction of new fort walls. They were as a compromise, given a house on Smith Street (in Brooklyn?) where the family was to live for the next 26 years. During that period the Dewees family had nine children recorded as baptized in the Dutch Reformed Church including our 7th great grandfather, Willem (William) Dewees who was born in 1679. In one of the colonial records, Garret Hendricks De Wees is listed as being a butcher and he most likely operated his business right from his home on Smith Street.

By the mid-1680s probably everyone in the province of New York, now under the control of the English, knew about the availability of land in William Penn’s new colony of Pennsylvania. Not only had Penn directly promoted his new colony in the Netherlands but it was well know that his wife, Gulielma Maria Springett, was of Dutch heritage. It is not surprising therefore, to learn that many of the earliest settlers in Pennsylvania were transplants from New Amsterdam. One of these families was our Dewees family who sailed from New York to the small new settlement of Philadelphia in 1690. Prior to leaving New York, the oldest Dewees daughter, Wilhelmina Dewees (my 7th great grandaunt), age 17, married 23-year old Nicholas “Claus” Rittenhouse (making him my 7th great granduncle-in-law, if you can follow that.) Claus’ father, William Rittenhouse (then Willem Rittenhausen) was born in Germany in 1644 where at a young age he learned the papermaking trade with his uncle. William with his uncle later moved to the Netherlands where they were employed by a paper manufacture until William with his wife and family emigrated to America in 1688. It is unclear whether the Rittenhouse family first disembarked in New York where Claus met and married Wilhelmina Dewees, but we know that by 1690 the Rittenhouse family was living in Germantown, Pennsylvania, a new settlement located a few miles northwest of Philadelphia. When Garrett Dewees with his wife and family moved to Pennsylvania in 1690, they leased property immediately adjacent to the Rittenhouse property, also in the new settlement of Germantown. The Rittenhouses were at this point, in-laws of my Dewees ancestors.

It is somewhat unusual to discover that the majority of the earliest settlers of Germantown were in fact mostly Dutch Quakers. It was not until the early 1700s with the great migration of the German Mennonites into Pennsylvania that the population of Germantown decidedly tilted to a German majority. Many of the earliest Dutch settlers in Germantown had worked in the cloth and textile mills in Holland and brought the knowledge of this trade with them to America. The abundant creeks in the area that flowed to the Schuylkill River and eventually to the Delaware River were ideal for the development of an American textile industry which required a source of flowing water to power the mills. William Rittenhouse immediately recognized that this growing textile industry was exactly what he needed to make paper. Papermaking at this point in history was made from discarded rags and cotton, giving birth to the term “rag paper”. William Rittenhouse went on to establish the first paper manufacturing plant in America located on a small rivulet later named Paper Mill Run where it empties into the Wissahickon Creek. The plant was to be operated by the next six generations of his family beginning with William’s son, Claus, who took over the operations when his father died in 1708. For what it is worth, in 1996 William Rittenhouse was inducted into the Paper Industry International Hall of Fame.

Dewees Generation #2: William Dewees (1679-1745):

When my 7th great grandfather, William Dewees, was young, and he was only around 11 years old when he moved to Germantown, he went to work as an apprentice at his brother-in-law’s papermaking mill. As previously mentioned, his brother-in-law, Claus Rittenhouse, was married to William’s older sister Wilhelminia. In 1710, William, then 31 years old, left the Rittenhouse Paper Mill and opened up his own paper mill located on the west shore of the Wissahickon Creek in the settlement of Crefeld, not far upstream from the Rittenhouse Mill. From an historical perspective, Germantown, Crefeldt, and the Wissahickon Creek are today mostly a part of the City of Philadelphia. In the 1700s however, along the beautiful Wissahickon Creek and its tributaries (now part of Philadelphia’s Fairmont Park System), the area was industrial and a blight of ugly mills and factory buildings that utilized the flowing water for power. Fortunately with the advent of electrical power, the mills and factory buildings were torn down in the late 1800s and the area was returned to its natural beauty. The Dewees paper mill built in 1710 is considered to be the second paper mill built in this country. The painting above was made of the Wissahickon Creek in the mid-1800s.

By 1713, William Dewees had already built a lucrative paper business and in December of that year he sold his business along with its improvements, his home, and 100 acres of land to his brother-in-law and his former employer, Nicholas “Claus” Rittenhouse. There is no reason to believe that the sale was not profitable for William, for in subsequent years he became a prominent real estate dealer, owning and selling lands, mills and houses. In 1730, William Dewees in partnership with his son-in-law, Henry Antes, constructed a second paper mill on 93 acres of land along the Wissahickon Creek located about six miles upstream from the Rittenhouse Paper Mill (near the present intersection of Germantown Pike Road and Northwestern Avenue where it crosses Wissahickon Creek). On this tract of land he built a new home where he was to remain with his family until his death in 1745. [The current site of Mount St. Joseph Convent at 9701 Germantown Road in Philadelphia marks the approximate location of the William Dewees homestead from 1730 until his death. The engraved rock shown in the picture to the left marks the spot in Whitemarsh where the Dewees home and paper mill once stood.] The paper mill and the family home remained in the possession of the family for at least the next generation. On the 1777 map of Germantown shown above (which can be enlarged for better viewing), the locations of both the Rittenhouse Paper Mill as well as the “Devees’ Mill” (shown in the upper left hand corner) are noted along the Wissahickon Creek. William Dewees served for a period in the early 1700s as a Constable and Sheriff in Philadelphia (Germantown) and he was one of the founders and an active member of the Whitemarsh Dutch Reformed Church including serving as an Elder in the Church for many years. The Church services were held at the home of William Dewees until his death in 1745. Whitehouse is located on the above map at the intersection of Bethlehem and Church Roads just north of Flourtown, about a mile or so north of their home.

In 1704, William Dewees married our 7th great grandmother, Anna Christina Mehls, the 14 year old daughter of Hans Heindrick and Catherine Mehls. The Mehls family emigrated to America from the Netherlands in 1701. In the early records of Philadelphia dated 1701, a deed for the sale of land in Germantown is recorded between Zytien DeWees, mother of William and widow of Garrett, and Hans Heindrick Mehls. It seems that William feel in love with and married his new neighbor’s daughter. William and Anna Christina had five sons and three daughters, including our 6th great grandfather, William Mehls Dewees, who was born in 1711 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. William (Sr.) died in 1745 and his wife died shortly thereafter in 1749. They are buried together in Germantown’s history cemetery, the “Upper Burying Ground,” (shown to the right) that was in use between 1724 and 1756.

