Introduction and Highlights: An exceptionally American family tree

This blog is written for the grandchildren of William and Phyllis James McKim,
the children of Marilyn, Karen, Ellen, and Susan.  

 

 

In 1992, when the nation was observing Ellis Island's centennial, historians announced that 40% of all living Americans could trace their ancestry to someone who entered the United States through that door. 

Your mother is not among them. Every single one of your mother's forebears was already here when Ellis Island opened. 

Her most recent immigrant ancestors were a pair of your great-grandparents on her dad's side--Isaac Abercrombie and Susannah Orkney, who arrived separately from Scotland and from Northumberland (England) in the early 1880s.

Your grandmother Phyllis's ancestry is even more remarkable. Every single one of her ancestors was already here when America declared its independence in 1776.  

 

Take a moment to appreciate that.  Before the Revolution, historians estimate that fewer than 1 million immigrants had moved to North America from Europe. Literally hundreds of your ancestors were among them. The closest thing to America's first census was created by Captain John Smith (of Pocahontas fame, from Virginia) when he visited Plymouth Colony in 1624, only four years after its founding. He counted 180 residents --  (Six) of whom (the Lyfords (3), the Hardings (3) were your direct ancestors.  

 

All my life, I’ve felt no ethnic identity beyond “just American.” After researching our family tree, I think I now understand why. This family tree is exceptionally American.

 

Any questions?

Question: That’s all very nice. But where are we FROM? Unless we have any indigenous ancestors (which you would have mentioned by now), none of our ancestors were American before the 17^th century.

Answer: You’re right. It's a safe bet that every one of your ancestors who was alive in 1492 was in Europe. About half of them lived in England; about 30% in Scotland; and most of the remainder lived in areas that are now in Germany and Switzerland. 

 

Oh, and one of my favorite things about this family tree: If you really want to go back in time, the family name of your 3G grandfather, Alexander Orkney, indicates that his ancestors were living in the Orkney Islands at the time surnames developed. That's one powerful clue to some lineage that could go all the way back to the Stone Age.  Google Skara Brae or the Standing Stones of Stenness. Chances are, some of your ancestors were there.

 

-- HIGHLIGHTS --

Your most famous blood relative (at least that I found): 

Your 10G grandfather Samuel Lincoln #1545, was also among the Hingham group. He was a weaver who was born in 1622 who emigrated in 1637 to the Plymouth Colony, and then to Hingham, MA, where he met and married Martha Lyford #1546. 

President Abraham Lincoln was one of their 3G grandchildren and you are one of their 9G grandchildren, so it is possible you share a bit of DNA with Abe. In other words, your mom is Abraham Lincoln's 4th cousin, 5 times removed and you are his 4th cousin, 6 times removed.

 

You're related in a similar way to the Presidents Bush. They and we are descendants of #773 and 774  Samuel and Hannah Gill Clapp, both born in the 1640s in Scituate, Massachusetts. I know less about this connection because the Clapp family history available through Ancestry.com was not as specific as the Lincoln family history.  

The Deerfield Raid   This is the story I cannot believe my mother's family did not pass down to her.  Sarah Taylor Bream's Gettysburg farm story is a personal story connected to a historic battle, but the Deerfield Raid was the historic battle itself. You have six direct ancestors and even more sibling/in-law ancestors who were caught up in this key incident in 1704, which was one of the earliest outbreaks in what came to be known as the French and Indian Wars. 

In the list of ancestors, I've marked each person who was
killed or who lost someone close with this icon.

Entire books have been written, but briefly:  Deerfield was a village that was then on the northwestern frontier of English settlement, in the Connecticut River Valley. At the dawn of the 18th century, France wanted to expand its colonial reach south from Canada. Natives just wanted their land back. Everyone knew tensions between France and England were rising and that Deerfield was in danger if war broke out. 

The village built a stockade and gathered a small militia, led by your 7G grandfather Jonathan Wells. But one night in February 1704, the snow was piled high enough so that the leader of the French troops saw an opportunity to get a lot of his Indian allies over the top, which he did, in a pre-dawn raid. 

After an hours-long house-to-house battle within the stockade, followed by one on a field nearby, most of the houses had been burned to the ground. Forty-seven villagers were dead, including your 7G grandfather, David Hoyt, Jr. Your 8G grandmother Hannah Atkinson Stebbins survived the harrowing battle along with her daughter, your 7G grandmother Mary Edwards Hoyt and Mary's infant daughter (your 6G grandmother Mary Hoyt). But she lost her second husband, Benoni Stebbins and many cousins, nieces, and nephews. Jonathon Wells survived, but the raiders captured 112 villagers and started them on a 300-mile foot march through the snow to Montreal. Your 8G grandfather, David Hoyt, Sr., was among the captives and died of starvation en route.  

