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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 00726 7484
CHARLES WHITING MACNAJ
Maternal Ancestry of
Charles Whiting MacNair
By
Hannah Louise MacNair Crawford
BOSTON
privately printed
1912
If3:<0928
Steface
The late Charles Whiting MacNair, through his mother,
Hannah Whiting, was the descendant of six passengers of the
Mayflower, John Alden, William Bradford, William Mullins
(Moulines, Mullines), his wife Alice Mullins, his daughter
Priscilla (afterward Alden), and Thomas Rogers; of three
Governors of Colonies, William Bradford and William Brad-
ford, Jr., and John Alden, all of Plymouth ; of a Colonial
Founder, William Pynchon, founder of Roxbury and Spring-
field, and Treasurer of Massachusetts ; of a Revolutionary
patriot, Gamaliel Whiting, and of a veteran of the war of 1812,
Horatio Whiting. He was descended from Lieutenant Colonel
John Allyn, Connecticut's famous "Fighting Secretary," whose
royal descent was published by Browning in his "Americans
of Royal Descent" and by Charles Knowles Bolton in "The
Ancestry of Margaret Wyatt." Through this ancestry Charles
Whiting MacNair is a lineal descendant of many of England's
oldest Norman families, among them the Chichesters of Arling-
ton, Devon, who trace their descent from Henry I of England,
and from Charlemagne.
In this little work I shall give a brief sketch of the Whiting,
Bradford, Alden, Pynchon, and Allyn families, showing their
connection with the early history of this country and some
patriotic services of certain members of these families to the
Commonwealth, in which their descendants may take a pardon-
able pride. I shall also give a brief account of the Norman
ancestry of Charles Whiting MacNair through his descent from
Lieutenant Colonel John Allyn, using as sources Mr. Bolton's
3
well-known chart and the pedigree given by Mr. Browning in
his "Americans of Royal Descent."
It has been to me a work of distinct pleasure, not only be-
cause I naturally feel a keen interest in my father's ancestry,
but because the research has lead me into many pleasant fields
of English, Puritan and Colonial history, and re-acquainted me
with many historic characters whose picturesqueness is in no
way lessened by the knowledge that their blood flows in my
veins. The early days of Plymouth Colony, fraught with so
much hardship, heroism and sacrifice, when the little band of
Pilgrims under the wise administration of such men as Wil-
liam Bradford and John Alden, founded a new nation with new
ideals of democracy and religious liberty; the thread of ro-
mance woven into the dark fabric of the times in the courting
of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins ; the desperate raids upon
Indian foes so often led by Major William Bradford of Plym-
outh and by the gallant Colonel John Allyn of Connecticut;
the burning of William Pynchon's "heretical book" by the
public hangman in Boston Market, all this has for me a new
interest, delightful and intimate.
I hope that this little volume will be of value and inspira-
tion to all descendants of Charles Whiting and Elizabeth
Bradford, in whose children the blood of these five families
was united.
The lines of descent have been passed upon by the Society
of Colonial Dames, the Mayflower Society, the Society of Colo-
nial Governors and the Society of Americans of Royal Descent.
The coats of arms are taken from Burke and Crozier. The
Alden and Bradford arms have been disputed, and for these
I claim no authority except Crozier.
I wish to thank Mrs. John J. Stubbs, registrar of the Soci-
ety of Colonial Dames of the state of Nebraska, who has helped
materially in the preparation of this book. My thanks are also
due Mr. Charles Knowles Bolton, of the Boston Athenaeum,
for his kind interest and advice.
Hannah Louise MacNair Crawford.
April, 1912,
To
John Seckerson Knox, 2d,
ONLY Grandson of Charles Whiting MacNair,
This Book Is Affectionately Inscribed.
H. L. MacN. C
Whiting=Susannah? Matthew Allyn=*Margaret Wyatt VVm. Pynchon=Anne Andrew Wm. Cradford=Alice Soiithworth John Alden=rriscilla Miillii
: 1 I I I
Henry Smith=Anne Pynchon | Wm. Paybodie=Elizabeth Alden
1 I Wm. Bradford=AIice Richards |
John Whitin!r=Sybil G.lhns John Allyn = Anne Smith John Roger.-i=Elizabeth Paybodie
Wm. Wliiting = Marv Allyn Samuel Bradford
I
I I
Charles Whiting = Elizabeth Bradford
I
Gamaliel Whiting=.Annc Gillette
I
Wm. Whitin£;=r.ois Andrews
Horatio Whiting=Clarissa Miller
I
J. MacNair=Hannah Whiting
I
Charles Whiting MacNair=F.lizabeth M. von Rnehler
ooo
WHITING ARMS
OTfjiting jFamilp
ARMS
The arms of William Whiting of Hartford are given by
Crozier as Azure, two flaunches ermine, a lion's head erased
or, in chief three bezants.
Burke gives the Whiting arms as Azure, a leopard's face
or between two flaunches ermine, in chief three plates. Crest,
a demi-eagle displayed with two heads ppr.
CHART n
William Whiting= Susannah
I
John Whiting= Sybil Collins
I
William Whitings Mary Allyn
I
Charles Whiting=Elizabeth Bradford
I
Gamaliel Whiting=Anne Gillette
I
William Whiting=:Lois Andrews
I
Horatio Whiting=Clarissa Miller
I
Andrew Jackson MacNair^^Hannah Whiting
I
Charles Whiting MacNair=r:Elizabeth M. von Buehler
9
WILLIAM WHITING
In "Suffolk Emigrants" by Joseph Hunter (Massachusetts
Historical Collections, series iii, volume x, p. 171) it is stated
that the Whiting family came from Suffolk in the vicinity of
Boxford. William Whiting is mentioned in the history of this
country as early as 1632 or 1633. He was one of the first
settlers of Hartford. In Goodwin's Genealogical Notes, pub-
lished in Hartford by F. A. Brown, we read many good ac-
counts of him. He was "one of the most respectable of the
settlers in 1636," one of the "civil and religious fathers of
Connecticut," a "man of wealth and education." He is always
styled in the records "William Whiting, Gentleman." Alice
Morse Earle, in her "Colonial Dames and Goodwives," re-
marks "that the brass utensils in the home of William Whiting
at Hartford were worth twenty pounds, a remarkably large
sum for those days."
In 1646 "a plot was laid by Sequasson, Sachem of the
Naticks, to kill Governor Haynes, Hopkins and Mr. Whiting
on account of the faithful protection they had afforded the
Uncas. The plot was made known by friendly Indians and the
danger averted." William Whiting bore the title of Major in
1647. He died in July, 1647.
Mainwaring's "Hartford Probate" gives quite a deal of
data regarding William Whiting, and in volume i, page 40,
we find his will. William Whiting's inventory was taken
20 April, 1647. Amount £2854.00.0.
WILL OF WILLIAM WHITING OF HARTFORD
I William Whiting of Hartford do intend a voyage pres-
ently unto sea. I give to my wife halfe my household stuff e
10
of all kinds and one fourth part of my personal estate and her
widdowes estate in my now dwelling house and lands at Hart-
ford until my son William be 21 years of age; and after if
she continue a widow, I give her the halfe of my sd house
and land for life. I give to my sonne William ioo£ more than
1 give to either my sonne John or Samuel I give to John and
Samuel looi more to each than I give to my daughter Sarah
or Mary. I give 2o£ to Mr. Hooker io£ to Mr. Stone, 5£ to
mending the Highway betwixt my house & the meeting house,
also 5£ to some godley poore of the towne. I desire Mr. John
Haynes, Mr. Edward Hopkins, Mr. John Webster with
Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone to be overseers. I give my father
and mother 2o£.
William Whiting
2 Apr. 1646
Intending another voyage, my will is, my son Joseph shall
have an equal portion with son John and Samuel. I give
William 5o£ more, to Mary loi more, to my sister Wiggin
5£, and to each of her children 3i. I give to Margery Parker
io£/my former Will to remain in force.
William Whiting
In presence of Edward Hopkins.
William Whiting upon his death bed. It is my mind that
the children which God has given me since the Will was made
wch I have in Mr. Hopkins hands, shall have an equal portion
in all my estate together with the rest of my children as I have
to these devised. Also I confirm io£ given to Mr. Hopkins,
io£ given to Mr. Webster, io£ to Mr. Hooker's children, io£
to Mr. Stone's children, io£ to the poor /£$ to Hartford and
£5 to the other two town Wyndsor & Wethersfield, and $£ to
Mr. Smith children of Wethersfield.
William Whiting.
In presence of Henry Smith
James Cole.
24 July 1647.
colonial records of WILLIAM WHITING
"Major William Whiting, 1647; Assistant and second
Colonial Treasurer of Connecticut, 1641-47; Major in Colonial
Forces."
(Society of Colonial Wars, 1899-1902, p. 809.)
William Whiting, 1633-1647. (Conn.) Committee, 1637;
Treasurer and Magistrate, 1641-1647.
(Register Mass. Society of Colonial Dames of America,
1905, p. 400.)
Also see Society Colonial Wars, Missouri, 1900, p. 32 ;
Colonial Records of Conn., Vol. i, p. 496; New England Hist,
and Gen. Register, 1893, P- 4^^'> Savage's Gen. Diet., Vol. iv,
p. 521.
SUSANNAH V^HITING
On page 329 of Goodwin's Genealogical Notes we find
further mention of William Whiting's widow Susannah, who,
following the custom of all good widows, remarried. Her
second husband was Mr. Samuel Fitch of Hartford, by whom
she had two sons. Mr. Fitch died in 1659 and the good lady
married still another time. Her third husband was Alexander
Bryant of Mil ford. She died at Mil ford, Conn., at the home
of her daughter, Mrs. Collins, and was buried there July 8,
1673.
13
CHILDREN OF WILLIAM WHITING AND SUSANNAH
William, born ?; died 1699, in London, England.
John, born 1635 ; died 1689, in Hartford, Conn.
Samuel, born ? ; died ?.
Sarah, born 1637; died 1704; married first, Jacob Nygatt,
second, John King.
Mary, born ?; died October 25, 1709; married August
3, 1664, Rev. Nathaniel Collins. (See Savage, Vol. i,
P- 434-)
Joseph, born 1645 ; died 1717.
JOHN WHITING
William Whiting left six children, of whom the second
son John was my father's ancestor. He was born in London,
England, in 1635, and died in Hartford, Conn., in 1689.
In Goodwin's Genealogical Notes, p. 330, we find that
"John Whiting, second son of William Whiting, was born in
1635, was graduated at Harvard College in 1653, preached
several years at Salem, Mass. He was there in 1659, on
March 9, when the selectmen together with the deacons and
Mr. Gedney are desired to treat with Mr. Whiting to know his
mind about staying with us (Salem Town Records). He re-
moved with his family 'from the Bay' to Hartford and was
ordained over the first church in 1660.
"In consequence of the discussion which agitated the church
at the time, Mr. Whiting and others presented a petition to the
assembly for their approbation for distinct walking in Con-
gregational Church order, which was granted, and in 1670 a
new church was formed, of which Mr. Whiting was chosen
pastor and so continued till his death, September 8, 1689." He
had the distinction of serving- the Hartford forces as chaplain
in King Philip's War.
COLONIAL RECORDS OF REV. JOHN WHITING
"Rev. John Whiting, 1635-1686, Chaplain Hartford's
Forces, King Philip's War."
(Society of Colonial Wars, 1899-1902, p. 809.)
"Rev. John Whiting, 1635-1689 (Conn.). Preached at
Salem, Mass., until 1659; Pastor First Church in Hartford
1660; Chaplain in King Philip's War."
(Register of Mass. Society Colonial Dames, 1905, p. 399.)
Rev. John Whiting was married twice. His first wife was
Sybil Collins, daughter of Deacon Edward Collins of Cam-
bridge, Mass., a man of prominence in the church and in the
political life of the colony. Seven children were born to them.
CHILDREN OF JOHN WHITING AND SYBIL COLLINS WHITING
Sybil, born 1656.
John, born 1657; died ?.
William, born 1659; baptized February 19, 1660.
Martha, born 1662.
Sarah, born 1664.
Abigail, born 1666.
Samuel, born 1670.
DEACON EDWARD COLLINS
Edward Collins, whose daughter Sybil married Rev. John
Whiting, appeared first at Cambridge, Mass., in 1638, when he
was deacon of the first church and was Freeman, May 13, 1640.
IS
From 1654 to 1670, with the exception of the year 1661,
he was a Representative in the General Court. He lived many
years on the plantation of Governor Craddock at Medford.
and at last purchased it, selling off a considerable portion of it.
He died at Charlestown, Mass., April 9, 1689, aged 86 years.
(New Eng. Hist, and Gen. Register, July, 1907, p. 281.)
Edward Collins was the eldest son of John Collins of
London, who was buried at Brampton, County Suffolk, Eng-
land. He married Abigail, daughter of Thomas Rose of
Exmouth, County Devon, buried at Braintree, County Essex,
England. The other children of this marriage were : Daniel
of London, merchant, 1632, married Sybil, daughter of Thomas
Franklin of London ; John of Boston, Mass., emigrated in
1634; Samuel, vicar of Braintree, County Essex; Abigail, who
married William Thompson of Braintree, Mass.
CHILDREN OF EDWARD COLLINS AND MARTHA, HIS WIFE
John, born 1633 ; died December 3, 1687.
Samuel, born 1636; died January 10, 1696.
Sybil, born 1638 ; married first. Rev. John Whiting ; second.
Rev. John Russell.
Martha, born September, 1639 ; married Rev. Joshua
Moody.
Nathaniel, born 1642; died December 28, 1684; married
Mary Whiting (daughter of William Whiting of Hart-
ford).
Abigail, born September 20, 1644 ! married John, son of
Captain Thomas Willitt.
The Collins family seems to have been very pious, at least
in this generation. Deacon Edward Collins was always spoken
of as a very pious man. Two of his daughters married minis-
ters. My ancestress, Sybil, married twice, both her husbands
being prominent divines. Martha Collins, who married Rev.
Joshua Moody, relates that her father was careful in cate-
chising her, and at the age of nineteen she began to seek the
Lord for herself.
In the Riverside Cemetery in Middletown, Conn., is the
gravestone of Samuel Collins, elder brother of Sybil Collins
Whiting. It bears the following inscription:
Here Leys
The Body of
Mr. Samuel Collins
Who died the
lo January 1696
Being in the 60th
Year of his age.
COLONEL WILLIAM WHITING
William Whiting, third son of John Whiting and Sybil
Collins, was born in 1659. Goodwin's Genealogical Notes,
p. 331, gives the following account of him:
"William Whiting represented Hartford in the General
Court from 1710 to 1715 and speaker in 17 14. In 1693 he
went as Captain of a company of whites and Indians to Maine.
"In 1705 he held the title of Major.
"In 1709 he bore the rank of Colonel and led a body of
horse and infantry into the county of Hampshire to repel the
French and Indians. In 1710 he was in command of the troops
at Port Royal and in 1711 in the expedition against Canada.
"Colonel Whiting was sheriff of Hartford County in 1722.
17
He removed to Newport, R. I., late in life and probalily died
there."
William Whiting married October 6, 1686, Mary Allyn
(1657-1724), the daughter of Colonel John Allyn and the
great-granddaughter of William Pynchon.
CHILDREN OF WILLIAM WHITING AND MARY ALLYN
Mary, born April i, 1689; died November 6, 1714.
Charles, born July 5, 1692 ; died at Montville, March 7,
1780.
William, born February 15, 1694.