Dewees Generation #3: William Mehls Dewees (1711-1777):

My 6th great grandfather, William Mehls Dewees married my 6th great grandmother, Rachel Farmar around the year 1735. According to the land records dated March of 1730 for the purchase by William’s father of the 93 acres for his family’s new home and paper mill on the Wissahickon that I mentioned above, the land was located in the northwestern corner of German township and was bordered on the west by the land of Edward Farmar, who not surprisingly was the father of Rachel Farmar and our 7th great grandfather. There is not a great deal of information about the lives of William and Rachel. We know that William joined his wife’s family church, St. Thomas Church, in Whitemarsh since he is listed as a vestryman in the church records in 1742. The records before 1742 have been lost although it is probable that they were married at St. Thomas. This is somewhat surprising considering that William’s parents had both been devout members of the Dutch Reform church (services had been held at his father’s home) and St. Thomas church, founded by Rachel’s father, was an Anglican church. In 1764, William and Rachel build a home on land that she had inherited from her father following his death in 1745. As far as I could determine, they remained in this home until his death in 1777, although some of the Dewees’ family historical biographies suggest that William and Rachel lived for a period and died in Norriton Township located near their son’s home at Valley Forge. Valley Forge is located on the south shore of the Schuylkill River by Chester County, Pennsylvania. Norriton Township is in Montgomery County on the north side of the Schuylkill River adjacent to Valley Forge. Since William served as “High Sheriff” of Philadelphia County from October 1773 through Oct 1776 and Justice of the Peace from 1757 through 1770, it does not seem likely that he purchased a home so remote from Philadelphia while he was serving in the position of sheriff. [Some historians relate that it was William’s son, also named William, who actually was the High Sheriff in Philadelphia County and not his father. Despite the fact that the father William was 65 years old when he left the position of sheriff in 1776, I believe that it is very unlikely that the son was the sheriff as it is clear that the son William was living and working in Pottsgrove and in Valley Forge in the 1770’s. I further believe that when historians report that William the father had a mansion near Valley Forge, and that he died in Norriton Township, they are further mixing up the father with the son.] There is a cute story that is told about Sheriff William Dewees that may or may not be true but it is worth repeating. On the eighth day of July 1776 at noon the High Sheriff of Philadelphia, the de facto capital of the new United States, was directed to read publically (as it turned out for the first time ever in our country’s history) the Declaration of Independence. Perhaps our William was just shy or too modest or as it is believed he passed the honor along to a John Nixon who was a prominent member of the Committee of Safety, for at noon William Dewees was among the large group of listeners who heard his designee John Nixon read the words from the document that changed our country’s history. It seems our William missed his chance in history. Anyway, William Dewees, the father, is also known to have been involved in real estate transactions during his lifetime. As far as I can determine there exists no documented evidence as to where and when William and Rachel died although I would guess that they are buried somewhere in a now unmarked grave in the churchyard of St Thomas Episcopal Church in Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania. The history of Rachel Farmar’s family is fascinating and it is well worth interrupting the Dewees family story to relate the story of the Farmar family, the ancestors of my 6th great grandmother, Rachel Farmar.

The Farmar Family Genealogy
It is not at all unusually to find in historical records that the spelling of family surnames can vary considerably from generation to generation. Since it was generally the record keeper and not the family member (who often could not even write much less spell) who determined how the family name was recorded, the variations in the spelling of the names is easy to understand. Consequently, we find the early Farmar names spelled in various styles including Fermour, Fermor, Farmar, and Fermer, and on some monuments in early family graveyards in Oxfordshire, England the names are spelled as Ffarmar and even ffamar. We are informed in Collins’ Peerage of England first published in 1812, that the first Farmar ancestor in England arrived with William the Conqueror in 1066 and he was at this early period established in the lordship of Somerton in Oxfordshire, England. It is in this area of England where we discovered the first documented history of the life of the of our Farmar ancestors, Thomas Fermour.

Farmar Generation #1: Thomas Fermour (Abt 1447-1485):

Thomas Fermour was born around 1447 in Oxfordshire, England probably near the village of Witney located about 12 miles west of the present day city of Oxford. Very little is known of his life although it is recorded that he was wool merchant and extremely wealthy. Fortunately for Thomas, the greater part of his wealth was obtained from an inheritance from his uncle William Fermour as well as from two very profitable marriages including his 2nd marriage to my 14th great grandmother, Emmotte Hervey, daughter and heiress of Symkin Hervey of Herefordshire, and the widow of Henry Wenman both of whom left Emmotte wealthy and a desirable catch for Thomas. History is kind to our Thomas Fermour however, for he was considered to be a very generous man with his wealth and his grave monument behind the Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene in the Church of Whitney in Oxfordshire records him as “. . . a man magnanimous to his enemies, admirably beneficent to learning, a kind master, and the founder of the new school . . .” In his brief marriage to Emmotte whom he married in 1480, she bore him two sons, our 13th great grandfather, Richard Fermor born in 1481, and William born in 1484. Both of Thomas’ sons inherited extensive land holdings owned by their father when he died unexpectedly in 1485. The school that Thomas founded and bequeathed in his will as mentioned on his grave monument was part of the chapel in the medieval castle of the de Greys’ family in the village of Somerton. The school he founded remained in use as a school until the middle of the 20th century and today it is still in existence in Somerton as a private residence.

Farmar Generation #2: Richard Fermor (Abt.1481- 1551):

Both Richard and his brother William continued in their father’s profession of being wool merchants. Great Uncle William born around 1484, acquired in 1512 a large estate near the village of Somerton located about 15 miles north of Oxford, where he engaged in a large sheep-farming operation. By the 1530s by one account, he was one of England’s largest wool exporters. William’s “Manor at Somerton” remained in the Fermor family until 1815 and he is buried along with many of his descendants at the Church of St. James in Somerton. Although greatly modified since the 16th century, this medieval church is still in use to this day (see photo to the right.)
Richard Fermor, my 13th great grandfather, was also to become one of the wealthiest men in England in the early part of the 16th century. He is generally described in English history as a “grocer”, but as a wool merchant of the “staple of Calais” he traded in silks, wheat, and all kinds of commodities shipped into and out of England. During this period of English history the merchants of Calais (seaport in France) had a virtual monopoly on English trade and as we have observed in a previous chapter of our family history blog (Chapter 16 – Our Wolcott Ancestors). The wealth created from the wool trade in England was one of the major causes of the rise of the English middle class. The increased wealth and power of the middle class was not entirely well received by the English nobility nor by the English monarchy, as powerful and wealthy merchants like Richard Fermor often we more affluent than their noble counterparts. There are numerous records of Richard Fermor’s trading activities between 1513 though the early 1530s including frequent major wool exports to Italy and the sale of large quantities of armor and munitions to the King’s army in 1513. During his life Richard Fermor amassed vast “landed property” as apparently the acquisition of land was the principle use of excess capital during this period of history (obviously in 1630 he was not able to acquire stock in Microsoft.)

One of Richard’s major acquisitions, which was to become his residence, was a 25,000 acre manor named Easton Neston located near the town of Towcester, Northamptonshire, England (north of Oxfordshire). The manor was to remain in the Fermor family until it was sold recently in 2005. The photograph of Easton Neston shows the Fermor mansion-home constructed at Easton Neston by Richard’s 3rd great grandson, Sir George Fermor, between 1694 and 1702. One interesting thing about the large estates in England owned by the landed gentry like Richard Fermor was their tendency to depopulate the villages near their estates to make more room for their flocks of sheep. The original small medieval village on the site of Easton Neston was completely depopulated by Richard Fermor and his overseers and when a population survey was taken during the reign of King Henry VIII, all that remained of the original medieval village was the church, the mills and their fields and a few cottages that were probably then being occupied by the estate workers.

