Re: Witch Hunts, etc.

["John S. Quarterman" <jsq@quarterman.org>]

>
>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:

Please tell him thanks for sending them.

>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.

Please see my brother David's inquiries on that part.

>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.

Yes, he died 3 Feb 1636 in Dorchester, Mass., according to McIlvaine.

What I meant by well-connected was not to wealth.  In a Puritan community
the best connection was to the leader of the community, i.e., the
preacher.  There's a famous quote from an early preacher in those parts,
who when asked if he was the minister who preached in this town, answered
something to the effect of, "No, I am the minister who *rules* here."
This also seems to describe the situation in Midway.

>  His widow, Mary nee Gye,  however,

Very interesting.  We didn't know any of that about her.

> 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.

Very good.  I'd be most interested in hearing the rest of the details,
and the sources.

>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.

This is all in the book.  The Churchill connection is:

 Joanna SUMNER, sibling of
 William SUMNER (2), father of
 William SUMNER, father of
 Sarah SUMNER, mother of
 Eliakim STOW, father of
 Thankful STOW, mother of
 Elizabeth BALL, mother of
 Isaac JEROME, father of
 Leonard Walter JEROME, father of
 Jennie JEROME, mother of
 Winston CHURCHILL.

I think it was Wiley who found that connection; he's on the list.

There is also a George Bush connection in there somewhere,
What's this about Bush being descended from Edward I?

> How are the Quartermans tied in to Teddy Roosevelt?

 John Sinclair QUARTERMAN, child of
 David Sinclair QUARTERMAN Jr., child of
 Alla Irene PEEK, child of
 Margaret Ann ``Mag'' MCINTOSH, child of
 Mary Ann Martha IRVINE, child of
 John Robert IRVINE, child of
 Charles IRVINE, sibling of
 Nancy Ann IRVINE, mother of
 James Stephens BULLOCH, father of
 Martha "Miss Mittie" BULLOCK, mother of
 Theodore ROOSEVELT.   

The Bullochs were a Midway family, so there may be other relations, as well.

>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.

Thanks for the additional precision.

>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, 

Good point.

>and in any event were on the Mary and John rather than the Lyon.

This seems to be debatable, according to the sources I consulted.

>  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.

That sounds pretty conclusive.

> 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.

Very interesting.

>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.

Source, please.

> 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.

This is all no doubt true; nonetheless, I was referring to a bill of
November 2001 passed by the Mass. legislature and signed by Gov. Jane Swift
that exonerated the last five hanged witches.

>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.

Yes, I was aware of those factors.

>  They also had Maverick relatives in South Carolina.

Can you say more about these S.C. Maverick relatives?

>  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

Yes, there's quite a bit in the book about this.

>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.

Thanks.

>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.

Hm, we have it as 22 Jan 1614/5.  Could be a typo.

>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.

There were other cases of marriages among these emigrants across English
county lines.

This is getting interesting.  Let's continue.

John S. Quarterman <jsq@quarterman.org>
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