COLONIAL RECORDS OF WILLIAM WHITING
"Col. William Whiting, 1659-1724; Deputy 1710-1715;
Speaker 1714, Captain, Major and Colonel in the French and
Indian Wars, 1693-1709; Commanded expedition to Port
Royal 1 7 10."
(Sons of Colonial Wars, 1899-1902, p. 809.)
(See Mass. Register of Colonial Dames, 1905, p. 400.)
CHARLES WHITING
The second child of Colonel William Whiting and Mary
Allyn was born July 5, 1692, and was christened Charles. This
is the first time the name "Charles" appears in the Whiting
family. The name was seldom bestowed upon Puritan chil-
dren. This may have been due to the antipathy felt through-
out New England to the Stuart kings who played with the
destinies of the New England colonies as with pawns in a
game of chess. It became, however, a popular name with the
Whitings, and after this one child in each generation was called
i8
"Charles." This Charles Whiting bore the title of Lieutenant.
(Goodwin, p. 334).
He married January 10, 1716, Elizabeth Bradford (1696-
1777), daughter of Samuel Bradford of Duxbury, Mass., and
great-granddaughter of Governor William Bradford of Plym-
outh. Her mother, Hannah Rogers, was the descendant of
John and Priscilla Alden. In the children of these two the
blood of the Bradfords, Aldens, Rogers, Mullins, Whitings,
Pynchons and Allyns was united.
CHILDREN OF CHARLES WHITING AND ELIZABETH BRADFORD
Mary, born January, 1717; married Gardner of Hing-
ham, Mass.
John, born August 3, 1719.
Sybil, born July, 1722.
Charles 1 . , .
-r^,. , , Uwms, born August, 172s.
Elizabeth j & / o
Gamaliel, born September 17, 1727; died November 2j,
1790.
William Bradford, born April 15, 1731 ; died 1796.
Berenice, born March, 1733.
Ebenezer, born May, 1735.
GAMALIEL WHITING
Gamaliel Whiting, the sixth child of Charles Whiting
and Elizabeth Bradford, was born September 17, 1727. "He
held a commission in the Revolution from John Hancock and
commanded a company in the neighborhood of Boston soon
after the battle of Lexington. Two or three of his sons who
were old enough to carry a musket served in the Army." In
1780 Lieutenant Whiting was a member of the committee to
investigate the poHtical character of new comers to the town.
He married, June 18, 1752, Anne Gillette, daughter of Jona-
than Gillette, an early resident of Canaan, Conn. This very
prolific lady became the mother of eleven children:
Elizabeth, born May 19, 1753; died November 11, 1772.
Anna, born November 8, 1754; married Rev. Mr. Hopkin-
son of Great Harrington, Mass.
William, born February 16, 1757; died March 11, 1838.
Mary, born December 11, 1758.
Ebenezer, born July 30, 1760; died 1836.
Sarah, born April 26, 1762; died 1838.
Gamaliel, born February 7, 1764; died 1844.
Charles, born January 6, 1766; died 1816.
Berenice, born April 14, 1769; died 1845.
John, born January 3, 1771 ; died 1845.
Elizabeth, born March 17, 1773: died 1848: married Rev.
Mr. Wheeler.
(Goodwin's Genealogical Notes, pp. 337-38.)
REVOLUTIONARY RECORD OF GAMALIEL WHITING
*' Lieutenant Gamaliel Whiting, Great Barrington, Ensign
in Captain William King's Company, Colonel John Fellows's
regiment, list of officers dated Roxbury camp. May 31, 1775,
ordered in Provincial Congress at Watertown June 7, 1775, that
commissions be delivered said officers ; a receipt for the com-
missions is dated Camp at Roxbury, June 10, 1775, and signed
by Colonel Fellows, also Lieutenant Captain William King's
(ist) Company. Colonel John Fellows's (8th) regiment.
Muster roll dated August i, 1775; engaged May 8, 1775."
(Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the Revolution,
volume 17, page 169.)
WILLIAM WHITING
William, the eldest son of Gamaliel and Anne Gillette
Whiting, continued my father's line. He was born February
i6, 1757, and was one of those sons of Gamaliel who "was
old enough to carry a musket and served in the army." He
served in the company which marched to Saratoga under
Captain Goodrich. He married May 4, 1779, Lois Andrews,
daughter of Elisha Andrews of Great Harrington, Mass., and
was the father of eleven children. To one of his numerous
daughters he gave the name "Wealthy," not, I imagine, to
indicate the condition of the family exchequer, but perhaps
as a mild hint to Providence that he felt himself sufficiently
rich in "female" children and could dispense with further
favors from her hand.
CHILDREN OF WILLIAM WHITING AND LOIS ANDREWS
Sophia, born July 10, 1780; died September 2, 1816;
married Eleazer Valentine.
Horatio, born September 7, 1782; died August 11, 1820;
married Clarissa Miller.
Charlotte, born August 8, 1784; married Joseph Mills.
Polly, born March 12, 1787; married William S. Smith.
Wealthy, born January 27, 1789; married first, Seth Judd,
second, Joseph Belcher.
Lois, born March 16, 1790; married Eleazer Valentine.
Gamaliel, born July 31, 1793.
Berenice, born April 14, 1796.
Sally, born December 9, 1798.
Betsy, born July 23, 1801 ; died April 23. 1804; married
James Whiting.
William, born December 18, 1803 ; died October 5, 1804.
(Goodwin's Genealogical Notes, p. 340.)
HORATIO WHITING
The eldest son of William Whiting and Lois Andrews
was called Horace, or Horatio, as the name is given in the
1 812 war records. At this point in the family history there
begins a run of classic names, such as Berenice, Orphee, etc.
This Horatio, my father's grandfather, was a soldier in the
war of 1812. He was born September 7, 1782, and died
August II, 1820.
Horatio Whiting married Clarissa Miller, descendant of
William and Patience Miller, who founded Northampton,
Mass. Six children were born to them, of whom the youngest
daughter, Hannah, was the mother of Charles Whiting
MacNair.
Goodwin's Genealogical Notes states that they lived at
Mount Morris, N. Y., but the children were born at Lenox,
Mass., where the family had an earty residence.
CHILDREN OF HORATIO WHITING AND CLARISSA MILLER
Orphee, born April, 1806; married, 1826, Alfred Adams.
WilHam, born May 11, 1808; married, 1832, Catherine
Standly.
Nancy, born February 17, 1809; married, 1835, Moses
Gregory.
Charles, born March 27, 1811.
Hannah, born March 20, 1821 ; married, 1838, Andrew
Jackson MacNair.
HANNAH WHITING
Hannah Whiting, the youngest daughter of Horatio
Whiting and Clarissa Miller, was born in Lenox, Berkshire
County, Mass., March 20, 1821. Her father, who had fought
in the war of 1812, died before her birth. Her mother, with
the aid of relatives, brought up the family in comfort, and the
daughters made " fair matches " for those days. Clarissa Miller
herself was of excellent Puritan stock. Her ancestor, William
Miller, had been one of the founders of Northampton in 1654,
a member of the first board of townsmen in 1665 and a founder
of Northfield, Mass., in 1672. Patience, the wife of William
Miller, and ancestress of Clarissa, was famed as the first
woman physician in that region. In 1910 the descendants of
William and Patience Miller erected a monument in their
honor, which stands in the cemetery at Northampton.
Hannah Whiting married Andrew Jackson MacNair, a
native of Dansville, N. Y., son of a well-known western New
York family, and one that had been in this country for gener-
ations.* At the outbreak of the Civil War Mr. MacNair sought
to enlist, but was refused because of his eyesight. He would
not be cheated of his service, however, and became a nurse,
serving in that capacity during the four years of the war.
Throughout his life he was a student and writer, having pub-
lished articles, chiefly in theological journals, and in his later
years spent his leisure in active philanthropy. He was a "local
preacher" in the Presbyterian Church. His death in Omaha,
Neb., January 21, 1902, was cause for grief to many of the
city's poor, who had learned to look to him for much that made
life endurable. He was characterized by a simple kindliness,
a large benevolence, and a steadfast religious faith.
Hannah Whiting MacNair died in the winter of 1867, at
Woodville, N. Y., of pneumonia. Her life had been one of
sacrifice and devotion to a sometimes rather quixotic sense
of duty. In fact, the illness which caused her death was the
* See note on MacNair genealogy which follows.
HANNAH WHITING MAC NAIR
ANDREW JACKSON MCNAIR AND HIS SON,
CHARLES WHITING MAC NAIR
23
result of overdoing at a time of domestic stress in order to
spare a servant whom she considered to be ill at the time.
Tales of her goodness and charity abound among those who
knew her.
To Andrew Jackson MacNair and Hannah Whiting were
born two sons, Charles Whiting MacNair and John Bradford
MacNair.
CHARLES WHITING MacNAIR
Charles Whiting MacNair, whose ancestry, on his
mother's side, is the subject of this book, was born March 20,
1847, at Woodville, N. Y. He received his education at the
Dansville Academy. The years spent in school were but a small
part of his education, for he followed from boyhood a rather
strict curriculum of his own, which resulted in a scholarliness
and breadth of view rarely met with in one who had taken no
university degrees. He taught in the Dansville Academy for
several years, and then, finding the work distasteful, went West,
lured perhaps by that romantic desire to seek fortune in the
picturesque trans-Mississippi country, which has continued to
stir the imagination of the youth of the East since the days
of '49. He did not find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,
but there awaited him a Walpurgis night of struggle, dis-
appointment, and meager financial reward.
The city of Omaha was at that time a "boom town."
Those who have seen the quick rise in value of city property
in towns of the West which have had the misfortune to be
"boomed" — the inflation of prices and consequent sudden col-
lapse— will understand that it was not a difficult matter for a
"schoolmaster," untrained in the corrupt methods of Western
speculation, to lose his savings. With it went the "stake"
24
given him by his father and my mother's small fortune, for in
1876 he had married Elizabeth Murphy von Buehler, widow
of Theodore von Buehler, Colonel of the 67th Indiana Volun-
teers, a gallant soldier of German birth who had lost his life
in the last days of the Rebellion. She was the daughter of
Samuel Murphy of Lynchburg, Va., member of a family of
North-Ireland Protestants who came to Virginia from Ulster
County, Ireland, and Elizabeth Warner. Samuel Murphy
was a Methodist "preacher" and a veteran of the Civil War,
in which he fought on the side of the Union, and was called the
"fighting parson" of his regiment.
My father found his best source of income in life insur-
ance, and he occupied at different times important posts in
several of the large insurance companies of the country. The
last ten years of his life were spent in Wyoming, where busi-
ness and some private investments occupied his attention until
his death, October 15, 1900.
My father's love of outdoor life amounted to a passion,
and perhaps his happiest years were those spent in the "open
country" of Wyoming. He made several essays into literary
fields, and his children take pride in a small collection of very
creditable verse, the output of his leisure and the result, per-
haps, of that literary tradition which we have found to be a
part of the Whiting, Pynchon, and Bradford heritage.
ELIZABETH M. VON BUEHLEK, WIFE OF
CHARLES WHITING MAC NAIR
From an old portrait
iWci^air Jfamilp*
CHART III
John McNairt=
I
John McNair=:Christian Walker
I
William McNair^: Margaret Wilson
I
I
John McNair=$Mrs. Peggy Lattimer nee
I Margaret Culbertson
Andrew Jackson McNair= Hannah Whiting
Charles Whiting MacNairr=Elizabeth M. von Buehler
In Scotland, the McNairs belonged to a gathering of clans,
of whom the Earls of Lenox were the hereditary chieftains.
Their gathering place was at the head of Loch Lomond.
The family was first known in this country as members of
the "Scotch-Irish Settlement," a settlement of Scotch-Irish
Presbyterian families who "with thrifty foresight chose the
* My father returned to the old Scotch spelling of the name, MacNair.
The name has also been written McNaire and McNear.
t Removed from River Dee in Scotland to " Blanket Nue " Farm in the
parish of Taboyne, County Donegal, in the north of Ireland, about 1690.
X See Culbertson Genealogy, by Lewis R. Culbertson, M.D.
25
26
rich limestone fields along the Monocacy and Calasaqua, in
what is now Northampton County, Pennsylvania, as the place
from which should spread the faith of the followers of
John Calvin."*
The original settlers of the "Scotch-Irish Settlement," or
"Irish Settlement," as it was called for convenience, were
Thomas Craig, John Boyd, Hugh Wilson, Robert Gregg,
James Kerr, John McNair, Arthur Lattimer, James Ralston.
These men "carried the gospel with them into the wilderness."
The "Irish Settlement" exists now only in memory. In 1750
it extended from what is now Bath to Weaversville, and had
a church and school. This church is yet used on alternate
Sundays. There is also an old burying ground with its old
tombstones, many of them recording the deaths of members
of the McNair family.
"The McNairs are characteristically Presbyterians, many
in each generation being officers of the church." From a tax
Hst for 1780 we find the name "Wm. McNair Esq." and his
financial rating at £2,360. It was this William who later in
life freed his negro slaves and became a strong convert to the
doctrines of Abolition, which was then just beginning to be
preached in Pennsylvania, at that time a slave state. This was
the William McNair, my father's great-great-grandfather, who
with his family and other enterprising members of the "Irish
Settlement" started for the "Genesee Country," as western
New York was then called, the "El Dorado" of those seeking
new homes in the wilderness. They moved in covered wagons,
driving their herds and flocks with them, encamping wherever
night overtook them, as they journeyed through the almost
trackless forest. After some weeks they arrived at their desti-
nation, the Genesee Valley, which extends from Lake Ontario
* Clyde's " The Irish Settlement."
27
some sixty miles southward. It was in this peaceful valley that
the little band of Scotch-Irish folk settled, and western New
York is filled with their descendants, the McNairs, Wilsons,
Culbertsons, and Lattimers.
The following sketch of the McNair family by the Rever-
end Theodore McNair of Tokio, Japan, is given in full:
A BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH
by rev. theodore mcnair
Of That Branch of the McNair Family Whose
Genealogy Is Given in Chart III
It is said that in the year 1690 or thereabouts the father
of a certain John McNair left his home on the banks of the
River Dee in Scotland, and went with his family to seek a new
home in the North of Ireland. Local persecution of some sort
is given as the cause of this removal. They settled in Parish
Taboyne, County Donegal, on what was known as the " Blanket
Nue" farm, of which they had secured a "three lives' lease."
It happened soon after the death of John McNair's father and
the expiration of the "first life," that the parish schoolmaster
was called in to regulate the family accounts. It was house-
cleaning time, and so the chest (the identical iron-bound chest,
full of very old family papers, is still preserved at "Elmwood,"
Sonyea, N. Y.) containing the papers to be examined was
set out under a tree in the garden. After looking over the
accounts, the "treacherous school-master Hooked and stole
the deed" which secured the farm to the family during the
lives of John McNair and his son William. The chest was
relocked and taken to its place and the theft passed for a time
without detection. The schoolmaster then "slipped over to
London in England, forged a new deed and sold the same to a
28
Squire Howard who soon sent an Agent to Ireland" requiring
the surrender of the property or else the procurement of a new
lease. Of course the original deed was sought for and not
found; and therefore to avoid a "tedious, vexatious law-suit,"
John McNair set sail with his family for America. It was in
the year 1738.
His widowed mother, who was blind, and two of his four
children died on shipboard and were buried at sea. The rest
landed in Philadelphia and after spending some time in Bucks
County, Pennsylvania, settled finally at Bath in Northampton
County. There they lived for many years, and there John and
his wife, Christiana, died and were buried.