Richard Fermor was not only wealthy but he maintained a zealous adherence to the Roman Catholic faith even following the Act of Supremacy in 1534 wherein King Henry VIII declared himself the “supreme head in earth of the church of England” and subsequently stripped the Roman Catholic church of all of its wealth and power in England. In 1540, Richard visited his former priest, his “confessor”, a Nicholas Thayne, who had been imprisoned “in the gaol of Buckingham” and gave him a small amount of money and a few shirts. This small act of kindness was all that was required to excite King Henry VIII and his deputies and they accused Richard of being a “maintainer” of the Pope, and he was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison and the forfeiture of all of his lands. Fortunately, Richard had influential friends “in court”, including his brother William, and in 1641 he received a pardon. He had to wait however, until after the death of Henry VIII in 1547 before his wealth and lands were restored. Richard died a wealthy man in 1551. He is buried at the church in Easton Neston. During his life Richard Fermor had married his wife, Anne Browne, daughter of Sir William Browne (my 14th great grandfather), lord-mayor of London, and together they had ten children including his oldest son, John Fermor, my 12th great grandfather, who was born in 1516.

Farmar Generation #3: Sir John Fermor (1516-1571):

John Fermor inherited the estate of Easton Neston when his father died in 1551. John was 35 years old, wealthy, and a Roman Catholic like his father. Less than two years after the death of John’s father, King Edward VI died, unmarried and without an heir, and Mary, the Catholic daughter of King Henry VIII, was crowned Queen Mary I of England. John Fermor is believed to have strongly supported Mary prior to her coronation and consequently, on October 2, 1553, the day following Mary’s coronation, John Fermor in the presence of the new Queen Mary I was made one of the “Knights of the Carpet” at Westminster and my 12th great grandfather was henceforth to be called Sir John Fermor. For his support of the “true religion”, Sir John Fermor was to represent Northamptonshire in two parliaments, and he was appointed sheriff of that Northamptonshire during the 4th and 5th years of the reign of Queen Mary. Mary’s reign however, was to be short and when she died childless in 1558, she was replaced by her half-sister, Queen Elizabeth I. Queen Elizabeth, unfortunately for Sir John Fermor, was not a Roman Catholic and Sir John Fermor was removed from his political offices in much the same fashion that Republicans or Democrats when they regain power in our country following an election, immediately dump all of their predecessor’s political appointments.

Sir John Fermor married Maud Vaux, the daughter of Sir Nicholas Vaux (1460-1523), the 1st Baron Vaux of Harrowden. Nicholas Vaux, my 13th great grandfather, was a soldier and courier in England and an early member of the House of Commons and served under both King Henry VII as well as King Henry VIII. Several years ago when I was researching some of my early ancestors in New England I came across information that led me to believe that I was a direct descendant of William Shakespeare. Much to my chagrin, I later discovered that Shakespeare has no descendants so I recanted my earlier optimistic report. Now to my surprise, I have discovered that one of my ancestors, Sir Nicholas Vaux, appears as a character, albeit a minor character, in Shakespeare’s play, Henry VIII. In Act 2, Scene 1 we find Sir Thomas Lowell and Sir Nicholas Vaux both lords of the court escorting the Duke of Buckingham to a barge where he is being taken to his execution. The following are some of the immortal words from this play:

LOWELL: . . . Then give my charge up to Sir Nicholas Vaux,
Who undertakes you to your end.

VAUX: Prepare there,
The duke is coming: see the barge be ready;
And fit it with such furniture as suits
The greatness of his person.

BUCKINGHAM: Nay, Sir Nicholas, Let it alone . . .

Nice going Shakespeare. It is too bad that the play was performed so long after the death of Sir Nicholas [the play was written in 1613 during the reign of King James I, almost 100 years after the death of Sir Nicholas]. He would have been so proud. Sir John Fermor and his wife Maud Vaux were to have at least six children. Their oldest son, my 11th great grandfather, George Fermor, was born at Easton Neston in the year 1544. John Fermor died in 1751 and he is buried at Easton Neston.

Farmar Generation #4: George Fermor (1544-1612):

I could not find any references in any of the genealogical or historical documents that I reviewed with respect to George Fermor, describing him as a Roman Catholic like his forbearers. During most of his life with the exception of the five year reign of Queen Mary I, the kings and queens of England insisted that the official church in England was the Anglican Church of England. George Fermor may have been a practical man who realized that if he wanted to have political power in England he could not be a highly visible Roman Catholic. We know that he distinguished himself serving in the army during the Anglo-Spanish War in the Netherlands in 1585, and for his service he was knighted my her majesty, Queen Elizabeth I in 1586. Historical records show that he served as sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1589 and entertained King James I and Queen Anne at his estate at Easton Neston on June 11, 1603. King James is noted as not being particularly tolerant of Roman Catholics and it is unlikely that he would have accepted an invitation from Sir George Fermor and his wife if they were not Anglicans.

Sir George Fermor married in 1570, Mary Curzon, daughter and heir of Thomas Curzon and possibly a god-daughter and one of the maids of honor of Queen Mary I. Together they had as many as ten children including their 2rd son, Robert Fermor, my 11th great grandfather, who was born at Easton Neston around 1578. In his will dated 1611, Sir George mentioned only six children, five sons and one daughter. His other children were either married daughters whom he had taken care of with a dowry when they married or children that did not live to adulthood. We know for example, that the oldest Fermor daughter, Agnes Fermor, married Sir Richard Wenman in 1595 and she survived her father’s death despite not being mentioned in her father’s will. Just to show that my ancestors had their fingers in many aspects of English history, it is recorded that Lady Agnes Fermor Wenman was questioned for her part if any, in the infamous Guy Fawkes Gunpowder Plot of 1605 where Catholic conspirators were suspected of plotting to kill King James I. Sir George Fermor died in 1612 and he is buried in the church at Easton Neston as is his wife, Mary Curzon Fermor, who died in the year 1628. Sir George and his wife Mary are my 11th great grandparents. I could not help but take note that Sir George’s surname was spelled in his will as Fermar and not Fermor.

Farmar Generation #5: Robert Fermar (1576-Abt 1626):

Robert’s older brother, Hatton Fermar was in the fortunate position per English tradition of inheriting the bulk of his father’s estate including Easton Neston. He was knighted by King James I when James and Queen Anne visited his father’s estate in 1603. The descendants of Sir Hatton went on to become members of English peerage starting with his son who became a Baron and his great grandson, Thomas Fermor, who became the 1st Earl of Pomfret in 1791. The daughter of Sir Thomas Fermor and the great, great granddaughter of Sir Hatton Fermor was Lady Juliana Fermor, who married Thomas Penn, the son of William Penn. This fact, an interesting coincidence, helps us to further understand William Penn’s incredible influence in English politics in the latter part of the 17th century despite his being a Quaker.

Robert Fermar, my 9th great grandfather, knew at a young age that his older brother would inherit most of his father’s estate, therefore he did what many other younger sons of wealthy landowners did in this period of English history, he asked his father to buy him a rank in the British army. I discussed this practice in Chapter 5 of my family history blog. Officers in the British military during and prior to the Crimean War were chosen not on their merit or their experience but on how much they would pay to purchase the rank of an officer. Being an officer had its advantages not the least of which was that if they were reasonably competent and were in the right war at the right time, you had the opportunity to share in the spoils of war. In the case of Robert Fermor and others this meant being granted large tracts of land in Ireland for their services. The land grants were in lieu of pay since the English crown was always short of cash. Unfortunately the practice of granting large estates to English soldiers meant that someone, and in this case the Irish, had to be booted off their land. That is a story in itself, and explains the bitter feelings between the Catholic Irish and the British government that exists to some extent to this day.

