Genealogical Memories
& Early American Ancestry
& Early American Ancestry
I know nothing of a "super-reality." Reality contains everything I can know, for everything that acts upon me is real and actual. If it does not act upon me, then I notice nothing and can, therefore, know nothing about it.
Hence I can make statements only about real things, but not about things that are unreal, or surreal, or subreal. Unless, of course, it should occur to someone to limit the concept of reality in such a way that the attribute "real" applied only to a particular segment of the world's reality.
This restriction to the so-called material or concrete reality of objects perceived by the senses is a product of a particular way of thinking-the thinking that underlies "sound common sense" and our ordinary use of language.
It operates on the celebrated principle "Nihil est in intellectu quod non antea fuerit in sensu," regardless of the fact that there are very many things in the mind which did not derive from the data of the senses.
According to this view, everything is "real" which comes, or seems to come, directly or indirectly from the world revealed by the senses. This limited picture of the world is a reflection of the one-sidedness of Western man.
~Carl Jung; "The Real and the Surreal" (1933). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P.745
Hence I can make statements only about real things, but not about things that are unreal, or surreal, or subreal. Unless, of course, it should occur to someone to limit the concept of reality in such a way that the attribute "real" applied only to a particular segment of the world's reality.
This restriction to the so-called material or concrete reality of objects perceived by the senses is a product of a particular way of thinking-the thinking that underlies "sound common sense" and our ordinary use of language.
It operates on the celebrated principle "Nihil est in intellectu quod non antea fuerit in sensu," regardless of the fact that there are very many things in the mind which did not derive from the data of the senses.
According to this view, everything is "real" which comes, or seems to come, directly or indirectly from the world revealed by the senses. This limited picture of the world is a reflection of the one-sidedness of Western man.
~Carl Jung; "The Real and the Surreal" (1933). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P.745
Our genealogies recorded the extant families of of America and elsewhere whose long and distinguished connection with their country has made them part of its history, or whose descent from some ancient European house roots them in our deep historical past.
The armorials of families deducing their lineage from armigerous progenitors are available, but the mere possession of rightfully-borne Arms is unnecessary. The bearing of officially authorized Arms to are not a necessary condition of gentle descent; indeed, many of the oldest and most important families in Britain and America enjoy no such right.
Gathering Family Memories
In our collective quest, we resort to parish and other local registers, to testamentary documents, to the archives of public offices, to the records of nonconformist associations, to family papers, and to various collections of original manuscripts. We collect and share family memories at holidays and family gatherings. Yes, there will be unavoidable mistakes in the self-correcting process, but we do our best with available information. As the curated World Tree grows, more is available to us with less need to repeat the good work of others, though we adopt it cautiously.
Using genetic memories as a genealogical tool is a topic that will quickly get a serious researcher dubbed as a pseudo-scientist. Recognizing genetic memories and subtle leads may aid in your search for your ancestors. Wikipedia defines the psychological definition of genetic memories as "a memory present at birth that exists in absence of sensory experience."
The scientific explanation for genetic memories is through DNA transfer and epigenetics. We have the DNA of our ancestors in our genetic makeup. We do not have DNA from each line and each ancestor. Our female-donated mitochondrial DNA is inherited in a longer unbroken chain than, for example, the male Y-haplotype. These memories can surface as anything from a musical or other talent talent without lessons of any kind to enjoying or detesting the same activities of an ancestor. This is NOT reincarnation, but does offer an explanation to why certain people find places, people or events familiar when there are no other explanations.
Many report that you can use genetic memories when they seem to assist you in your search for family history. At some point in doing genealogy, a little voice will whisper information is wrong. Or you may find yourself in a cemetery directly in front of the grave you were seeking without knowing beforehand where to look. This can be attributed to genetic memories. The DNA running through you may guide you to extraordinary finds by listening to your inner voice. Something akin to Jung's notion of synchronicity may be at play. This enlivens the research process which provides the basis for such often uncanny experiences.
We may at times experience the pain of destruction of dearly-cherished traditions or offend those who have long prided themselves on what proves itself to be an entirely imaginary descent from some mythical ancestor, but the faithful genealogical historian must go forward
without fear or favor, secure in the panoply of truth.
For centuries such mythically-rooted accounts have been considered genealogical best-practice. And we can still honor that "as if" reality by approaching the material symbolically to discover and interact with even deeper layers of our psyche and collective inheritance. In this regard the works of Jung and his intellectual descendants can be invaluable.
In this way, we plumb our depths and secure a treasure of self-knowledge that transcends objective human history. Jung's wife, Emma made a life-long study of the meaning of the Grail; her work was completed by Marie-Louise von Franz. Gnosis is often found in the gaps of logical knowledge.
______________________________________________________________________
Early American Settlements
Within our genealogical lines we can read how our ancestors made settlements, built thriving towns and cities, migrated, and formed states and political unions.
Successful American settlements began early in the seventeenth century forming the seeds of the American nation. After a few minor expeditions, among them being one sent out by Raleigh on a vain quest for those settlers unheard of for fifteen years, the Virginia Company
was formed in London in 1606. Among the many notabilities who were members of the company were Hakluyt, Sir George Somers, Sir Thomas Gates, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges. A royal patent was granted, which assigned in the most absolute manner every detail of the government of the proposed colony to the crown.
Within thirty years Virginia was, practically, an independent state. An expedition was speedily fitted out, and on 1 January 1607, the company, one hundred and forty-three strong, sailed from the Downs. The captain was Christopher Newport, and with him was Captain John Smith, the celebrated son of an obscure Lincolnshire gentleman, and Edward Maria Wingfield, who was to become the first president of the settlement.
Of those who settled there during the seventeenth century a large proportion belonged to the Royalist party, and many were descendants of recognized English families. About this period,
while the New England settlements were being developed by the Puritans, Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas might well have been called the Cavalier colonies. Nor is this surprising, for, apart from the fact that emigrants of either party would naturally go to the land where they would find men who agreed with them on religious and political questions, the laws of the Southern Colonies were calculated to attract members of the wealthier classes.
It must not be supposed, however, that any social or class distinction is to be drawn between Cavaliers and Roundheads. Persons of equally good birth belonged indifferently to both parties, even members of the same family often fighting on opposite sides an unfortunate state of things, but one unhappily not without a parallel in more modern times. A genealogy, therefore, tracing its origin to a Cavalier progenitor in no way indicates, ipso facto, a more aristocratic descent than a lineage which boasts Cromwellian ancestors.
In Virginia a planter could claim for himself an additional fifty acres of land on account of every person whom, at his own expense, he had brought into the country. Thus, from the earliest times of the settlement there was a body of landed proprietors, which steadily grew in power and numbers and developed the family pride, which many of the planters had brought with them from the mother country. Such class distinctions were strengthened by the fact that there were no common schools. In 1671 Sir William Berkeley wrote:
"Every man instructs his children according to his own ability; which naturally ensured that the sons of the landowners received some sort of education, while the children of the laboring classes were left in hopeless ignorance and unable to rise above the level of their forefathers."
Those who can trace their lines back to Colonial and Revolutionary times can often successfully carry their search back to ancestral lands, perhaps into the peerage and even royal lines. Through descent other than the oldest son who inherits, families descend into untitled classes, through the church, military, and trade crafts. Those who do not inherit becomes merchants, seamen, farmers, and soldiers.
The more local history you know of your ancestral areas, the better. It can also help you plot family migrations and connections across time and states. Migrations can be tracked in a linear or non-linear fashion as ancestors move into new territories with different opportunities for mixing and survival. One such influential migratory path is the Cumberland Gap, one of the only early paths West.
The frequently repeated statement that many of the colonials of the humbler class were "felons", while in one sense true, is really wholly misleading. These so-called felons were
for the most part political offenders. There were many stormy times in England during that century, and whichever party was in power was in the habit of demonizing the other party.
Some of those transported had been taken when fighting against the reigning monarch. The penal laws of England were at that time most severe. Men were convicted for offenses that to-day might be deemed trifling, and in all probability very few had been guilty of what, in these days, would be described as felonies. On the other hand, it is certain that among the land-owning class there were many who could claim gentle descent.
Among the families figuring prominently in the history of this state which still survive in the male line are those of Washington, Carter, Randolph, Lee, Byrd, Page, Fairfax, Harrison, Boiling, Claiborne, Digges, Conway, Cabell, Ashton, Fitzhugh, Fowke, Gordon, Henry, Pendleton, Slaughter, Tyler, and Chichester.
Although several other colonies were established in America between 1606, the date of the first settlement of Virginia, and 1634, when Maryland was founded, the early histories of these two states are so intimately connected that one naturally falls into place with the other. Maryland owes its birth to the fact that George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, unable to establish successfully a colony in Newfoundland, found his attempt to transplant that settlement to Virginia barred in consequence of his being a Catholic.
In his youth George Calvert, a native of Yorkshire, was educated at Oxford, and his education was afterwards supplemented by a knowledge of the world gathered during extensive travels. During Queen Elizabeth s reign he was secretary to Sir Robert Cecil, and in the time of James the First he rose to be one of the two secretaries of State. In this position he strongly advocated the marriage of Prince Charles to the Infanta of Spain, and, when this project came to naught, Calvert avowed himself a Catholic, an avowal necessitating his resignation of the priviledges and dignities of his high office. Then King James, never averse to the Catholics so long as they made no attempt to dispute his authority as a monarch, granted Calvert estates in Ireland and an Irish peerage.
Throughout his career Lord Baltimore had been in favor of English settlements in America. He had been a member of the Virginia Company and, while Secretary of State, had obtained a
special patent for the southern promontory of Newfoundland. But in spite of all his efforts he failed in his attempt to establish a colony there. His grant tended to impair the freedom of the
fisheries of Newfoundland, which the English Parliament steadfastly insisted upon preserving.
The French and the Puritans already established in these regions were decidedly hostile, and the climate and soil were less favourable than his agents had reported. Abandoning his original project he sailed to Virginia, but here the laws excluded Catholics, and the assembly ordered the oaths of allegiance and supremacy to be tendered him, oaths which no Catholic could take. So Lord Baltimore returned to England to obtain the charter for the territory now known as Maryland.