The two daughters, Margaret and Ann, were married and
their numerous descendants, the Wilsons and the Culbertsons,
are scattered mostly over eastern Pennsylvania and western
New York. The two sons, William and John, were also
married and for a time lived quietly with their families at
Bath, Pa.
In 1798 William and his sons started out to find new and
uncrowded homes for them and for their children in the
"wilderness of Western New York," in the valley of the Gen-
esee. They settled in Sonyea, near Mt. Morris, Livingston
County, N. Y.
John and his sons and daughters came in 1804 and settled
in what is now West Sparta, near Dansville, Livingston County,
N. Y. From these points as centers the lines of descendants
have gone out in many different directions, so that now the
members of the connection are scattered over a score of states,
though leaving a goodly representation in the fair valley which
their fathers had chosen as a home for those who should come
after them.
29
A COPY OF THE LAST WILL OF JOHN MCNAIR, SR., TAKEN FROM
THE RECORD BOOKS AT EASTON, PA.
In the name of God, Amen, the 20th day of March 1762,
I, John McNair of Allen Township, and Northampton Co.
being- very sick and Weak in Body, but of perfect mind and
memory, thanks be given unto God, therefore calling to Mind
the Mortality of my Body and knowing that it is appointed
for all men once to die, do make and ordain this my Last will
and testament and as touching such worldly estate wherewith
it has pleased God to bless me in this life, I give, devise and
dispose of the same in the following manner and form:
I give and bequeath to Christian, my dearly beloved wife,
the third of my estate, together with the third of the moveable
effects while she lives and at her decease that third to fall into
the hands of my two sons William McNair and John McNair
to whom I give my whole estate.
I give to my son William one hundred and forty acres of
land and the half of all the Household Goods, moveable effects
and Debts. I also give to my son John McNair one hun-
dred and twenty acres of land and the other half of all my
moveable effects and debts, and each of my two sons William
and John to be equally engaged in in paying the Debts on the
place, and the following legacies. And I give to my Daughter
Ann McNair the sum of Thirty Pounds Lawfull Money of
Pennsylvania to be paid within three years from the date
hereof, to be paid equally by my two sons William and John,
and I do give to my two Grand Children Sarah Wilson and
Christian Wilson five pounds each, Lawfull money of Penn-
sylvania to be paid by my two sons William and John.
I constitute and ordain John Walker and James Craig to
be my sole executors of this my Last will, and I do hereby
30
confirm this and no other to be my Last will and testament
in witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal the
day and year above mentioned.
John McNair.
Signed and delivered by said John McNair as his Last will
and testament in the presence of us, the subscribers.
Charles Wilson
John Hay
William Walker.
¥¥M
JRADFORD ARMS
Praliforb jFamilp
ARMS
Argent on a fess sable three stags'
heads erased or.
CREST
(i) A stag's head of the shield.
(2) A double-headed eagle displayed.
MOTTO
Fier et sage.
— Crozier.
CHART IV*
William Bradford=:Alice Carpenter Southworth
(Governor of Mass.) |
William Bradford=:Alice Richards
(Governor of Mass.) |
Samuel Bradford=:Hannah Rogers
I
Charles Whiting= Elizabeth Bradford
* In each of the smaller charts I have traced the line to the marriage of
Charles Whiting and Elizabeth Bradford.
31
32
GOVERNOR WILLIAM BRADFORD,
THE ELDER
William Bradford, first governor of Plymouth Colony
and founder of the Bradford family in America, was born in
Austerfield, Yorkshire, England. In the Parish Register of
St. Helen's Church in that place is preserved the following
record of his baptism:
"William sone of Willia Bradfurth baptized the XIX day
of March, Anno Dom. 1589."
The historian, John Fiske, gives the following account of
William Bradford's early alliance with the Puritans :
"From Austerfield to these meetings came a contingent,
among whom was a lad of unusual strength and purity of
character, a fine linguist and an accomplished scholar, named
William Bradford."
"When eighteen years old, William Bradford proceeded
to Amsterdam and served his time until he became of age.
He became a man of industry and converted the estate he had
in England into money, and behaved with great prudence
among those religious people with whom he continued until
the church at Leyden agreed to transport themselves to
America in the Mayflower.'" (Eliot's Biographical Dictionary
of New England.)
The marriage intention of William Bradford, which has
been preserved, shows that he was married in Amsterdam to
Dorothy May, a young Puritan girl. She set out with him
on his voyage to America, but never reached Plymouth, for she
was drowned on the 7th of December, 1620, while the May-
flotver remained in Cape Cod harbor, and during the absence
of her husband, who had gone on an examining expedition to
".uAvivu; f , t I Av r. v^^. Z v,'./r\)(„
:^\^--^r '
,:>,ri -^v>->'
•I'llK KKCURU Ol l.U\l'.K.N01v IJRADl i iKl ) S i;AI'll.sM
Reprinted, by permission, from "The Mayflower Descendant"
>^ .jaf,^' -S-r,-- t^i,,
,1,, CXI- ,.->.e,-«._,^f ^rtf5.,.,v„n,ije- q„M ,«,
-{ W-^
,.\^.^ ,
L>'
GOVEKXOR Bradford's marriage intention at Amsterdam
Reprinted, by permission, from " Tlie Mayflower Descendant"
33
Massachusetts Bay. She was the first EngHsh woman to die
at Plymouth, and the first whose death was recorded in New
England.*
The following is a translation from the Dutch of the
marriage intention of Governor Bradford:
"Then appeared also as before William Bradford from
Austerfield, fustian weaver, 23 years old, living at Leyden
where the bans have been published, declaring that he has no
parents on the one part, and Dorothy May, 16 years old, from
Wisbach in England, at present living on the New Dyke,
assisted by Henry May, on the other part, and declared that
they were betrothed to one another with true covenants, re-
questing their three Sunday proclamations in order after the
same to solemnize the aforesaid covenant and in all respects
to execute it, so far as there shall be no lawful hindrances other-
wise. And to this end they declared it as truth that they were
free persons and not akin to each other by blood — that noth-
ing existed whereby a Christian marriage might be hindered ;
and their bans were admitted."
August 14, 1623, William Bradford married a second time,
Alice, daughter of Alexander Carpenter of Wrington, Eng-
land, and widow of Edward Southworth, one of the religious
exiles who followed Rev. John Robinson to Leyden. The
Southworth genealogy (page 10) contains an ode to her
memory written by her nephew, Nathaniel Morton. She had
been Governor Bradford's early choice, but because of his
humble origin and uncertain prospects her father had opposed
the match. Later, when Governor of a Colony, he was looked
* Dorothy Bradford's tragic death is now thought to have been suicide.
It would not be strange if it were so, as she had left behind in England her
infant son John, and the coast of Massachusetts in December offered little
compensation for this sacrifice of maternal love to religious devotion.
34
upon with more favor. A letter in which he seeks the hand of
the virtuous widow has been preserved. He naively states that
he is not "that Bill Bradford that was," and comments upon
his rise to fame and fortune.
During the thirty years that William Bradford served
Plymouth Colony as governor, he was called upon to make
many decisions of great importance to the colony, and to direct
its affairs in the most trying situations. He was a man of great
tact, shown in his success in freeing the colony from a charge
of dissembling against the King of England. His policy of
individual ownership of property, instead of communal owner-
ship, has probably had an effect upon the subsequent economic
history of Massachusetts,
Alice Morse Earle, in "Home Life in Colonial Days," has
this to say on the subject: "The first fields and crops were
communal, and the result was disastrous. The third year, at
the sight of the paralyzed settlement, Governor Bradford de-
cided that 'they should set corne, every man for his owne
particular, furnishing a portion for public officers, fishermen,
etc., who could not work and in that regard trust to them-
selves.' Thus, personal energy succeeded to communal inertia.
Bradford wrote that women and children worked in the fields
to raise corn that should be their very own."
Throughout his life. Governor Bradford was a prolific
writer. I quote again from John Fiske : "Afterward Governor
of Plymouth for nearly thirty years, he became historian of
that colony, and to his picturesque account, written in pure
and vigorous English, we are indebted for most that we know
of the migration that started from Scrooby and ended in
Plymouth."
He prepared in 1650 a "History of Plymouth People and
Colony," in which he gives a list of the Mayflower passengers
35
and the changes that had come to them and their children in
thirty years. He writes: J 9i?09XH
"These being about a hundred sowls came over in this first
ship, and began this worke which god of his goodnes hath
hitherto blesed ; let his holy name have ye praise ; and seeing
it hath pleased him to give me to see .30. years compleated
since these beginnings ; and that the great workes of his provi-
dence are to be observed, I have thought it not unworthy of
my paines to take a veiw of the decreasings & increasings of
these persons and such changs as hath pased over them & theirs
in this thirty years. It may be of some use to such as come
after, but however I shall rest in my owne benefite."
He sums up in the following quaint statement: "Of these
100 persons which came over in this first ship together; the
greater halfe dyed in the generall mortality, and most of them
in .2. or three monthes time. And for those which survied,
though some were ancient & past procreation ; & others left
ye place and cuntrie; yet of those few remaining are sprunge
up above .160. persons in this .30. years, And are now living
in this presente year .1650. besids many of their children which
are dead and come not within this account.
"And of this Old stock (of one & other) ther are yet liv-
ing this presente year .1650. near .30. persons. Let the Lord
have ye praise ; who is the High Preserver of men."
This simple statement of Governor Bradford, that the
"greater halfe" of the Mayflozver party died in two or three
months after the landing at Plymouth, is sufficient commen-
tary upon the horrors of early Pilgrim days. Many deaths
were due to starvation. Alice Morse Earle, in "Home Life in
Colonial Days," tells us that "the stores brought over by the
Pilgrims were poor and inadequate enough ; beef and pork
were tainted, the fish rotten, the butter and cheese corrupted.
36
European wheat and seeds did not mature well. 'Soon,' as
Governor Bradford says in his now famous Log Book in his
picturesque and forcible English, the 'grim and grizzled face
of starvation stared.' Famine and pestilence had left Massa-
chusetts comparatively bare of native inhabitants at the time
of the settlement of Plymouth, and the vacant cornfields of
dead Indian cultivators were taken and planted by the weak
and emaciated Plymouth men, who never could have tilled
new fields. Says Governor Bradford: 'In April of the first
year they began to plant their corne, in which service Squanto
stood them in good stead, showing them both ye manner, how
to set it and after, how- to dress and tend it.' From this plant-
ing sprang not only the most useful food, but the most preg-
nant industry of the colonists."
Apropos of Governor Bradford's account, there is an idea
in the minds of many people that the Puritan emigrants to
America were all of very humble origin in England, and that
all the "better blood" came to America during Cromwell's
regime, when the Cavaliers found England no pleasant abiding
place. John Fiske, in his "New England Theocracy," has this
to say on the subject:
"Since the development of the despotic tendencies of
Charles the First in church and state, the Old Country party
had come to be known as the Puritan party, and their oppo-
nents, the Court party, as the Cavaliers. It is a common but
very gross error which supposes that there was any marked
difference in social position between the members of these two
parties. Members of the nobility and gentry and persons hold-
ing public office were to be found among the Puritans as often
as among the Cavaliers, and among all the colonists who came
to America from England there are none with more respect-
able pedigree than the members of the Puritan party who came
to New England."
'"•r '-." ^^ -f^ — '■'■^.4^'^ £^j^,Y^j;,^
*^ v^„-.w .-^,,,^^.. -^j^ ^<Ar^ ' ^-^ ^^ ^"T«--~ .— - T--— *-•
'■"V*^'"' J^A^ 1-^— ^ "- -"«•*-♦ ^' ''<- - '^-^ ^'<^ '-^vl^!!
r^»^
-1 >;««*</ »«.«r ^^^-A
GOVEK^'OR BRADFORD'S LETTER TO GOVERNOR WIXTHROP
Reprinted, by permission, from " The Majrflovrer Descendant "
37
Governor firarltord kept a "f.etter Book/ v/hich has been
only recently discoverer!, and which throws light on conditions
existing in the colony. Some of the letters are to him as
governor, from Puritan well-wishers in England. They are
full of praise of his administration and confidence in the colony.
The "Letter Book" preserves several examples of his own
correspondence, which would be ormsidtrtd good letters even
today, and show that for those times he was no mean scholar.
In fact, his scholarly attainments were commented upon in
all accounts of him. He was schooled in Latin, Greek and
Hebrew, and understood French and Dutch. Contemporar>-
v/riters speak of his being "conversant with theology," a sub-
ject of prime importance in that serious and religion-ridden
age. He studied Hebrew while in Leyden, wishing, as he said,
to "see with his own eyes the ancient oracles of God in all their
mature V^eauty." He also essayed poetry, and wrote what he
was pleased to call, "A Descriptive and Historical Account
of Xew England in Verse."* It contains many quaint lines,
but, as a whole, we are glad that Mr. Bradford made statecraft
and not poetry his chief calling. I have room for only the
last verse of this remarkable poem :
"To you therefore that are for to succeed,
L'nto this fair precedent give you good heed,
.\nd know that, being wam'd if you do not,
But fall away: God's wrath 'gainst you'll be hot:
For if he spared not those that sinned of old.
But into the hands of spoilers them sold :
How can you think that you should then escape.
That do like them and will no warning take.
O my dear friends and children whom I love,
To cleave to God. let these few lines you move,
• Printed in the Mayficwer Descendant.
38
As I have done, and now will say no more,
But remember, God punished them sore.
Melius est peccatum cavere quam emendare."
The old governor lived to see the colony well established
and to see his four children honored in Plymouth. He died
May 9, 1657, ^t the age of sixty-nine, lamented by all the
colonies of New England, "as a common father to them all."
His widow survived him some thirteen years.
WILL OF GOVERNOR BRADFORD'S WIDOW
The will of "Mistris Allice Bradford senir of Plymouth,
deceased," is found in Plymouth Colony Wills and Inventories.
In it she expresses the desire "that my body may be Intered
as neare unto my Deceased husband, Mr. Willaim Bradford:
as conveniently may be."
She "deposes to a friend one of the bookes that were my
deare husband's Library ; which of them he shall choose."
To a son she bequeaths "my paire of working oxen and the
white Heifer."
To a "servant maide, Mary Smith, a Cow Calfe, to be
delivered her the next springe if I decease this winter."
She disposes of a good deal of furniture in the "New
Parlour Chamber," in the "Outward Parlour Chamber," in
the Old Parlour Chamber" and in the "Old Parlour," includ-
ing the following articles :
"Item — I feather bed i bolster 2 ruggs and a blankett
" A court Cubbert
" I great leather Chaire
" 2 great Wooden Chaires
" I great Winscott Chist and a Cubbert
" 2 guns and a paire of Bandoleers."
HO.ME UF GOVERNOR BRADFORD AT I'LVMdlTH
39
Among- the "plate":
"Item — the great beer bowle
" a Wine Cupp
" a salt
" a nother paire of Pillowbears."
The list of "bookes in the studdy" contains treatises on
various subjects, largely theological.
Mistris Alice Bradford had a sister whose death is men-
tioned in the Plymouth church record of March i6, 1667:
"Mary Carpenter, sister of Mrs. Alice Bradford, wife of
Governor Bradford, being newly entered into the 91st year
of her age. She was a godly old maid, never married."
Spinsters were hard to find in early New England. Theodore
Parker could not have found there the "glorious phalanx of
old maids" which formed so large a part of the feminine
population of the Massachusetts of his day.