Robert Fermar went to Ireland with Queen Elizabeth’s army probably sometime shortly after 1594 [he would have been 20 years old in 1598]. The year 1594 marks the beginning of Ireland’s “Nine Years’ War” (sometimes referred to as Tyrone’s Rebellion). The war was fought between the Gaelic Irish Chieftains and the Elizabethan English government of Ireland over English control of Ireland. The war while not well known, was the largest conflict by the English in the Elizabethan era (1558-1603) and at one point between the years 1600 and 1601 there were more than 18,000 English soldiers fighting in Ireland. In 1601 Spain sent 3,500 to Ireland hoping to share in the defeat of the English army, however they like the Irish forces were finally defeated by 1603. Apparently our Robert Fermar accommodated himself well in the war for he was given by the Crown for his services several large estates in Ireland, chiefly in the counties of Cork and Tipperary.

Robert Fermar is believed to have married Mary Bolles, daughter of Sir George Bolles, a one-time lord mayor of London. I could not find any clear evidence to support this marriage although there is evidence that whomever Robert married she gave birth to at least three children in Ireland, my 8th great grandfather, Jasper Farmar, and his younger siblings John and Alice. According to the will of Robert’s mother, Mary Curzon Fermor, dated 1628, it directed that the debts of her late son be paid as her son Robert Farmor, who “was of late unfortunately slain at Carlow in the realm of Ireland” was obviously not in a position to take care of the matter. Some historian/genealogists suggest that Robert was killed in battle although there is nothing in the history of Carlow, Ireland to suggest that a battle occurred in that city anytime between the end of the Nine Years’ War in 1603 and the death of Robert’s mother in 1628. It is very possible that he was killed while serving in his role as a soldier but not necessarily in the course of a battle. Furthermore, the date of Robert’s death cannot be accurately determined although some historians place it as early as 1616. Based on the language of the will that indicates that her son was slain “of late” and she directed that his debts be ”paid as my own”, this strongly suggests in my opinion that Robert’s death only proceeded his mother’s death by a short period, possibly in 1626 or 1627.

One other item needs to be discussed with respect to Robert Fermar. Many of the historical writings about the history of the Farmar family assert that Robert Fermar, son of Sir George Fermor, had a son also named Robert Fermar, who was actually the father of Jasper Farmar. If this is true, that would mean that Sir George Fermor was the great grandfather of Jasper Farmar and not the grandfather as we have laid out above. I believe that this is completely erroneous for the following reasons. First, there simply are not enough years between the birth of Robert Fermar in 1576 and the birth of Jasper Farmar in 1610 to have added another generation. Some genealogists have made Robert’s birthday as early as 1570 and his alleged son Robert’s birth date as 1790 trying to force this additional generation, however Robert’s parents, Sir George Fermor and Mary Curzon, were married in 1570 and since Robert was their third child, the 1570 birth date is impossible. There is also a letter that was discovered that is dated December 4, 1746 that references Jasper Farmar as the grandson (not the great grandson) of Sir George Fermor and notes that he was a major in the army in Ireland. Finally, other than adding the additional Robert in the family tree, no historian and no genealogist has furnished any information about this mysterious second Robert with respect to his birth and death dates, marriage information, brothers and sisters, nor has any other evidence been provided even to support his existence. My believe is that Jasper Farmar’s father, Robert Farmar (or Farmer or Fermor), was the son of Sir George Fermor.

Farmar Generation #6: Jasper Farmar (1610-1685):

Whether Jasper’s father died in 1616 or 1626, Jasper was still pretty young and probably too young to immediately assume the duties of running the family estates in County Tipperary and County Cork. We will never know how this transition took place and all that we do know is that at some point in his young life, Jasper Farmar joined the English Army under King Charles I and eventually achieved or purchased the rank of major. Virtually every historical document both in England, Ireland and in America about this man refers to him as Major Jasper Farmar. During most of Jasper Farmar life in Ireland, the island was engulfed in war and as a major in the Royalist army of Charles I, he would have been very much involved. The Irish Uprising (aka Irish Rebellion or The Confederate War) became in 1641 and it was a result of the long term and hated policies of both the Tudor and the Stuart monarchs under which Ireland was aggressively colonized by Protestant settlers from England and Scotland. Under the colonization policy the mostly Irish Catholic landowners were dispossessed of their land to make way for the new settlers. Further compounding the problem was that the Irish Parliament was subservient to the English Parliament and the Catholics were barred from holding state office. Obviously, the Farmar family would have supported the English colonization policies since Jasper’s father, Robert, had been a beneficiary of such a policy when he was granted land for his services in the army. Major Jasper Farmar as a result of his inheritance became a large English “Protestant” landholder and therefore in the class of English landowners that the Irish hated. The Uprising lasted for ten years until the Irish Confederates were finally defeated by Oliver Cromwell’s invasion army in 1649. During the war much of the Farmar landholdings particularly in Tipperary, had been confiscated by the Irish Confederates. This proved to be larger problem than might otherwise have been expected with the defeat of the Irish armies in 1649. The British Parliament and the army under Cromwell were already engaged in a Civil War in England with the Royalist forces under King Charles I, and when King Charles I was captured and ordered executed in 1649, the Royalist army in Ireland in which Major Jasper Farmar served, was suddenly forced to form an alliance with the Irish Confederates to challenge the newly-declared English Commonwealth army under Oliver Cromwell. By 1652, the war was essentially over and the Irish armies were defeated. The bottom line is that at the end of the war after a decade of fighting, Major Jasper Farmar found himself on the losing side in the war with a large portion of his land confiscated and most of his political capital lost. Furthermore, he was 42 years old, without a job, and due to the loss of much of his estates, he had a reduced income. He had no choice at this point but to find himself a rich wife. [Just kidding].

I have no idea whether Mary Gamble, the oldest daughter of Anthony Gamble of County Cork, brought a large dowry to her marriage when they married in 1653. She was born in 1614 which made her in her late 30s when she married Jasper Farmar and as far as I could determine this was her first marriage, at least she did not bring any children with her from a former marriage. Their first child Richard Farmar was born in 1653, followed by a second son, Jasper Farmar, Jr., a year later. Before Mary’s death in the late 1660s they were to have at least three or four more children. Jasper, Mary and the children lived on their estate in Garranekinnefeake Parish, near the village of Midleton, in County Cork located just east of the present day city of Cobh near the coastline of southwest Ireland. The political climate in Ireland and Jasper’s former affiliation with the Royalists made his efforts to gain back the land that he lost during the war, all but impossible. Furthermore, his old lands were quickly absorbed by new colonists and former soldiers (“adventurers”) that were immigrating into Ireland in the 1650s. Owning land in England and Ireland during this time period was critical since land for most of the wealthy was almost their sole source of income, income from the sheep and cattle industry, and income from the rents from tenant farmers. The loss of land must have been very painful for the Farmar family. [Several of the Farmar family historians have suggested that after the war, Jasper Farmer and his family sought refuge in England and their loss of much of their land may have been a punishment for their support of Charles I. If this is true some of his children must have been born in England, a fact that I could not confirm. The family must have then returned to Ireland after the Restoration of Charles II in 1661.]

