DECEMBER MEETING, 1932
A Stated Meeting of the Society was held, at the invitation of Mr. Alfred Johnson, at the Club of Odd Volumes, No. 50 Mt. Vernon Street, Boston, on Thursday, December 15, 1932, at three o’clock, the President, Samuel Eliot Morison, in the chair.
The Records of the Annual Meeting in November were read and approved.
The Corresponding Secretary announced the receipt of letters from Mr. Allston Burr, Mr. Perry Gilbert Miller, Mr. Henry Lee Shattuck, and Mr. Kenneth Grant Tremayne Webster accepting Resident Membership in the Society.
Mr. Walter Benjamin Briggs, of Cambridge, and Mr. Robert Earl Moody, of Boston, were elected Resident Members of the Society; and Mr. Samuel Flagg Bemis, of Washington, D. C, and Mr. Harold Robert Shurtleff, of Williamsburg, Virginia, were elected Corresponding Members.
Mr. George Andrews Moriarty, Jr., presented the following paper:
THE HEIR OF A LANCASHIRE HOUSE
Any antiquary who has carefully studied the town records of our New England coast towns, even the most remote, knows how, sooner or later, among the dreary lists of hog-reeves and fence-viewers, he is bound to come across some item of striking and romantic interest.
The town of New Shoreham, Rhode Island, which is synonymous with the island of Block Island, lies some fifteen miles south of Point Judith, between the entrance of Long Island Sound and that of Narragansett Bay. It was settled in 1660 by persons from Braintree, Dorchester, and Roxbury, and until 1663, when it was included in the Rhode Island Charter, it was part of the County of Suffolk, Massachusetts. The principal settler, whose descendants long continued as the chief persons on the island, was Simon Ray, the scion of an ancient Suffolk (England) family, who came from Braintree in the first settlement and who died on the island at the ripe age of ninety-nine years. He was the chief town magistrate and Justice of the Rhode Island Court of Common Pleas in the time of Sir Edmund Andros. Two of his granddaughters, Anne and Catherine Ray, became respectively the wives of Samuel Ward and William Greene, both Governors of Rhode Island, while his great-granddaughter, Catherine Littlefield, married General Nathaniel Greene. In 1794, Catherine Greene, then a venerable lady, wrote an account of her family for her little grandson. In this account she states595 that her aunt Mary Ray, the daughter of the aged patriarch Simon Ray, “married an Englishman and he took her to England and she was the first American lady presented at Court and kissed the King’s hand.” The New Shoreham records inform us that this Mary Ray married, October 11, 1683, one Roger Kenyon, and the birth of their son Roger was recorded on January 23, 1684/5. After that the island records are silent as regards the couple, and I was inclined to believe that Mrs. Greene’s statement was one of those flights of the imagination in which old ladies are apt to indulge when talking of their families’ past glories. It was, therefore, with great surprise that in turning over the pages of the town records I came upon a deposition dated October 20, 1707, made by Sarah Dickens, of New Shoreham, in which the deponent states she was present at the marriage of Roger Kenyon and Mary Ray, the parents of the Roger Kenyon for whom the deposition was made, and that the elder Roger was the reputed son of Roger Kenyon, Esq., of Peele Hall near Manchester in Lancashire.
To anyone familiar with local Lancashire history this discovery was very exciting, for not only were the Kenyons one of the most ancient families of the Lancashire gentry, but Roger Kenyon of Peele was a man of considerable note in the middle of the seventeenth century. He was M. P. for Clitheroe, Clerk of the Peace for the County Palatine of Lancashire, and Governor of the Isle of Man under Lord Derby. His wife was Alice, daughter and heiress of George Rigby, Esq., of Peele Hall, a member of the famous Lancashire family of Rigby which played an important part in the history of our own Province of Maine. Dugdale, in his Visitation of Lancashire for 1664–5 (p. 166), gives three generations of the ancestors of Roger Kenyon of Peele Hall, but in Foster’s Lancashire Pedigrees a full pedigree appears, tracing their descent from Adam de Lauton of Mackenfield in 1154, whose grandson Jordan de Lauton, living in the reigns of Henry III and Edward I, assumed the name of Kenyon from the lordship of Kenyon given him by his father. All the pedigree makers agree that the eldest son and heir apparent of Roger Kenyon of Peele Hall was Roger, born at Peele Hall on February 5, 1659/60, and that he was educated at Cambridge.596 They further state that he died unmarried and without issue. The later Kenyons, including Lloyd Kenyon, Lord Chief Justice of England in 1788, who was raised to the peerage as first Baron Gredlington, descended from Thomas Kenyon, the third son of Roger of Peele. George Kenyon, second son of Roger of Peele, a barrister, was M. P. for Wigan and Clerk of the Peace for the County Palatine. The English antiquaries give a very full account of the descendants of George and Thomas but nothing further regarding the eldest son, who we now know did not die unmarried or without issue.
