MILL ON ASSUNPINK CREEK: Mahlon Stacy in West Jersey

Remains of Mahlon Stacy's gristmill on the Assunpink Creek, Trenton

9th GGF MAHLON STACY

English Quaker Immigrant to New Jersey, 1678
(Isaac GLOVER-Mary Catherine MYERS/Horner/Potts-Beakes/Stacy)
 As I continue to unearth the immigrant stories grounded in our family's early American roots, I often find that colonial place names tell a story of their own.  In this case: Trenton, New Jersey.  It could just as easily have been "Stacytown".  Here's why:
Trenton: Its Beginnings
 'The site of modern-day Trenton was once occupied by the Sanhican, a branch of the Delaware tribe who called the area Assunpink. The name meant "stone in the water" and referred to the rocky falls in the nearby portion of the Delaware River. The first permanent European settlers arrived in 1679, when the English Quaker Mahlon Stacy arrived at what he called the "falls of the Delaware." Stacy's son sold the land in 1714 to William Trent, a Philadelphia merchant who recognized the industrial potential of the river. Trent built a stone grist mill near the falls [technically enlarged Stacy's existing mill] and called the resulting community "Trent's Town," which was quickly shortened to Trenton. The town grew up at the junction of the Delaware River and Assunpink Creek.'  (quoted from city data for Trenton)

Mahlon Stacy's land holdings at the Falls of the Delaware (Trenton)

Yorkshire Quaker

 Mahlon Stacy(e) was born at Dore House on the family's  Ballifield estate, Handsworth (near Sheffield, England) in 1638.  As an impressionable Yorkshire teen he was exposed to early Quaker teachings, as was Rebekah Ely, who would become his wife in 1668:

Ballifield Estate

“The Stacy and Ely families were among the earliest of the English churchmen to follow the teachings of George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends.  Great religious meetings were held at Ballifield Hall, the home of the Stacyes, by Fox in his journeys to Yorkshire,...”(from A Genealogical and Personal History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania)
As English Quakers, the Stayce and Ely families were part of a new religious movement that was treated with suspicion and hostility under the parliamentary rule of Oliver Cromwell following the English Civil War.  With the return of the monarchy by Charles II, Quakers were subject to severe persecution for their refusal to conform to the Church of England and its social expectations.  Their refusal to pay mandatory tithes was particularly concerning to the royal purse and, as a consequence, many English Quakers faced crippling fines or imprisonment.  Under these conditions, it is not difficult to understand why Mahlon and Rebekah might ponder Fox's and William Penn's invitations to practice their new faith freely in the American colonies.  
Prior to his departure to America, Mahlon Stacy had acquired, as a creditor, a large chunk of colonial soil in West Jersey through a claim against the estate of Edward Byllinge, one of the original Quaker purchasers of the province from Lord Berkely and Sir George Carteret.  Stacy packed up the family and boarded one of Penn's ships, the "Shield," which sailed out of the port of Hull in late 1678.  And thus begins the American story of Mahlon Stacy.
From a history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania:

'...The favorable accounts written home by the first settlers in West Jersey stimulated immigration and soon there was an accession to the population. The Shield, of Hull, Captain Towes, arrived November 10, 1678, the first English vessel that ascended as high up as Burlington. A fresh gale brought her up the river, and during the night she was blown in to shore where she made fast to a tree. It came on cold and the next morning the passengers walked ashore on the ice. As the Shield passed the place where Philadelphia stands, the passengers remarked what a fine place for a town. Among the passengers were Mahlon Stacy , his wife, seven daughters, [actually three: Elizabeth, Sarah, and Mary] several servants, his cousin Thomas Revel, and William Emley (Probably Mahlon Stacy's brother-in-law), with his wife, two children, and four servants. The passengers by the Shield, and other ships that followed the same year, settled at Burlington, Salem, and other points on the river. A few found their way into Bucks county. Among those who came with the West Jersey settlers in 1678 was Benjamin Duffield, the ancestor of the Pennsylvania family of that name. By the end of 1678 it is estimated that William Penn had been the means of sending some eight hundred settlers to this country, mostly Friends...'  
and 