Since the Norman invasion under William the Conqueror in 1066 until the present day, with the exception of the period between the year 1649 (when Charles I was executed) and the year 1660 with the Restoration of Charles II (he was actually crowned king in 1661) there has been a continuous reigning monarch in England. During most of the period between 1640 and 1660, Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan followers controlled the government of England and Ireland. Incidentally, as I have pointed out in previous chapters, the Puritan immigration into the New England colonies in America came to an abrupt halt when Cromwell came to power, since the primary reason to flee England, religious freedom, was removed. The Restoration of the monarchy in 1661 must have brought great joy to the Farmar family (even if the family was living in England at the time as suggested above.) Unfortunately, despite the “Act of Settlement” of 1662 and the recognition by the Crown that some “Innocents” had been dispossessed of their land without fair compensation, the Farmar family was unable to get their land returned and they received only a small compensation from the Crown for their losses.

After the death of Jasper Farmer’s first wife, Mary Gamble, in the late 1660s, he married Mary Batsford (her married name) in 1671. Mary was a widow and 36 years old when she married 61-year old Jasper Farmar and she bought with her to her new marriage three children from her prior marriage. Mary and Jasper were to have at least four children together including Edward Jasper, my 7th great grandfather, who was born in 1672. The list of invitees to the wedding of Jasper and Mary in 1671 will never be known although it is possible that their nearby neighbor, the young and personable William Penn, may have been in attendance. This may be a bit fanciful since William Penn was in an English jail in London for six months in the year 1671. Penn’s father had been granted lands in County Cork, Ireland for his services during the English Civil War, and when his father died in 1670, young William then 26 years old, inherited his father’s large Irish estate.

The estate of William Penn which consisted of eight square miles of land (over 5,000 acres) was located near the present day village of Shanagarry in Cork County, Ireland and according to some historical documents, “Penn’s Castle” was located adjacent to the estate of Jasper Farmer’s brother, John Farmar, located near the village of Youghal. At the same time, Jasper Farmar and his family resided at their estate near the County Cork village of Midleton. All three of these towns, Midleton, Youghal, and Shanagarry, are shown on the adjacent map and while they do not look all that close to one another on the map, it must be remembered that in the 1600s the estates were huge. An estate containing an area of 5000 acres represents an area approximately 3 miles long by 3 miles wide assuming that the property is square which would have been unlikely. The distance between Midleton and Shanagarry is approximately ten miles and while Penn and the two Farmar brothers may not have lived exactly next door to one another, as large landowners in southeast County Cork they would definitely have known each other.

As early as 1677, William Penn was part of a group purchasing land in the western side of the present state of New Jersey and once the land was acquired they immediately set about encouraging settlement particularly among English Quakers. Then much to Penn’s surprise, King Charles I in 1681 granted him a charter as the sole proprietor of the “land of Pennsylvania” and as outlined in his brief biography at the beginning of this chapter, Penn immediately began an active promotion to sell his property. One of his first customers was Major Jasper Farmar.

One has to wonder why in 1682 Jasper Farmar would decide to leave his home and the lovely rolling green hills of County Cork, Ireland at the age of 72, his wife in her late 40s, and at least seven children still living at home. There were probably many reasons that contributed to his decision. Perhaps, Jasper was tired of struggling to keep up with the falling prices for his agricultural products caused in part by the English government trying to control Irish exports through the passage of the Cattle Acts that limited shipments of live cattle, and perhaps caused in part by the passage of the Navigation Act that prohibited direct trade with the Colonies. Furthermore, the second Anglo-Dutch War that stated in 1665 did not help much to promote trade exports to Europe. Then again, the poor weather in Ireland in the late 1600s caused frequent crop failures and at about the same time the English authorities were insisting on raising new taxes. All of these factors and probably more contributed to his discontent; however I believe that the primary reason why Jasper Farmar decided to relocate his family to the New World was due almost entirely to the salesmanship of his friend William Penn. After all, William Penn, a Quaker no less, convinced the King of England to give him thousands of acres of land in America at no cost and with few strings attached. Undoubtedly Penn came across as likeable and honest and while he had not yet been to Pennsylvania when he sold 5,000 acres of wilderness land to the Farmar family in 1682, he believed in the product that he was selling enough to convince Jasper Farmar to leave his homeland. The land of course was unbelievably inexpensive compared to the cost of land in Ireland and only in his dreams could Jasper imagine owning 5,000 acres of land that Penn no doubt described as being just as beautiful and fertile as land in Ireland, with temperate weather, friendly Indians, plentiful wild game, religious freedom, and all of which was to be overseen by a democratic government operating under a constitution where power was to be derived from the people. It was hard to turn it down and thousands of new immigrants did not.

In late August of 1685, Jasper and Mary Farmar, six of their children including three children from his wife’s first marriage, plus his son Jasper and his wife and their three children, and his daughter (name unknown) and her husband, Thomas Webb, and their son, and at least twenty of their servants and their children boarded the ship “Bristol Merchant” in Ireland bound for Philadelphia. Also on board was Nicholas Scull, son of Jasper’s sister Alice, and his seven servants. Jasper Farmar had made the full commitment both with his willingness to make a life changing event but also with his strong financial commitment. The cost of the trip alone must have been enormous. There was not only the expense of the passage for all of his family and their servants but there was also the added expense to ship all of their family belongs including their furniture. This trip of course, was not without its unknowns, although Jasper’s son, Jasper Jr. had made the voyage to Philadelphia a few years earlier with his father’s estate overseer, John Scull (Jasper Sr.’s nephew and the son of Jasper’s sister Alice, and brother of Nicholas Scull) and finalized the land purchase with William Penn, before returned to Ireland to accompany his family on the later trip. John Scull stayed behind to prepare the family’s new home. Whether Major Jasper Farmar had a premonition about his death is unknown, although at the age of 75, he had prudently prepared his last will and testament before they sailed. He also settled any financial obligations he may have felt necessary with his two grown sons, Richard and Samuel, who had elected not to make the voyage to America. His oldest daughter, Elizabeth had died in 1682, and his daughter Mary (“Webber”) who also did not make the trip, had married and received from her father a large dowry. Every obligation he may have felt necessary with respect to his family that stayed behind had been settled before he departed for America.

The seas in the North Atlanta in late summer were probably rough and the occasional driving rain blowing from the west into the faces of the travelers could be cold especially as winter approached. The passenger space was small, crowded, damp, and unheated and the sanitary conditions below the deck were hideous by any standards. Not surprisingly many of the passengers were seasick almost immediately from the point the ship lost sight of the coast of Ireland to the time the ship arrived in America in early November of 1685. Many became dehydrated from their constant vomiting and their inability to hold down food. Their weakness and their loss of weight left them vulnerable to diseases, particularly pneumonia and small pox, common causes of death on the ocean voyages in the 17th century. Jasper Farmar was especially vulnerable at the age of 75. Unfortunately, weakened by disease he finally succumbed his life somewhere out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. His son, Jasper Farmer Jr. and one of his sisters (whose name is unknown), and his stepson, William Batsford, also died on the voyage as did many others whose names have been lost in history. The recorded passenger list of the “Bristol Merchant” includes only those passengers who were onboard and alive when they ship arrived in Philadelphia on November 10, 1685. The 100 mile trip up the Delaware River to Philadelphia must have caused much excitement among the passengers although in spots the rapidly flowing river and the shallow shoals played havoc even with experienced captains. Fortunately, John Stephens, the captain, had made this trip on a number of previous occasions as had dozens of other ships preceding the “Bristol Merchant”. William Penn had been busy recruiting new settlers.

