The Quakers Up My Family Tree
Do you ever wonder what’s up your family tree? Who were your ancestors? What were they like? I wonder! It’s always been a
fascination of mine since my teenage days. My great aunt Amelia (Hess) Davis
once lent me a whole packet of genealogical records.
Most of you know I just got back a week ago from a
road trip where the main event was the Hess family reunion. The funny thing was
that after that, a lady named Sarah Hess asked to
be added to my local home school e-mail list that a mutual friend had
recommended to her. I told her that my mother was a Hess and she said her
husband had ancestors from the same area of Pennsylvania and that some of them
were Quakers. Huh! I sent her
information to my mom’s cousin Priscilla (Amelia’s daughter) to see if there
was a connection, knowing, of course, that Hess is an extremely common German
name so probably they weren’t much related. In the process, Priscilla did say
there were several generations of Quakers, not up the Hess branch, but up the
Graves side. (Another notable ancestor up there is Margaret Scott, the last and
oldest person hanged in the Salem Witch Trials.)
Anyway, here’s what Priscilla said, and I’ll tell you
what this has to do with you after that. Keep reading! Lots of links to come,
too!
One
of our immigrant ancestors was Noel Mew, an English mariner. His father was
Richard Mew who was an English merchant and a friend of William Penn. Noel Mew
bought land in New Jersey from William Penn, and later bought a farm in Rhode
Island. They were Quakers. His daughter Mary married Michael
Wanton. Their daughter Ruth Wanton married Gideon Freeborn. Their daughter Mary
Freeborn married Stephen Potter. Their daughter Ruth Potter married Joseph
Fenner. All of these folks were from Rhode Island and were Quakers.
Abigail
Fenner married John Tomkins and the Tomkins were early Methodists. Some of them
also seem to have been Baptists. John and Abigail were some of the founders of
the Tomkinsville Methodist Church. This village is now spelled Tompkinsville.
John and Abigail's daughter Mary Slack Tomkins married George Graves and had
George Fenner Graves who married Priscilla Hollis and had Mary Adelle Graves
who married Charles Hess.
So we had about 5 generations of Quakers in Rhode Island. It was the Tomkins
who came to Pennsylvania and that seems to be about the time they ceased to be Quaker.
We had a difficult time finding the parentage of John
Tomkins. Originally I thought he came from Rhode Island which is where Abigail
Fenner was from. Not so. He came from the Tomkins family who came with a group from
Connecticut to be the founders of the city of Newark, New Jersey. At the age
of about 13 he ran away from home and went to sea. After sailing for about ten
or more years he got off in Rhode Island and married
Abigail Fenner who was from a prominent Rhode Island family.
OK, so that might be
pertinent to my own family. But why did I put this here for the rest of you?
Our American history is made
up not just of wars and huge events, but of common people with interesting
stories. Your ancestors and mine shaped this country. Think how a small choice
can affect the trajectory of a whole family line or even the course of a nation’s
history. Why did John Tomkins run off to sea?
Did he get in a fight with his big brother? Ten years later, he just
happened to get off the ship at Rhode Island, where he met Abigail. What if he’d
gotten off at New York or been lost at sea? What if well-heeled Abigail had
turned up her nose at this sailor boy?
Or, closer down the family tree, what if mom’s cousin Priscilla’s
brother Charlie hadn’t become my dad’s college roommate, and introduced him to my mom? What then? I wouldn’t be here! I’m
philosophical like that.
Do you know much about this
country’s faith heritage? Do you know the major religious movements throughout
our history: how each one interacted with the others and how each changed
culture? The colonial Puritans persecuted not only the Rhode Island Baptists
led by Roger Williams, but also the Quakers, who were a bit unorthodox in
their beliefs. You do already know that William Penn was a Quaker, and
founded Pennsylvania with the ideals of religious freedom and peaceful
relationships with native Americans? He’s the one who sold land to Noel Mew. The
Quakers were also (with their staunch pacifism and love of social justice) key
figures in the abolitionist movement, often as conductors on the Underground
Railroad. One of my favorite poets, John Greenleaf Whittier, was a Quaker. His
poem “Expostulation” is a masterpiece of abolitionist verse. In modern times,
they are known as the Society of Friends, and gender equality and service to
humanity are hallmarks of their meetings. Good stuff! How do I already know
this? I have educated myself as I have educated my children through over 20 years
of home schooling. History is at the heart of what I teach, whether at home or
in many classrooms. One of the very favorite novels that I’ve taught to
countless students is The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth
George Speare. I love how Hannah Tupper, a sweet old Quaker lady in colonial
Massachusetts, is proved innocent of being a witch, because yes, I am thinking
of my dear old Margaret Scott, who was hanged in real life.
Another thing. Who is keeping
your family’s stories alive? Who is organizing the family reunions and bringing
along the vintage photos? You might not be blessed to know many of your second
cousins like I do, but you can start something right now with your family. Find
them on Facebook if you have too, but start making those connections. Some of
my dearest and life-changing memories are from family reunions. I’ve been
trying to track the heritage of faith. Looking back at my family tree, I wonder
how each generation passed down their values to the next, and how much of that
affected my own upbringing, even subtly. I know, I am philosophical like that,
to the core. I don’t stop there. I think about how I can pass down a legacy to
the coming generations. My children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren.
And so I write. I tell the stories. Here. Right here on this blog and on my
others. But I don’t just want to tell it, I want to live it – to do something worthwhile
that will be an example to my own descendants.
How about you?
So, now that you’ve made it
this far, here are the related links:
- Dignity, Decisions, and Liberty of Conscience (with more on Margaret Scott, alleged witch)
- Hess Family Memorial Reunion (Road Trip 2014)
- My Story of Liberty in 1976
- American History Unit Studies at Our House
- The Witch of Blackbird Pond literature study
- "With Literature and Justice for All" (teaching "Virtuous Reality" with American Literature for 4th-8th Grades, with the last stanza of the Whittier poem somewhere in there)
- Favorite Books for Teaching American History
- Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin (famous Quaker painter)
www.VirginiaKnowles.blogspot.com
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