Re: Witch Hunts, etc.

[SusanG1400@aol.com]

Comments to John Sinclair Quarterman in re Way Family 

My husband, who is a retired career diplomat, a former professor of history 
of a state university in Texas and of another state university in 
Pennsylvania, now a professor emeritus of history and economics, and a quite 
serious genealogist, has passed along the following comments on your e-mails:

1.  He is related to you through Aaron Way, Jr. His line goes from there to 
Aaron Way III ("the Weaver"), Thomas Way, and "Big Aaron" Way. His great 
grandfather Aaron Way was born in SC and murdered in Lavaca Co., Texas, right 
after the Civil War.  The descendants wound up in Caldwell Co. just south of 
Austin, before spreading out all over.

2.  You write that Aaron Way, Jr. and his brothers Wm and Moses were 
well-connected through Aaron Jr.'s wife, Mary nee Maverick, granddaughter of 
the Rev. John Maverick.  The Ways and Mavericks arrived on the same ship in 
1630 and the Rev. Maverick died poor six years later.  His widow, Mary nee 
Gye,  however, was not only powerfully connected but descended from nobility 
and royalty.  Because of her connections, especially to English General Monck 
who engineered the Stuart monarchy's restauration in 1660, her oldest son 
Samuel Maverick became Royal Commissioner of New England and later was 
awarded a big house on "the Broad Way" in Manhatten for helping oust the 
Dutch.  Mary Gye Way is descended from the oldest royal house in Europe, that 
of Alfred the Great and through that line from a Queen Margaret of Scotland 
and through her from a King Stephen of Hungary.  Mary Gye Way is also 
descended by two different lines from England Kings Henry III and Edward I 
("Hammerer of the Scots"), who go back to William the Conqueror.  Edward I 
was married to Eleanor of Castille.  From the line back to William the 
Conqueror the descendants of Aaron Way, Jr.'s wife also have ancestors who 
were a king of France and from Rollo the Viking who established Normandy in 
the Ninth Century.  This is not junk off the Internet but the product of 
scholarly studies published in most prestigiuous genealogical journals.

3.  Now, my husband would like to know how Aaron Way, Sr.'s wife Joanna 
Sumner is related to Winston Churchill?  He knows that Geo. Bush is descended 
from Edward I as he is and apparently you are. How are the Quartermans tied 
in to Teddy Roosevelt?

4.  Your comment that Aaron Way, Jr. apparently died between Aug 25 and Sept 
26, 1695:  The date can be narrowed safely by four days.  The will was 
written Aug. 25, probated Sept 26, but an inventory of the estate made Sept 
22.

5.  Henry Way "had a son who died at sea."  That is not certain.  But the son 
was certainly not a babe in arms as speculated in the Quarterman book.  Henry 
Way's wife was passed bearing children by the time they emigrated to America, 
and in any event were on the Mary and John rather than the Lyon.  What Mass 
Bay Colony Gov. John Winthrop wrote in his Journal was that "Mr. Way's son" 
climbed a mast to adjust a sail in a winter gale while the Lyon was 
desperately returning from England with food for the starving colonists, and 
was blown overboard.  Winthrop wrote that those on board watched helplessly 
for "1/4 howre" as the boy, about 18, perished in the frigid North Atlantic 
waters. Since Henry Way was a master mariner and a skipper in England and 
went into maritime fishing in America, it might well have been Henry Way's 
son Henry who died at sea, although there was also a son killed by the 
Indians in the winter of 1631-2 and not found until the Spring. But the young 
man killed at sea may have been that of George Way, probably a brother of 
Henry Way, who as a "merchant-adventurer" from Dorchester invested heavily in 
the Dorchester Company.  When the company's settlement at Salem did not turn 
out very well, he was one of the few who did not sour on the company but 
stayed with it when it was re-organized as the Massachusetts Bay Company.  He 
came to America, acquired land from Plymouth to Maine, returned to England, 
and died before he could return to America.  Winthrop would have known both 
Henry and George Way.

6.  "Aaron Way, Jr." was a real hero as was his brother William Way: Aaron 
Way, Jr. "was one of the body of worshipers wh [which] in Apr. 1693 began the 
three yrs of labor of compel. [compelling] the withdraw. [al] of their 
pastor, unhappy Samuel Paris [sic], for his activ. [activities] in the 
delusion of witchcraft, that caused the death of so many of his flock." They 
finally signed a notice withdrawing from Parris's church. In sum, just as M
artin Luther took a principled stand before others when he appeared at the 
Diet of Worms before Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, the Papal Legates, his 
ruler the Elector of Saxony, and other state and religious dignataries, and 
asserted, "Ich kann nicht anders." ("I cannot do otherwise."), the Ways took 
a principled stand before others.  "Before others" is an intended pun meaning 
both in the presence of others and earlier than others." 

7.  "The accused and executed witches were finally exonerated 300 years 
later, on 5 November 2001, a little more than one month ago."  Almost 
everybody involved in the witch trials later confessed their error, including 
Judge Sewell in an open church meeting.  The Rev. Parrish, who had consulted 
other ministers before first proceeding, hedged his apology but was the only 
one to use his own money (and Puritan ministers had little) to give to heirs 
of the victims.  Twenty years later the Massachusetts courts annulled the 
convictions and paid indemnity to the victims.

8.  "The witch trials were the primary reason for the Ways leaving 
Massachusetts."  Disillusioned with New England society partly because of the 
witch trials, they were also attracted by very generous land grants in SC and 
the opportunity to spread the Gospel to a new region.  They also had Maverick 
relatives in South Carolina.  Finally, the Ways, Sumners, and Mavericks were 
all from England's West Country and like other of that region tended to move 
on rather than stay in New England where a majority were from East Anglia 
northeast of London

9.  Aaron Way, Sr. was "born about 1613." His baptism was actually recorded 
at birth in Bridport, Dorset, England, on Sept. 2, 1613, under the old style 
Julian calendar.

10. Henry Way's "second wife, Elizabeth Batechelar,m. 1614…." His remarriage 
to Elizabeth Batcheler is recorded in Bridport as Feb. 22, 1614, under the 
Julian calendar, but under the present Gregorian calendar they married early 
in 1615.

11. Henry Way's mother "was Margaret Berby." Mary P. Kuhns claims that but 
that family was in Somerset and there is good reason to believe that Henry 
Way's family had been in and around Bridport in Dorset for generations.

        



                                                  Susan Sinclair Grady
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