By November of 1685, there were almost 500 to 800 settlers living in and around Philadelphia (estimated to be over 2,000 by 1700) and as many as 200-300 homes had been built including many new homes constructed of brick. The village had been constructed on a plot of land back off the river bank at an elevation of about 30 feet above the river. Before the construction of a long wharf built out into the Delaware in 1684 the unloading of the ships, both the passengers and their possessions, had been a tedious and long event. Fortunately, the Farmar family had the benefit of disembarking on the newly constructed wharf and they were probably met and assisted by their overseer, John Scull. Most historians writing about this event note that Mary Batsford Farmar was a remarkably composed woman despite the recent loss of her husband, one of her sons, and two of her stepchildren during the voyage. Three other younger Farmar children who made the voyage are believed to have died in Philadelphia shortly after their arrival (at least their names do not appear in any later historical records.) She was not only optimistic and energetic, but an astute business women for shortly after her arrival she acquired a large brick house and several land plots in Philadelphia and she soon visited their “Plantation”, later to be called “Farmar’s Towne”, located about 15 miles upstream from Philadelphia on the Schuylkill River. There she organized the farming operations including directing the construction of new roads and buildings. She is further credited with discovering limestone on their property useful in the making of building stones, and she also ordered the construction of a mill and a kiln used to grind and dry the limestone, which is the essential component in the making of plaster. Mary Farmar also directed the disposition of both her husband’s will and his son Jasper’s will. Unfortunately and despite her energy and her determination, she was taken ill, and in October of 1686, she felt it necessary to prepare her last Will and Testament: “In the name of God, Amen. I, Mary Farmar, widdow and relic of Major Jasper Farmar of Ireland, being weak in health but in perfect memory, blessed by God, doe make this my last Will and Testament in manner and forme following . . . “. Mary Farmar died shortly thereafter. Of the twelve children born to Major Jasper Farmar and his two wives, Mary Gamble and Mary Batsford, only a few survived their father’s and mother’s death. Edward Farmar, their youngest son, and my 7th great grandfather, inherited the bulk of his father’s land in America. The 5,000 acre Farmar “Plantation” shown on the above map dated 1690 is located just north of and about the same size as German Township, later “Germantown”, and the parcel was obviously one of the largest grants of land that William Penn made in the original Philadelphia County. Also note that immediately to the southeast of the Farmar land was the Pennsylvania land that William Penn gifted to his 1st wife, Gulielma Maria Springett in 1681 that is referred to as the “Manor of Springfield” on the old map. The size and excellent location of the property shows both Penn’s friendship with the Farmar family as well as the Farmar’s obvious wealth. The Farmar land today is the larger part of the township of Whitemarsh in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

Based on the dates of Major Jasper Farmer’s will as recorded in some of the narratives about his life, I can understand why some genealogists are confused as to when he wrote his will and when and where he died. In fact in some of the narratives, particularly in the extensive Farmar family biography that was written by Lewis D. Cook and begins on page 496 in his book “Genealogies of Pennsylvania Families” published in 1982 from original articles in the Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine, we discover that Cook seems to provide different dates for the same event. Part of the confusion for amateur genealogists and historians such as myself, is that when I read that when an event occurred on the 25th day of the 7th month or as often written in the early documents as “7ber ye 25 1685”, I interpret this to mean that something occurred on July 25th, 1685. Unfortunately, in Cook’s narrative he sometimes uses the date of the signing of Major Jasper Farmar’s last will and testament as the 7thmonth, 25th day of 1685 or more frequently he gives us the will date as Sept 25th, 1685. My problem in trying to understand where and when Jasper Farmar died is that if he signed his will on September 25th 1685, and the “Bristol Merchant” arrived in Philadelphia on November 10th, 1685, the 46 days between these two dates is too short a time period. It took William Penn nine weeks to cross the Atlantic when he first visited his new colony in 1683 and that trip was reported to be a “fast” voyage. It is understandable that some historians declare that Jasper died in Ireland and then his family departed for America. In actual fact, if the September 25th date is correct it would suggest that Jasper actually signed his will and died after his family departed Ireland, in effect suggesting that his family left him behind while he was still alive, which is very unlikely.

The confusion about the dates was easily resolved once I recognized the timing problem. Prior to 1752 the English calendar was different than our calendar of today. In 1685, our date of March 25th was considered to be the 1st of the new year in the Julian calendar or roughly equivalent to our January 1st. The time period of March 25th to April 24th was the first month of the year and written as “1ber”. A date of 7ber 25th, the date of the signing of Jasper’s will, would be in today’s calendar written as September 1st or the first day of the 10th month. If Major Jasper Farmar signed his will on September 1st and immediately departed on the “Bristol Merchant” for America, assuming that he had lived, he would have arrived approximately 10 weeks later on November 10th, 1685. The calendar change seems to explain the contradiction of the dates and it confirms that Jasper Farmar most likely died at sea. Incidentally the calendar change also helps to explain why sometimes we find one of our ancestors listed as having died in March 15, 1684/85. Both dates are correct simply depending on whether we are looking at the Julian calendar or the modern Gregorian calendar.

One other problem that I have not explained with regard to Jasper Farmar’s Last Will and Testament is why he willed most of his estate in America to his youngest son, Edward, and not to Edward’s three older step-brothers, John, Robert and Charles, who also made the voyage to America with their parents. The will provides 300 pounds sterling to each of the older brothers but not the more valuable “Plantation” which was left to Edward. Edward’s older stepbrothers, Richard and Samuel, who remained behind in Ireland were provided for by Jasper before he left Ireland, and Jasper Jr., who died on the voyage, was given a one quarter share or 1,250 acres of the 5,000 acre Plantation in Pennsylvania which his wife later inherited. And yet, Edward who was only 14 years old when his father signed his will and then died, inherited 3,750 acres of valuable farm land. I can only surmise that while Edward was Jasper Farmar’s youngest son, he was also the oldest son of the marriage between Jasper Farmar and his second wife, Mary Batsford. If Mary Batsford was a strong-willed individual as has been suggested, it is possible that it was though her influence that their “oldest” son inherited his father’s estate in America.

One final note about the Farmar family in America that needs to be mentioned is that a few historian/genealogists have suggested that the Farmar family were Quakers. While there is no clear documented evidence to prove this belief, the fact that they were close friends with the Penn Family, their early move to America occurred simultaneously with the move of many other Quakers from the British Isles, and the fact that John Cookson, Edward’s guardian after his mother died, was a Quaker, means that we cannot easily dismiss the possibility that the Farmar family had become Quakers. On the other hand, Jasper Farmar is referred to in numerous documents even after his death by his military title, Major, which would seem to be an unlikely title to use had he been a Quaker, since their distain for the military and war was well known. Furthermore, his son, Edward, donated land and helped build a non-denomination church on his father’s property which later became an Episcopal church, further suggests that the family upbringing was not that of a Quaker. Perhaps additional future study may shed new light on this issue.