The Kenyon Family archives, printed in the Fourteenth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission (Appendix, Part iv), reveal a few references to this eldest son, which, although meagre, are of high dramatic interest. The first (p. 92) is in a letter from his grandmother Jane Kenyon to his mother, dated May 4, 1672, in which she urges that “little Roger” shall not be sent back to Mr. Pimlow’s school, where he has been unkindly treated. The unfortunate experience at Mr. Pimlow’s was but the prelude to a singularly unhappy life. On August 2, 1683, Richard Rigby writes from London (pp. 166–167) to Roger Kenyon of Peele that Captain Shapley will sail on the tenth instant (presumably to Barbados) and hopes to be there in October.
He tells me [that your son] is extraordinary penitant, and undergoes his slavery as contented as the thing will bear; but he has noe more for his day’s work than meat and drink. His work is, every day, to carry timber from the water side to make fences. It is very happy that he came acquainted with soe honest a man as this captain; for he tells me that cousin Roger works so ill, that his master designed to sell him, where it might have been much wors. He intreated the captain much to have brought him, and had don it, but that his wife persuaded to the contrary, because he undertook such a thing before, and the party run away as soone as he came to shore.
Prior to this letter Roger Kenyon of Peele had had later information as to his unhappy heir, for on July 19, 1683, Edward Tarleton wrote him from Liverpool as follows (p. 162):
My sonne Edward, beinge arrived from Barbados, gives mee account that your sonne tooke occasion to leave Barbados, and is safely arrived at New Yorke, in America, where he teacheth gentlemen’s children, and is engaged to continue for two or three yeares, by covenant with a gentleman there.
Evidently covenants had small weight with young Roger, for this same year he was at Block Island, where he married Mary Ray and had a son, Roger III, born the succeeding year. It seems quite likely that Simon Ray had hired him as tutor to his only son, Simon, Jr., then about eleven years of age. Henceforth we find little more concerning Roger, Jr., and his family in the Kenyon papers and nothing in the Block Island records except the deposition above referred to, which was made when Roger III was twenty-one. The latter appears to have been brought up at Block Island by his maternal relatives, and at twenty-one was arming himself with this deposition preliminary to claiming the family estates in Lancashire.
Here my information rested for a long time until Mr. Percy Clapp, of New York, who descended from another of Simon Ray’s daughters, in a search for his own ancestors in the New York Archives stumbled upon a series of most interesting depositions made at this same time and evidently part of the proof which Roger III was getting together for his claim. They are so interesting that I have ventured to quote them here at length. The depositions have a covering certificate from the Governor of New York, dated March 16, 1707/8:
By his excellency Edward Viscount Cornbury Capt. Generall and Governor in Chiefe of Her Maties Provinces of New York New Jersey and territories depending thereon in America and Vice Admirall of the same &c. to all persons to whom these presents shall come or whom they shall or may concerne greeting
Whereas Roger Kenyon by his peticon to me preferred did pray that I would admitt some persons to come before me upon their corporal oath to declare what they did know concerning the said Roger Kenyon . . . his being the son of one Roger Kenyon late of Rhode Island deced who was son to one Roger Kenyon late of Peal Hall near Manchester in the county of Lancaster . . . which reasonable request I being willing to grant do hereby certify and declare that Robt. Orchard, John Sands and Sibil Sands being persons of very good reputation and creditt did severally before me make oath . . . unto the truth of the contents of the deposition unto which each persons severall name is subscribed . . . I have therefore in testimony hereof caused the Broad Seale of this Province of New Yorke to be hereunto affixt att Fort Anne in New Yorke this sixteenth day of March in the seaventh year of the reign of our Soverign Lady Anne . . . anno dom. 1707/8.