Much of the territory included in the Virginia patent was then assigned to him, but the Virginia Company s patent had already been revoked, and with his influence at Court, Lord Balti more succeeded in gaining the King s assent in spite of the fierce opposition of the Virginians. The charter was drawn up, but before it could pass the great seal Lord Baltimore died, and it was then granted to his eldest son and successor, to whom fell the honor of founding the colony which for several generations descended as a patrimony to his heirs.
This charter differed in many essentials from any other patent that had passed the great seal of England. It assured a measure of representative government and religious equality in the colony ; it made Lord Baltimore absolute lord and proprietor in return for a payment of two Indian arrows yearly and one-fifth of all the gold and silver found, and expressly covenanted that neither the King nor his successors should ever set any tax, custom, or imposition upon the inhabitants of the province.
Thus Maryland, named after Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles the First, was to be free of all control by the English crown. Many Catholics of good birth resolved to join in the enterprise of planting a colony under such a favorable charter, and in 1634, under the leadership of Leonard Calvert, Lord Baltimore's brother, some two hundred persons sailed up the Potomac in search of a site for their settlement. They purchased land from some friendly Indians, who were about to vacate their town for a region farther inland.
From these Indians they learned something of the agricultural advantages of the country, and also what splendid hunting was to be found in the neighborhood, and thus under the happiest auspices the settlers established themselves in the village they named St. Mary's. Supported by the wealth and influence of Lord Baltimore, having among its population a large proportion of men who were possessed of both means and education, able, having learnt through others misfortunes, to avoid the pitfalls into which the older colonies had fallen, Maryland grew and flourished exceedingly.
As the power of the Court party declined in England Catholics joined the settlement in increasing numbers. Later on, attracted by the toleration here given to any Christian sect-
Episcopalians, Presbyterians, or Quakers members of all kinds of religious denominations migrated to Maryland in large numbers to enjoy liberty denied to them in England.
But although, when compared with the early histories of other colonies, the establishment and development of Maryland may be said to have been marked by singular success, it was not to be expected that with another jealous colony on the south, surrounded by tribes of savages notoriously difficult to deal with, and affected by the bitter struggles between the warring factions in England, the career of the colony could be uniformly peaceful. Trouble arose within a year of the first settlement.
The Virginians claimed the Isle of Kent as part of their territory, and a number of Virginians under the leadership of William Clayborne, a Virginian councillor, had habitations there. The dispute led to fighting, and several men were killed. Clayborne fled to Virginia, and Sir John
Harvey, the governor, who had been expressly bidden by the King to be friendly with the Marylanders, sent him to England, where the points at issue between the two colonies were to be settled.
Some eight years later, taking advantage of the war between King Charles and the Parliament, Clayborne made a determined attempt to recover the island. Richard Ingle, a sea captain, was,
in 1644, cruising in Chesapeake Bay in command of a small fleet, with letters of marque commissioning him to attack the enemies of the Parliament. Ingle landed, seized upon St. Mary, and took possession of the government, while Clayborne simultaneously succeeded in once more establishing himself in the Isle of Kent.
But their success was short lived. Calvert, who had fled into Virginia, returned, rallied his forces, and drove out both the intruders. But in spite of this temporary check to its develop ment, in spite of hostility shown by the once friendly Indians, in spite of changes in the colony which successively followed the triumph of Parliament, the Restoration, and the English revolution of 1688, Maryland continued to flourish and to attract many of the better class of settlers.
The Calverts, Carrolls, Ridgelys, Tilghmans, Burwells, Brents, Briscoes, Lloyds, Lowndes, Tildens, Brookes, and Chews are among the historic families of Maryland which still survive in the male line.
Sir Walter Raleigh's attempts to found a settlement in America have been referred to in connexion with the preceding sketch of the colonization of Virginia for two reasons; one being that the efforts of the Virginia Company were doubtless influenced by his example, and the other that the district in which his emigrants landed was at that time part of the territory called Virginia. Although this district is now known as North Carolina the fate of the Elizabethan colonists has little to do with that state, as over seventy years elapsed between Raleigh s last effort and the next organized attempt at colonization in this neighbourhood.
Between 1663 and 1665 Charles the Second granted all rights over a territory extending from the South of Virginia to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the West of the Mississippi to a party of eight noblemen, amongst whom were the Earl of Clarendon, the Duke of Albemarle, Lord Ashley (afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury), and Sir William Berkeley,
Governor of Virginia. But men from other American colonies had made their homes in Carolina before this.
Virginians had been exploring the country for many years and, doubtless, several had settled there. For instance, in 1663 George Catlemaid, a Virginian, had established sixty-seven persons on Albemarle Sound. About the same time planters from Barbados had bought land to the South of Cape Fear, and made their homes there. Prior to this, a party of men from New England had sailed south wards and, although many returned, it seems that some were left on Cape Fear River.
At first the new lords proprietors of Carolina voluntarily adopted conciliatory methods with these settlers and, as the result showed, no other methods could have succeeded with such men. For when, shortly afterwards, an attempt was made to force upon them an objectionable form of government which had been designed by John Locke, the colonists stoutly opposed it.
Later on, they showed their spirit by deposing and exiling one governor for extortion and imprisoning another governor and his council for infringing their rights. Civil and religious liberty was thus assured in this region, and many Quakers and other dissenters migrated there in the seventeenth century.
In the middle of the eighteenth century there was a great flood of immigration into the state from other American States, and also from England, and from various other parts of Europe. British, Dutch, French, and Swiss, of all denominations, many belonging to recognized families, poured into the now flourishing colony of North Carolina.
Meanwhile, under the leadership of Joseph West, who acted as the commercial agent for the proprietors, and of Captain William Sayle a considerable number of emigrants set sail from
England for South Carolina, where they made their settlement before 1670. They finally settled near Oyster Point and founded the village which more than a century later was incorporated as the city of Charleston.
Reports of the rich possibilities of the country soon spread throughout the world. Dutch emigrants came from New York, soon followed by others from Holland. Charles the Second, at his own expense fitted out two small vessels to transport Protestants from the south of Europe who might domesticate the productions of warmer climes to this prolific soil. Cavaliers sought refuge there, and even Shaftesbury himself, when committed to the Tower, asked leave to expatriate himself and become an inhabitant of Carolina.
Churchmen and dissenters alike sought refuge here ; thousands of Huguenots, who fled to all parts of the world after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, sought homes in this state, and although the Spaniards laid waste one of the southern settlements, and the colonists had bitter struggles against the power of the lords proprietors, within a few years the prosperity of South Carolina was assured.
References to the early history of the Carolinas will be found under the names of Middleton, Pinckney, Lowndes, Izard, Blake, and Rutledge, all of them being families that still survive.
Pilgrim Fathers
The Pilgrim Fathers arose in the religious upheaval of The Reformation. The Virginia Company s settlements were the result of a The Pilgrim desire for fresh trade, and, although inspired by other motives, Fathers.
Lord Baltimore looked for a material return for his expenditure and labours over Maryland, while the founders of the Carolinas sought for personal aggrandizement and gain. But next to the Virginian settlement in point of time, and destined to have even a greater effect upon the development of the country, was the colonization of the Northern States, which was due to the Puritans unconquerable desire for religious liberty.
To understand the causes which led to the emigration of the Pilgrim Fathers it is necessary to glance at fifty years of England's history.
The Reformation, and the counter-reformation of the Catholics had plunged Europe into war a war from a share in which neither the statecraft nor the love of compromise of Queen
Elizabeth could keep England. Staunch supporter of episcopal church government as she was at home, Elizabeth was forced by circumstances into the position of protector abroad of those nonconforming sects which she endeavoured to put down with a strong hand within her own realm.
The Puritans, who had fled to Germany and Switzerland during the Marian persecution, had returned at Elizabeth s accession imbued with religious views that assorted ill with the conservative principles of their sovereign. But inasmuch as Elizabeth, in opposition to the vast Catholic power of Philip of Spain, was the champion of the Protestant cause abroad, they gave her steadfast allegiance. They might refuse steadfastly to submit their private judgment to a Church of which she was titular head, but they were unswerving in their loyalty and patriotism. She might send them to the block ; she might flog them or mutilate them, but they remained always her devoted subjects. They refused obstinately and stubbornly to conform to the rites and ceremonies of the English Church as established under Queen Elizabeth ; they struggled against it with all their might ; the famous " Martin Mar-Prelate " tracts in which they attacked the Church were printed and published in the face of death and persecution ; yet their loyalty as Englishmen was never in question.
Persecution, that futile weapon of tyranny, served only to foster the marked characteristics of the Puritans. As a great historian has said : "Persecution found them a sect and made them
a faction." At first their attachment to the English Church was undeniable ; they were for ever seeking some means by which they could with a good conscience become obedient servants of the Establishment. The accession of Whitgift in 1583 to the chair of St. Augustine rendered all hope of compromise impossible.
Twenty thousand Puritans preached and prayed in their conventicles in defiance of the law. It is said on the authority of Heylin, that even the proud and stubborn spirit of Queen Elizabeth weakened and hesitated before their calm determination. Walsingham offered the Puritans, in the Queen s name, in about 1583, to give up the ceremony of kneeling at the Communion, the cross in Baptism, and the surplice. Their reply was characteristic : "Ne ungulam quidem esse relinquemdam."
From that time onwards there was no hope of arrangement or surrender. Archbishop Whitgift appeared upon the scene, and for thirty-seven years the policy which he then adopted was carried on consistently until the sails of the Mayflower were set to the winds of the Atlantic.
Although the dates are difficult to ascertain with any degree of accuracy it may safely be said that the pilgrim movement began within a short time of Whitgift s appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury. The first seeds were sown in that small tract of country, some four miles by six, which lies between the Rivers Idle and Ryton in Nottinghamshire. It began with the appointment of the Rev. Richard Clyfton to the Rectory of Babworth, on the ii July 1586.
Clyfton was a " forward preacher" or reformist, and he boldly led the crusade against the archbishop, preaching the liberty of the pulpit and the uselessness of all forms of ritual. In January 1589 there came to his assistance a man destined to play a great part in the New World. At that date William Brewster was appointed postmaster at Scrooby, a little village six miles away close to the junction of the Idle and the Ryton.
Brewster's method of helping the cause was to furnish money for the support of the reformist preachers in the neighbouring parish churches, "he himself being most commonly deepest in the charge, and sometimes above his ability." Clyfton and Brewster worked together for the cause of reform, until in 1601 they were joined in their work by Richard Bernard, who was appointed to the living of Worksop on 19 June of that year.