Farmar Generation #7: Edward Farmar (1672-1745):

Edward Farmar, my 7th great grandfather, was forced to grow up quickly. He was only 14 years old when his mother died, and most of the others that he had been close to were either back in Ireland or were dead. His younger sister Sarah had gone to live with his Aunt Katherine (his step-brother’s wife), and he probably seldom saw her. He was too young to make decisions about running the family farm as his guardians made all of his financial decisions and the decisions regarding his upbringing. His confusion about his life growing up is perhaps demonstrated in the following story: Edward Farmar was still underage at 19 years old when he asked his Quaker guardian’s daughter, Sarah Goodson, for her hand in marriage. It is not known whether she objected, although she may have been caught by surprise with the sudden proposal, and it is possible that her father may have objected to the proposed marriage. For whatever the reasons, the matter was referred to a group of arbitrators, two Quakers and two non-Quakers (the non-Quakers were selected by Edward), and it was finally settled against the proposed marriage and Sarah subsequently married someone else. It was written that Sarah received a “discharge” from Edward Farmar suggesting that she may not have been fond of him despite the fact he was soon to be a wealthy landowner. Whether Edward was arrogant in pushing the marriage or just lonely we do not know, however we do know that Edward, less than two years later in 1694 and now of age, married our 7th great grandmother, Rachel Astley, and together they set about managing their future.

Edward Farmar’s life is well documented in the records of numerous land transactions, his business activities, his children’s births, his donations, and his public services. Beginning in the early 1690s Edward began the sale of his land in 100 to 200 acre plots. The sales served two purposes, one of which was to raise money for the Edward Farmar family, and the other, to satisfied one of the agreement terms that their family had made with William Penn when the land was originally granted, that the property was to be subdivided. It was never Penn’s intention to re-create a large feudal estate in America as existed in England and Ireland. We also learned that Edward when he was young had spent time with the Indians that still lived nearby and he had learned to speak the various dialects of their language. History records that in 1701 and 1702 (and off and on in later years), Edward served as an interpreter for the government (and perhaps even for William Penn who lived in Pennsylvania from 1699 until 1701). On May 19, 1712 a council with the Indians and Pennsylvania Governor Gookin was held at his home. There is also a notation in one of the documents that indicated that Edward Farmar could speak French. By mid-1690, he had constructed a grist mill on the upper branch of the Wissahickon Creek that flowed across his property that utilized the power of the rapidly flowing water to drive the mill that in turn crushed the grains and corn into flour. The Wissahickon Creek as you may recall from previous paragraphs, was also being utilized to power the paper mills downstream in Germantown that were owned by the Dewees and Rittenhouse families. One of the earliest roads built in the area had as its terminus the “Farmar Mill” so that local farmers could haul their crops to the mill for grinding. This photograph of the remains of Farmar Mill was taken in the present village of Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania and today is part of a museum and historic site. The ”Farmar Mill” is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

Edward Farmar was elected to the General Assembly of Pennsylvania in 1710 and he held this office almost continuously until 1731. He was also commissioned a Justice of the Peace for Philadelphia County in 1701 and held the office until 1738. In 1710 he donated land for the construction of a church in the village of Whitemarsh. He was actively involved in the construction of the first church which at the time was just a log cabin, and he remained active in church activities until his death in 1745. St Thomas Episcopal Church still exists to this day in Whitemarsh (although it is no longer a log cabin). Edward Farmar and his family were among the earliest members of the church to have been buried in the churchyard cemetery. The photograph to the left was taken at the cemetery at St. Thomas Episcopal Church. Edward and Rachel Farmar were to have a total of nine children including our 6th great grandmother, Rachel Farmar who was born in 1716. Rachel Farmar married William Dewees around 1735. Two of their children carried the “Farmar” name, a son named Farmar Dewees who was born in 1736 and our 5th great grandfather, William Farmar Dewees, who was born in 1739.

Dewees Generation #4: William Farmar Dewees (1739-1809):

It is not known how William Farmar Dewees met his first wife, Sarah Potts. She lived with her parents, Thomas and Rebecca, and her brothers and sisters in Colebrookdale Township in the County of Berks which is today located just to the west of Montgomery County, where the Dewees made their home. It might very well have been an arranged marriage between William and Sarah for their parents were close friends. William’s father had been appointed one of the two executors of Thomas Pott’s will. Potts referred to his executors in his will as “my beloved friends.” We know that Sarah was young when she married William although her exact age can only be estimated. She was the second child of Thomas and Rebecca Potts who were married in the year 1742. We further learned that Sarah was alive when her grandfather prepared his Last Will and Testament in 1647. Her estimated birth date is therefore probably between the years of 1745 and 1746 which would make her around 17 years old when she married 23 year William Dewees. It was an excellent marriage for William, as his new bride had been left a sizable inheritance by her grandfather, Thomas Potts, who died in early 1652. It is also likely that Sarah’s wealthy father, Thomas Jr., had made sure that his daughter brought a sizable dowry to the marriage. [Some genealogists have incorrectly listed Sarah’s birth year as 1752 because her grandfather died in 1752 and she is listed in his will. His will however, was prepared earlier in September of 1747 and in addition to leaving Sarah a sizable “annuity and legacy”, he left her his “riding mare and a side saddle” which suggests that in 1747 she was old enough to have enjoyed riding on a horse with her grandfather. Furthermore, if her birth year had been as late as 1752, Sarah would have been only 10 years old when she married William.]

Sarah Potts’ maternal grandfather was Thomas Rutter who is generally accepted as having constructed in 1716 the first ironworks in Pennsylvania. The ironworks was built along the banks of the Manatawney Creek, a tributary of the Schuylkill River located near the present day city of Pottstown (named after Sarah’s Uncle John Potts) about 45 miles upstream from Philadelphia. In 1716, the area where Thomas Rutter built his first ironworks was almost total wilderness; the rolling hills were covered with virgin forests, and the land was still the home and hunting grounds of Indians who fortunately had been pacified by William Penn. Outcroppings in the hills and riverbanks in the region revealed the abundant iron ore that was easily mined; the water in the locate creeks supplied the power to crush the ore and run the grist mills, and the surrounding forests provided the necessary fuel for the forges operating to melt and refine the iron. By the standards of today these operations were an environmental nightmare what with the indiscriminate deforesting of the land, the open mining, and the air and water pollution, however the ironworks made a lot of families very wealthy including the Rutter family and his soon to be partner, Thomas Potts. Furthermore, until recently, the State of Pennsylvania was the largest producer of steel in the United States, an industry that began with the primitive operations of Thomas Rutter in 1716. When Thomas Rutter died in 1734, his partner, Thomas Potts, took over the business and he went on to create a family dynasty and the largest iron-making empire in colonial America. When Thomas Potts Sr. died in 1752, he passed the businesses on to his sons, Thomas Jr. and John Potts, who in turn expanded the business even further often through the purchases of forges owned by their competitors or through marriage to daughters of other ironmakers. [Three of Thomas Potts’ sons married granddaughters of Thomas Rutter.) When Thomas Potts, Jr died in 1762 and his brother John died in 1768, the business again passed to the next generation. It was this generation, principally Isaac and Joseph Potts, sons of John Potts, and their cousin David Potts, son of Thomas Potts, Jr. and sister of Sarah Potts, who were to embrace and train our great grandfather William Dewees in the art of making iron.