The depositions were all dated March 11, 1707/8, and, unnecessary verbiage omitted, read as follows:
Robert Orchard aged 70 or thereabouts . . . saith that in . . . 1683 or thereabouts being occasionally employed by one Standish of Standish in Lancashire . . . and coming to a towne called Armskirke . . . upon busyness was advised to goe to Roger Kenyon Senr: who was then Clarke of the Crown office and comeing to said Kenyons house called Peele Hall . . . he this deponent found there Roger Kenyon Junr son of said Roger Kenyon Senr who had lived some time in New England being the reputed father of Roger Kenyon lately of Block Island now of Westchester in said Province of New York and . . . further saith that he resided some time in the house of the said Roger Kenyon Senior who with his wife did own the said Roger Kenyon Junr to be their son and that Mary the wife of the said Roger Kenyon Junr (who was the reputed daughter of Symon Ray late of Block Island) being then with her said husband at Peel Hall . . . soe farr as this deponent could mark received likewise from . . . Roger Kenyon Senr and his wife kind treatment suitable for a daughter and this deponent further saith that some time after that he . . . came passenger in a ship for Boston of which one Timothy Clarke was Commander and . . . Roger Kenyon Junr and his wife came likewise passengers in the said ship with him that afterwards . . . Roger Kenyon Junr returned to England again and from thence as this deponent was informed went to Ireland and there dyed.
John Sands aged 56 or thereabouts deposeth . . . that at Block Island . . . he . . . came first acquainted with one Roger Kenyon and was informed that he . . . came from England to Barbadoes and that he brought with him a small cargoe which was given him by his Father one Roger Kenyon of Manchester . . . but haveing much sickness in Barbadoes did not only spend what he brought with him but was brought soe much in debt that he was obliged to bind himself out some time to clear himself of the same and this deponent further saith that upon his being more intimately acquainted with . . . Roger Kenyon he told him that he was the son of Roger Kenyon of Manchester . . . who lived at a place called Peele Hall and that notwithstanding his misfortunes if he could gett a letter to his Father he would soon release him and . . . soon after . . . Roger Kenyon marryed with one Mary Ray of Block Island and further saith that he this deponent being Clarke of Block Island and keeping the Records and Register for the same . . . Roger Kenyon came . . . and desired him to enter the date of his marriage which he . . . did accordingly that some time afterwards . . . the said Roger haveing a son born desired this deponent to enter in the Registry the birth of his son which he did . . . and this deponent inquireing of the said Roger what might be the reason of his being soe exact in the registring the birth of his son he replyed he is an heire of a gret estate in England and if I should die and my son should not be entered in the Register he might be defrauded of it. Further this deponent saith that Roger Kenyon who requested this deposition of him being acquainted with him from his childhood to this moment is the very person who was by him so registred . . . and that he was ever since reputed to be the son of the first named Roger Kenyon. Further this deponent saith that said first abovenamed Roger Kenyon told him that his grandmother had left him a considerable estate which was put out to use.
Sybell Sands aged 43 or thereabouts deposeth that [she] was well acquainted with one Roger Kenyon who came from England by the way of Barbados as this deponent was informed and that some time after he was marryed to Mary Ray the daughter of one Simon Ray late of Block Island in the Government of Rhod Island deced . . . that he . . . as it was reputed had issue by his said wife Mary a son which is named Roger at whose birth the said Roger Kenyon much rejoyced and told the company then present that he was glad he had a son born for he was heire to a great estate and this deponent is well assured that Roger Kenyon who requests this deposition of her is the very person soe born . . . being acquainted with him from Ids childhood to this time.
The Kenyon Family papers show that Roger Kenyon of Peele made a bargain with Captain Shapley to bring Roger, Jr., home “for 20l., that is, 10l. to redeem him, 5l. his passidge and 5l. to bear his [own] charges.” The captain further informed the family that it was “very necessary to send him a sute of clothes, being very naked, and a perriwigg.”597 Shapley sailed in August, 1683, and in March, 1683/4, Roger was expected to arrive at Plymouth. William Hayhurst was sent to Plymouth to meet him but could not find him although he searched everywhere, even in the prison. This is quite understandable, as he was evidently at this time with his father-in-law on Block Island. Concerning his subsequent history I know nothing beyond the deposition of Robert Orchard.