It should be understood that Clyfton was still within the pale of the Church. The separatist Church had not been formed, but the accession of James I hastened matters and brought about the inevitable. It had been thought at first that James, coming from Scotland, would be prepared to regard the views of the Puritans as to ecclesiastical government with favour, but his remark during his progress south, " No bishop, no king," settled once and for
all his real intentions. The king became a partisan of Whitgift.
It was only because he feared their numbers that he consented to receive from the Puritans the famous Millenary Petition for a redress of ecclesiastical grievances. Policy and his pride in his own gifts of theological debates prompted him further to agree to a conference at Hampton Court. It was hardly a conference ; it was more a legal lecture to the Puritans.
"I will have none of that liberty as to ceremony," said His Majesty, " I will have one doctrine, one discipline, one religion in substance and ceremony. I will make you conform or I will harry you out of the land." His own view of the conference, which closed on 18 January 1604, was that he had "soundly peppered off the Puritans."
A month later Archbishop Whitgift died and Bancroft became his successor. Conformity was insisted upon with unrelenting rigour. The persecutions that had lapsed somewhat during the later days of Queen Elizabeth s reign were renewed. King James issued a brutally severe proclamation against the Puritans, who held command of the Lower House, and had
already become identified as the party opposed to despotism. In the year 1604 alone three hundred Puritan ministers were deprived, imprisoned, or exiled. All hope of accommodation
between the Church and the Puritans was now seen to be impossible, and Clyfton at Babworth in the same year started the separatist movement.
In that year of trial, 1604, Clyfton was joined by an assistant, the Rev. John Robinson, another Nottinghamshire man, and, like his rector, a Cambridge graduate. Two years later Clyfton became pastor of the Separatist Church at Scrooby, with the Rev. John Robinson as his able lieutenant. In thesame year, at about the same time, the Rev. John Smyth, likewise a Cambridge graduate, founded another branch of the Puritan Church at Gainsborough, on the edge of the Pilgrim District.
It will be as well to recapitulate the situation of these Puritans at this momentous crisis. The Rev. Richard Clyfton, with the Rev. John Robinson, was at Babworth. The Rev. Richard
Bernard was giving indirect assistance to the cause at Worksop ; the Rev. John Smyth was righting the battle of liberty of conscience at Gainsborough, while William Brewster, Postmaster at Scrooby, was still unremitting in his support.
There was also a young man of eighteen, William Bradford, who was constant in his attendance at the ministry of the Rev. Richard Clyfton. The definite movement that had been set up by Clyfton and Robinson and Smyth brought down upon their heads the whole armoury of the government s wrath. Imprisonments, search warrants, trivial prosecutions, and the various malice of intolerance were used to compel them to amend their ways. The situation became so intolerable that it was determined to seek safety for the Church in exile.
It was then that a split occurred among the leaders. Clyfton determined to seek refuge at Amsterdam, where there still existed the ancient exiled Church. Bernard of Worksop refused at the eleventh hour to abandon the Establishment. It therefore fell to Robinson, as chief pastor, and Brewster, as elder, to lead their following to Leyden.
But tyranny was even for denying them the privilege of exile. Their first attempt to leave was frustrated. For a month the whole of the company were placed under arrest, but at the end of that period more merciful counsels prevailed, and they were released, with the exception of
the seven principal men, who were detained in prison.
In the following spring of 1608 the attempt was renewed. The exiles, men and women, met on a lonely, unfrequented heath in Lincolnshire. The night was wild and stormy, and the embarkation was delayed. A part of the company were already in the boat that was to bear them to the ship, when a company of horsemen appeared in pursuit. The helpless women and children who still remained on the shore were seized.
In spite of their tears and prayers they were apprehended. But even the magistrates of those days, creatures as they were of the king, were upright enough to realize the cruelty of punishing and imprisoning wives and children for no other crime than that of wishing to go with their husbands and fathers, and they allowed them at last to depart. And so in small companies the Puritans made their way from the home of their fathers to Leyden, in Holland, and took the first step in that long pilgrimage which was to land them in the New World.
The armorials of families deducing their lineage from armigerous progenitors are available, but the mere possession of rightfully-borne Arms is unnecessary. The bearing of officially authorized Arms to are not a necessary condition of gentle descent; indeed, many of the oldest and most important families in Britain and America enjoy no such right.
Gathering Family Memories
In our collective quest, we resort to parish and other local registers, to testamentary documents, to the archives of public offices, to the records of nonconformist associations, to family papers, and to various collections of original manuscripts. We collect and share family memories at holidays and family gatherings. Yes, there will be unavoidable mistakes in the self-correcting process, but we do our best with available information. As the curated World Tree grows, more is available to us with less need to repeat the good work of others, though we adopt it cautiously.
Using genetic memories as a genealogical tool is a topic that will quickly get a serious researcher dubbed as a pseudo-scientist. Recognizing genetic memories and subtle leads may aid in your search for your ancestors. Wikipedia defines the psychological definition of genetic memories as "a memory present at birth that exists in absence of sensory experience."
The scientific explanation for genetic memories is through DNA transfer and epigenetics. We have the DNA of our ancestors in our genetic makeup. We do not have DNA from each line and each ancestor. Our female-donated mitochondrial DNA is inherited in a longer unbroken chain than, for example, the male Y-haplotype. These memories can surface as anything from a musical or other talent talent without lessons of any kind to enjoying or detesting the same activities of an ancestor. This is NOT reincarnation, but does offer an explanation to why certain people find places, people or events familiar when there are no other explanations.
Many report that you can use genetic memories when they seem to assist you in your search for family history. At some point in doing genealogy, a little voice will whisper information is wrong. Or you may find yourself in a cemetery directly in front of the grave you were seeking without knowing beforehand where to look. This can be attributed to genetic memories. The DNA running through you may guide you to extraordinary finds by listening to your inner voice. Something akin to Jung's notion of synchronicity may be at play. This enlivens the research process which provides the basis for such often uncanny experiences.
We may at times experience the pain of destruction of dearly-cherished traditions or offend those who have long prided themselves on what proves itself to be an entirely imaginary descent from some mythical ancestor, but the faithful genealogical historian must go forward
without fear or favor, secure in the panoply of truth.
For centuries such mythically-rooted accounts have been considered genealogical best-practice. And we can still honor that "as if" reality by approaching the material symbolically to discover and interact with even deeper layers of our psyche and collective inheritance. In this regard the works of Jung and his intellectual descendants can be invaluable.
In this way, we plumb our depths and secure a treasure of self-knowledge that transcends objective human history. Jung's wife, Emma made a life-long study of the meaning of the Grail; her work was completed by Marie-Louise von Franz. Gnosis is often found in the gaps of logical knowledge.
______________________________________________________________________
Early American Settlements
Within our genealogical lines we can read how our ancestors made settlements, built thriving towns and cities, migrated, and formed states and political unions.
Successful American settlements began early in the seventeenth century forming the seeds of the American nation. After a few minor expeditions, among them being one sent out by Raleigh on a vain quest for those settlers unheard of for fifteen years, the Virginia Company
was formed in London in 1606. Among the many notabilities who were members of the company were Hakluyt, Sir George Somers, Sir Thomas Gates, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges. A royal patent was granted, which assigned in the most absolute manner every detail of the government of the proposed colony to the crown.
Within thirty years Virginia was, practically, an independent state. An expedition was speedily fitted out, and on 1 January 1607, the company, one hundred and forty-three strong, sailed from the Downs. The captain was Christopher Newport, and with him was Captain John Smith, the celebrated son of an obscure Lincolnshire gentleman, and Edward Maria Wingfield, who was to become the first president of the settlement.
Of those who settled there during the seventeenth century a large proportion belonged to the Royalist party, and many were descendants of recognized English families. About this period,
while the New England settlements were being developed by the Puritans, Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas might well have been called the Cavalier colonies. Nor is this surprising, for, apart from the fact that emigrants of either party would naturally go to the land where they would find men who agreed with them on religious and political questions, the laws of the Southern Colonies were calculated to attract members of the wealthier classes.
It must not be supposed, however, that any social or class distinction is to be drawn between Cavaliers and Roundheads. Persons of equally good birth belonged indifferently to both parties, even members of the same family often fighting on opposite sides an unfortunate state of things, but one unhappily not without a parallel in more modern times. A genealogy, therefore, tracing its origin to a Cavalier progenitor in no way indicates, ipso facto, a more aristocratic descent than a lineage which boasts Cromwellian ancestors.
In Virginia a planter could claim for himself an additional fifty acres of land on account of every person whom, at his own expense, he had brought into the country. Thus, from the earliest times of the settlement there was a body of landed proprietors, which steadily grew in power and numbers and developed the family pride, which many of the planters had brought with them from the mother country. Such class distinctions were strengthened by the fact that there were no common schools. In 1671 Sir William Berkeley wrote:
"Every man instructs his children according to his own ability; which naturally ensured that the sons of the landowners received some sort of education, while the children of the laboring classes were left in hopeless ignorance and unable to rise above the level of their forefathers."
Those who can trace their lines back to Colonial and Revolutionary times can often successfully carry their search back to ancestral lands, perhaps into the peerage and even royal lines. Through descent other than the oldest son who inherits, families descend into untitled classes, through the church, military, and trade crafts. Those who do not inherit becomes merchants, seamen, farmers, and soldiers.
The more local history you know of your ancestral areas, the better. It can also help you plot family migrations and connections across time and states. Migrations can be tracked in a linear or non-linear fashion as ancestors move into new territories with different opportunities for mixing and survival. One such influential migratory path is the Cumberland Gap, one of the only early paths West.
The frequently repeated statement that many of the colonials of the humbler class were "felons", while in one sense true, is really wholly misleading. These so-called felons were
for the most part political offenders. There were many stormy times in England during that century, and whichever party was in power was in the habit of demonizing the other party.
Some of those transported had been taken when fighting against the reigning monarch. The penal laws of England were at that time most severe. Men were convicted for offenses that to-day might be deemed trifling, and in all probability very few had been guilty of what, in these days, would be described as felonies. On the other hand, it is certain that among the land-owning class there were many who could claim gentle descent.