CHILDREN OF GOVERNOR BRADFORD AND MISTRESS
ALICE BRADFORD
William, born June 17, 1624.
Mercy, born 1627.
Joseph, born 1630.
(New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1850.
p. 41- )
COLONIAL RECORDS OF GOVERNOR BRADFORD
Governor of Plymouth Plantation, 1621, 1633-35, 37~39-
1642, 1644, 1645-47; Commissioner to United Colonies, 1647-
48, 1649-56; President of the United Colonies, 1648; Council
of War, 1643-53; Assistant, 1633-34, 1636, 1638, 1644; one of
the founders of Plymouth and Massachusetts, 1640.
(Society of Colonial Wars, 1899-1902; Massachusetts Soci-
ety of Colonial Dames, 1905.)
40
WILLIAM BRADFORD, THE YOUNGER
The elder son of Governor Bradford and his wife Ahce,
William, born June 17, 1624, was my father's ancestor. He
was usually called Major Bradford, to distinguish him from
his father, and had been married to Alice, daughter of
Thomas Richards of Weymouth, before the death of his father,
as we know from his marriage settlement which has come
down to us with the date April 23, 1650. It is interesting to
know what a man of the prominence of Governor Bradford,
and possessed of fair means, felt it necessary to settle on his
elder son at the time of his marriage.
The old governor engages himself to "Instate my sonne
William in the one halfe of that my farme att Stony brooke,
to give him 4 or 5 cowes. I ame to leave him four younge
bullockes ; and after myne and my wifes Decease, he is wholly
to have the said farme To him and his heires forever;"
"pened by Wm. Bradford, Esq'', Gov"" of the Jurisdiction
of Plymouth aforsaid, his owne hand."
Major Bradford was, next to Myles Standish, the chief
military man of the colony. In Philip's War he was com-
mander-in-chief of the Plymouth forces. At the Narragansett
Swamp Fight, he received a musket ball in his body which
he carried to his death. John Fiske, in his "Colonization of
the New World," gives the following description of this fight
with Indians :
"Who has not heard of the Narragansett Swamp Fight?
It well deserves its reputation. Nothing that happened in that
century enables one more vividly to realize the hardy stuff of
which these men, true brothers of Cromwell's Ironsides, were
made. What a wonderful day's work was that of the 'Crown-
ing Mercy' of Sunday, December 19, 1675. The little army
41
had slept the previous night in an open field under a thin
blanket of lightly falling snow. At five in the morning they
began their march of fourteen miles, over rugged hills and
through deep drifts, until they came in sight of a palisaded
stronghold, situated in the midst of a treacherous bog, which
was only made passable by the freezing of its surface. The
only bridge to the fort was a huge tree trunk, slippery with
frost, and well guarded by loopholes alive with muskets, for
these men of the stone age had now become expert with fire-
arms. There were two thousand of them within the strong-
hold, stalwart and sturdy warriors, nerved with desperation.
It makes one thrill today as one reads how, in repeated charges
and in spite of heavy slaughter, the men of Massachusetts and
Plymouth fought their way across the slippery trunk, while
the men of Connecticut, crossing the bog in the rear, ascended
a steep bank and made a breach in the walls. These attacks
were superbly conducted by three majors, whose names deserve
commemoration, Samuel Appleton of Ipswich, the younger
William Bradford of Plymouth, and Robert Treat of Connecti-
cut. Within the fortress the fight went on until probably the
number of Indians slain exceeded that of all the white men
engaged. By sunset, Canonchet, with such followers as could
get away, had escaped. Their fortress, with its stores, was
consumed by fire, and the victors entered upon another march
of a dozen miles in the midst of a blinding snowstorm. Two
hours after midnight they reached their appointed place of
shelter, leaving one-fourth of their number dead and frozen
behind them. It was a terrible piece of work, but necessary,
and very thoroughly done."
In the war with the Indians, William Bradford held the
rank of major, and was assistant treasurer and governor of
Plymouth from 1682 to 1686 and from 1689 to 169 1. In later
42
years he was one of the Council of Massachusetts. He died
February 20, 1703, aged eighty years.
The will of Major Bradford is found in Plymouth County
Probate Records. He divides his property among his seven
sons and six daughters, giving, besides other things, to each
one of his daughters a "goode booke which they may choose
out of my liberary." To his son Samuel, ancestor of Charles
Whiting MacNair, he leaves "all my Lattin bookes, to en-
courage him in bringing up one of his sons to Learning," and
he provides that "the rest of my bookes be safely keept by my
Executors & in Case my son Samuel shall bring up one of his
sons to Learning, to be by sd. Executors delivered to him
when he Comes of age." Samuel must have been, of all his
sons, the most promising material from the viewpoint of letters.
Of all his daughters-in-law, he mentions in his will only
one, and she, curiously enough, is my ancestress, Hannah,
born Rogers, wife of Samuel Bradford. To her he bequeaths
"Mr Burroughs upon the eleventh of Matthew." We hope
that she was properly edified by the study of her legacy. This
Hannah Rogers Bradford, as Chart V indicates, was the
granddaughter of John and Priscilla Alden, and also of
Thomas Rogers, who came over in the Mayflower, and in her
children the Bradford, Alden, Mullins and Rogers blood is
united.
In a room of the Essex Institute in Salem is preserved
a pathetic reminder of Major Bradford's infancy, a tiny shirt
and mittens. The stiff little linen mittens have been mended
by patches of red and white calico.
COLONIAL RECORDS OF MAJOR WILLIAM BRADFORD
William Bradford, 1624-1704: Deputy from Plymouth to
General Court, 1657; Assistant, 1658-81; Council of War,
43
1657-58 ! Captain Troop of Horse, 1650; Deputy Governor,
1682-86, 89-92 ; Councilor named in Charter of 1692 ; Major
Commandant of Plymouth Colony, 1673 5 Treasurer Plymouth
Colony, 1679-86, 89-92; Commissioner of United Colonies,
1682-86. (Register Massachusetts Society of Colonial Dames
of America, 1905, p. 185.)
CHILDREN OF WILLIAM BRADFORD AND HIS WIFE,
ALICE RICHARDS
John, born February 20, 1653; died December 8, 1736;
married Mercy, daughter of Joseph Warren of Plym-
outh. He was a major and deputy to the General Court
from 1689-91.
William, born March 11, 1655 ; died 1687 ; married Rebecca
Bartlet of Duxbury.
Thomas, born ; died 1703 ; married Anna Fitch.
Samuel, born 1668; died April 11, 1710, aged 46 years;
married July, 1682, Hannah Rogers.
Alice, born ; died ; married first. Rev. William
Adams; second, Major James Fitch.
Hannah ; married Joshua Ripley.
Mercy ; married Samuel Steele of Hartford.
Meletiah ; married John Steele of Hartford.
Mary ; married William Hunt.
Sarah; married Kenelm Baker of Marshfield.
(New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1850,
p. 46.)
LIEUTENANT SAMUEL BRADFORD
Samuel Bradford, fourth son of Major William Bradford
and Alice, his wife, was born in 1668 and died in 17 14, aged
44
forty-six years. He lived at Duxbury, where he had a grant
of land adjoining his house lot. He served as lieutenant of
the Colonial Forces from 1688 to 17 14. His name appears
on the records of Duxbury as early as 1700, when he was
chosen as a juryman; constable, 1701 ; selectman, 1702; and
was appointed in 1703 one of the three men to divide the
common lands. He married Hannah Rogers of Duxbury,
great-granddaughter of John and Priscilla Alden. To them
were born seven children. One of their daughters, Elizabeth
Bradford, married Charles Whiting of Hartford, great-great-
great-grandfather of Charles Whiting MacNair. (New Eng-
land Historical and Genealogical Register, 1850, p. 46.)
COLONIAL RECORD OF LIEUTENANT SAMUEL BRADFORD
(See Society of Colonial Wars, 1899-1902, page 573; and
Mass. Society Colonial Dames, page 284.)
CHILDREN OF SAMUEL BRADFORD AND HANNAH ROGERS
Hannah, born February 14, 1690; married Nathaniel
Gilbert.
Gersham, born February 21, 1691 ; married Priscilla,
daughter of Rev. Ichabod Wiswell of Duxbury.
Percy, born December 28, 1694; died January 17, 1746.
He married Abigail Belsh and resided at Attleboro,
Mass. He was a member of the Council of Mass.
Elisabeth, born December 15, 1696; married Charles Whit-
ing of Hartford.
Jerusha, born March 10, 1699 ; married Rev. Eleazer Gay
of Hingham.
Weltha, born May 15, 1702 ; married Mr. Eane of Hingham.
Gamaliel, born May 18, 1704; married Abigail Bartlett of
Duxbury.
ALDEN ARMS
laiben, Rogers!, anti iHuUmsi Jfamilieg
ALDEN ARMS
Gules, three crescents within a bordure engrailed ermine.
CREST
Out of a ducal coronet per pale gules and sable, a demi-
lion or.
— Crosier, page ii.
CHART V
William Mullins= Alice ?
Thomas Rogers j^j^^ Alden:=Priscilla Mullins
John Rogers=Frances
William
Paybodie= Elizabeth Alden
I
John Rogers = Elizabeth Paybodie
I
Samuel Bradford = Hannah Rogers
(Grandson of
Governor Bradford)
Charles Whiting=Elizabeth Bradford
45
46
JOHN ALDEN
Mr. John Alden, a magistrate of the Plymouth Colony,
from whom Charles Whiting MacNair is ninth in descent,
came to America in 1620 in the Mayflower. He is described
in Governor Bradford's list of Mayflower passengers as a
"hopeful young man" and "was much desired," for the Puri-
tans were very anxious that he remain with them at Plymouth.
He had embarked with the emigrants in a spirit of adventure,
and was not sure, when he reached Plymouth, that he wished
to follow their fortunes on that bleak and inhospitable shore.
However, the fair young daughter of Mr. William Mullins.
Priscilla, who found him more to her liking than her elderly
suitor, the gallant Captain Standish, was a deciding factor in
his destiny, and he threw in his lot with the Pilgrims. He
attained to a position of great honor, and served the colony
as acting deputy governor, a position even more important in
that day than in ours.
"John Alden was an original proprietor who bought, in
1649, of the good chief Orisamiquim, all the territory which
took the name of Bridgewater." (Edward Alden, Bridge-
water, Mass.)
John Alden lived to be a very old man. His death in 1687,
mentioned in Sewall's Diary, was sincerely mourned by the
colony, as two eloquent memorial poems which have come
down to us prove.
Broadside No. i is owned by one of John Alden's descend-
ants, and has been reprinted in the Mayflozver Descendant.
It was printed in 1687, the year of Alden's death. It is equally
interesting and valuable as a specimen of early American
poetry, and furnishes a distinct addition to memorials of the
famous Pilgrim.
upon the rjF.ATn d t\nt y'^ed, Pmi, Sincers-heurted CHRlSTlANy
JOHN ALDEN --
l..,:f MA iJI ST RAT E cf New-Plimouth CoionV, itho dyed Sept iii'fi. ifiJJ.
being about eighty nine year: of age. -"■' "
T^
He ftr!flc of bread, and water ckc the ftay,; His walk was i>oly, himhic, -nd f!"crre,
ling j«rf^(j God will take away; His heart was filled wiih' Jl"J-t'JVAH's rca:.
"iic pixdcnt C;M7,Jlllonr, the HmourMe, ■ ^^Hz hauouf^A GOU with nmch integrity,
Vhoin Grace and Holinefs makes dikcl.ible, .God' therefore did Inm truly magnify-
[;^! 1 iic 7«.V.;f, the r>-'iphc! and the ancient S^iwr, The hearts of faints intircly did him love,
"'' The dcithsViffuch caufe forrowfiil complaint.. His Uprif;htncrs fo highly did appro.c
The Eartl; and its Inhabitants do fall.
The af;i:d S.:wt bears up its pillars all.
i,; nch',^,yh,:,i v: w.y of R:7h-t .:[«■{,
Ac-cm:.' r,.^, VvTiccn Cvprefs
1Ii' : -,' ■ ■ ,: nsby Ditciplcs old
'i ■ ■' ,'l 111. , re iDorc tiir
1 ni;-ti»irc tis of a wanton gen
'i'o Hfiih the aged fton might qi
That whilft tochoofe they had ihcir iibcrf/ g;^
Within the Limits of this Culuny V-
Their Civil Leaders, him thev ever chofc _ j"
His faithfulmf-mide hearts wiih hnr to clofe .jl
With 'ill the Govcrnoars he did A J',: ;
can be told. "His Name recorded is within tlic Lift
arion Of f/ivTOMffo's Pillars to his .'.,■:' ii;-
their Ration, His Kame is precious to eternal A
rli It be, The Lord ourGod does fro^t'i^ He fct his Love-on God and
lints dy death do nim'jle down. f,od therefore gives 1
W ii.-it !i!-> i!:^;rc be not luch .Ailivity,
'•'•-! II i::,;r I'rayers there's i<u'.) i-^rvc
As daih L'/eat mercy for a pljce nlir.iin
Aid gracious prcfcnce of th.: Lord min
For deatli of iliis dcir fcrva:,:
■i. Wliofe life God did to us fo i
God lent his life to grcatcft /• -
In which h^liv'd tohislUl.i
n youthful tinit he m.idi' •".
Hisfoulohcin-iT. >: W,'/'
:■;.,. Freely forf"ok ll'o v.^ri.t lo.-
" '5 In His Houf; with Hh ^ "
g;'' He followed GOD i, -
So ;; )od and hcav'rl
C.,>.lgaveA.^-/i/f, ;.■
( His work now fn::
freeing the death ot '
His gracious Lcfrd fn
y Saying to fome. The work \
He would prefervc f
His niontli wnsf iM -
ToMiniflcisan.i .
Was very fwect '/ ,
He uttcr'd frcn-the "
He liv'd in Chhjl,
m
.CD,-
r-.bodC.
fs;
"'•* '%+*.i&idli'f'.rl.,Vor.«nno.c.;n.U„/;,. H""»»l'"'
*' Hccameoncofihefirft into this La'bd, .
?S And here was kept by 6(/s moll gracious halid
t Years /?j:rr /ifi/iTT, which time he did (>ch
To poor U-n-En^Lwd merries M.miloli
All God's great works to this His /y^-/
And his Weft foul the Led ia fafctyi.ecp .
JOh:^- ALDliX. Anagram E^dMoil.Y.
Death pnts an F^d to .'/.' this ^orld eninycs,
«f9i*fe«»t4s^i;.«i>;<:nd of all , -^
perfeftions. -Now his Ixird docs r/ij
to alfcnd from ciriii lo heaven high, '
Where he is blcfl; to all Eternity. ■
Whowa'k ■ ' ■
THK ORIGI.NAL BROADSIDE BY J. C. ON THE DEATH OF JOHN ALDEN
Reprinted, by permission, from "The Mayflower Descendant"
mmm
imtMm
I
j. Small Tcllimony of that great HONOUR due to that Eionourablc
Servant ot GOO ar.d his Generation
John Aid en Efq.
Who changed this li.'c for j better, Sept.. 121:1. A'tno Lnnnd ic!
Annoq" '^izAV'. S?.
Tte !)JC))io>j of the jiul is blcjjcd.
The jitjl P)all bu had tn cvcrlaftiag renicwb: r.iicc.
GOD bteupln 3 <»
And hrtdxip^ni
And fftm th? licailic-
The vvl'.ich ■;5r..!.!r
This prtcious Samt v.