Roughly 60 colonists were later ransomed by negotiators who were led by your 6G granduncle John Sheldon. John Sheldon had survived the raid, but lost his wife and youngest daughter. Three of his children and a daughter-in-law were among the captives. Other captives, primarily children, remained with French families or were adopted by Mohawk families.

This link is a wonderful explanation of the tragedy.  

The highlighted people below are your direct ancestors; the stories of the other Hoyt children, whose fates are described here, illustrate the nature of the disaster:

 Puritans Your relationship to the New England Pilgrims is more than a highlight of your family tree in America; it is the bedrock foundation. You can read their individual stories in the post called "Your New England colonial roots (individuals)", and I put the Puritans' general history in "Your Puritan roots (history)" Please do read the general history post; everything else will make more sense in context.

You have at least XXX direct ancestors who arrived in Puritan New England before 1640, when emigration from England stopped during its civil war. Your ancestors were among the earliest to settle the Plymouth Colony, with the first I could document coming in July 1623 (for reference, the Mayflower landed in November 1620). Your ancestors were also among the earliest to settle Massachusetts Bay Colony (the Clapp, Bartlett, Hull, and Phelps families and others all arrived in 1630, for the founding of that colony); and the earliest to head out to western Massachusetts and Connecticut (which is how they got in on the Deerfield Massacre).  

Because the Puritans placed high value on learning and education, their communities maintained literacy rates among both men and women that would be the envy of many nations today, never mind in the 16th century.  Consequence: They left behind lots of records, both official and personal. I could collect on this blog only a fraction of the information that is now online. My favorite stories:

• A London street urchin: Your 10G grandfather #3327 John Bellows, at age 12, was scraped up from the streets of London and loaded with other unwanted free-range children onto a a ship called the Hopewell bound for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It appears to have been a 17th-century version of an orphan train.
•  Just about as scandalous as it gets: The story of Rev. John Lyford and his wife, Sarah Oakley, your 10G grandparents, (#3093, 3094) features lies, adultery, an out-of-wedlock child, espionage, and more. It has fascinating things to say, I believe, about the Pilgrims, their financiers, sociopaths, and the biases of historians and church fathers that endure to this day.
• The better part of the population of Hingham, a village in Norfolk (eastern England), who relocated en masse to a new Hingham, a village they created in 1633. The parishioners who left Hingham had been so industrious that after they left, the town petitioned Parliament for relief, writing that "most of the able inhabitants have forsaken their dwellings and have gone aways and the town is now left in misery by reason of the meanness of the [remaining]inhabitants."  Your 11G grandfather, #6209, Edmund Hobart, is credited/blamed for leading the exodus that emptied the village of all its worthy citizens.
  
• Two slave holders: See #385 Joseph Bates and #879 Hugh Roberts;
  
• Witchcraft: See #793 Samuel Bartlett and do not miss the story of #3281 & 3282 Samuel Stratton and Alice Beebe (they will make you proud).
  
• and a modern-day ghost: See #1551 Jeremiah Beal.
  

Are we descended from anyone who was on the Mayflower? Not that I can see, although you do have some ancestors who were with that band of Puritans while they lived in the Netherlands before they came to America. Your ancestors did not jump on that first boat. Your 10G grandfather, Jacob Hurst #3085, married a Dutch girl, Gartend Bennister #3086 while the band was in Leiden. 

If anyone can ever identify the ancestors of Mary Sanford #52, they might find a Mayflower ancestor. Her unknown forebears are huge hole in what we know of our Puritan ancestry.  

We do have a few ancestors who came with the Winthrop Fleet in 1630, which was to the Massachusetts Bay Colony as the Mayflower was to Plymouth. 

Educated people  You missed being the first in your family to graduate from college by at least 400 years. Your Puritan immigrant ancestors include several Oxford and Cambridge graduates, and they left behind additional highly educated ancestors in England. They also worked to make sure others would be well-educated. The Widener Library at Harvard University sits on the site of the homestead of your 8G grandfather John White, #1627, and your 7G grandfather John Strong #801 was among Harvard's original 'patrons' who pledged a certain amount each month or year to get the young institution up and going.

Pre-revolution minutemen, militia, etc.  . 