Among the families figuring prominently in the history of this state which still survive in the male line are those of Washington, Carter, Randolph, Lee, Byrd, Page, Fairfax, Harrison, Boiling, Claiborne, Digges, Conway, Cabell, Ashton, Fitzhugh, Fowke, Gordon, Henry, Pendleton, Slaughter, Tyler, and Chichester.
Although several other colonies were established in America between 1606, the date of the first settlement of Virginia, and 1634, when Maryland was founded, the early histories of these two states are so intimately connected that one naturally falls into place with the other. Maryland owes its birth to the fact that George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, unable to establish successfully a colony in Newfoundland, found his attempt to transplant that settlement to Virginia barred in consequence of his being a Catholic.
In his youth George Calvert, a native of Yorkshire, was educated at Oxford, and his education was afterwards supplemented by a knowledge of the world gathered during extensive travels. During Queen Elizabeth s reign he was secretary to Sir Robert Cecil, and in the time of James the First he rose to be one of the two secretaries of State. In this position he strongly advocated the marriage of Prince Charles to the Infanta of Spain, and, when this project came to naught, Calvert avowed himself a Catholic, an avowal necessitating his resignation of the priviledges and dignities of his high office. Then King James, never averse to the Catholics so long as they made no attempt to dispute his authority as a monarch, granted Calvert estates in Ireland and an Irish peerage.
Throughout his career Lord Baltimore had been in favor of English settlements in America. He had been a member of the Virginia Company and, while Secretary of State, had obtained a
special patent for the southern promontory of Newfoundland. But in spite of all his efforts he failed in his attempt to establish a colony there. His grant tended to impair the freedom of the
fisheries of Newfoundland, which the English Parliament steadfastly insisted upon preserving.
The French and the Puritans already established in these regions were decidedly hostile, and the climate and soil were less favourable than his agents had reported. Abandoning his original project he sailed to Virginia, but here the laws excluded Catholics, and the assembly ordered the oaths of allegiance and supremacy to be tendered him, oaths which no Catholic could take. So Lord Baltimore returned to England to obtain the charter for the territory now known as Maryland.
Much of the territory included in the Virginia patent was then assigned to him, but the Virginia Company s patent had already been revoked, and with his influence at Court, Lord Balti more succeeded in gaining the King s assent in spite of the fierce opposition of the Virginians. The charter was drawn up, but before it could pass the great seal Lord Baltimore died, and it was then granted to his eldest son and successor, to whom fell the honor of founding the colony which for several generations descended as a patrimony to his heirs.
This charter differed in many essentials from any other patent that had passed the great seal of England. It assured a measure of representative government and religious equality in the colony ; it made Lord Baltimore absolute lord and proprietor in return for a payment of two Indian arrows yearly and one-fifth of all the gold and silver found, and expressly covenanted that neither the King nor his successors should ever set any tax, custom, or imposition upon the inhabitants of the province.
Thus Maryland, named after Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles the First, was to be free of all control by the English crown. Many Catholics of good birth resolved to join in the enterprise of planting a colony under such a favorable charter, and in 1634, under the leadership of Leonard Calvert, Lord Baltimore's brother, some two hundred persons sailed up the Potomac in search of a site for their settlement. They purchased land from some friendly Indians, who were about to vacate their town for a region farther inland.
From these Indians they learned something of the agricultural advantages of the country, and also what splendid hunting was to be found in the neighborhood, and thus under the happiest auspices the settlers established themselves in the village they named St. Mary's. Supported by the wealth and influence of Lord Baltimore, having among its population a large proportion of men who were possessed of both means and education, able, having learnt through others misfortunes, to avoid the pitfalls into which the older colonies had fallen, Maryland grew and flourished exceedingly.
As the power of the Court party declined in England Catholics joined the settlement in increasing numbers. Later on, attracted by the toleration here given to any Christian sect-
Episcopalians, Presbyterians, or Quakers members of all kinds of religious denominations migrated to Maryland in large numbers to enjoy liberty denied to them in England.
But although, when compared with the early histories of other colonies, the establishment and development of Maryland may be said to have been marked by singular success, it was not to be expected that with another jealous colony on the south, surrounded by tribes of savages notoriously difficult to deal with, and affected by the bitter struggles between the warring factions in England, the career of the colony could be uniformly peaceful. Trouble arose within a year of the first settlement.
The Virginians claimed the Isle of Kent as part of their territory, and a number of Virginians under the leadership of William Clayborne, a Virginian councillor, had habitations there. The dispute led to fighting, and several men were killed. Clayborne fled to Virginia, and Sir John
Harvey, the governor, who had been expressly bidden by the King to be friendly with the Marylanders, sent him to England, where the points at issue between the two colonies were to be settled.
Some eight years later, taking advantage of the war between King Charles and the Parliament, Clayborne made a determined attempt to recover the island. Richard Ingle, a sea captain, was,
in 1644, cruising in Chesapeake Bay in command of a small fleet, with letters of marque commissioning him to attack the enemies of the Parliament. Ingle landed, seized upon St. Mary, and took possession of the government, while Clayborne simultaneously succeeded in once more establishing himself in the Isle of Kent.
But their success was short lived. Calvert, who had fled into Virginia, returned, rallied his forces, and drove out both the intruders. But in spite of this temporary check to its develop ment, in spite of hostility shown by the once friendly Indians, in spite of changes in the colony which successively followed the triumph of Parliament, the Restoration, and the English revolution of 1688, Maryland continued to flourish and to attract many of the better class of settlers.
The Calverts, Carrolls, Ridgelys, Tilghmans, Burwells, Brents, Briscoes, Lloyds, Lowndes, Tildens, Brookes, and Chews are among the historic families of Maryland which still survive in the male line.
Sir Walter Raleigh's attempts to found a settlement in America have been referred to in connexion with the preceding sketch of the colonization of Virginia for two reasons; one being that the efforts of the Virginia Company were doubtless influenced by his example, and the other that the district in which his emigrants landed was at that time part of the territory called Virginia. Although this district is now known as North Carolina the fate of the Elizabethan colonists has little to do with that state, as over seventy years elapsed between Raleigh s last effort and the next organized attempt at colonization in this neighbourhood.
Between 1663 and 1665 Charles the Second granted all rights over a territory extending from the South of Virginia to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the West of the Mississippi to a party of eight noblemen, amongst whom were the Earl of Clarendon, the Duke of Albemarle, Lord Ashley (afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury), and Sir William Berkeley,
Governor of Virginia. But men from other American colonies had made their homes in Carolina before this.
Virginians had been exploring the country for many years and, doubtless, several had settled there. For instance, in 1663 George Catlemaid, a Virginian, had established sixty-seven persons on Albemarle Sound. About the same time planters from Barbados had bought land to the South of Cape Fear, and made their homes there. Prior to this, a party of men from New England had sailed south wards and, although many returned, it seems that some were left on Cape Fear River.
At first the new lords proprietors of Carolina voluntarily adopted conciliatory methods with these settlers and, as the result showed, no other methods could have succeeded with such men. For when, shortly afterwards, an attempt was made to force upon them an objectionable form of government which had been designed by John Locke, the colonists stoutly opposed it.
Later on, they showed their spirit by deposing and exiling one governor for extortion and imprisoning another governor and his council for infringing their rights. Civil and religious liberty was thus assured in this region, and many Quakers and other dissenters migrated there in the seventeenth century.
In the middle of the eighteenth century there was a great flood of immigration into the state from other American States, and also from England, and from various other parts of Europe. British, Dutch, French, and Swiss, of all denominations, many belonging to recognized families, poured into the now flourishing colony of North Carolina.
Meanwhile, under the leadership of Joseph West, who acted as the commercial agent for the proprietors, and of Captain William Sayle a considerable number of emigrants set sail from
England for South Carolina, where they made their settlement before 1670. They finally settled near Oyster Point and founded the village which more than a century later was incorporated as the city of Charleston.
Reports of the rich possibilities of the country soon spread throughout the world. Dutch emigrants came from New York, soon followed by others from Holland. Charles the Second, at his own expense fitted out two small vessels to transport Protestants from the south of Europe who might domesticate the productions of warmer climes to this prolific soil. Cavaliers sought refuge there, and even Shaftesbury himself, when committed to the Tower, asked leave to expatriate himself and become an inhabitant of Carolina.
Churchmen and dissenters alike sought refuge here ; thousands of Huguenots, who fled to all parts of the world after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, sought homes in this state, and although the Spaniards laid waste one of the southern settlements, and the colonists had bitter struggles against the power of the lords proprietors, within a few years the prosperity of South Carolina was assured.
References to the early history of the Carolinas will be found under the names of Middleton, Pinckney, Lowndes, Izard, Blake, and Rutledge, all of them being families that still survive.
Pilgrim Fathers
The Pilgrim Fathers arose in the religious upheaval of The Reformation. The Virginia Company s settlements were the result of a The Pilgrim desire for fresh trade, and, although inspired by other motives, Fathers.
Lord Baltimore looked for a material return for his expenditure and labours over Maryland, while the founders of the Carolinas sought for personal aggrandizement and gain. But next to the Virginian settlement in point of time, and destined to have even a greater effect upon the development of the country, was the colonization of the Northern States, which was due to the Puritans unconquerable desire for religious liberty.
To understand the causes which led to the emigration of the Pilgrim Fathers it is necessary to glance at fifty years of England's history.
The Reformation, and the counter-reformation of the Catholics had plunged Europe into war a war from a share in which neither the statecraft nor the love of compromise of Queen
Elizabeth could keep England. Staunch supporter of episcopal church government as she was at home, Elizabeth was forced by circumstances into the position of protector abroad of those nonconforming sects which she endeavoured to put down with a strong hand within her own realm.
The Puritans, who had fled to Germany and Switzerland during the Marian persecution, had returned at Elizabeth s accession imbued with religious views that assorted ill with the conservative principles of their sovereign. But inasmuch as Elizabeth, in opposition to the vast Catholic power of Philip of Spain, was the champion of the Protestant cause abroad, they gave her steadfast allegiance. They might refuse steadfastly to submit their private judgment to a Church of which she was titular head, but they were unswerving in their loyalty and patriotism. She might send them to the block ; she might flog them or mutilate them, but they remained always her devoted subjects. They refused obstinately and stubbornly to conform to the rites and ceremonies of the English Church as established under Queen Elizabeth ; they struggled against it with all their might ; the famous " Martin Mar-Prelate " tracts in which they attacked the Church were printed and published in the face of death and persecution ; yet their loyalty as Englishmen was never in question.