And lie in JefJS tiofon
A branch was 0! tliis
Ptoit«, defend, and v
A man to Gcd's comn
t wiih his own ri^htbml,
MC- did It dcU-rd.
11 c:ilt :avvcll d,d lirJ.
u be idelf,
ns, God did remove,
ter from above.
i-Js ihat
tfpcf),
he did his couif; diitU.
N.
ft
the Will of God,
».:!ld he hid abode
nto God was I.e,
Vce an enemy,
mbk-, tijl! "1 Faiih.K I.ove
carih, 10 God « Cliiill above
irs did feivc ihis Coiony,
And by H
A lover oi God's i
A fcivant of hi,G
Hewa- iccotding
While .!> tl''^ '="'
Sinctfcat faithful un
True Venue's friend,
,„d hui>iiiU-, t^l
Admiinll.i.-sJ^ll--^""P-'"'-''l/'
He in this dcfJit many changes fivr,
Vet clrfcly V.pt unto Jehovah's Law.
H; SerTcd God heiirr.cs, tven fn m his youth.
And cnnftanily did clcive unto his Truth.
Oi f:fi'b'i mount he H'^od, and Cj/ijj/i vicw'd
Which ia hii heart and lilc be tnoH purfu'd.
On rtbcr'i mount he law transiiguted
^lell Jefus, nhich within his bofom bred
T at kvi that tnadc him fay, T,s iocd btinthcrc,
Jl\ guod, yea i«(«r than to bs elfewhctc.
He 'ov'd on earth, to be with Chtift on high .•
Ht did on wings ot Corttemplaiion fly.
To G id in hMven be font up many a dart.
Which iffucdfrotii » truly bt<,lien heart;
-fu'ii, a')d foch Return
Wliicb reach d ihc ear
Ficmheaien bro'^rhr ivhich rnjdc his hcaii to
Wiih tHMh he wirh God en fir..- i.J n .,?; turr
Wiih.iirjfflhedidwirh JKhU. ,!1 lal^
VVirh M/:s he did on the mounr js:.:.d.
And to reccltve God's micd himl-.!t d;d :.-,d
That hsiuch nedjiitions iisd divi, c
Which in Saints cyti did cjtifo his fac; to fldne.
With Ulrsib ofd.,)! Gt.d did hiiT; fa:i3ty,
Hcliv'd r., long, that he drrfit'd to die.
n- with cM Smeo'i had of Cl:t:li: a !icht.
Who was picpat'd [■, be the fiC;,iilrs i . ■
Which mads him w.llii g herrcefor tod-r-'-
To be with Hi.m il at sm (d had Lis li>;jit.
He with good /.•«4:r, hisaged Hate
Did earnertly 'or Gcd's Salvation wait.
He with Barz^lhi, being neat his ef.d,
Kis thoughts •bovcfJ'-'i.'.t comforts did afcend.
He with St. Piul, his<r.i,//f new >■■■.''/;/,
Unclothed, is quietly puttobtd.
His Family and ChiiBran friends he 1 left
Before he did betake himfelf to i eft.
He to Religion was a icil fiicnd
.And JuHite, till death brought himtohheni].
A man for God, and for his Countries Good,
In all Relations whctcin he Itood.
texALDtX'i all their Father imitate.
And follow him till they come to death's Itatc;
And he will them moR heartily embrace.
When he fhill meet them in that blelTcJ place.
And let AVto- hnihrJ never want a Race
Of fuch as may be hlld with Mi'r.-% Grics.
MDCLXXX vir
k HJilllLinUJ
,y
A RARE KKi
Reprinted, b;
THK DEATH OK JOHN AI.DEN
om " The Mayflower Descendant "_
47
Alice Morse Earle, in her "Customs in Old New England,"
tells us that "when a Puritan died his friends conspired in
mournful concert or labored individually to bring forth as
tributes of grief and respect rhymed elegies, anagrams, epi-
taphs, acrostics, etc., and singularly enough seemed to reserve
for these glowing tributes their sole attempt at facetiousness.
Ingenious puns and complicated jokes (printed in italics that
you may not escape or mistake them) bestrew these funereal
verses. The publication of mourning broadsides and pam-
phlets, black-bordered and dismal, was a large duty of the early
colonial press."
The other poetical tribute to John Alden by J. C, men-
tioned in Mr. Bowman's article in the Mayflozver Descendant,
is well known on account of its publication at various times.
A copy of this broadside is preserved in the library of the
Boston Athenseum. It is bound in with an early file of the
Boston Nezvs-Letter.
On the back of this sheet appears this inscription in an
unknown hand: "Jno. Alden, Esqr 7-12-1687."
Rev. Timothy Alden, in his "American Epitaphs," Vol. iii
(1814), ascribes the authorship of these verses to Rev. John
Cotton at Plymouth, and this identification has been accepted
by Justin Winsor in his history of Duxbury ; but the produc-
tion is overlooked by John Langdon Sibley in the list of the
writings of John Cotton. It is a fortunate circumstance that
both tributes to John Alden have been preserved.
CHILDREN OF JOHN AND PRISCHXA ALDEN
Elisabeth, born 1624.
John, born 1626.
Joseph, born 1627.
48
Sarah, born 1629.
Jonathan, born 1632.
Ruth, born 16 — .
Mary, born 16 — .
David, born 1646.
Zachariah, born .
Rebecca,
Priscilla.
(Alden genealogy, 1909, page 12.)
ELIZABETH ALDEN*
John Alden's eldest daughter Elizabeth, from whom
Charles Whiting MacNair traces descent, was married on
December 26, 1644 (old style), to William Paybodie, who
was for many years Town Clerk of Duxbury. While hold-
ing .this ofhce William Paybodie entered on the town records
his own marriage and the births of his children. Governor
Bradford in his account of the Mayflower passengers, refer-
ring to the family of William Mullins, makes this state-
ment: "Only his doughter priscila survied and maried with
John Alden who are both living and have .11. children and
their eldest dougter [Elizabeth married to William Pay-
bodie] is maried & hath 5 children." (Mayflozver Descendant.)
*The Boston News-Letter has the following account of the death of
Elizabeth Pabodie, born Alden :
" Little Compton May the 31, 1717, This morning died Mistress Elizabetli
Paybodie, wife of William Paybodie in the 93rd year of her age. She was the
daughter of John Alden Esquire and Priscilla his wife. She was exemplary,
virtuous, pious, and her memory is blessed. Her granddaughter Bradford
[Elizabeth Bradford married to Charles Whiting] was a grandmother. She is
buried in Compton Cemetery."
. 49
CHILDREN OF WILLIAM PAYBODIE AND ELIZABETH ALDEN
John, born October 4, 1645.
Elisabeth, born April 24, 1647.
Mary, born August 7, 1648.
Mercy, born January 2, 1649.
Martha, born February 25, 1650.
Priscilla, born January 15, 1653.
Sarah, born August 7, 1656.
Ruth, born June 27, 1658.
Rebecca, born October 16, 1660.
Hannah, born October 15, 1662.
WilHam, born November 24, 1664.
Lydia, born April 3, 1667.
(Alden genealogy.)
ELIZABETH PAYBODIE
The second of these twelve children, a daughter, also
called Elizabeth, married John Rogers, grandson of Thomas
Rogers, a Mayflower passenger. Their daughter Hannah
Rogers, as I have shown above, became the wife of Samuel
Bradford, grandson of Governor William Bradford. Their
daughter Elizabeth Bradford married in 1716 Charles Whiting
of Hartford.
THOMAS ROGERS
Thomas Rogers, whose grandson John Rogers married
John Alden's daughter Elizabeth, was one of the Mayflower
passengers and is mentioned in Bradford's list as follows :
"Thomas Rogers dyed in the first sicknes but his sone
5°
Joseph is still living and hath .6. children. The rest of
Thomas Rogers came over & maried & have many children."
WILLIAM MULLINS (MULLINES,
MOULINES)
William Mullins, whose daughter Priscilla married
John Alden, is mentioned in Bradford's list:
". 5 . Mr WilHam Mullines and his wife and . 2 . children
Joseph & priscila; and a servant Robart Carter."
He was one of the few passengers considered by Bradford
of sufficient importance to warrant the title "Mr." before his
name.
Governor Bradford supplies this information in his "Veiew
of the decreasings & Increasings of these persons."
"Mr Molines and his wife, his sone & his servant dyed the
first Winter. Only his dougter priscila survived."
The will of William Mullins was communicated to the
New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. xlii,
page 62, by Henry F. Waters, A.M., in his "Genealogical
Gleanings in England," and the text there given has been fol-
lowed. It was made after the arrival of the Pilgrims in New
England, then considered a part of Virginia.
The probate record made the 23d of July, 1671, proves that
the former residence of William Mullins was Dorking, in the
County of Surrey.
From the will we learn that his wife's name was Alice and
that his eldest son William was left in England; also that his
wife Alice and his son Joseph were alive when the Mayflower
returned to England, otherwise Governor Carver, in forward-
SI
ing a copy of the will to be probated, would have mentioned
their death.*
WILL OF WILLIAM MULLINES
2 APRIL, 1 62 1
In the name of God Amen: I comit my soule to God that
gave it and my bodie to the earth from whence it came. Alsoe
I give my goodes as followeth That fforty poundes wch is in
the hand of goodman Woodes I give my wife tenn poundes,
my Sonne Joseph tenn poundes, my davighter Priscilla tenn
poundes, and my eldest sonne tenn poundes. Alsoe I give to
my eldest sonne all my debtes, bonds, bills (onelye yt fforty
poundes excepted in the handes of goodman Wood) given as
aforesaid wth all the stock in his owne handes. To my eldest
daughter I give ten shillinges to be paied out of my sonnes
stock. Furthermore that goodes I have in Virginia as follow-
eth To my wife Alice halfe my goodes & to Joseph and Priscille
the other halfe equallie to be devided betweene them, Alsoe I
have XXI dozen of shoes and thirteene paire of bootes wch
I giue into the Companies handes for forty poundes at seaven
years end if they like them at that rate. If it be thought to
deare as my overseers shall thinck good. And if they like them
at that rate at the devident I shall have nyne shares whereof
I give as followeth twoe to my wife, twoe to my sonne William,
twoe to my sonne Joseph, twoe to my daughter Priscilla, and
one to the Companie. Allsoe if my sonne William will come
to Virginia I give him my share of land, furdermore I give to
my twoe overseers Mr John Carver and Mr Williamson
twentye shillinges apeece to see this my will performed, desir-
inge them that he would have an eye over my wife and children
to be as fathers and freindes to them, Allsoe to have a speciall
* See Mr. George Ernest Bowman's article in the Mayflower Descendant.
eye to my man Robert wch hathe not so approved him self e as
I would he should have done.
This is a coppye of Mr Mullens his will of all particulars
he hathe given. In witnes whereof I have sett my hande.
John Carver, Giles Heale, Christopher Joanes.
Vicesimo tertio die mensis Julii Anno Domini Milessimo
sexcentesimo vicesimo primo emanavit commissio Sare Blun-
den aes Mullins filie naturali et legitime dicti defuncti ad admin-
istrand bona jura et credita ejusdem defuncti juxta tenorem et
effectum testamenti suprascripti eo quod nullum in eodem testa-
mento executorem de bene et cetera iurat.
Probate Act Book 1621-22.
PYNCHON ARMS
Cfje J^pncton Jfamilp
Per bend argent and sable three roundles within a
border engrailed counterchanged.
A tiger's head erased argent.
— Burke, 804.
— Crosier, 109.
There are slight differences in description in Burke
and Crozier, the latter giving a lion's head instead of
a tiger and omitting the word ''engrailed."
CHART VI
William Pynchon=:Anne Andrew
I
Henry Smith=Anne Pynchon
I
Colonel John Allyn=Anne Smith
I
William Whiting=Marv Allyn
I
Charles Whiting=Elizabeth Bradford
53
54
WILLIAM PYNCHON
William Pynchon, founder of Roxbury, Mass., and
Springfield, Mass., and Governor of Springfield Colony, came
to America in 1630 under very auspicious circumstances. He
with Governor Winthrop had been chosen to carry the charter
of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to America. He had been in
England one of the original patentees, and was named by
Charles I, "Assistant." He had been most active in the organ-
ization of the company, present at all the meetings in London.
He with the other "assistants," at the "great meeting" in
Cambridge, England, August 26, 1629, agreed to remove to
New England "in case the whole government together with
the patent were legally transferred and established to remain
there." March 29, 1630, a fleet of three vessels put out to sea
from the Isle of Wight and brought the charter over.
William Pynchon was born in Springfield, England, the
eldest son of John Pynchon and grandson of John and Jane
(Empson) Pynchon of Writtle. He was educated at Oxford
University, matriculating at Hart Hall, afterward Hertford
College, October 14, 1596, w^hen he was eleven years old. PTe
married Anne, daughter of William Andrew of Twiwell,
County Northampton, England; and she with their four chil-
dren, Anne, my father's ancestress, Mary, Margaret, and John,
accompanied him to New England. There he became "one of
the principal projectors of the colony of New England." In
1630 he founded Roxbury. In 1636 he founded Springfield.
The town of Springfield was on the direct Indian trail leading
from the Narragansett and Pequot country by way of West-
field River to the Mohawk country above Albany, so that
parties of Indians were constantly passing the settlement in
every direction. Pynchon had the greatest influence with
i
54
WILLIAM PYNCHON
William Pynchon, founder of Roxbury, Mass., and
Springfield, Mass., and Governor of Springfield Colony, came
to America in 1630 under very auspicious circumstances. He
with Governor Winthrop had been chosen to carry the charter
of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to America. He had been in
England one of the original patentees, and was named by
Charles I, "Assistant." He had been most active in the organ-
ization of the company, present at all the meetings in London.
He with the other "assistants," at the "great meeting" in
Cambridge, England, August 26, 1629, agreed to remove to
New England "in case the whole government together with
the patent were legally transferred and established to remain
there." March 29, 1630, a fleet of three vessels put out to sea
from the Isle of Wight and brought the charter over.
William Pynchon was born in Springfield, England, the
eldest son of John Pynchon and grandson of John and Jane
(Empson) Pynchon of Writtle. He was educated at Oxford
University, matriculating at Hart Hall, afterward Hertford
College, October 14, 1596, when he was eleven years old. He
married Anne, daughter of William Andrew of Twiwell,
County Northampton, England ; and she w'ith their four chil-
dren, Anne, my father's ancestress, Mary, Margaret, and John,
accompanied him to New England. There he became "one of
the principal projectors of the colony of New England." In
1630 he founded Roxbury. In 1636 he founded Springfield.
The town of Springfield was on the direct Indian trail leading
from the Narragansett and Pequot country by way of West-
field River to the Mohawk country above Albany, so that
parties of Indians were constantly passing the settlement in
every direction. Pynchon had the greatest influence with
Skyggesand of
m
n and heir. Probably b.ili
^:ilSi'
Es,., LL.D. Married 15 July
I576,atTerIing(P. R.). VVill
and r!f"fto'da". ElPiXtb
perhaps I Elizabeth =; Geoffrey Gates or Gatts
these two _ of Bury St. Edmunds.
Redding of Pinner Springfield gets | .... Brett and gels Skygges &
6 sons and s'dau"* h.'s'f?t'her""lni. p? m who'i'wiinVTS*'
(Epiuph.) Will Anno IX JacoK. I names ber & her
pro. liTApril 1599 Will 1610 orders children.
anyeWhiren."" '
:;i^^ssi
William Pinohon
^!,?r''Sf!ti''ESfaSd
Retijrned to England.
