@There are English Quatremaines on this list, and perhaps some of them
will add more to this discussion.@
Yes me ! - Victoria
I don't know any thing about the American history but I have read Carter's 'The Quartremaynes of Oxfordshire'. There is only one green worn reference book in the county library in Oxford, England. I have a copy of part but copyright laws mean that one can only legally copy one chapter or 5% of the original. I could scan in 5% and maybe we could put it on to the web page? The alternative is to try and get permission from the Author if he is alive to put it all on the web page?
John is it you who maintains the web page? I could scan in some and send it to you as an attachment? What do you think? Carter also translates the Latin around the tombs in Thame and I previously promised I would let you have this info so I will look that up too.
The other problem is that as the book was written so long ago it is no longer in print by Oxford University Press. so one cannot buy a copy.
The first recorded Quarterman (or spelling variation thereof) was Guilliame Quartremayne in Oxford in 1116. Remember that William the Conqueror, King William I of England came from Normandy in France in 1066 (Battle of Hastings) The Norman's were brilliant as the majority could read and write and they liked to list and record information. Hence the Doomsday Book. In modern French 'Quatre' means 'four' and 'main' means 'hand'. I understand that the Norman's at that time wore chain mail (armour in the form of small metal links or chains to protect from swords in battle). Carter refers to the Quarterman name as meaning 'four hands' or 'mail fisted'. I therefore understand that the four hands means two actual hands and two gloves of chain mail over them, this probably refers to the fact that Guilliames' father or relatives etc were well recognised for their heroic in battle
Quarterman is not the American version of Quartre mayne but the Saxon interpretation (the Saxons lived in England before the Norman's arrived in 1066.)
The most famous quartermans discussed by Carter are those buried in St Mary Church in Thame and who built Rycote Chapel (English Heritage) These hob-nobbed with nobility One was the fourth physician(doctor) to King Edward of England and he was also a member of parliament. These quartermans are likely to have had the same ancestors as all Quartermans'living today but there are no direct decedents as the first born hereditary line finished without an heir.
-----Original Message-----
From: John S. Quarterman [mailto:jsq@matrix.net]
Sent: 03 July 2000 17:31
To: quarterman@matrix.net
Subject: Re: THE QUARTERMAN FAMILY
org
X-URL: To unsubscribe, see http://www.quarterman.org/q/list.html
Hi, Tonya,
Welcome to the list.
You've mentioned some interesting things. Some of them seem to compress
the actual historical events into shorter timeframes than what happened,
but the spirit of them reflects aspects of documented history. I wonder
what else you can tell us? It's possible you may have pieces of oral
history that have been passed down independently of the written record.
>My father is a Quarterman. His family is from Midway, Ga. I was told
>that our last name was picked up from our then slave master, Reverend
>Robert Quarterman.
That's interesting, because as far as I know, he didn't own any slaves.
The oral history of my branch of the family, descended from him, says
that our Quartermans didn't own slaves, for one reason because they were
too poor. I also don't think I've seen any documentation that says that
he did own any, but I'll go back and review his will and the like to see.
If you have any more information on this, it would be very interesting
to see it.
I think that Midway Church, however, did own one slave who worked for
the church. Rev. Robert as the pastor would have been in charge of that
person. So it could well be that oral history would remember him the
way you say.
For more about him, see:
http://www.quarterman.org/q/who/revrob.html
> From my understanding he was from France.
Actually, while his ancestors many years back may have been from
France, Rev. Robert Quarterman was born and raised in the Midway
community in Georgia. His father and his father were also born in this
country. His Quarterman great grandfather lived in South Carolina and
is usually assumed to have come from England, although we have never
succeeded in tracing where he came from.
Others of his ancestors were in Massachusetts as early as 1630 before
their descendants moved to South Carolina in 1695 and then to Georgia
in 1752.
There were people in the Midway community of more recent French Huguenot
extraction, however, such as the le Contes.
All these families were closely related. So if what you heard about
Rev. Robert was regarding the Midway community as a whole, there is
some truth in saying that that community was partly from France.
There is much more about Rev. Robert's ancestors and his relatives in
our book, Quarterman Family of Liberty County, Georgia, and Relatives:
http://www.quarterman.org/q/book.html
>Quarterman is French for "Four Hands".
That's the usual supposition, although unfortunately no documentation
has ever turned up as to the earliest uses of the name in France. We
do know that the name Quarterman is the American spelling of the name
usually rendered Quatremaine in England, and that Quatremaines is
French for four hands. We know this is the meaning usually ascribed to
it in England, because it occurs in some documents in Latin as
Quatuormanus, which also means four hands.
The Quatremaines of England mostly lived in Oxfordshire,
and first appear there about the year 1160. They have always
been assumed to have been Norman French in origin, but no one
has ever succeeded in proving that, either.
There are English Quatremaines on this list, and perhaps some of them
will add more to this discussion.
The standard reference on the Quartermans of Oxfordshire is
William F. Carter, B.A.,
The Quatremaines of Oxfordshire,
Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, 1936.
Unfortunately, that book is very difficult to find.
> The Reverend was one of the
>first slave masters to allow his slaves to congregate with him!
Here also I suspect what is remembered about the Reverend is actually
about him as representing the entire Midway community. The Midway
community always had slave and free, white and black, as members of
the same church. They sat in different places, it's true, with the
slaves in the balcony, but they were all members of the same church.
The Midway community was unusual in many ways, that one perhaps among them.
The basic books about the Midway community are Stacy's History and
Records of Midway Church and Myers' The Children of Pride; see:
http://www.quarterman.org/q/basic.html
I'm looking forward to hearing more from you.
John S. Quarterman <jsq@matrix.net>
[ This is the Quarterman family discussion list, quarterman@mids.org
[ To get off or on the list, see http://www.quarterman.org/q/list.html
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