Persecution, that futile weapon of tyranny, served only to foster the marked characteristics of the Puritans. As a great historian has said : "Persecution found them a sect and made them
a faction." At first their attachment to the English Church was undeniable ; they were for ever seeking some means by which they could with a good conscience become obedient servants of the Establishment. The accession of Whitgift in 1583 to the chair of St. Augustine rendered all hope of compromise impossible.
Twenty thousand Puritans preached and prayed in their conventicles in defiance of the law. It is said on the authority of Heylin, that even the proud and stubborn spirit of Queen Elizabeth weakened and hesitated before their calm determination. Walsingham offered the Puritans, in the Queen s name, in about 1583, to give up the ceremony of kneeling at the Communion, the cross in Baptism, and the surplice. Their reply was characteristic : "Ne ungulam quidem esse relinquemdam."
From that time onwards there was no hope of arrangement or surrender. Archbishop Whitgift appeared upon the scene, and for thirty-seven years the policy which he then adopted was carried on consistently until the sails of the Mayflower were set to the winds of the Atlantic.
Although the dates are difficult to ascertain with any degree of accuracy it may safely be said that the pilgrim movement began within a short time of Whitgift s appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury. The first seeds were sown in that small tract of country, some four miles by six, which lies between the Rivers Idle and Ryton in Nottinghamshire. It began with the appointment of the Rev. Richard Clyfton to the Rectory of Babworth, on the ii July 1586.
Clyfton was a " forward preacher" or reformist, and he boldly led the crusade against the archbishop, preaching the liberty of the pulpit and the uselessness of all forms of ritual. In January 1589 there came to his assistance a man destined to play a great part in the New World. At that date William Brewster was appointed postmaster at Scrooby, a little village six miles away close to the junction of the Idle and the Ryton.
Brewster's method of helping the cause was to furnish money for the support of the reformist preachers in the neighbouring parish churches, "he himself being most commonly deepest in the charge, and sometimes above his ability." Clyfton and Brewster worked together for the cause of reform, until in 1601 they were joined in their work by Richard Bernard, who was appointed to the living of Worksop on 19 June of that year.
It should be understood that Clyfton was still within the pale of the Church. The separatist Church had not been formed, but the accession of James I hastened matters and brought about the inevitable. It had been thought at first that James, coming from Scotland, would be prepared to regard the views of the Puritans as to ecclesiastical government with favour, but his remark during his progress south, " No bishop, no king," settled once and for
all his real intentions. The king became a partisan of Whitgift.
It was only because he feared their numbers that he consented to receive from the Puritans the famous Millenary Petition for a redress of ecclesiastical grievances. Policy and his pride in his own gifts of theological debates prompted him further to agree to a conference at Hampton Court. It was hardly a conference ; it was more a legal lecture to the Puritans.
"I will have none of that liberty as to ceremony," said His Majesty, " I will have one doctrine, one discipline, one religion in substance and ceremony. I will make you conform or I will harry you out of the land." His own view of the conference, which closed on 18 January 1604, was that he had "soundly peppered off the Puritans."
A month later Archbishop Whitgift died and Bancroft became his successor. Conformity was insisted upon with unrelenting rigour. The persecutions that had lapsed somewhat during the later days of Queen Elizabeth s reign were renewed. King James issued a brutally severe proclamation against the Puritans, who held command of the Lower House, and had
already become identified as the party opposed to despotism. In the year 1604 alone three hundred Puritan ministers were deprived, imprisoned, or exiled. All hope of accommodation
between the Church and the Puritans was now seen to be impossible, and Clyfton at Babworth in the same year started the separatist movement.
In that year of trial, 1604, Clyfton was joined by an assistant, the Rev. John Robinson, another Nottinghamshire man, and, like his rector, a Cambridge graduate. Two years later Clyfton became pastor of the Separatist Church at Scrooby, with the Rev. John Robinson as his able lieutenant. In thesame year, at about the same time, the Rev. John Smyth, likewise a Cambridge graduate, founded another branch of the Puritan Church at Gainsborough, on the edge of the Pilgrim District.
It will be as well to recapitulate the situation of these Puritans at this momentous crisis. The Rev. Richard Clyfton, with the Rev. John Robinson, was at Babworth. The Rev. Richard
Bernard was giving indirect assistance to the cause at Worksop ; the Rev. John Smyth was righting the battle of liberty of conscience at Gainsborough, while William Brewster, Postmaster at Scrooby, was still unremitting in his support.
There was also a young man of eighteen, William Bradford, who was constant in his attendance at the ministry of the Rev. Richard Clyfton. The definite movement that had been set up by Clyfton and Robinson and Smyth brought down upon their heads the whole armoury of the government s wrath. Imprisonments, search warrants, trivial prosecutions, and the various malice of intolerance were used to compel them to amend their ways. The situation became so intolerable that it was determined to seek safety for the Church in exile.
It was then that a split occurred among the leaders. Clyfton determined to seek refuge at Amsterdam, where there still existed the ancient exiled Church. Bernard of Worksop refused at the eleventh hour to abandon the Establishment. It therefore fell to Robinson, as chief pastor, and Brewster, as elder, to lead their following to Leyden.
But tyranny was even for denying them the privilege of exile. Their first attempt to leave was frustrated. For a month the whole of the company were placed under arrest, but at the end of that period more merciful counsels prevailed, and they were released, with the exception of
the seven principal men, who were detained in prison.
In the following spring of 1608 the attempt was renewed. The exiles, men and women, met on a lonely, unfrequented heath in Lincolnshire. The night was wild and stormy, and the embarkation was delayed. A part of the company were already in the boat that was to bear them to the ship, when a company of horsemen appeared in pursuit. The helpless women and children who still remained on the shore were seized.
In spite of their tears and prayers they were apprehended. But even the magistrates of those days, creatures as they were of the king, were upright enough to realize the cruelty of punishing and imprisoning wives and children for no other crime than that of wishing to go with their husbands and fathers, and they allowed them at last to depart. And so in small companies the Puritans made their way from the home of their fathers to Leyden, in Holland, and took the first step in that long pilgrimage which was to land them in the New World.
Brewster printed and published Pilgrim books, and so annoyed King James that at the instance of the English ambassador his establishment was suppressed. Bradford, who had been educated as a farmer, learned the art of dyeing silk. In the old registers kept in the
city hall of Leyden are to be found the entries of several marriages which took place among the exiles.
All the evidence, in short, shows that they attempted to take root in Holland, but the climate, the language, and the customs of the country were never to their liking. They were still Englishmen, and not even the terrible persecutions they had had to endure had deprived them of their insularity and their love of their own kith and kin.
Unable to return to England, they sought for some place where they could once more live under the government of their native land. They thought of Guiana, the land of which Raleigh had so dazzlingly written, but the tropical nature of the climate, and the proximity of a Catholic settlement, determined them to abandon the idea. They decided on Virginia.
Robert Cushman and John Carver were sent to London to enter into negotiations with the Virginia Company, who still held the patent for " North Virginia. In their communications with the governing body in London, Robinson and Brewster, as the pastor and elder respectively of the Pilgrim Church, announced their perfect faith and confidence in the success of the undertaking, saying :"It is not with us as with men whom small things can discourage."
The Virginia Company looked with favor on their proposal, but the king, whose approval they sought, was unrelenting in his antagonism. The Pilgrims persisted, however, and after three years, under very hard and stringent terms, they obtained their desire. Not having sufficient capital for the execution of their scheme they had to consent to the terms of the company.
The Pilgrim band, for the purposes of this contract, was regarded as a numerous partnership ; the services of each member were to be rated at a capital of 10, which belonged to the company. Profits were not to be taken till the end of seven years, and the whole amount, with all houses and lands, gardens, and fields, was to be divided among shareholders according to their respective interests. But hard though the terms were, the fact that their civil and religious liberties were assured, and this, too, under the government of their native land, determined the Pilgrims to sign the contract.
By July 1620 all was in readiness. The Speedwell, a ship of 60 tons, had been purchased in London, and the Mayflower, a vessel of 180 tons, had been hired in England. As these ships
could only hold a minority of the congregation, Robinson the pastor was detained at Leyden, according to arrangement, while Brewster, who had been elected ruling elder about 1613,
took command of the Pilgrim band. On 22 July they set sail from Delft Haven.
Misfortune dogged them at first. On 5 August they set sail from Southampton ; then it was found that the Speedwell needed repairs, and on 13 August they put back to the port of Dart
mouth. Eight days later, on 21 August, they again weighed anchor. The captain of the Speedwell was a man ill suited for the adventure. He became appalled at the thought of the dangers that lay before him, and, on the pretence that his vessel still needed repairs, insisted on making Plymouth. Many of his company were of the same mind. It was agreed that the timid and hesitating should be allowed to abandon the expedition. The Speedwell was left behind, and the courageous and determined few, one hundred and two souls, were all embarked upon the Mayflower, which finally set sail from England on 6 September 1620.
One William Butten died during the voyage, and two infants first saw the light before the Pilgrims actually landed in New England. One was Oceana Hopkins, born in mid-ocean, the other Peregrine White, who made his entrance into the world while the Mayflower still rode at anchor in the harbour of Cape Cod. On 9 November 1620, after along and boisterous voyage of sixty-three days, the Pilgrims sighted land, and in two days more were safely moored in the harbour of Cape Cod. Before they landed they settled the system of government under which they should live, and drew up the following instrument which was signed by the whole body of men of whom the company was composed :
"In the name of God, Amen ; We, whose names are under written the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign King James, having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancement of the Christian Faith, and honour of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together, into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid ; and by virtue hereof, to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices from time to time, as shall be thought most convenient for the general good of the colony. Under which we promise all due submission and obedience."
(Signed)
John Carver
William Bradford
Edward Winslow
William Brewster
Isaac Allerton
Miles Standish
John Alden
Samuel Fuller
Christopher Martin
William Mullins
William White
Richard Warren
John Howland
Stephen Hopkins
Edward Tilley
John Tilley
Francis Cooke
Thomas Rogers
Thomas Tinker
John Rigdale
Edward Fuller
John Turner
Francis Eaton
James Chilton
John Crackston
John Billington (sen.)