55
Indians of any man who ever came to New England in
those early days. The Mohawks called all New Englanders
"Pynchon's Men." He invested the money which he had
brought with him from old England to good advantage, and
was for those days a wealthy man. He was governor of the
colony from 1641 to 1650. Being of a literary turn of mind
and rather skeptical in his views, he felt impelled to publish
a book entitled, "The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption,"
which being of anti-Calvinistic flavor aroused so much adverse
criticism in the colony that it was ordered to be publicly
burned and the author cited to appear before the General Court.
Rev. John Eliot's "Record of Church Members in Roxbury,"
page I, gives an account of Mr. Pynchon's book:
"Afterwards he wrote a Dialogue concerning Justification
w"^*' was Printed anno 1650 stiled The meretorious price, a book
full of error & weakens & some heresies w*^*' the General Court
of ye Massachusetts Condemned to be burned & appointed
mr. John Norton then Teacher at Ipswich to confute ye errors
contained therein."*
In the market in Boston, in the year 1650, the book was
burned publicly by the hangman, and the author, after being
summoned to court a second time, fled the colony ; he returned
to England, where he purchased lands near his "Bulstrode
relations" in the adjoining parish of Horton, and directly
opposite Magna Charta Island, Wraysbury, Bucks. He died
October 29, 1662, and was buried in Wraysbury Churchyard.
Plis only son, John Pynchon, and his three daughters remained
iDehind in New England.
Waters, in his "Genealogical Gleanings," gives all the wills
of the Pynchon family that prove the pedigree, and on page 859
the will of William himself.
* A copy of this book is in the Lenox Library, and another is owned by
the present head of the Pynchon family in America.
S6
WILL OF WILLIAM PYNCHON=^
William Pynchon of Wrasbury alias Wyrardisbury in the
County of Bucks Gentleman, made Will 4 Oct. 1662. Proved
8 Dec. 1662 by John Wickens Special Executor under the
limitations specified in said Will.
"My chief executor is at present absent. To Elizabeth,
Mary and Rebecca Smith daughters of my son Master Henry
Smith and to his son Elisha Smith twenty pounds apiece to
be paid by my son Mr. Henry Smith at the time of their
marriage as he did unto Martha Smith out of a Bond which
he owes me of two hundred and twenty pounds. To my
daughter Anne Smith the rest of the said bond (of 220 li)
with the overplus of interest. To the children of my daughter
Margaret Davis of Boston in New England deceased videlicet,
unto Thomas, Benjamin and William David, ten pounds apiece
to be paid by my son Mr. Henry Smith. To my son Master
John Pynchon of Springfield in New England (a sum) out
of the bond which he owes me of one hundred and six pounds
dated 15 April 1654. Whereas, my son Mr. Henry Smith
hath promise to pay unto me his debts which have been long
due to him in New England and a horse of his at Barbadoes,
for the satisfaction of an old debt that he owes me in my
quarto Vellum Book in page 112, I bequeathe them to the
children of my son Master Elizure Holioke in New England
etc. To the poor of Wraysberie three pounds. Son Mr. John
Pynchon of Springfield in New England to be executor to
whom the residue, provided he pay to Joseph and John
Pynchon and to Mary and Hetabell Pynchon 20 pounds apiece.
Mr. Wickens, citizen and girdler of London and Mr. Henry
* The Pynchon wills which prove the pedigree are found in the April
number of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1894,
Volume 48.
^^w
WILLIAM PYNCHON
57
Smith of Wraysbery to be overseers. Friend Mr. John Wick-
ens to be my executor touching the finishing of my adminis-
tration business concerning the estate of Master Nicholas Ware
in Virginia whose estate is thirty pounds in a bill of exchange
to Capt. Pensax and about 180000 of tobacco in several bills
made over by Mr. Nicholas Ware to Capt. John Ware of
Virginia etc. To beloved sister Jane Tesdall of Abington
twenty pounds. To sister Susan Piatt twenty pounds as a
token of my cordial love. Certain clothing to Mary, Elizabeth
and Rebecca Smith."
"The Msitation of Buckinghamshire," page 13 (Harleian
Society 58), gives this account of his "Bullstrode relations":
"Jane, the wife of John Pinchon of Writtle (see pedigree),
was the daughter of Sir Richard Empson of Northampton-
shire, who was beheaded at London on Tower Hill, August 17.
15 10. From this date the Pynchon Arms are quartered with
the Empson on the monuments in Writtle Church. Mary,
another daughter of Sir Richard, married for her second
husband Edward Bullstrode of Bulstrode Park, Bucks, not far
from Windsor and in the immediate neighborhood of Horton
and Wraysbury. Thus William Pynchon was cousin to the
children of Edward Bullstrode."
Blanche Nichols Hall, in the Connecticut Magazine, has
an excellent article on ''William Pynchon, an Immigrant to
the New World in 1630." She gives a brief account of the
family in England and America, which I use in the follow-
ing sketch:
"The name 'Pynchon' is one of the oldest in England,
and as far back as 1277-78, in the sixth year of King Edward
First, Richard Pinchon, citizen of London, bequeaths his
property to his daughter Agnes. The will of Nicholas Pynchon
made February 15. 1528. is also extant. He. too a citizen of
S8
London, seems to have had none of the heretical tendencies
of which his kinsman William was later accused, for he 'be-
queaths and recommends my sowl unto Almighty God, my
maker and redeemer and to the Glorious Virgin, his mother
and to all tholy and blissid Company of Saintes in Hevin.' "
Another member of the family, Wyllyam Pynchon of
Writtle, in his will proved July, 1551, bequeaths "20 shirts
and 20 smocks and 40 bushels of wheat to be given and divided
among the poor of Writtle and Roxwell." This Wyllyam
Pynchon was buried at Writtle, in the beautiful little church
whose chancel is nearly filled with monuments and memorials
of the Pynchon family. His grandson, John Pynchon of
Writtle, he himself grandfather of the William Pynchon who
emigrated to America and is the subject of this sketch, married
Jane, daughter and co-heir of Sir Richard Empson, a famous
barrister and statesman in the time of Henry VH and VHI,
and speaker of the House of Commons, who was beheaded on
Tower Hill, August 17, 1510. The "Dictionary of National
Biography," Vol. vi, page 782, says of him :
"Sir Richard Empson (died 1510), statesman and lawyer,
son of Peter Empson of Towcester, Northamptonshire, and
Elizabeth, his wife. The father, who died in 1473, is invariably
described as a sievemaker, in order to emphasize the son's
humble origin ; but Peter Empson was clearly a man of wealth
and influence in Towcester. Richard was educated for the bar
and became distinguished. He purchased estates in North-
amptonshire. Representative in Parliament 17 October, 1491,
chosen speaker and served until Parliament dissolved. Col-
lector of subsidies, 1491. Recorder of Coventry. Knighted
18 February, 1503-04, and in 1504 high Steward of Cambridge
University and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. From
the beginning of the reign of Henry VH he was associated
59
with Edmund Dudley in exaction of taxes and penalties due
from offenders to the Crown, and his zeal and vigor raised up
a host of enemies. Henry VII always treated him with special
favor and made him an Executor under his Will, but the death
of Henry VII left him without a protector; and Henry VIII,
yielding to the popular clamor, committed both him and Dudley
to the Tower. First brought before the Council and charged
with tyrannizing over the King's subjects as collector of taxes
and fines, Empson defended himself in a temperate speech.
A charge of constructive treason was subsequently drawn up
against him and Dudley. It was asserted that they had com-
passed Henry VII's death because their friends had been under
arms during his illness. Empson was tried and convicted at
Northampton i October, 1509, was attainted by Parliament
21 January, 1509-10, and was executed with Dudley on Tower
Hill 17 August, 1 5 10. He was buried in Whitefriars church.
His wife Jane survived him. His estates were restored to his
eldest son, Thomas, by act of Parliament, 4 Henry VIII. His
younger son was named John.
"Of his daughters, Elizabeth married (i) George Catesby,
(2) Sir Thomas Lucy ; Joan married ( i ) Henry Sothill, (2) Sir
William Pierrepoint ; a third married Tyrrell ; and Jane mar-
ried (i) John Pinshon, (2) Sir Thomas Wilson, who was
Queen Elizabeth's well-known Secretary of State.
"Sir Richard is said to have resided in St. Swithin's Lane,
next to Dudley."
"The Speakers of the House of Commons," by Arthur
Irwin Dasent, gives this account of Sir Richard Empson:
"A new House of Commons was summoned to meet on
17 October, 1491, and it chose for its Speaker, or rather it had
forced upon it. Sir Richard Empson, Knight of the Shire for
North Hants, and by repute the son of a sievemaker at Tow-
6o
cester in that county. Parliament opened with alarums and
excursions of war. Empson and his fidus Achates, Dudley,
par ignobile fratrum, lived in adjoining houses in Walbrook,
and according- to Stow they had a 'door of intercourse' from
the garden which now belongs to Salter's Hall.
"The notorious Dudley, a Gray's Inn lawyer with an
Oxford education and an assumed name, filled the Chair in
Henry VK's sixth Parliament. Empson was Chancellor of the
Duchy at the same time, and these 'two ravening wolves,' as
they have been called by an old chronicler, acting in concert,
practised extortion and intimidation to an extent hitherto un-
known in England. By browbeating the sheriffs they were able
to nominate whom they pleased at elections ; every infraction
of the law, however antiquated, was punished by a heavy fine.
The unscrupulous policy pursued by Dudley and Empson
between 1504 and the King's death brought an immense sum
of money into the royal treasury, whilst the 'wolves' and their
friends reaped no inconsiderable share of the spoil.
"At the accession of Henry VHI, the only concession made
to popular opinion was the condemnation of Dudley and Emp-
son, who expiated their crimes on Tower Hill in the following
August. Assuredly, this was the only occasion in Parliamen-
tary history when two former Speakers died on the same day."
Sir Richard Empson is the first Speaker of the House of
Commons of whom there is an oil painting. This painting is
in the possession of the Duke of Rutland (see plate). There
is this note on the illustration : " Sir Richard Empson and
Edmond Dudley with Henry VHI." In the preface to "The
Speakers of the House of Commons" is the following:
"It must be owned that the piece de resistance of our entire
collection of illustrations is the wonderful picture at Belvoir,
which the Duke of Rutland has most kindly allowed us to
SIR RICHARD EMPSUN, I4OI, AND EDMOND DUDLEY, I 503-O4
WITH HENRY VII
From a painting in the possession of the Duke of Rutland
reproduce, of Henry VII with Empson and Dudley on either
side of him. This extraordinary picture is on panel, 37^ by
29! inches, but unhappily the master who painted it is un-
known, though there can be but little doubt that it is the work
of an English artist. It is, of course, the earliest and finest
representation of the painter's art in our Valhalla."
In the church at Springfield, England, not far from Writtle,
there is a tablet in the wall of the vestry room upon which is
inscribed the name of William Pynchon as one of the church
wardens. This is the William Pynchon with whom we are
concerned, one of the original patentees of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony, founder of Roxbury and Springfield.
As the pedigree shows, the first cousin of William Pynchon,
Elizabeth, married an earl. She became the wife of Richard
Weston, first Earl of Portland (1577-1605). He was suc-
ceeded by his son Jerome, the second earl (1605-33), who had
one son, Charles, who succeeded as third earl and was killed
by the Dutch, June 3, 1665, unmarried. The earldom devolved
upon his uncle, Thomas Weston, who was unfortunate and
died in poverty in the Netherlands in 1688, without issue.
About this time, Hans William Bentinck, a Hollander who had
become high in the favor of the King (William), settled in
England. So the earldom, rendered extinct by the death of the
fourth earl without issue, was conferred upon Bentinck on
April 9, 1689, and he became the fifth Earl of Portland and
first earl of the Bentinck line.
The American branch of the Pynchon family, descended
from this William Pynchon, has been identified with the intel-
lectual and scholastic life of the country. This is to be ex-
pected, for we find in the pedigree that John Pynchon of
Writtle, who died in 1573, was bailiff for lands owned by New
College Oxford, and Richard Empson, great-grandfather of
62
William Pynchon, founder of Springfield, was high steward
of Cambridge University; while William Pynchon himself,
the subject of this sketch, was an Oxford man. His descend-
ants have been sons of Harvard, Trinity and Yale. One of
these. Rev. Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, was president of Trinity
College from 1874 to 1883.
The name "Pynchon" is familiar to most Americans
through Hawthorne's use of it in the "House of the Seven
Gables" (Hawthorne spelled the name with an "e," "Pyn-
cheon," whereas the family had long since omitted it). The
Pynchon family were indignant at the use of their name even
with the changed spelling, and one of the family wrote to
Plawthorne, accusing him not only of having used the name,
but of bringing the memory of his grandfather, Judge Pynchon
of Salem, a Tory in the time of the Revolution, into an un-
desired publicity. The Pynchon family treasure among their
heirlooms a letter of apology from Hawthorne, who referred
to the incident in a letter to his sister Louisa, dated Lenox.
May 20, 185 1. He writes: "I pacified the gentleman with a
letter."
There is also preserved a letter from William Pynchon to
Governor Winthrop, bearing the indorsement of the latter.
A piece is torn from the blank space, and tradition has it that
the governor, with true Yankee thrift, saved the scraps for
future use. Paper was a valuable commodity in the early days
of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
One of the streets of Roxbury, Mass., was named Pynchon
Street in honor of William Pynchon, "a gentleman of learn-
ing & religion, the principal founder of the town of Roksbury
and the first member who joins in forming the Congregational
church there." This street has since been included in Colum-
bus Avenue, and so has gone out of existence.
63
The city of Springfield, of which we know WiUiam Pyn-
chon would be very proud were he to see it today, honors the
founder of the city by giving him first place in the historic
pageant which is the event of the annual celebration of the
Fourth of July. There is also a beautiful mural painting by
Robert Reid, occupying the rear of the stage in the assembly
hall of the Central High School on State Street; it is an alle-
gorical scene which represents William Pynchon bringing the
light of education to the Connecticut valley. The old Pilgrim,
who under the dreadful stigma of heresy had been forced to
flee from the little city in the New World he loved so well,
plays today a part in her civic life, while those who judged
him and his book so harshly have long been forgotten.
COLONIAL RECORDS OF WILLIAM PYNCHON
Governor William Pynchon, 1 590-1662; Treasurer of
Springfield, 1632-34; Governor of Springfield, 1641-50;
Governing Magistrate of Connecticut, 1637-38.
(Sons of Colonial Wars, 1899-1902, page 740.)
One of the founders of Massachusetts Bay Colony ; named
as assistant in charter, 1628-29; Assistant, 1630-36, 1642,
1650; Treasurer from August 7, 1631, to May, 1634; Commis-
sioner to govern the settlement on Connecticut River, 1641.
(Massachusetts Society of Colonial Dames, 1905, page 366.)
Also see History of Springfield, Mass., by Mason A.
Green.
ANNE PYNCHON AND HENRY SMITH
William Pynchon, as I have stated above, left behind
him in New England his four children: Anne, Mary, Mar-
garet and John. Anne, from whom my father is descended.