William Dewees was to have several major disappointments in his life, beginning with the death of his young wife Sarah. The date of Sarah’s death is not known although it followed and may have been caused by the birth of their second daughter who was born around 1767. Sarah would have been barely twenty years old when she died. It is believed that both of their children were born in Pottstown (originally called Pottsgrove, see map below) and if this is accurate, William was probably working, maybe even operating, the forge in Pottstown owned by his brother-in-law’s uncle, John Potts. In 1757, John Potts purchased an existing forge that had been constructed in 1741 and located about 15 miles downstream from their business and home in Pottstown. Their newly purchased forge was located at the point where Valley Creek intersected with the Schuylkill River. This forge at the time carried the name of “Mount Joy Forge” but it became more commonly known later as “Valley Forge”. In November of 1769, William Dewees married for a second time, Sarah Waters, my 5th great grandmother. It is unclear where William met his new wife, however based on the knowledge that William when threatened by the British invasion in 1777, moved his family to safety away from their home at Valley Forge to his father-in-laws’ home in nearby Chester County, we might assume that William was already operating the Valley Forge when he met and married Sarah Waters in 1769. Other than William’s marriage to Sarah Potts, his relationship with the Potts family is really not clear in historical records until 1771, at which time he is noted as managing the forge at Valley Creek jointly with his brother-in-law, David Potts. David Potts apparently spent most of his time in Philadelphia where he operated a “store” that sold the iron goods produced at the forge operated by William Dewees. These goods would have included such items as pots and pans, utensils, nails, farm tools and the like. In 1773, Joseph Potts, David’s cousin and apparently the owner of Valley Forge (inherited from his father, John Potts who died in 1768) conveyed by deed to William Dewees “an undivided moiety of Mount Joy Furnace” therein making my 5th great grandfather the sole owner of Valley Forge. Joseph’s brother, Isaac Potts, apparently at the time owned a home at Valley Forge and operated the nearby grist mill on Valley Creek. Furthermore, William’s brother-in-law, David, probably still his business partner in 1773, had previously built a summer home at Valley Forge that William and his wife and children now occupied as their home.

At the onset of the American Revolution, Valley Forge and many of the other ironworks in Pennsylvania became one of America’s greatest assets for it was at these forges where everything from the bullets, to the cannonballs, and even the cannons themselves were manufactured. Without this industry and their ability to manufacture munitions, America could not have waged their war for independence. Furthermore and despite the pleas from many members of our new government that the ironworks for patriotic reasons, should forego their profits, William Dewees with his partners and others reaped the financial benefits from their increased war time business. Their activities did not go unnoticed by the British military. In the spring of 1777, William Dewees was asked to use his facilities at Valley Forge to store army supplies (munitions and food.) It is unclear whether he initially agreed to their request although as a recently appointed Colonel in the Pennsylvania militia, they no doubt appealed to his patriotism and he ultimately accepted the deal, albeit reluctantly. This fateful decision led ultimately to a second major disappointment in his life.

In September of 1777, the British Army commenced their invasion of southern Pennsylvania and the capture of Philadelphia. General Howe’s forces sailed from New York and disembarked at the head of the Chesapeake Bay. From there they marched north meeting and defeating the American forces at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, and again at Paoli on September 20, 1777. As they continued their march through the Pennsylvania Dutch farmlands pillaging as they went, General Howe ordered a small detachment of men to go to Valley Forge where he had heard reports that Washington’s army was storing some of their military supplies. On September 18, the contingent of British light infantry and cavalry arrived at Valley Forge in time to find a small group of American soldiers under the supervision of Colonel William Dewees, George Washington’s young Aide-de-Camp, Alexander Hamilton, and Harry Lee (the father of Robert E. Lee), actively removing the army supplies. The Americans were forced to escape by barge across the Valley Creek as the British forces approached, and it is said that Colonel Dewees’ horse was shot out from under him as he crossed the creek. The British forces then burned the” forge, sawmill, two large stone dwelling houses, two coal houses and 400 loads of coal, and 2,200 bushels of wheat and rye in the sheaf.” This effective destroyed the business of William Dewees’ Valley Forge. The British forces continued their march to Philadelphia defeating the Americans again at the Battle of Germantown on October 4th before they finally settled down for the winter of 1777-78 in Philadelphia. In mid-December, Washington camped his forces at Valley Forge and started preparations for the winter. The American army was to remain camped there on the land of William Dewees for the next six months.

It is not clear exactly how much time William Dewees and his family spent at their home at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-78. There are reports that on several occasions William and Sarah dined with George and Martha as did some of the members of the Potts family and there are historical records that note that William allowed the basement of his home to be used as a bakery to feed the troops. Whatever amount of time William Dewees spent at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-78, he must have been appalled watching his property destroyed. Trees and split rail fences were cut down to built the huts to house the American army and to fuel the fires for cooking and heating; wheat and flour that had not been destroyed by the British was quickly consumed, and what few farm animals were still alive quickly disappeared. When Washington’s army left in June of 1778, they left behind mountains of trash, dilapidated wooden huts, and a treeless, muddy barren landscape. The Dewees land was also the graveyard of over 2,000 unfortunate American soldiers. What visitors see today when they visit the Valley Forge National Historic Park looks nothing like what Dewees would have surveyed in the summer of 1778. Fortunately the Dewees’ home (see photo) was still intact as was the home of Isaac Potts located next door to the Dewees home that had been used by George Washington as his headquarters. Not much else survived. The British attack and destruction and the winter encampment at Valley Forge pretty much put William Dewees out of business and for the most part he was financially ruined. After the war, William Dewees tried to resurrect his business and rebuild the forge but the financial cost was too great, and five years later the sheriff came and took possession of the property. William was bankrupted. This time the Potts family did not come to his aid and in the end they managed to regain the ownership of the property. An ancestor of the Potts family writing about this incident a generation later wrote something that I deeply resent for its inaccuracy and insensitivity, but I will nevertheless repeat his words: “William Dewees, who was very aristocratic, and who moved in a style far above his means to support, in a few years failed, was sold out by the sheriff, which closed his business at the place, and ended his connection with the family [the Potts.]” Under the circumstances and considering William Dewees’ obvious contributions during the American Revolution, this was a totally inappropriate statement.

Sarah Waters and William Dewees were to have five children including my 4th great grandfather, Waters Dewees who was born in 1776, maybe in the family home at Valley Forge. William died in 1809. His wife died in 1822. My great grandfather, Eugene Hutchinson Ferree, died in 1952 when I was 10 years old. His father was David Dewees Ferree. His grandmother was Elizabeth Dewees, the daughter of Waters Dewees and the granddaughter of William and Sarah. This ends part 1 of the story of my early Pennsylvania ancestor.

POST SCRIPT:
Before William Dewees died in 1809, he petitioned Congress for the recovery of the financial losses that he and his family had suffered during the war. In 1792, these damages were assessed at approximately $11,000, which at the time was a princely sum of money. In 1797, Congress was sympathetic to the merits of their claim, however the U.S. treasury was without funds and they had no choice but to ignore the claim. After his death, his son William acting on behalf of his mother continued to pursue the claim and finally on February 5th, 1817, the Fourteenth Congress of the United States “respectively recommend(s) the payment of the claim of Sarah Dewees, and report a bill making the necessary appropriation.” The compensation was finally received by the Dewees family in 1820, and two years later Sarah Dewees followed her husband in death.