Moses Fletcher
John Goodman
Degory Priest
Thomas Williams
Gilbert Winslow
Edmund Margeson
Peter Browne
Richard B(r)itteridge
George Soule
Richard Clarke
Richard Gardiner
John Allerton
Thomas English
Edward Dotey
Edward Leister
John Carver, who, with Cushman, had acted as negotiator for the Pilgrim Church at Leyden with the "Adventurers" in London, was, in the cabin of the May/lower, elected Governor for the year. So was founded, on democratic principles, the first permanent
English settlement in America.
During that winter half their number died, and at one time there were only seven who were not striken down with sickness, yet when the Mayflower returned the following April not one of the settlers went with her. Governor Carver died, and Bradford was elected to succeed him. Once afterwards, in a time of trial and depression, the colonists thought of removal, but that was only a passing phase.
In a few years, although at first its growth was very slow, the success of the community was assured, and in spite of the efforts of Bradford to keep them at Plymouth, detachments of the settlers migrated and independent settlements were formed. The following families of the Pilgrim Fathers are still surviving in the male line : the Brewsters, Bradfords, Allcrtons, Winslows, Cushmans, and Standishes.
The Pilgrims
The settlement of the Pilgrim Fathers paved the way for Puritans. another settlement of greater magnitude, and, although all credit must be assigned to those men who founded the first Puritan Colony, the second migration was far more important. Indeed, from the genealogical standpoint there can hardly be any comparison between the two enterprises. The Pilgrim Fathers were few in numbers, and among them there were hardly any descendants of recognized English families.
The company of Puritans which after the formation of the company of Massachusetts Bay settled in that region in 1 630 were not only more than ten times more numerous, but many of them were men of high endow ments, large fortunes, and the best education, and their boldness and wisdom had an immediate and lasting effect upon the history of America. Yet, for some reason, partly perhaps because the earlier settlement appeals more to the imagination, many Americans who are really descended from such honorable forbears mistakenly persist in claiming descent from the Pilgrim Fathers.
In 1627 the idea of establishing a fresh colony on the shores of New England began to take definite shape in the minds of men who desired to free themselves from the constraints they
suffered under in England. In 1628, having formed themselves into a company, they purchased a patent from the New England council, which was little concerned at making grants of territory that had already been purchased.
White, a Puritan minister of Dorchester, was the moving spirit, and the patent was granted to Sir Henry Roswell, Sir John Young, Thomas Southcoat, John Humphrey, John Endicot, and Simon Whitcomb, gentlemen of Dorchester. Some of these original purchasers afterwards sold their rights to new-comers, who, possessed of a kindred spirit and religious fervour, were found by the zealous White in or around London. Among these new-comers were men bearing names destined to be notable in the history of the making of America, such names as Winthrop, Dudley, Johnson, and Pynchon.
In 1628 John Endicot, with his wife and family and nearly a hundred emigrants, sailed to Massachusetts, and sent back word of his safe arrival. In the meantime the company had enlisted the sympathies of influential Puritans throughout England, and in 1629, after much trouble and expenditure, the company of Massachusetts Bay was granted a charter.
Only a few days before Charles the First in a State paper announced his intention of governing without a Parliament. It should be noted that the charter thus secured did not assign to the colonists freedom of religion. Higginson, Hooker, and Cotton, who took prominent parts in the colonizing movement, were all ministers of the Church of England, and, at the time the charter was granted, neither patentees nor government seemed to foresee that the new state
was inevitably destined to be wholly Puritan.
In 1629, under the leadership of Francis Higginson, a band of two hundred emigrants arrived at Salem. The spirit in which they sailed from their native land may be gathered from the fact
that before leaving, the company was winnowed and all servants of ill life were discharged. Arrived in Massachusetts, John and Samuel Browne, devout members of the Church of England, protested against the nonconformity of the community, with the result that they were seized like criminals and transported back to England.
The news of the new settlement and of the establishment of their form of religion there spread like wildfire among the sterner Puritans of England. They looked upon Massachusetts, a place where they could worship in their own fashion, as though it were a veritable "promised land" and enrolled their names by the hundred for emigration. Then, on the suggestion of Matthew Cradock, the governor of the company, a bold stroke was taken.
It was proposed and carried that the charter of the company should be transferred to those of the freemen who should them selves inhabit the colony. At Cambridge (England) an agreement was come to between a number of men of consequence that they would all embark for America if the government of the "plantation" should be legally transferred to them and other freemen.
The subject was brought before the Court, and it was declared that the government and patent might be transferred across the Atlantic. Nominally this decision only settled where the
future meetings of the company should be held ; practically it changed a commercial corporation into an independent provincial government.
The result was that, with John Winthrop as governor, nearly fifteen hundred persons sailed for Massachusetts during the following season. They landed amid scenes of desolation. Many of the earlier colonists had died ; the supplies of corn were scanty in the extreme. Before the end of a year over a hundred, dreading famine and death, sailed back to England, and over two hundred of those who remained died.
The men who had turned back painted the terrors of the colony in the most lively colors, with the result that during 1631 and 1632 less than three hundred and fifty emigrants came from England. But in spite of all hardships and discouragements, the colonists, cheered by Winthrop, struggled bravely on. Their leaders met at Boston, and decided on a form of government more or less representative ; they established friendly relations with the Pilgrims, made treaties of peace with the neighbouring Indians, and opened up trade with the Dutch on the Hudson River.
This happy news, sent to England with invitations by Winthrop, caused the flow of emigrants to increase, and among those who crossed the Atlantic during 1633 were Haynes, renowned
alike for wealth and piety, and Cotton, the eloquent and sagacious Calvinistic scholar.
During the next few years the electors of the Puritan colony engaged in a struggle with their leaders for a purely representative form of government, and after some time they secured it,
together with a written constitution, and, sign of their growing independence, a condition that every freeman should pledge his allegiance not to King Charles, but to Massachusetts.
While this struggle was in progress, Roger Williams, a young Puritan minister, boldly asserted the right of man to worship exactly as he pleased, or, indeed, not to worship at all unless he pleased. Although the Puritans had fled from religious tyranny in England, freedom in matters of religion was no part of their belief, and eventually Williams was exiled. Followed by some devout admirers he left Massachusetts and established the first settlement in Rhode Island.
Another religious dissension was responsible for a party leaving the parent colony for Connecticut. Then, shortly afterwards, another Puritan colony sprang up at New Haven. Thus the original settlements led to others, but by 1643 a great war with the Indians caused Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Haven, and New Plymouth to form the confederacy that is often referred to as the prototype of that greater confederacy which conducted the War of
Independence.
Among the historic Puritan families still surviving in male line are the Cottons, Mathers, Winthrops, Bulkeleys, Faunces, Pynchons, and Chaunceys.
The Quakers
One of the latest important colonizations in the eastern states of America was due to the cruel persecutions which the Quakers suffered both in England and on the Continent. From the time of the Long Parliament until after the restoration of Charles the Second these peaceful followers of George Fox were harried without mercy. In small bodies many of them had fled across the Atlantic before the foundation of Pennsylvania, but in several of the American settlements they were liable to treatment as severe as that meted out to them in Europe.
Consequently after many years of bitter suffering they sought to establish a colony of their own. In 1674 the English having taken from the Dutch the regions round the Hudson and Delaware, known as the New Netherlands, Berkeley sold the moiety of New Jersey to Quakers, to John Fenwick in trust for Edward Byllinge and his assigns for a thou sand pounds. In 1675 Fenwick with a large company set sail for the asylum of Friends. Ascending the Delaware he named the spot where they first settled Salem.
Byllinge became embarrassed in his fortunes, and Gawen Laurie, William Penn, and Nicholas Lucas became his assigns as trustees for his creditors. These assigns eventually secured for
the Quakers the right of self-government, and men and women flocked to the new settlement where they might worship God after their own fashion.
William Penn, deeply interested in the growth of the Quaker colony on the Delaware, sought for a grant of territory on the opposite side of the river, and after encountering some opposition secured it from Charles the Second, who was indebted to the Quaker for a loan advanced to the crown by Penn s father. This region was named Pennsylvania, and on Penn s publishing in England and on the Continent the statement that his would be a free colony for all mankind, crowds came thither from all parts of England, from the Low Countries, from Germany, and from France.
In Pennsylvania there already existed Swedish, Dutch, and English settlements, but thanks to the beneficent government instituted by the famous Quaker, all dwelt together in amity ; just
as, thanks to his wisdom and humanity, they succeeded in establishing peaceful relations with the neighboring Indians.
The best known of the historic Quaker families that survive in the male line are : the Gilpins, Biddies, Morrises, Thomases, Whartons, and Shoemakers. The Hopkins family were prominent in the early settlement of Rhode Island. Others founded Connecticut.
city hall of Leyden are to be found the entries of several marriages which took place among the exiles.
All the evidence, in short, shows that they attempted to take root in Holland, but the climate, the language, and the customs of the country were never to their liking. They were still Englishmen, and not even the terrible persecutions they had had to endure had deprived them of their insularity and their love of their own kith and kin.
Unable to return to England, they sought for some place where they could once more live under the government of their native land. They thought of Guiana, the land of which Raleigh had so dazzlingly written, but the tropical nature of the climate, and the proximity of a Catholic settlement, determined them to abandon the idea. They decided on Virginia.
Robert Cushman and John Carver were sent to London to enter into negotiations with the Virginia Company, who still held the patent for " North Virginia. In their communications with the governing body in London, Robinson and Brewster, as the pastor and elder respectively of the Pilgrim Church, announced their perfect faith and confidence in the success of the undertaking, saying :"It is not with us as with men whom small things can discourage."
The Virginia Company looked with favor on their proposal, but the king, whose approval they sought, was unrelenting in his antagonism. The Pilgrims persisted, however, and after three years, under very hard and stringent terms, they obtained their desire. Not having sufficient capital for the execution of their scheme they had to consent to the terms of the company.
The Pilgrim band, for the purposes of this contract, was regarded as a numerous partnership ; the services of each member were to be rated at a capital of 10, which belonged to the company. Profits were not to be taken till the end of seven years, and the whole amount, with all houses and lands, gardens, and fields, was to be divided among shareholders according to their respective interests. But hard though the terms were, the fact that their civil and religious liberties were assured, and this, too, under the government of their native land, determined the Pilgrims to sign the contract.
