Chapter 27 - My Baker Ancestors Part II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 26 - My Baker Ancestors Part 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Edward Baker (c. 1610 – 1687)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Timothy Baker (1647-1729)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 25 – My Pennsylvania Ancestors – Part II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Generation 2: Richard Bull (1714-1799)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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