You have dozens of New England and Pennsylvania ancestors who fought in armed conflict before the American Revolution. Anyone familiar with pivotal conflicts of the New England colonies will know of the Battle of Turner's Falls and the massacre at Bloody Brook. You lost ancestors in both, while other ancestors gained fame and honor for their heroism. 

 

The earliest I found was #1569, John Plumb, your 9G grandfather, who played a pivotal role in the Pequot War of 1637. Your 9G Grandfather Lt. Roger Clap #1584) was appointed in 1646 by the Massachusetts Bay Colony's legislature to serve in the Artillery Company of Massachusetts, which was the company charged with training the officers of all the local militia across Massachusetts. Several others carried titles such as captain or lieutenant in this or that colonial militia. 

 

As I understand it, minutemen were organized in "alarms" so that they could be easily raised when danger--typically Native or French attacks--was imminent. We associate them with the American Revolution, but they were relied upon during the earlier French and Indian Wars and even earlier conflicts, such as King Phillip's War. Only a few, whose names are below, show up on official records specifically as "minutemen."

• #101 Jonathan Warner, a member of the Lexington Alarm--you know, the one roused by Paul Revere on the night of the 18th of April in '75.
• # 97 Elias Lyman (1710-1790) was with the Bennington Alarm, in Northampton, Massachusetts. (note to self: see the family history saved to Malachi James);
• #193 Adam Beal (#193) was recorded on the minuteman roll of Goshen, Massachusetts;  
• add more as I find them.
  

American Revolution Soldiers are noted (AR) on the pages with individual ancestors. All were patriots; none were royalists. These men tend to have good documentation on Ancestry.com as a result of all the uploaded applications for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and Sons of the American Revolution (SAR). 

• # 95 John James
  
• # 97 Elias Lyman (Battles of Ticonderoga and Saratoga)
  
• #101 Jonathan Warner (Battle of Saratoga)
• #131 Lt. William Nelson
  
• #193 Adam Beal 
• #197 Jonathan Clapp
• #202 Israel Sheldon
• #207 John Bellows
  
• #209 Daniel Youngs 
• #221 Ebenezer Lyon 
• #235 Jacob Werner 
• #241 David Hunter, who didn't just die in battle, but was the target of the Governor of Virginia, who issued a writ of habeas corpus in the name of King George ordering his execution. Unfortunately, the British soldiers did find him. 
• #243 John Jacob Arendt
• #247 Michael Hoffman (found on a list of 'Graves of Revolutionary War patriots'. Died January 1777 in Bucks Co, PA, where there was no battle, but which was the location of "supply depots, and hospitals for wounded and sick soldiers. Deaths in the region during this time would most likely have been due to disease, exposure, or complications from injuries, as these were leading causes of death for soldiers during the Revolutionary War.")
• #439 Moses Roberts
  
• #445 John Willcocks (died in the fighting during Washington's retreat through New Jersey)
• Add more as I find them
  

Inventor One of your 6G grandmothers, #202 Martha Dickinson Graves, invented the covered button (that is, a shell button covered in fabric to match the garment) and a circular chisel for efficiently cutting the fabric for the buttons. Her cottage industry supplied the New York market with covered buttons. How I wish your grandmother Phyllis had known of her--she would have loved that story!

Attacked by Union soldiers  Your 3G grandfather Robert Sloss, #17, was a shopkeeper in Pennsylvania and a 'Copperhead' (a person loyal to the United States, but opposed to the war). A group of Union soldiers didn't like this, and so they ransacked his store and attacked him, his son, and two of their neighbors. The account is in Robert's post.

The Gettysburg story You can find the story of what happened when soldiers (both sides!) came marching through your 3G grandparents' Adams County farm in #14 Sarah Taylor Bream's post. 

 McKim:

The McKims arrived in Pennsylvania before 1740, when Robert McKim was born there, but I did not find our original McKim immigrant ancestor. The origin of the name, however, is well-established.  

McKim is a variation of the Scottish name MacKimmie, derived from the Gaelic name Mac Shimidh, meaning "son of Simon," referring to the founder of the Clan Fraser of Lovat, Simon Fraser. The name is historically associated with the Highlands of Scotland, particularly the region of Inverness-shire, where the clan was prominent. 

The English village of Hingham still prides itself on
being the origin of so many Puritans (although they left).

James:

Our original James immigrant ancestor was #1535 Philip James, who was born in 1599 in Hingham, England and immigrated in 1638 with his wife, #1536 Jane Russell, four children and two servants. They likely set foot in America at Plymouth, Massachusetts, but shortly after that founded a new settlement which they call Hingham, Massachusetts.