'Included in this band of colonists were  Thomas Potts, his wife and children...' 
[whose grandson, Thomas, would marry Mahlon’s granddaughter, Sarah Beakes, producing my 7^th GGM, Mary Potts] from History of Bucks County

Letters Home

Mahlon wrote many letters to friends and family back in England including this detailed description of the good life at 'The Falls of the Delaware" dated 26th of 4th month, 1680:
“But now a word or two of those strange reports you have heard of us and our country; I affirm they are not true, and fear they were spoken from a spirit of envy; It is a country that produceth all things for the support and sustenance of man, in a plentiful manner; if it were not so, I should be ashamed of what I have before written; but I can stand, having truth on my side, against and before the face of all gainsayers and evil spies; I have travelled through most of the places that are settled, and some that are not; and in every place I find the country very apt to answer the expectation of the diligent; I have seen orchards laden with fruit to admiration, their very limbs torn to pieces with the weight and most delicious to the taste and lovely to behold; I have seen an apple tree from a pippin kernel, yield a barrel of curious cyder; and peaches in such plenty that some people took their carts a peach-gathering; I could not but smile at the coceit of it;  They are a very delicate fruit, and hang almost like our onions that are on ropes; I have seen and known this summer, forty bushels of bald wheat of one bushel sown; and many more such instance I could bring; which would be too tedious here to mention;  We have from the time called May until Michaelmas, great store of very good wild fruits, as strawberries, cranberries, and hurtleberries, which are like our bilberries in England, but far sweeter.  They are very wholesome fruits.  The cranberries much like cherries for colour and bigness, which may be kept till fruit come in again; an excellent sauce is made of them for venison, turkeys and other great fowl, and they are better to make tarts than either gooseberries or cherries;  We have them brought to our houses by the Indians in great plenty.  My brother Robert had as many cherries this year as would have loaded several carts.  It is my judgment by what I have observed, that fruit trees in this country destroy themselves by the very weight of their fruit.  As for venison and fowls, we have great plenty.  We have brought home to our houses by the Indians, seven or eight fat bucks of a day; and sometimes put by as many; having no occasion for them; and fish in their season very plentious.  My Cousin Revell and I, with some of my men, went last third month in the river to catch herrings; for at that time they came in great shoals in the shallows; we had neither rod nor net; but after the Indian fashion made a round pinfold, about two yards over, and a foot high, but left a gap for the fish to go in at, and made a bush to lay in the gap to keep the fish in; and when that was done, we took two long birches, and tied their tops together, and went about a stone’s cast above our said pinfold; then hawling these birch boughs down the stream, where we drove thousands before us, but so many got into our trap as it would hold, and then we began to haul them on shore as fast as three or four of us could, by two or three at a time; and after this manner, in half an hour, we would have fill a three bushel sack of as good and large herrings as ever I saw; and as to beef and pork, there is great plenty of it and cheap; and also good sheep; the common grass of this country feeds beef very fat; I have killed two this year and therefore I have reason to know it; besides I have seen this Fall, in Burlington, killed eight or nine fat oxen and cows on a market day, and all very fat; and though I speak of herrings only, lest any should think we have little other sorts, we have great plenty of most sorts of fish that ever I saw in England; besides several other sorts that are not known there; as rocks, cat-fish, shads, sheeps-heads, sturgeons; and fowls a plenty; as ducks, geese, turkies, pheasants, partridges, and many other sorts that I cannot remember, and would be too tedious to mention.  Indeed the country, take it as a wilderness, is a brave country thought no place will please all.  But some will be ready to say, he writes of conveniences, but not of inconveniences; in answer to those I honestly declare there is some barren land, as (I suppose) there is in most places of the world, and more wood than some would have upon their lands; neither will the country produce corn without labour, nor cattle be go else it would be a brave country indeed; and I question not, but all then would give it a good word; for my part I like it so well I had never the least thought of returning to England, except on the account of trade.  Signed.  Mahlon Stacye.