64
married Henry Smith, the son of "Mistres Sanford," William
Pynchon's second wife, by her first husband. Rev. John Eliot,
in his "Record of Church Members in Roxbury," page i of
the record, gives this account of William Pynchon and his
son-in-law, Henry Smith :
"Mr William Pinchon he was chosen he came in
an Assistant yearely so long as he lived the first com-
among vs: his wife dyed soon after he pany 1630, he
landed at N. Eng: he brought 4 children was one of the
to N. E. Ann, Mary, John, Margret. first founda-
After some years he married M"^ Francis tion of the
Sam ford, a grave matron of the church church at
at Dorchester. When so many removed Rocksbrough.
fro these parts to Plant Conecicot riv''
he also w''' oth'' company went thith'' & planted at a place
called Agawam & was recomended to the church at Windsor
on Conecticott vntil such time as it should please God to pvide
yt that they might enter into church estate among themselves,
his daughter Ann : was married to mr. Smith sone to Mr. Sam-
ford by a former husband, he was a Godly wise young man
& removed to Agawam w*^^ his parents, his daughter mary
was married to mr. Hollioke, the sone of m'" Hollioke of Linn :
m"" Pinchon's ancient freind."
This "Godly wise young man" had come to New England
in the fleet with Governor Winthrop in 1630. In 1636 he aided
his father-in-law in the founding of Springfield and settled
there.
In his later Hfe he returned to England and died in Wrays-
bury, Bucks. He and Anne Pynchon were the parents of
eleven children, of whom the eldest, Anne, married Lieutenant
Colonel John Allyn of Hartford, the "famous fighting secre-
tary" of Connecticut, son of Matthew Allyn of that colony.
6s
This Colonel John Allyn I shall speak of at greater length
in my account of the Allyn family.
Mary Allyn, the daughter of Colonel John Allyn and
Anne Smith, married Colonel William Whiting of Hartford,
and their son, Charles Whiting, married Elizabeth Bradford.
In Waters's "Genealogical Gleanings," page 723, we find
an abstract of the will of Henry Smith of Wraysbury, Bucks,
England, made August 16, 1681. and proved October 24, 1682:
My body to be buried in a decent manner ; I do give unto
my daughter, ]\'Iartha Camock, 5 s. ; to my daughter Mary
Lord 5 s. ; to daughter Rebecca Lee 5 s. ; to son Elisha Smith
5 s. ; to my daughter Elizabeth Smith, not yet disposed of in
marriage I do give with 50 pounds to be paid at the time of
her marriage if she survives after her mother. I do out of that
dear and tender love I bear my beloved wife Mrs. Anne Smith
give all my substance whatever and appoint (her) to be my
only executrix.
It is hard to understand why there is no mention in the will
of the eldest daughter, Anne, married to Colonel John Allyn.
I account for it by the fact that John Allyn was one of the
richest men in Hartford, and Anne had probably received her
portion of her father's estate at the time of her marriage.
COLONIAL RECORDS OF HENRY SMITH
Smith, Henry, 1630-52. Commissioner appointed by Mass.
General Court to govern Connecticut, 1635-36; Magistrate
Hartford General Court, 1638; Deputy from Springfield to
Mass. General Court. 165 1 ; Lieutenant at Springfield, 1645;
Magistrate of County Court of Springfield.
(Mass. Society of Colonial Dames of America, 1905,
page 378.)
Also see Mason Green's " History of S])ringfield," for
Henry Smith's part in the founding of that city.
^Upn Jfamilp*
(Allied by Marriage of Matthew Allyn and Margaret Wyatt
to Chichester of Arlington, one of the oldest of Devonshire
families and descendants of Charlemagne and Henry I of
England.)
CHICHESTER ARMS
Chichester (ancient) of Devon.
Chequey or and gules, a chief vair. — Burke.
CREST
A heron rising with an eel in the beak. ppr.
MOTTO
Firm en Foi.
CHART Vn
Matthew Allyn=Margaret Wyatt (granddaughter of
Amias Chichester
of Arlington, Devon)
Lieut. Col. John Allyn=Ann Smith, granddaughter
I of William Pynchon
William Whiting=Mary Allyn
I
Charles Whiting= Elizabeth Bradford
* The Allyn family did not boast of Arms. I have given the Arms of
Chichester (Ancient) of Devon, instead of the present Arms of the Chichester
family in England, which show many quarterings. The Wyatt, or Wiat, Arms
are given in the " Visitation of Devonshire " as per fess gules and azure a
pair of barnacles argent.
66
CHICHESTER ARMS
ii^
'■iX
67
MATTHEW ALLYN OF CONNECTICUT
Matthew Allyn was born in Braunton, Devonshire,
England, in 1605. He was of old yeoman stock of excellent
standing in the county, which is proved by the alliance of the
Allyn family with the Chichesters, one of the most prominent
of Devonshire families. The will of his father, Richard Allyn,
has been recorded by Waters, page 12 12, and is summarized
as follows :
Richard Allyn the elder of Branton, Devon, 29 Nov. 1647,
proved 10 May 1652. To my son Thomas Allinge 5 i. To
my son Mathew Allinge 5i To Mary Allinge daughter of son
Thomas 20s. To son Mathew's three children to John 20 s,
to Thomas 20s and to Mary his daughter 20s. To grand child
Mary Tamling ^i. To grandchild Elianor Tamling 4 i, to
grandchild Obedience Garland 20 s and to grandchild Eliza-
beth Tamling 20s. To daughter-in-law Elizabeth wife of son
Richard 20s in gold to buy her a ring, to grandchild John
Ailing son of son Richard 3 i. To grandchild Margaret
daughter of son Richard 3 i. To John Rice of Barnstaple 20s.
To the poor of Branton 3 i. To Walter Cutt 5 s. To every
servant in the house at time of death 2 s 6d. Son Richard
Ailing to be Executor and Residuary legatee.
Matthew Allyn was married at Braunton to Margaret
Wyatt, daughter of Frances Wyatt, the daughter of Amias
Chichester of Arlington, Devon, and of John Wyatt, who
was born in Devon, November 27, 1558. This John Wyatt
had been admitted to the Inner Temple in 1576, and was a
son of Philip Wyatt, Steward and Town Clerk of Barnstaple,
Devon, who died in 1592. The Wyatts were a well-known
county family.
In 1632 Matthew Allyn sailed with his wife and children
68
for the new world. We find him first in Charlestown with the
original Braintree Company. He held several offices in that
colony. In 1636 he removed to Hartford, where he held
numerous public offices. He was representative from 1648 to
1658; magistrate, 1657 to 1667. He was then made Commis-
sioner for the United Colonies of New England, serving in
that capacity from 1660 to 1664. In the Charter of Connecti-
cut, granted by Charles II, Matthew Allyn is named as one of
the grantees. He was excommunicated by the Church of Hart-
ford because of his progressive ideas on religious subjects, and
removed to Windsor, Conn., where he continued to reside until
his death, February i, 1671.
The "History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor," by
Henry R. Stiles, gives a lengthy account of Matthew Allyn
and his life at Hartford and in Windsor, part of which follows :
"The Hon. Matthew Allyn from Brampton, Co. Devon,
Eng., emigrated with the original Braintree Company, 1632,
to Charlestown, Mass., where in 1633 he had 45 acres divided
to him at the 'common Pales,' much the largest share of any
settler, had an acre for cow and three for planting ground
'on the neck.' In 1635 he had by grant or purchase 5 acres
at Wigwam Neck, six acres meadow near Watertown, 5 acres
near Charlestown Lane; owned 5 houses on Town Plot of
Cambridge 1635. He resided near the meeting house and was
the largest landholder in Cambridge (Cambridge Record,
fol. i, 24). Was made freeman of Mass. March 4, 1635; was
a representative at Mass. Gen. Court, March session, 1636 ;
removed next year to Hartford, where he was an original
proprietor; his house lot was on the road to the Neck (now
Windsor Street), and he owned no acres in that and other
lots and the first mill at Hartford, at foot of present W. Pearl
St. In May, 1638, he was lodging with Roger Williams ; was
69
a proprietor at Windsor in 1640, as also a large owner at
Killing-worth and at Simsbury. He was a member of Rev.
Mr. Hooker's church at Hartford, but for some difference
therewith, probably of a doctrinal nature, was excommunicated
and June 3, 1644, he appealed to the General Court for re-
dress ; the records do not show fully how the matter was
settled, but it may have been one cause of his removal to
Windsor, in which plantation he had previously been inter-
ested, having purchased in 1638 all the lands, 'house servants,
goods and chattels' of the New Plymouth Company at Wind-
sor, a purchase which 'extinguished the last right and vestige
of Plymouth right and title upon the Connecticut River.' His
Windsor homestead was close by the site of the Company's
old trading house.
"Mr. Allyn was representative to the General Court every
year (except 1653) from 1648 to 1658 inclusive; a magistrate
of the Colony, 1657-1667 inc.; commissioner for the United
Colonies of New England, 1660-64. When, in 1649, the Gen-
eral Court desired to initiate hostilities against the Indians,
Mr. Allyn was the first named of the three deputies to order
the raising of troops. In 1657 he and Joseph Gilbert were
to go to Pocomtuck to announce to the Indians the decision of
the Commissioners; in 1659 he and his son John were of the
committee appointed to divide the Indian lands at Podunk,
and at the same court were placed on a committee with power
to treat with Mr. Fenwick in behalf of Hartford, Windsor
and Wethersfield. In 1661 he was moderator, and of the com-
mittee to petition for the charter, in which document, granted
to Connecticut by Charles II, he was named as one of the
grantees. He was again moderator in 1662, chairman of
the committee to treat with New Haven for a union in 1662,
and in October of 1663 he was chairman of a committee to
70
treat with the Dutch envoys from New Amsterdam ; also with
Air. WilHs to settle the government of the English towns on
the west of Long Island, which committee was renewed in
1664 with authority to establish courts, etc. The same year
he was of a committee to settle bounds between the 'Bay' and
Rhode Island and the south bounds, and with three others
'Mr. Allyn Senior or Junior' was desired to accompany the
Gov. to New York to congratulate his Majesty's commission-
ers and if opportunity offered to 'issue the bounds between
the Duke's patent and ours.' In 1665, under the union of the
Connecticut and New Haven colonies, Mr. Allyn and his son,
Lieut. John, were chosen Assistants, again in 1666 and 1667.
In 1666 both were of the committee empowered in case of
danger of invasion to levy troops, commission officers, etc.
He was entered on the Killingly land records as a large land-
owner and first settler, though it is improbable that he ever
lived there.
"The Hon. Matthew Allyn, as we have thus seen, was
eminently a man of affairs and an active, public-spirited citi-
zen. 'Few men,' says Hinman, 'had more influence or received
more honors from the people than Mr. Allyn.' Energetic,
willful and persistent in all his projects, he was yet a just,
high-minded man and one of the props of the infant colony.
Though he fell under the ban of the Hartford church, prob-
ably because he entertained sentiments on baptism, church
membership or church discipline at variance with the ideas of
the other members, there are many evidences that he was held
in high esteem at Hartford ; and Mr. Hinman hints that the
Hartford church encouraged him to remove, fearing his 'influ-
ence with the settlers.'
"Mr. Allyn died Feb. i, 1670-71. His will, dated Jan. 30,
1670-71, makes his wife, Margaret, his sole executrix. He
gave her the use of his estate and desired his sons and son-in-
law Newberry to improve it for her. To his son John he gave
his Killingly lands and confirmed to him those lands that he
had previously given him in Hartford as a marriage portion.
His Windsor house he had already given to his son Thomas,
subject to life use by himself and wife. He gave him also a
large estate and provided liberally for his daughter, Mary New-
berry, and granddaughter, Mary Maudsley."
(Hinman's Puritan Letters, Sceava's Hartford in the Olden
Time ; Mass. Historical Society Collections, VI ; Memorial
History Hartford County, Vol. i, pp. 227, 228; Candee Gen-
ealogy, pp. 121-146.)
COLONIAL RECORDS OF MATTHEW ALLYN
Freeman, 1635 ; Representative, 1636 ; removed to Hart-
ford, Conn., and was Representative, 1648-58; Magistrate,
1657-67; Commissioner for United Colonies of New England,
1660-64; one of the Grantees named in the charter to Con-
necticut granted by Charles H.
For above data see Register of The Society of Colonial
Daughters of the Seventeenth Century, p. 83 ; Register of the
Society of Colonial Dames of Mass., 1905, p. 274; also see
Society of Colonial Wars, 1899-1912, p. 549.
CHILDREN OF MATTHEW ALLYN AND MARGARET WYATT
John.
Thomas.
Mary.
72
LIEUTENANT COLONEL JOHN ALLYN
POPULARLY CALLED THE FIGHTING SECRETARY
OF CONNECTICUT
The elder son of Governor Matthew Allyn and Margaret
Wyatt was John, my father's ancestor. He was born in Braun-
ton, Devonshire, England, and was brought when a boy to
Charlestown, Mass., by his father, in 1632, and to Hartford
in 1636. He early showed an interest in public affairs and a
desire for service to his colony, especially in military affairs.
He was a townsman in 1655 ; chosen cornet of the Hart-
ford troops, March, 1657-58; town clerk of Hartford, 1659-
96; deputy to the General Court, 1661 and 1662. He was a
magistrate of Particular and General Court twice in 1662 ;
magistrate in 1662 and Secretary of the Colony, 1663-65 and
1667-95 inclusive ; one of the custodians of the charter in 1662 ;
often a commissioner of the United Colonies; member of the
Council; principal judge of Court of Common Pleas in Hart-
ford County ; clerk of the courts ; clerk of the First Ecclesi-
astical Society in Hartford ; appointed Lieutenant Colonel by
Governor Andros, October, 1688, and by the General Court
in 1689 to the same, then the highest military office of the
colony. "During the latter portion of his life probably no
individual in Connecticut possessed more influence in the public
affairs of the colony than he."
November 19, 1651, he married Anne, daughter of Henry
Smith of Springfield, and granddaughter of William Pynchon
of that colony. To them were born six daughters, of whom
five were living at his death. His father, upon his marriage,
bestowed upon him his entire Hartford estate, of which John
Allyn made such good use that at his death, in 1696, he was
73
possessed of large means according to the standards of the
times.
Mainwaring's Hartford Probate, Vol. i, p. 395, gives an
inventory of the estate of Colonel John Allyn of Hartford,
filed November 12, 1696. Administration of the estate was
granted to Joseph Whiting, his son-in-law, William Whiting
and Aaron Cooke. He divided among his widow and children
cash and plate to the amount of 206 pounds, 15 shillings
and sixpence, and real estate to the value of 1220 pounds and
5 shillings.
Colonel John Allyn died at Hartford, November 11, 1696,
according to the town record, but on November 6, according
to a tombstone in the old First Church burying ground.
COLONIAL RECORDS OF LIEUTENANT COLONEL JOHN ALLYN
Cornet first troop of Horse in Connecticut, 1637, under
Major John Mason; Captain of the Hartford Militia, 1673;
Lieutenant Colonel, 1689 ; Secretary of the Colony for thirty-
four years; Assistant, 1662-1696; Commissioner of the United
Colonies, 1674-81 ; member of Governor Andros's Council,
1687.
(Society of Colonial Wars, 1899-1902, p. 549.)
CHILDREN OF JOHN AND ANNE SMITH ALLYN
Anna, born August, 1654.
Mary, born April 3, 1657; married William Whiting of
Hartford.
Margaret, born July 29, 1660; married William Southmayd
of Middletown, Conn.
Rebecca, born March 2, 1664.
Martha, born July 27, 1667; married Aaron Cooke.
74
Elizabeth, born December i, 1669; married (i) Alexander
AUyn of Windsor, (2) John Gardiner of Gardiner's
Island or Manor, Long Island.
(Conn. Colonial Record, Vol. iv, p. 190; ii, pp. 263, 333,
569-74, 578-86, etc. ; Hartford County Memorial His-
tory, Vol. i, p. 228.)