As to the boy born at Block Island in 1685, darkness covers his history from the day these depositions were made to the present moment. Whether he died on a voyage to England or was made away with, after his arrival, on account of his undoubted but probably unwelcome claims, I cannot say. The whole story as here told in the matter-of-fact language of the records might well have formed the plot of a Sabatini novel.
The Editor, on behalf of Mr. Robert F. Seybolt, of Urbana, Illinois, communicated by title a note on
STUDENT EXPENSES AT HARVARD, 1772–1776
Through the kindness of George Palmer Morey, Esq., of Lexington, I have been permitted to reproduce the diary kept by his great-greatgrandfather, George Morey,598 while a student at Harvard. This little book, with its abbreviated entries of expenses, affords a glimpse of student life in the late eighteenth century. It adds an interesting document to the collection of source materials relating to the history of Harvard College.
Anno Domini 1771 to money that I George Morey have paid for Boarding Tuition Cloaths and Expences599
£ S DQ |
|
to mr Isaac Hodges for Boarding |
1= 0= 0=0 |
to mr Ebenezer Titus for Boarding |
1= 4= 0–0 |
to mr W. Cobbs for Bg |
1= 1= 0–0 |
to mr House for Boardg |
4= 4= 0–0 |
to mr Guile & mr Newcomb for Tuition600 |
1= 10= 6–0 |
to Books |
3= 1– 2–0 |
Anno Domini 1772 |
|
to mr House for B’g |
4=17= 0=0 |
to mr Newcomb for Tu |
1– 2– 0–0 |
to mr Steward Colledge when I gave Bond |
1–10– 0–0 |
for expences and Cloaths |
12– 8– 0–3 |
for Books |
2–14· 7–2 |
to the Collg Steward |
8·19·11·0 |
This accompt is from January 1771 to September 1773 the whole that it has cost me is
three pounds unpaid |
£46–16·11·0 |
to money to bair my expences from Norton to Cambridge |
0– 2– 0–0 |
for money to pay part of the first Quarter Bill 1773 |
£ 1:10: 0–0 |
for money to buy one Load of wood |
0– 4–10–0 |
another Load my part |
0– 4– 6–0 |
for a nother Load of wood my part |
0= 4– 0–0 |
to money that I spent a coming home from Cambridge |
0· 2· 0·0 |
for money to buy a Knife & a pair of Buckets |
0– 1: 7·0 |
for money to buy materials |
0– 0– 8·0 |
for money to bear my expences to Cambridge |
0– 1· 6·0 |
February 1774 for money to pay the Second Quarter Bill to the Steward |
2·11· 7·3 |
For the second Buttery Bill from Sept 11 to Decr 11.1773 |
0: 4· 6·½ |
for money for several things |
0· 9· 0·0 |
2d Sweper’s Bill |
0· 2· 0·0 |
£ S DQ |
|
For the third Quarter Stewd Bill |
1:11 1·3 |
and Buttery Bill |
0· 3· 3·½ |
and Sweper’s Bill |
0· 2· 0·0 |
for money to bear my expences down to C |
0· 1· 8·0 |
for money to pay for a pair of Gloves |
0· 5· 4·0 |
And taping a pair of Shoes |
0· 2· 4·½ |
for money to buy a pair of Shoes |
0· 7· 1·⅓ |
for money to buy a Supper |
0· 0· 8·½ |
May 27 for money to buy Cloath and triming for a Suit of Clothes and for a Summer Gound & two pair of Stockings |
£3:19: 6:3 |
For money to buy Burlamaque601 |
0·10· 0·0 |
for money to pay for making a Suit of Cloaths and a gound |
0:14· 5·0 |
to money to bare my Expencees Home |
0· 4· 0 |
to money to bare my Expencees Home |
0: 1: 0 |
to money to buy Cloth at Isaac Smiths |
1:12: 8 |
to money to bear my expencees down to Cambridge |
6– 0 |