The Legacy of Mahlon Stacy

Lee provides the following tribute to Mahlon Stacy:  “Of the early settlers of West New Jersey none stands in a more striking light than Mahlon Stacy of Handsworth, Yorkshire.  To him must be given the credit for the practical settling of the northern portion of the Yorkshire Tenth.  He was an influential member of the Society of Friends.  His large plantation interests and his wealth made him rank easily among the half-score men who formed the destinies of Burlington County between 1676 and 1715.  In the public life of the time he held at times nearly every office of profit and trust in the Province.  He appears as Commissioner in 1681 and 2, a member of the Assembly 1682-1684-1685, a member of the Council 1682 and 3.  As a Justice he sat in the First Tenth in 1685 and continuously remained on the Burlington Bench as his Majesty’s Justice from May, 1695, to May, 1701.” (Francis B. Lee, 'History of Trenton, New Jersey,' 1895.)

Grandson Stacy Potts' home served as military headquarters in Revolutionary War. His sister Mary continued our family line, marrying Isaac Horner, Jr. in 1757.

WINSORS IN AMERICA: From Stoke Poges to Providence

circa 1637-38 American Immigrant Joshua Winsor, 9th GGF

From Andrew Jackson Dort-Lydia Winsor/following the Windsor male lineage back seven generations to my 9th great grandfather, English emigrant Joshua Winsor from Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, England.

The "Magna Britannia" (1813) states that Bonyforden in Stoke Poges was an early seat and manor of the Windsor family.  According to two historical sources published in 1847 and 1915, the immigrant Joshua was son of Samuel Windsor, grandson of Robert Windsor, great-grandson of Edmund Windsor (knighted in 1553) of Stoke Poges, and great, great-grandson of Sir Andrews Windsor (1st Lord Windsor) who died in 1543.    And, although this impressive pedigree is disputed by some modern researchers, it does support the oral history of my maternal grandmother who proudly claimed to be descended from royalty through her Windsor grandmother.  There is still a lot of work to be done before that claim can be fully confirmed or denied, but what I have discovered about our Windsor lineage is just as interesting, if not so regal.  

What we do know:
Records show that Joshua Winsor emigrated from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony prior to  1638.  (The 'd' in Windsor disappeared at this time and Winsor became the common spelling for generations, especially in Rhode Island.)  It is generally accepted that he came from the small hamlet of Stoke Poges, 20 miles west of London.  Like so many emigrants during the Great Migration between 1620-1640, Joshua's travel costs were paid through indentureship.  Upon arrival he became an indentured servant to Governor John Winthrop in Boston.  Within months, it became evident that he wasn't 'fitting in' with the theocratic, fundamental expectations of the colony.  His situation came to the attention of someone who had also had his difficulties with the status quo:  Roger Williams.  

Rev. Williams wrote a letter to Gov. Winthrop including the following excerpt: "Sir, this is the occasion of this enclosed. I understand a servant of yours, Joshua ----- is some trouble to your selfe, as allso to others, & consequently can not (if he desire to feare the Lord) but himselfe be troubled & grieved in his condicion, though otherwise I know not where under Heaven he could be better.  If it may seem good in your eyes (wanting a servant) I shall desire him (not simply from you) but for your peace & his. I shall desire your best & full satisfaction in payment, & what summe you pitch on, to accept it either from this bill, or if you better like from that debt of Mr. Ludlow, for which he promised your worship to pay me 800 waight of tobacco but did not, & I presume your worship may with ease procure it; but I subscribe ex animo [from the heart] to your choice, & with respective salutacions & continued sighes to Heaven for you & yours, rest desirous to (be)      Your Worships unfained though   unworthy    Roger Williams."  
And this is how Joshua Winsor came to Providence, Rhode Island in 1638 -his indentureship sold to Roger Williams. 

Within only two years he had completed his period of obligations to Rev. Williams and, in 1640, signed his name along with thirty eight other freemen to the Providence "Combination" or agreement to govern.  He was included in the allotments granted to those who signed the compact along with another ancestor Robert Coles, 10th GGF through the Emerine/Smith lineage (see 20th lot below).  *Joshua's house lot, #35, was located on what would become South Main Street in Providence, and ran up the hill as far as Hope Street.  He also acquired six acres of meadowland on the 'westerly side of the cove.