By July 1620 all was in readiness. The Speedwell, a ship of 60 tons, had been purchased in London, and the Mayflower, a vessel of 180 tons, had been hired in England. As these ships
could only hold a minority of the congregation, Robinson the pastor was detained at Leyden, according to arrangement, while Brewster, who had been elected ruling elder about 1613,
took command of the Pilgrim band. On 22 July they set sail from Delft Haven.
Misfortune dogged them at first. On 5 August they set sail from Southampton ; then it was found that the Speedwell needed repairs, and on 13 August they put back to the port of Dart
mouth. Eight days later, on 21 August, they again weighed anchor. The captain of the Speedwell was a man ill suited for the adventure. He became appalled at the thought of the dangers that lay before him, and, on the pretence that his vessel still needed repairs, insisted on making Plymouth. Many of his company were of the same mind. It was agreed that the timid and hesitating should be allowed to abandon the expedition. The Speedwell was left behind, and the courageous and determined few, one hundred and two souls, were all embarked upon the Mayflower, which finally set sail from England on 6 September 1620.
One William Butten died during the voyage, and two infants first saw the light before the Pilgrims actually landed in New England. One was Oceana Hopkins, born in mid-ocean, the other Peregrine White, who made his entrance into the world while the Mayflower still rode at anchor in the harbour of Cape Cod. On 9 November 1620, after along and boisterous voyage of sixty-three days, the Pilgrims sighted land, and in two days more were safely moored in the harbour of Cape Cod. Before they landed they settled the system of government under which they should live, and drew up the following instrument which was signed by the whole body of men of whom the company was composed :
"In the name of God, Amen ; We, whose names are under written the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign King James, having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancement of the Christian Faith, and honour of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together, into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid ; and by virtue hereof, to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices from time to time, as shall be thought most convenient for the general good of the colony. Under which we promise all due submission and obedience."
(Signed)
John Carver
William Bradford
Edward Winslow
William Brewster
Isaac Allerton
Miles Standish
John Alden
Samuel Fuller
Christopher Martin
William Mullins
William White
Richard Warren
John Howland
Stephen Hopkins
Edward Tilley
John Tilley
Francis Cooke
Thomas Rogers
Thomas Tinker
John Rigdale
Edward Fuller
John Turner
Francis Eaton
James Chilton
John Crackston
John Billington (sen.)
Moses Fletcher
John Goodman
Degory Priest
Thomas Williams
Gilbert Winslow
Edmund Margeson
Peter Browne
Richard B(r)itteridge
George Soule
Richard Clarke
Richard Gardiner
John Allerton
Thomas English
Edward Dotey
Edward Leister
John Carver, who, with Cushman, had acted as negotiator for the Pilgrim Church at Leyden with the "Adventurers" in London, was, in the cabin of the May/lower, elected Governor for the year. So was founded, on democratic principles, the first permanent
English settlement in America.
During that winter half their number died, and at one time there were only seven who were not striken down with sickness, yet when the Mayflower returned the following April not one of the settlers went with her. Governor Carver died, and Bradford was elected to succeed him. Once afterwards, in a time of trial and depression, the colonists thought of removal, but that was only a passing phase.
In a few years, although at first its growth was very slow, the success of the community was assured, and in spite of the efforts of Bradford to keep them at Plymouth, detachments of the settlers migrated and independent settlements were formed. The following families of the Pilgrim Fathers are still surviving in the male line : the Brewsters, Bradfords, Allcrtons, Winslows, Cushmans, and Standishes.
The Pilgrims
The settlement of the Pilgrim Fathers paved the way for Puritans. another settlement of greater magnitude, and, although all credit must be assigned to those men who founded the first Puritan Colony, the second migration was far more important. Indeed, from the genealogical standpoint there can hardly be any comparison between the two enterprises. The Pilgrim Fathers were few in numbers, and among them there were hardly any descendants of recognized English families.
The company of Puritans which after the formation of the company of Massachusetts Bay settled in that region in 1 630 were not only more than ten times more numerous, but many of them were men of high endow ments, large fortunes, and the best education, and their boldness and wisdom had an immediate and lasting effect upon the history of America. Yet, for some reason, partly perhaps because the earlier settlement appeals more to the imagination, many Americans who are really descended from such honorable forbears mistakenly persist in claiming descent from the Pilgrim Fathers.
In 1627 the idea of establishing a fresh colony on the shores of New England began to take definite shape in the minds of men who desired to free themselves from the constraints they
suffered under in England. In 1628, having formed themselves into a company, they purchased a patent from the New England council, which was little concerned at making grants of territory that had already been purchased.
White, a Puritan minister of Dorchester, was the moving spirit, and the patent was granted to Sir Henry Roswell, Sir John Young, Thomas Southcoat, John Humphrey, John Endicot, and Simon Whitcomb, gentlemen of Dorchester. Some of these original purchasers afterwards sold their rights to new-comers, who, possessed of a kindred spirit and religious fervour, were found by the zealous White in or around London. Among these new-comers were men bearing names destined to be notable in the history of the making of America, such names as Winthrop, Dudley, Johnson, and Pynchon.
In 1628 John Endicot, with his wife and family and nearly a hundred emigrants, sailed to Massachusetts, and sent back word of his safe arrival. In the meantime the company had enlisted the sympathies of influential Puritans throughout England, and in 1629, after much trouble and expenditure, the company of Massachusetts Bay was granted a charter.
Only a few days before Charles the First in a State paper announced his intention of governing without a Parliament. It should be noted that the charter thus secured did not assign to the colonists freedom of religion. Higginson, Hooker, and Cotton, who took prominent parts in the colonizing movement, were all ministers of the Church of England, and, at the time the charter was granted, neither patentees nor government seemed to foresee that the new state
was inevitably destined to be wholly Puritan.
In 1629, under the leadership of Francis Higginson, a band of two hundred emigrants arrived at Salem. The spirit in which they sailed from their native land may be gathered from the fact
that before leaving, the company was winnowed and all servants of ill life were discharged. Arrived in Massachusetts, John and Samuel Browne, devout members of the Church of England, protested against the nonconformity of the community, with the result that they were seized like criminals and transported back to England.
The news of the new settlement and of the establishment of their form of religion there spread like wildfire among the sterner Puritans of England. They looked upon Massachusetts, a place where they could worship in their own fashion, as though it were a veritable "promised land" and enrolled their names by the hundred for emigration. Then, on the suggestion of Matthew Cradock, the governor of the company, a bold stroke was taken.
It was proposed and carried that the charter of the company should be transferred to those of the freemen who should them selves inhabit the colony. At Cambridge (England) an agreement was come to between a number of men of consequence that they would all embark for America if the government of the "plantation" should be legally transferred to them and other freemen.
The subject was brought before the Court, and it was declared that the government and patent might be transferred across the Atlantic. Nominally this decision only settled where the
future meetings of the company should be held ; practically it changed a commercial corporation into an independent provincial government.
The result was that, with John Winthrop as governor, nearly fifteen hundred persons sailed for Massachusetts during the following season. They landed amid scenes of desolation. Many of the earlier colonists had died ; the supplies of corn were scanty in the extreme. Before the end of a year over a hundred, dreading famine and death, sailed back to England, and over two hundred of those who remained died.
The men who had turned back painted the terrors of the colony in the most lively colors, with the result that during 1631 and 1632 less than three hundred and fifty emigrants came from England. But in spite of all hardships and discouragements, the colonists, cheered by Winthrop, struggled bravely on. Their leaders met at Boston, and decided on a form of government more or less representative ; they established friendly relations with the Pilgrims, made treaties of peace with the neighbouring Indians, and opened up trade with the Dutch on the Hudson River.
This happy news, sent to England with invitations by Winthrop, caused the flow of emigrants to increase, and among those who crossed the Atlantic during 1633 were Haynes, renowned
alike for wealth and piety, and Cotton, the eloquent and sagacious Calvinistic scholar.
During the next few years the electors of the Puritan colony engaged in a struggle with their leaders for a purely representative form of government, and after some time they secured it,
together with a written constitution, and, sign of their growing independence, a condition that every freeman should pledge his allegiance not to King Charles, but to Massachusetts.
While this struggle was in progress, Roger Williams, a young Puritan minister, boldly asserted the right of man to worship exactly as he pleased, or, indeed, not to worship at all unless he pleased. Although the Puritans had fled from religious tyranny in England, freedom in matters of religion was no part of their belief, and eventually Williams was exiled. Followed by some devout admirers he left Massachusetts and established the first settlement in Rhode Island.
Another religious dissension was responsible for a party leaving the parent colony for Connecticut. Then, shortly afterwards, another Puritan colony sprang up at New Haven. Thus the original settlements led to others, but by 1643 a great war with the Indians caused Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Haven, and New Plymouth to form the confederacy that is often referred to as the prototype of that greater confederacy which conducted the War of
Independence.
Among the historic Puritan families still surviving in male line are the Cottons, Mathers, Winthrops, Bulkeleys, Faunces, Pynchons, and Chaunceys.
The Quakers
One of the latest important colonizations in the eastern states of America was due to the cruel persecutions which the Quakers suffered both in England and on the Continent. From the time of the Long Parliament until after the restoration of Charles the Second these peaceful followers of George Fox were harried without mercy. In small bodies many of them had fled across the Atlantic before the foundation of Pennsylvania, but in several of the American settlements they were liable to treatment as severe as that meted out to them in Europe.
Consequently after many years of bitter suffering they sought to establish a colony of their own. In 1674 the English having taken from the Dutch the regions round the Hudson and Delaware, known as the New Netherlands, Berkeley sold the moiety of New Jersey to Quakers, to John Fenwick in trust for Edward Byllinge and his assigns for a thou sand pounds. In 1675 Fenwick with a large company set sail for the asylum of Friends. Ascending the Delaware he named the spot where they first settled Salem.
Byllinge became embarrassed in his fortunes, and Gawen Laurie, William Penn, and Nicholas Lucas became his assigns as trustees for his creditors. These assigns eventually secured for
the Quakers the right of self-government, and men and women flocked to the new settlement where they might worship God after their own fashion.