To the Barber one Quarter |
6– 8 |
To a Book-Shealf August 17.1774 |
0– 8 |
To paying for Botoming a Chair |
1:11 |
To money to Fruits |
0· 0· 6 |
To money to buy rum and Cherys for a Mixture |
0: 4: 6 |
To Doctor Kneeland602 |
0: 3: 0 |
To two Buttery Bills |
0:17· 5 |
To the Sweeper two Bills |
0: 4: 0 |
To a Book i. e. Wollebius603 |
0: 2: 5 |
To the first Quart Bill from June 10 to Sept 9.1774 with the Accompt rend. |
8· 3· 2·2 |
Expences from Home to Cam |
0: 2· 0·0 |
Nov 30 to money to buy a Gound ready made |
1:13· 0·0 |
In January & Febuary for money to bear my Expences Home and back again to Colledge |
: 4: 0·0 |
for Cloth for Shurch604 and making |
14 0 0 |
for the second Quart Bill Stwd |
1: 12: 6·0 |
Also Swepers Bill |
0: 2: 0·0 |
Also a pair of Shoes |
0: 7· 7·0 |
Also taping a pair of Shoes |
0: 1· 7·0 |
From the Vacation of the 12th of April 1775 till I went to Concord to College605 |
£1·15· 0 |
to more Expences |
0·13· 0 |
to my last Buttler’s Bill |
1· 3· 0 |
to my first Bill at Concord |
3· 9·11 |
to other Expences |
1· 0· 0 |
for money to buy a Watch |
6· 9· 0 |
January 10th 1776
All the money that my Board Tuition and Cloths together with my Books and other Expences have cost me from the time I began to learn lattin untill now which I have account of is £92·17–9–
January 25th 1776 for money to buy Cloth for and making a pair of Breaches |
£1· 8· 7·0 |
to other Expences at this time to Providence |
0· 8· 0·1 |
To other Expences |
0· 3: 0·0 |
To money to buy Fergoson606 |
0·12· 8·0 |
To money to pay the Steward the first Quar Bill from June 9 to Sep. 9. 1775 and Sweper’s &c |
2·13· 3:2 |
For money to bear my Expences to Concord and the returning my Horse and Chaise |
0·14· 0·0 |
Febuary 16th to money to pay for the hire of a Bed |
0· 6· 0·0 |
to money to buy a pair of sleave Buttens |
0· 9· 0·0 |
to money to bear my Expences to Cambridge |
2· 0·0 |
for mending Shoes |
0· 6·0 |
to money to buy Wood |
0· 2· 3·0 |
For money to buy a pair of Shoes |
0· 8· 0·0 |
April 2d 1776 Dr for money paid for Boarding |
2·10· 8 |
for Washing |
0· 8· 8 |
for a pair of Boots |
0·12· 0 |
for money to buy Wood |
0· 1· 0 |
for three Shirts and the hire of a Bed |
0·16· 4 |
for money to bear my Expences from Concord |
0· 2· 0 |
for money to bear my Expences from Home to No 5. |
1· 4· 0·0 |
Expences in Enocolation |
3· 0· 0·0 |
for Horse keeping |
0·12· 0·0 |
Expences from No 5. to Lime |
1· 1· 2·0 |
Expences from Lime to Concord |
0·15· 0·0 |
to Expences to the Barber |
0: 4· 0·0 |
to Horse keeping |
3· 8·0 |
to Washing |
0· 1· 9·0 |
Expences from Concord to Norton |
0· 2· 8·0 |
July 16th 1776 |
|
the last Stewds Bill |
0· 7· 0·3 |
to ye President for a Degree |
1· 0· 0·0 |
to money to buy a Handkerchief and Necking |
0· 6· 2·3 |
to Expence money to Cambridge |
·9· 3·0 |
to a Horse to Cambridge in part |
·3· 8·0 |
July 18th 1776 I computed the whole Expences I have been att since I began to fit for College, in Clothes, in College affairs, Books, Jurneying, having the Small-Pox, other Expences of what name or nature soever and find it £114·3·1·1
N.B. Not an exact Accompt.
Mr. Perry G. Miller presented a communication, published elsewhere,607 entitled, “Was the Massachusetts Bay Company Separatist?”