Joshua most likely waited to marry after he was granted freeman status, which is supported by the birth of his first child and only son, Samuel, in 1644.  Although his wife's name is obscured by time, she gave birth to four children before dying in 1655.  
One of Joshua's descendants through son Samuel characterized him, writing  "he appears to have been a person of some considerable talents and education, and of a serious and religious turn of mind; but no mention is made of his being a member of any particular church."  (Olney Winsor)  This would perhaps explain why the name of Joshua Windsor/Winsor has not been found in the historic registry of St. Giles Church in Stoke Poges.
Joshua Winsor died in early 1679 and was probably buried on his home lot in Providence.

Through Joshua's son Samuel, our Winsor family tree remained firmly rooted in Rhode Island for almost 250 years.  In future posts I will focus on the family lines that branch from:

•  Joshua's son, Reverend Samuel Winsor, who married a daughter of Roger Williams 

• Samuel's  son, Joshua Winsor, who married a descendant of the falconer to King Charles I
• Samuel's grandson, Joshua Winsor, whose marriage to Freeborn Olney provides another link to Roger Williams 
  
  
  

SERENDIPITOUS GENEALOGY: Unexpected Discoveries

Patience and persistence are essential attributes that any serious family genealogist must possess when, despite all diligent efforts, a family line seems to lead to a dead-end.  I have been searching for our Windsor ancestors since I began this work over 30 years ago.  I never got past my second great grandmother Lydia Windsor-Dort's father, Mortimer Windsor.  Dead-end.  Or so I thought. 
Yesterday I had a serendipitous moment as I combed the web and Ancestry.com for someone -anyone- who might have a related tree and ...POOF!... the Windsor line opened up before my eyes. Generation by generation, I traveled back four centuries before I realized that it was 11 a.m., my coffee was long-since cold, ...and I was still in my pajamas.  
What I found turned out to be incredible family links to British and early American history -connecting us by breath and blood to the people and events that mark the earliest chapters of our place in the world.  I plan to share some great 'finds' in upcoming posts.  Please stay tuned!

 In the next post I will share my newest discoveries within the branches of the Dort-Windsor family tree.  [from Andrew Jackson Dort-Lydia Windsor following the male Windsor lineage back seven generations to my 9th great grandfather, English emigrant Joshua Winsor] 

'WELL BELOVED' Samuel Blodgett, Sr. (1633-1720) Child Immigrant

DART-WHITNEY/Blodgett through child immigrant (1635)Samuel Sr. & Ruth Eggleton, Samuel Jr. & Hulda Simonds (daughter of Judith Phippen-Hayward, Indentured Servant), William & Sarah Hall, their daughter Amy & Joshua Whitney to Lucy who married Jonathan Dart.

 "BLODGET, BLODGETT, BLOWGATT, BLOWGATE, BLOGGET, BLOGGATT"

 from Will of his father, Thomas Blodgett

"I Thomas Bloggett being at this time in my right mind, give to wife Susan my whole estate after my decease, as well within doors as without. She to bring vp my children in such learning & other things as is meete for them, & pay oldest son Daniel 15 pounds when one & twenty or in one month after her decease. To my 2d son Samuel 15 pounds, as above. To daughter Susanna 15 pounds. Should they have a father-in-law who does not treat them well my will is that the Deacons & our brother ffessington & our brother Edward Winchship, they or either of them should have power to see unto it & reforme it by one meanes or other. Written this 10th day of the 6th month 1641.  In presence of us Hereunto I set my hand."

possibly a namesake descendant

  

(From Dawes-Gates Ancestral Lines, Mary Walton Ferris, 1943 pages 92-94)
"Samuel Blodgett (Thomas) was born in England about 1633, was brought to Cambridge in infancy, (on the Increase in 1635) and at the age of about eleven, after his father's death, was taken to the Thompson home in Woburn where he grew to manhood, and in this town he lived until his death, on May 21, 1720, when he was recorded as Samuel, "senior" and was nearly eighty-seven. He married there on December 13, 1655, Ruth Eggleton, who died at Woburn on October 14, 1703.