William Penn, deeply interested in the growth of the Quaker colony on the Delaware, sought for a grant of territory on the opposite side of the river, and after encountering some opposition secured it from Charles the Second, who was indebted to the Quaker for a loan advanced to the crown by Penn s father. This region was named Pennsylvania, and on Penn s publishing in England and on the Continent the statement that his would be a free colony for all mankind, crowds came thither from all parts of England, from the Low Countries, from Germany, and from France.
In Pennsylvania there already existed Swedish, Dutch, and English settlements, but thanks to the beneficent government instituted by the famous Quaker, all dwelt together in amity ; just
as, thanks to his wisdom and humanity, they succeeded in establishing peaceful relations with the neighboring Indians.
The best known of the historic Quaker families that survive in the male line are : the Gilpins, Biddies, Morrises, Thomases, Whartons, and Shoemakers. The Hopkins family were prominent in the early settlement of Rhode Island. Others founded Connecticut.
The Dutch
In the history of the Dutch immigrations we again find proof that most of the colonization of America was due to the religious dissensions of Europe. When Philip II. of Spain inherited the
sovereignty of the Netherlands he united with the Roman Church to stamp out the first flames of political liberty. The men of the Netherlands rose, and one of the most memorable conflicts in the history of the world began. Philip responded by the establishment of arbitrary tribunals and the imposition of arbitrary taxation.
Troops under Alva were poured into the country, but the Dutch, animated, as Sidney told Queen Elizabeth, " by the invincible spirit of God," rose en masse, and, electing the Prince of Orange as their Stadtholder, seized the harbor of Briel and united to drive
the foreign troops from their territory. The union of the five northern provinces at Utrecht, which sprang from the revolution, laid the foundations of the republic of the United Netherlands.
It was a state that looked to the sea for its prosperity. It was a nation of merchants, or, as the phrase was then," adventurers," and in every part of the world their flag was to be seen. Amsterdam became the first commercial city of the world, and Spain, despoiled of her provinces, had to submit to her territory and her commerce being preyed upon by the small nation which defied her power and had shaken off her yoke.
In 1597 the first Dutch voyage was made to the New World, and from that time onwards the merchants of Holland carried on a trade with America. Their actual settlement there was due, in the first place, to their endeavor to find a north-west passage by which they could tap more easily the vast riches of Asia. The Dutch East India Company, which originated in 1602, received seven years later an offer from Henry Hudson, the famous English explorer, to
discover the North-west Passage. The offer was accepted, and on 4 April the Crescent, commanded by Hudson and manned by a mixed crew of Englishmen and Hollanders, set sail.
On 3 September following the Crescent anchored within Sandy Hook, and New York was discovered. The subsequent cruel fate of Hudson, who was left by his mutinous crew to die in the deserts of arctic ice, did not lessen the value of his discovery.
As New York had been discovered by their agent, the Dutch East India Company claimed the possession of the country on the Hudson for the United Provinces. They desired this territory solely for trading purposes, and not for colonization, and though there were one or two rough
huts built on the island of Manhattan in 1613, they were there solely as temporary residences for the Dutch mariners and fur traders. It was not until the internal affairs of the United Provinces had been settled that the Dutch became a colonizing force.
The provinces which had united for the sole purpose of opposing the tyranny of Spain would have resolved themselves once more into their respective units had it not been for the action
of Prince Maurice, their Stadtholder. The country was divided into two camps : those who maintained the sovereignity of each state within its own borders the aristocratic party and the party who claimed the right of the States General to direct the policy of the United Provinces.
Prince Maurice, who was the leader of the latter section, favoured the colonization of America. The aristocratic party opposed his view, and it was not until 29 August 1618, when the successful coup detat made by the Stadtholder with the consent of the popular party, settled the vexed question of internal government once and for all, that he was able to fulfill his colonial aspirations.
Three years later the Dutch West India Company was endowed by charter with the exclusive privilege of trafficking and planting colonies on the coast of Africa from the Tropic of Cancer
to the Cape of Good Hope, and on the coast of America from the Straits of Magellan to the remotest north.
The stock of the company was thrown open for subscription to the whole world. Cornelius May, whose name still survives in the southern county and cape of New Jersey, visited Manhattan, entered the bay, and, sailing up the Delaware River, formally took possession of the territory which the company already claimed as the discovery of its agent, Henry Hudson.
Fort Nassau was built on Timber Creek, and the whole country from the southern shore of Delaware Bay to Cape Cod was christened the New Netherlands. On Manhattan a block-house was erected, and before many years had passed there began to cluster round it quaint cottages with straw roofs and wooden chimneys, and the windmills which are so strongly associated with the native land of the settlers. This was the beginning of New York.
The settlers, discontented with the rule of the company, bethought themselves of buying land direct from the natives, and thereby establishing a personal title to their property. Godyn
purchased of the natives all the land from Cape Henlopen to the mouth of Delaware River, and his example was followed by others. Friction with the governing body of the company at home inevitably followed a friction that was not lessened by the discovery that the land obtained in this way was almost immediately colonized, the remaining territory of the company being almost ignored.
But the settlement in Delaware, which was planted by Godyn, Van Rensselaer, Bloemart, and De Laet, was destroyed by the Indians, and every settler was ruthlessly killed. New Amsterdam in 1633 was still the only Dutch settlement of any importance in the New Netherlands, for the continued friction between the colonists and the agents of the company, and between the agents and the governing body at Amsterdam, checked all progress.
War with the Indians, encroachments of the English and the Swedes, and the ridiculous policy of restricted trade insisted upon by the company, almost succeeded in obliterating the Dutch settlement ; and it was not until the arrival of Stuyvesant, as Governor of the Province, in 1646, that the settlement may be said to have become firmly established.
This colony flourished and attracted many immigrants from Holland ; but, as the British Settlements to the north and south grew in strength, the existence of a territory between them which at any moment might bring about hostilities was felt to be unen durable. In 1664, while England and Holland were at war, an English fleet took possession of the New Netherlands, and, as Charles had granted it to his brother the Duke of York, the province and its city were named New York in his honor.
The chief historic Dutch families still surviving in the male line are : The Van Cortlandts, Schermerhorns, Van Rensselaers, Stuyvesants, Kips, Beekmans, de Peysters, Vanderbilts, Van Burens, and Schuylers.
The Huguenots
The earliest attempt to form a permanent colony in North America.
America was made by the French ; and it is a Frenchman, Coligny, the great leader of the Huguenots in the reign of Charles IX., to whom we must give the credit of having first conceived the idea of forming an empire across the Atlantic.
Anxious to secure a place of refuge for men of his faith, he obtained a commission from the French king, and sent out a party to where St. Augustine now stands. The result was disastrous. The first party lost heart and sailed for home while another expedition was on its way to succor them. Settling down in this district, this second party was brutally massacred by a Spanish expedition, who would not suffer heretics and foreigners upon soil which they regarded as within the dominions of their king. It was many years before there was another attempt to plant a French settlement in the country now known as the United States.
The next posts of any consequence that they established were due to the enterprise of their Canadian colonists, who, making their way down the Mississippi in the latter part of the seventeenth century, built forts at intervals as far south as the Gulf of Mexico, the idea being to hedge the English colonists in. Joliet and La Salle explored this tract of land ; and in 1700 D Iberville founded Mobile, New Orleans being founded by the French Mississippi Company a few years later.
But it was the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 which was responsible for the great influx of the French into North America. The persecuted Huguenots, tortured in every possible manner at home, were forbidden to emigrate, and the coasts and frontiers of France were strictly guarded to prevent their flight.
But though the dangers of trying to escape from the country were immense, they attempted it. By stealth in the dead of night, family after family crept to the frontier, and reached a place of safety. Many abandoned all in their flight, caring nothing about their property as long as they could be free. It is estimated that 500,000 persons half a million of the best French citizens left the country. Some sought England.
A whole suburb of London was filled with Huguenot mechanics. The Prince of Orange recruited regiment after regiment from among the exiles. Some went as far as the Cape of Good Hope, where their descendants survive to this day. Many found a warm welcome in New England, the hope of fugitives from religious persecution. Some repaired to New York and the
Dutch Settlement. But of the emigrants to the New World, the majority sought South Carolina, the warmth of the climate corresponding more to that in which they had been accustomed to live, and possibly the recollection that it was there that their ancestors had endeavored to found a City of Refuge accounting for their selection.
From every part of France they arrived. They obtained an assignment of lands, and built their church at Charleston. Soon under the influence of their skill and industry, the settlement
waxed and flourished, and free from the cruel persecutions of their native land, the Huguenots exerted an influence upon the future great Republic which is felt to this day.
Chief among the Huguenot families who survive in the male line, are those of Ravenel, Mazyck, Porcher, Cordes, Bayard, Rhinelander, Huger, and de Lancey.
These were the principal European settlements of America, and most of the historic families of the United States are descended from ancestors whose names are mentioned in the preceding pages. But in addition to these families, there are many others which demand a place in a work of this character. Some of recognized European lineage have immigrated since the time of these early settlements ; others have achieved distinction in the course of the three centuries that have elapsed since the establishment of the first American colony.
Important genealogies include the Livingstons, Nicolls, Halseys, McKeens, Talcotts, Bonapartes, Iselins, Hewitts, Fishes, Harrimans, Lorillards, Goelets, Gallatins, Delafields, Crugers, Frelinghuysens, Kountzes, Irvings, de Forests, Camerons, Dyers, Choates, Benedicts, Hitchcocks, Ives, Greens, Hoyts, Appletons, Duers, Havemeyers, Peabodys, Jays, Jones, Satterlees, Morgans, Pells, Whitneys, Whitehouses, Dodges, Edgars, Hubbards, Endicotts, Huxfords, Lawrences, Kings, Hamersleys, Rogers, Otis, Roosevelts, Mills, Smith Wrights, Jacobs, Garretts, Bliss, Dexters, Duanes, Grinnells, McCooks, Sloans, Stillmans, Tuckermans, Twomblys, Waldos, Alexanders, Laniers, Von Kapffs, and of the numerous other American families who, either in themselves or in their ancestors, have justly earned the right to be identified with the history of their country.
REFERENCES
https://ia700208.us.archive.org/1/items/prominentfamilies00burkrich/prominentfamilies00burkrich.pdf
THE PROMINENT FAMILIES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, VOLUME I, EDITED BY ARTHUR MEREDYTH BURKE
(c)2015-2016; All Rights Reserved, Iona Miller, Sangreality Trust
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This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.