The second daughter of Colonel John Allyn married Wil-
liam Whiting of Hartford, and their son, Charles Whiting,
married Elizabeth Bradford. (See Chart VII.)
i^orman ^ncesitrp of CljarlejS l^fjiting jHaci^air
tfiroust) W^ Besicent from
ILieutenant Colonel 5of)n ^llj>n
Charles Whiting MacNair was seventh in descent from
John Allyn.
Margaret Wyatt, who married Matthew Allyn and was the
mother of John Allyn, was of illustrious descent, and num-
bered among her ancestors King Henry I of England (through
two lines) and Charlemagne, King of France. She was the
granddaughter of Amias Chichester, of one of the oldest and
most prominent of Devonshire families. The connection of
Margaret Wyatt with this family, as Mr. Bolton's chart shows,
is proved by the will of Bartholomew Chichester, Gentleman,
son of Amias Chichester, which mentions his niece, Margaret
Wyatt Allyn. This will, proved February 17, 1635, is given
in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register of
April, 1896, and reads as follows:
"I give and bequeath to my kinswoman, Margaret Allyn,
wife of Matthew Allyn, ten pounds ; to my cousin, John Chi-
chester, Esquire, of Arlington, a silver bowl with five pounds
sterling etc. etc."
Burke's "Peerage and Baronetage" has this to say of the
Chichesters :
"The family formerly called Cirencester is one of the most
eminent in the County of Devon. It was founded by Sir John
Cirencester, who in 1433 was returned among the principal
75
76
gentry of Devonshire by the King's commissioners. He mar-
ried (1402) Thomasine, daughter and heiress of Sir William
Raleigh, Knight of Raleigh, and with her acquired the estate
of Raleigh. He was succeeded by John Chichester of Raleigh,
high sheriff of the County of Devon in the third year of the
reign of Edward HI."
Amias Chichester, Esq., of Arlington, my father's ancestor,
fifth in descent from Sir John Cirencester, was born in the time
of Edward IV, and had issue nineteen sons (Burke's Landed
Gentry, Vol. i), of whom Bartholomew Chichester, whose will
is given above, was of the number. The fourth daughter of
Amias Chichester, Frances, married John Wyatt, who was
in 1576 admitted to the Inner Temple. "Their daughter,
Margaret Wyatt, married Matthew Allyn of Braunton, after-
wards of Connecticut, in America. John Allyn, the son of this
marriage, achieved for himself a notable and distinguished
name in that Colony."
Browning, in his "Americans of Royal Descent," gives the
lineage of Lieutenant Colonel John Allyn, showing his descent
from Charlemagne and other royal personages. It is brought
down to Charles Whiting who married Elizabeth Bradford.
Mr. Bolton, of the Boston Athenaeum, has published a
pedigree chart of the ancestry of John Allyn, giving all the
ancestral families, and tracing them back to their Norman
founders. Through the kindness of Mr. Bolton I am able to
give this chart in full. Since the chart is so explicit, it is not
necessary for me in this brief sketch to go into great detail.
It will be seen, however, that John Allyn was a descendant of
many notable Norman families, among them the Plantagenets
(descent from Henry I), the Earls of Cornwall, the Earls of
Devon, the Earls of Gloucester, the Raleighs of Devon, from
whom Sir Walter Raleigh was descended ; from Prouz or
76
gentry of Devonshire by the King's commissioners. He mar-
ried (1402) Thomasine, daughter and heiress of Sir William
Raleigh, Knight of Raleigh, and with her acquired the estate
of Raleigh. He was succeeded by John Chichester of Raleigh,
high sheriff of the County of Devon in the third year of the
reign of Edward IH."
Amias Chichester, Esq., of Arlington, my father's ancestor,
fifth in descent from Sir John Cirencester, was born in the time
of Edward IV, and had issue nineteen sons (Burke's Landed
Gentry, Vol. i), of whom Bartholomew Chichester, whose will
is given above, was of the number. The fourth daughter of
Amias Chichester, Frances, married John Wyatt, who was
in 1576 admitted to the Inner Temple. "Their daughter,
Margaret Wyatt, married Matthew Allyn of Braunton, after-
wards of Connecticut, in America. John Allyn, the son of this
marriage, achieved for himself a notable and distinguished
name in that Colony."
Browning, in his "Americans of Royal Descent," gives the
lineage of Lieutenant Colonel John Allyn, showing his descent
from Charlemagne and other royal personages. It is brought
down to Charles Whiting who married Elizabeth Bradford.
Mr. Bolton, of the Boston Athenaeum, has published a
pedigree chart of the ancestry of John Allyn, giving all the
ancestral families, and tracing them back to their Norman
founders. Through the kindness of Mr. Bolton I am able to
give this chart in full. Since the chart is so explicit, it is not
necessary for me in this brief sketch to go into great detail.
It will be seen, however, that John Allyn was a descendant of
many notable Norman families, among them the Plantagenets
(descent from Henry I), the Earls of Cornwall, the Earls of
Devon, the Earls of Gloucester, the Raleighs of Devon, from
whom Sir Walter Raleigh was descended; from Prouz or
..cr I -^-.,.
''^^.T:L "''i'^s""! "S'Ss^i"'"
^piiSi '"'"^
•.«... j
"■Ft^SF
I "MfrynisFi "^
-#^
aKS.Si2.|Si"Si!Sf3;
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5^gjills?^£M^Sg SSSfl^rwH^S^
iil&^
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Kffife -.»«*=»««=:"••
le Proux of Eastervale, Devon, called the "clarous family of
Prouz" (see Westcote's "Devonshire Pedigrees," p. 431) ;
from the Pawlets of Somerset, Boys of Halberton, Devon, the
Wottons of Widvvorthy, Devon, the Valletorts (also descended
from Henry I, King John and Richard Plantagenet) ; from
the Fortescues, whose founder, Richard Fort or Fort Escu,
protected the Conqueror at Hastings ; and from the Beau-
champs and the Champernownes, from whom Sir Walter
Raleigh and Sir Humphrey Gilbert were descended. Another
famous family in this pedigree are the Giffards, of whom
Burke says :
"The family of Giffard is of great antiquity in Devon,
where it flourished as early as the reign of Henry H."
Lord Halsbury, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is
a descendant of these Giffards.
John Allyn's descent from Charlemagne was through
Richard de Redvers, first Earl of Devon, who married
Adeliza, daughter of the Earl of Hereford. This Richard
de Redvers was the son of Baldwin de Brion, who, as the chart
shows, accompanied his relative, William the Conqueror, to
England and became high sheriff of Devonshire. Baldwin
de Brion was tenth in descent from Charlemagne, as is shown
in Pedigree IV, in "Americans of Royal Descent," a "Collec-
tion of Genealogies Showing the Lineal Descent from Kings
of Some American Families," by Charles H. Browning,
published in Philadelphia, 191 1:
Charlemagne, King of France and Emperor of the West,
had by his third wife, Hildegarde, died 783, daughter of
Childebrand, Duke of Suabia;
Pepin, King of Lombardy and Italy, second son who m.
Lady Bertha, daughter of William, Count of Thoulouse, and
had;
78
Bernard, King of Lombardy, who had by his wife
Cunegonde ;
Pepin, Count of Vermandois and Peronne, a lay abbot, 840,
father of ;
Pepin de Senlis de Valois, Count Berengarius, of Bretagne,
father of ;
Lady Poppa de Valois, who m. (his first wife) Rollo the
Dane, founder of the Royal House of Normandy and England,
first Duke of Normandy, 912, died 932, also of Royal Descent
(see Anderson's "Royal Genealogies"), and had;
William the Longs word, second Duke of Normandy,
father of ;
Richard I, third Duke of Normandy, father of ;
Godfrey, Count of Eu and Brion/in Normandy, father of;
Gislebert-Crispin. Count of Eu and Brion, father of ;
Baldwin de Brion, who accompanied his kinsman, William
of Normandy, to England and became High Sheriff of
Devonshire. He m. Lady Albreda, daughter of Richard-goz
d'Abrancis, Viscount d'Auveranchez (who accompanied the
Conqueror and was granted the Earldom of Chester, in 1086),
and his wife, Lady Emme, half-sister of King William the
Conqueror, and had ;
Richard d'Auveranche de Redvers, Baron of Oakhampton,
created Earl of Devon, d. 1137; m. Lady Adeliza, daughter
of William Fitz-Osborne, Count of Bretoille, lieutenant and
steward in Normandy, created Earl of Hereford, and had;
Baldwin de Redvers, second Earl of Devon, d. 11 55; m.
Lady Lucia, daughter of Dru de Balm, and had ;
William de Redvers de Vernon, who succeeded as sixth
Earl of Devon, d. 1216. He had by his wife. Lady Mabel de
Bellomont, also of Royal Descent, daughter of Robert the Con-
sul, Earl of Mellent and first Earl of Gloucester, d. 1147;
79
Lady Mary de Redvers (widow of Robert de Courtenay
of Oakhampton, d. 1242), who m., secondly, Peter Prouz of
Eastervale, Devonshire (see Vivian's "Devonshire Visita-
tions"), and had;
WilHam Prouz, father of ;
Walter Prouz, who had by his wife, a daughter of Baron
Dinham ;
William Prouz, who had by his wife, daughter and heiress
of Giles de Gidley, in Devonshire ;
Sir William Prouz, Knight, Lord of Gidley, m. Alice,
daughter and heiress of Sir Fulke Ferners of Throwleigh,
and had ;
William Prouz of Orton, Devonshire, m. Alice, daughter
of Sir Hugh de Widworthy, and had (see Vivian's "Devon-
shire Visitations") ;
Lady Alice Prouz, who m. Sir Roger Moels, Knight, and
had;
Lady Joan Moels, who m. John Wotton of Widworthy, in
Devonshire, and had ;
John Wotton of Widworthy (see Westcote's "Devonshire
Pedigrees"), who m. Engaret, daughter of William Dymoke,
and had;
Alice Wotton, who m. Sir John Chichester, Knt., b. 1385,
who was in the retinue of le Sieur de Harrington at Agin-
court, son of Sir John Chichester of Treverbin, Cornwall, and
had;
Richard Chichester, b. 1424, sheriff of Devonshire, 1469,
1475, d. 25 December, 1496, m. Margaret, daughter of Sir
Nicholas Keynes of Winkleigh, and had ;
Nicholas Chichester, b. 1447, who m. Christian, daughter
of Sir WilHam (or Nicholas) Pawlet, and had;
John Chichester of Rawleigh, Devon, b. 1472, d. 22 Febru-
ary, 1537-38; m., secondly, Joan, daughter of Robert Bright
or Brett, and had ;
Amias Chichester of Arhngton, Devon, b. 1527, d. 4 July,
1577; m. Jane Giffard, will proved 16 April, 1596, daughter
of Sir Roger Giffard of Brightley, d. i May, 1547, and had;
Frances Chichester (see N. E. Hist. Gen. Reg., April,
1897), who m. John Wyatt, bapt. Braunton, Devon, 27 Novem-
ber, 1558; admitted to the Inner Temple in 1576; son of Philip
Wyatt, steward and town clerk of Barnstaple, Devon, 1562-63,
d. 1592, and had;
Margaret Wyatt, who m. at Braunton, 2 February, 1626,
Matthew Allyn, bapt. Braunton, 17 April, 1605; came to New
England, resided at Cambridge 1632, at Hartford 1637, at
Windsor 1648. He was a representative to the General Court
of Massachusetts, 1636; was excommunicated at Hartford; was
deputy and assistant in the Connecticut Colony, 1648-67; a
commissioner to the United Colonies, 1660, 1664; d. i Febru-
ary, 1670-71, and had;
Lieutenant Colonel John Allyn, bapt. Braunton, 24 Febru-
ary, 1630; came to New England with his father; was cornet
of troop, 1657-58; town clerk of Hartford, 1659-96; deputy,
1661 ; magistrate, 1662 ; Secretary of Connecticut, 1663-65,
1667-95; d. 16 November, 1696. (See the pedigree chart of
his ancestry, compiled by Messrs. Waters, F. Olcott Allen,
Jeremiah Allyn, and Bolton, 1898.) He m., 19 November, 1651,
first, Ann. daughter of Henry Smith and granddaughter of
Colonel William Pynchon, treasurer of the Massachusetts Col-
ony, etc., and had;
Mary Allyn, 1657-1724; m. 6 October, 1686, William Whit-
ing, b. 1659, and had;
Charles Whiting, 1692-1738; m. 10 January, 1716-17,
Elizabeth Bradford, 1696-1777.
tlTiie 4lentle iiloob of Bebon
(Extract from "Westward Ho!" by Charles Kingsley)
Charles Kingsley, in "Westward Ho!" Chapter H, describes
a " thanksgiving " in Devonshire for a victory at sea. He
mentions among other Devonshire families the Chichesters and
the Fortescues, who appear so prominently in John Allyn's pedi-
gree. Kingsley introduces into the scene Amias Chichester of
Arlington and his nineteen sons and also his four daughters,
one of whom was the grandmother of John Allyn.
"Along the little churchyard, packed full with women,
streams all the gentle blood of North Devon, — tall and stately
men, and fair ladies, worthy of the days when the gentry of
England were by due right the leaders of the people, by per-
sonal prowess and beauty, as well as by intellect and education.
And first, there is my lady Countess of Bath, whom Sir Richard
Grenvile is escorting, cap in hand ( for her good Earl Bourchier
is in London with the Queen) ; and there are Bassets from
beautiful Umberleigh, and Carys from more beautiful Clovelly,
and Fortescues of Wear, and Fortescues of Buckland, and For-
tescues from all quarters, and Coles from Slade, and Stukelys
from Afifton, and St. Legers from Annery, and Coffins from
Portledge, and even Copplestones from Eggesford, thirty miles
away ; and last, but not least ( for almost all stop to give them
place), Sir John Chichester of Ralegh, followed in single file,
after the good old patriarchal fashion, by his eight daughters,
and three of his five famous sons (one, to avenge his murdered
brother, is fighting valiantly in Ireland, hereafter to rule there
8i
82
wisely also, as Lord Deputy and Baron of Belfast) ; and he
meets at the gate his cousin of Arlington, and behind him a
train of four daughters and nineteen sons, the last of whom
has not yet passed the Town-hall, while the first is at the Lych-
gate, who, laughing, make way for the elder though shorter
branch of that most fruitful tree ; and so on into the church,
where all are placed according to their degrees, or at least as
near as maybe, not without a few sour looks, and shovings, and
whisperings, from one high-born matron and another ; till the
churchwardens and sidesmen, who never had before so goodly
a company to arrange, have bustled themselves hot, and red,
and frantic, and end by imploring abjectly the help of the
great Sir Richard himself to tell them who everybody is, and
which is the elder branch and which is the younger, and who
carries eight quarterings in their arms, and who only four,
and so prevent their setting at deadly feud half the fine ladies
of North Devon ; for the old men are all safe packed away in
the corporation pews, and the young ones care only to get
a place whence they may eye the ladies. And at last there is a
silence, and a looking toward the door, and then distant music,
flutes and hautboys, drums and trumpets, which come braying,
and screaming, and thundering merrily up to the very church
doors, and then cease ; and the churchwardens and sidesmen
bustle down to the entrance, rods in hand, and there is a general
whisper and rustle, not without glad tears and blessings from
many a woman, and from some men also, as the wonder of
the day enters, and the rector begins, not the morning service,
but the good old thanksgiving after a victory at sea."
2958 S ^>