Samuel must have acquired church membership and freemanship since he held various official positions culminating in that of deputy to the General Court in 1693. He had served the town locally as selectman in 1681, 1690-1, 1693, 1695-7 and 1703 and as commissioner "on the rate" (tax) in 1692. After the Indians killed John Nutting, husband of Sarah (Eggleton) sister of Ruth, Sarah came to Woburn to live with Ruth and Samuel Blodgett.

During the life of Samuel, and for many years beyond, Woburn and other early town experienced much of discontent and controversy over the various bridges in the colony. As early as 1648 the General Court had passed an order laying the expense of building and of repairing bridges, on the township within whole limits they stood. This was highly unsatisfactory for frequently the need and use of a given bridge would be greater by the residents of a more remote town (which was not on a water course, and consequently had no such expense) than by the near-by town which built and maintained it, so in 1655 that order was repealed and for a period of years bridge repairs were assessed not on one town alone, or indeed in a given county, but were apportioned among a number of towns which might at times use the bridge, or who business might profit because settlers from outlying sections used it.

*Cradock Bridge est.1638, Medford, MA

The bridge* over which Woburn had become so irritated crossed the Mystic River at Medford and in October, 1676, at a Woburn town meeting the selectmen were directed to ask the General Court to grant them "some case of their burden at Mistick Bridge." No such relief was obtained and subsequently repairs were neglected to such an extent that in 1675 Woburn was "presented" to the Court for the inattention and thereafter the town submitted to the inevitable until 1690. In October of that year the selectmen of Woburn, Reading and Malden joined in another petition to the Court and continued their pleas and protests through 1693. However, Woburn voters had demanded as early as 1691 that their selectmen "withstand (refrain from) - allowing anything more to the repairing of Mistick Bridge" assuring them that if it became necessary to go to the law about it, the town would pay the costs: and seemingly the officials refrained from making repairs until in December, 1693, the selectmen were ordered to send representatives to court on the 26th of that month to answer for this neglect. As a consequence, Samuel Blodgett, one of the selectmen, and Maj. James Converse appeared before the court and according to the instructions of their townsmen airily made answer "that Woburne was not concerned in the presentment of Mistick Bridge: neither would they do anything in order to the repairing thereof, except by Law they were forced thereto: and that they referred themselves to the law in that case: and so left the case for that time". If this move was intended to make a definite issue of the case it was successful, for the bold defiance only brought the command that representatives of the town should appear before an adjourned meeting of the court less than a month hence on January 23, 1693-4, reporting that the repairs had been made, or the town would be fine 5 pounds. This caused a ferment in the town and though Samuel Blodgett seems to have had no further official connection with the case, his personal feelings probably were disturbed for the rest of his life, for this conflict was carried on intermittently until 1761 when Medford agreed to accept a payment of 200 pounds from Woburn to free her, permanently, from further obligation.

view toward Boston from Rag Rock 1863

In 1671 Samuel had land laid out to him near Rag Rock by a neighbor William Locke, in 1672 they joined in buying thirty-seven acres in Woburn from William Johnson..."

from Will of stepfather James Thompson:

“…Lastly, --I do nominate and appoint my son Jonathan [who married Samuel’s sister, Susannah, both of whom grew up in his household] to be the sole Executor of this my whole will, and desire and ordeyne my Trustee and well beloved ffriends, Samuel Bloggett senr and John Mousall to be ovrseers of this my last will and Testament, 
and as a pledge of my love, I give to said Bloggett Mr. Rogers his book, and Mousall a payr of new Gloves.“In witness whereof I have hereunto sett (this last day of ffebruary in the year of our Lord, one thousand six hundred and eighty and one) my hand and seal.”

LEAVES, BRANCHES, AND REPLANTED ROOTS: Gazing upon the family tree (The Blodgett Family)

SMITH/DORT-WHITNEY/BLODGETT 1635 ImmigrantsThomas & Susanna Blodgett & sons

As I continue to climb the lush and ever-branching tree of my ancestors, I find myself pondering questions to which the answers will probably always be hidden within the dark canopy of time.  This is especially true of the question “why” families pulled up their roots, deeply anchored to ancient ancestral bedrock, carried them precariously across an ocean, and replanted them in the untilled soil of a wilderness far from home. 