The Editor presented by title, on behalf of Mr. Bartlett Whiting, a note on
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR THOMAS OLIVER IN BRISTOL
In a paper on Thomas Oliver, written by Professor Oliver Elton, and printed earlier in this volume,608 the following statement appears:
“It is not known when Oliver settled in Bristol, or when the first Mrs. Oliver died.”609
The date of Oliver’s removal to Bristol is to be found in a series of statements in the Journal and Letters of Samuel Curwen of Salem. Curwen graduated from Harvard College in the Class of 1735, exiled himself to England in 1775, and returned to America in 1784. His papers afford a mine of valuable information about the doings and sentiments of many of the unfortunate Loyalists who retreated to the mother country.
On June 10, 1776, in a letter to Dr. Charles Russell, he reports the arrival from Halifax of Colonel Oliver with other refugees.610 His next reference to Oliver is in a letter to John Timmins from Sidmouth, dated July 12, 1778, in which he writes: “at Exeter, fourteen miles off, are Col. Erving’s family, Col. Vassall, Mr. Lechmere; and late Lieut. Governor Oliver is soon to be there.”611 On September 28, 1779, Curwen is in Bristol, and notes in his Journal: “Meeting Colonel Oliver, late lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts, he informed me of his residence.”612 Next day he is “invited personally by Colonel Oliver to a family dinner, meeting only his daughters and his brother-in-law, John Vassal.”613 On November 26, he “visited Mr. Barnes and Col. Oliver with Peter Frye; dined with them and Benjamin Pickman at Mr. Lechmere’s; conversing on American politics and Salem affairs”;614 and two days later he “dined with Col. Oliver in company with Peter Frye and Benjamin Pickman.”615 Curwen again dined in company with Oliver on March 4, 1780, this time at the home of Jonathan Sewall, Jr., at Bath.616 In a letter to William Pynchon, of Salem, under date of April 19, 1780, he lists the American colony in Bristol, which included “Col. Oliver and six daughters.”617
These statements settle the question of Oliver’s arrival at Bristol, and indicate that his wife was dead at the time. Her death, as Professor Elton shows,618 must have occurred after July, 1776.
NOTE ON SYLVANUS WALDERNE
In editing the Elnathan Chauncy commonplace book, Professor Kittredge and I were brought to a standstill by the name Sylvanus Walderne, subject of the elegy with medial acrostic which is printed on page 3 of this volume. When almost persuaded that the name was a classical cognomen for some Nick o’ the Woods, I came upon it on the fly-leaf of a book in the Harvard College Library. Our copy of Corona Virtutum Moralium (Frankfort, 1628), a text-book on ethics by Johann Magirus, bears on the inside back cover the printed book-label of Elisha Cooke (A.B. 1697), and on the rear fly-leaf the signature “Siluanus Walderne” here reproduced.
Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary states that the eldest son of the well-known Major Richard Waldern,619 of Dover, New Hampshire, was “Timothy, who is said to have died at Harvard College before graduation.” The local historians follow Savage, one of them dating Timothy’s birth “about 1646,”620 but this appears to be mere guess-work. It is not likely that Timothy was born after 1640, or that he died in college, for he signs as witness to an agreement between his father and Philip Cromwell, dated November 26, 1660.621
It seems probable, then, that family tradition confused Timothy Walderne with a brother Sylvanus, who died while a student in college, and inspired Elnathan Chauncy’s “mourneful elegys.” No Walderne is found in Deacon Chesholme’s Steward’s Book, which covers the classes through 1663; but neither for that matter is Elnathan Chauncy or his two brothers, or Recompense Osborne, all of whom graduated with the Class of 1661, and in that order. Possibly this group, with Walderne, lodged and boarded with the President, and paid their tuition to him personally. This would account not only for their absence from the Steward’s Book, but for Elnathan’s special grief over the death of this long-forgotten scholar.
When this note was already in press, it was pointed out to me that Walderne was mentioned in Steward Chesholme’s own accounts with the college, on pages 298 and 299 of his book. Under the date September 5, 1657, he notes having received “by Captaine waldren by 5000 foote of bords 15li his sonnes Comones and other nessesaryes”; and under the date June 5, 1658, there was “payd for mr brodstreet . . . and waldren” 5s 6d. This seems to prove that a son of Richard Waldern entered college in the summer of 1657 with the Class of 1661, and that he was still there in June, 1658.