For many, these roots would take hold in the coastal sands of Massachusetts Bay while our families defined their place in a new society, or like some, were carried along with an axe and a prayer to a place where old roots were grounded in the reality of new –and often treacherous- pioneer possibility.

History sometimes provides logical clues to “Why did our ancestors re-root us here?”  The Great Migration of the 1630’s brought a good number of our 10^th and 11^th great-grandparents to the bay colony of Massachusetts after England's King Charles I dissolved Parliament, effectively stifling Puritan leadership, reform, and dissention.  But the Puritans didn’t just fade away …they packed up their families and their bibles and they boarded ships bound for the Netherlands, Ireland, the Bahamas, and New England.  Here they endeavored to create the model for a ‘nation of saints’ founded on a strict, deeply religious and highly righteous bible-based society.  [Make no mistake, religious tolerance was not yet established in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  Just look to ancestors like Roger Williams, among others who would not be welcomed for their differing Christian beliefs.]

Nearly half of the 20,000 or so English immigrants of this era came to New England from the counties of Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk.  Among them was the family of Thomas Blodgett from Haughley, a small ancient village close to Stowmarket in Suffolk.  Dr. Thomas Young, vicar at Stowmarket [and tutor to the Puritan poet, John Milton], was an emerging preacher of Presbyterian thought in a climate of strict conformity to high Anglicanism.  The influence that Young and other lecturers brought to the area must have had a profound effect on its reformist-minded citizens, including Thomas Blodgett. Thomas’ heritage was deeply rooted there with two young children buried alongside generations of his ancestors.  But on or shortly after the 13^th of April, 1635, Thomas and his family left for America, never to return.  Son Daniel was only four and our direct ancestor Samuel, a mere toddler. 

The Winthrop ship, Increase, carried over 100 passengers –mostly young families with many children for the Blodgett boys to play with on the three thousand-mile voyage.  Of particular interest are the set of essential skills the men were bringing to a newly-colonized America:  plowright, joiner, husbandmen, carpenter, and butcher.  There was also a surgeon and a lawyer.  Even servants.  But other trades were represented, too, such as linen weavers, a clothier, and one glover, Thomas Blodgett.

The Blodgett family began their new life in a recently-established village called Newtowne (later to be named Cambridge) a few miles west of Boston.  The little town was already platted out in an orderly grid of streets that included house lots, common land, and planting fields on the outskirts.  Within a year, one of America’s first colleges, Harvard, was founded in Newtowne to train young men for ministry and leadership of the colony.  The liberal minister, Thomas Hooker had been chosen as pastor of Newtowne in 1633 but he quickly began to cause waves with the conservative early authorities of Massachusetts.  He asked and was granted permission in 1635 to take his flock of followers to Connecticut, just in time for the newly-arrived immigrants to purchase ready-made homes and lands from members of the departing Hooker band. 

In contrast to Reverend Hooker, the new pastor Thomas Shepard was not a proponent of religious toleration.  He strongly believed that ‘the Puritan way was God’s way.’  Pure and no waves.  This was the "soul-ravaging" pulpit message that guided Thomas in raising his young family in the early Newtowne church, the ‘FirstChurch at Cambridge’, when Thomas received his home allotment and status as freeman in 1636. 

The village of Newtowne (Harvard Square) in 1635, with the Great Bridge of 1660

We may have some idea of ‘why’ this branch of the Smith/Dort-Whitney family tree came to America, but we can only imagine the dreams that were unfolding for the young, growing family of Blodgett’s.  Sadly, just as their new life was taking root in American soil,Thomas Blodgett died at age 38.  His widow, Susanna remarried a widower, James Thompson, and she and the boys moved to Woburn to merge and increase their two families.

[This family line continues with the story of Thomas’ son Samuel –my 10^th GGF- as the subject of the next blog.]