America 250

[This is an ongoing Facebook project that I've decided to share here as well,

 slightly revised and expanded, with additional photos and links.

Check back for updates through 4 July 2026.]

As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, it gives me a chance to share some stories of my family's history and how it intersects with our country's. Once a week until Independence Day, I'll add to this dual timeline.

1610 First up is the first of my ancestors to land on this soil: Stephen Hopkins, an 11x great-grandfather. He arrived here in 1610 as part of a rescue mission to the struggling Jamestown colony, after himself surviving a shipwreck that stranded him for a time in the Caribbean. His exploits are believed to have inspired the character Stephano in Shakespeare's The Tempest.

Stephano, center.
By Johann Heinrich Ramberg - Cornell University, Public Domain 

After a few years at Jamestown, Hopkins returned to England, but soon after was recruited in London to join the Mayflower's voyage, because of his firsthand experience of the New World. His knowledge ended up being crucial for the Mayflower passengers during their earliest years. There is a terrific book about Hopkins if you want to learn more about his fascinating life: A Stranger Among Saints: Stephen Hopkins, the Man Who Survived Jamestown and Saved Plymouth, by Jonathan Mack.

1620 After sixty-six days at sea, 102 people arrived at modern-day Cape Cod on the Mayflower, Stephen Hopkins, his wife Elizabeth (Fisher), and three Hopkins children among them. Four passengers had already died at sea, while another fifty or so did not survive the first winter, including the Hopkins' infant son Oceanus, so named because he was born at sea during the voyage.

In addition to Hopkins and Fisher, I am descended from eleven more of the survivors, a mix of Puritan separatists, servants, and recruits from the London Merchant Adventurers. 11x great-grandparents are Edward Doty, Peter Browne, John Tilley, Joan Hurst, Isaac Allerton, Mary Norris, Francis Cooke, and Constance Hopkins (daughter of Stephen and his first wife); and these 10x ggs: John Howland, Elizabeth Tilley and Mary Allerton.

A few years back during a trip to New England, we visited the Plimoth Patuxet Museums, a wonderful recreation of both the “pilgrim” homes and those of the native Wampanoag people, with amazing, historically accurate buildings and skilled reenactors inviting you to learn, participate, and maybe even share a meal. I can’t recommend it enough.

from left: Mr Allerton, an interior, some Wampanoag
photos courtesy your humble blogger, 2019

A friend once accused me of being smugly proud of having historic (rather than merely historical) ancestors. I’m really not; “fascinated” would be a better descriptor. I certainly can’t claim any of their achievements–all I did was discover I was related to them. And you might be too! It’s believed that up to 10% of Americans have Mayflower forebears.

Whether it’s a new country or just a new ancestor, remember: they’re already there, just waiting to be discovered. The rest is up to you.

1640 The Great Migration had begun. By 1640, nearly 20,000 people--mostly English--had emigrated to the colonies. A couple dozen of those brave voyagers were ancestors of mine. Despite many struggles, these years were a time of great opportunity and rapid change. Six additional future New England states had been established as colonies, joining Virginia and Massachusetts: New Hampshire in 1623, New York in 1624 (by the Dutch), Maryland in 1634, Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1636, and Delaware in 1638.

Along with these new colonies and towns came new political philosophies. The earliest and most important was the Portsmouth Compact, from 1638, which defined an independent colony that would be Christian in character but non-sectarian in governance. A 12x gg of mine, John Coggeshall, was one of the Compact’s signers. He was later the first President of the Colony of Rhode Island.

The Portsmouth Compact, 
in the Archives of the State of Rhode Island.
Grandpa John's signature is the fourth from the top.

Another town established in 1638 was Providence RI. John Greene, 11x gg, was one of its twelve original proprietors. His son John’s next door neighbor was Benedict Arnold, son of another proprietor.

1639 added more new settlements, and I have ancestors among those founders, including:

* Guilford CT by Thomas Norton and Francis Bushnell, both 11x gg.
* Newbury CT by Edward Woodman 9xgg and Percival Lowell 10x gg.

* Hartford CT by Thomas Hungerford 10x gg.
* Milford CT by Robert Treat 11x gg and Edmund Tapp 12x gg. 

* Newport RI by John Coggeshall--again--along with Jeremiah Clarke 12x gg and Nicholas Easton 11x gg.

Sites around Newbury, including (left to right), the First Landing Place,
a memorial headstone for Edward Woodman,
and Lowell's and Woodman's names on a memorial plaque.
Interestingly, the names that appear are an incomplete list;
 if descendants did not make a contribution, their ancestor's name did not appear.
Photos courtesy of your humble blogger, 2019.

And in 1642, John Greene [idem] and Samuel Gorton, 11x gg, founded Warwick RI.

Along with John Coggeshall, mentioned above, grandpops Clarke, Easton, and Gorton also served as (respectively) the 2nd, 4th, and 5th Presidents of the Rhode Island colony. Young Benedict Arnold–no relation–was 10th, for what it’s worth.

Needless to say, their wives were there as well, but with women not allowed to own land or hold office–yet!--their contributions, alas, are not recognized,  beyond appearing in surviving marriage and birth records, and if lucky, a will.

Percival Lowell, mentioned above, is one of my “Gateway Ancestors.” They are folks who arrived here during the Great Migration and whose verifiable roots connect them back to English royalty and aristocracy. If you’ve got any New England ancestry, you might discover a Gateway Ancestor too! You can read more about how I made that discovery on here.

1650s Despite seemingly unending promise, the New World still suffered from many of the old problems. Slavery and indenture, as well as religious persecution were common. 

Although I have no slaves in my family tree, there are at least two indentured servants, Daniel Cone 9x gg, and James Claghorn 10x gg. Both were Scottish prisoners of war captured after the Battle of Durham, involuntarily dispatched here in 1650, arriving on the ship Unity.

Cone was sold to John Gifford, of "The Company of Undertakers of the Iron Works of Lynn,” and subsequently worked in the harsh conditions of one of Massachusetts’ ironworks for six years. We’ll meet him again in a future post.

A memorial to the Scottish Prisoner of War
at Saugus Ironworks National Park.
photo courtesy of your humble blogger, 2019.

Claghorn was indentured as well, but three years later married his master’s daughter, Abigail Lombard, who was eight months pregnant at the time. They clearly weren’t Puritans.

You can read more about Claghorn and Cone in a previous post here.

More pious ancestors of mine, Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick (née Burnell), 11x ggs, were early Quakers. In 1657, while living in Salem MA, they were fined and briefly jailed for their beliefs, then a year later they were jailed again for almost five months along with son Josiah, 10x gg. Two of their other children were sentenced to slavery in Barbados for being Quakers, but were spared. (Almost two hundred years later, that  incident inspired John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem “The Ballad of Cassandra Southwick.”) Instead, the extended family left for Shelter Island NY, where Lawrence and Cassandra died of starvation and exposure in 1660. (We’ll hear more about Salem in a future post as well.)

The modern uproar about things like Christian nationalism, or statues and memorials–among so much else–is nothing new. You can read about a controversy that took place over one hundred years ago regarding a proposed memorial to the Southwicks here.

1660s & early 1670s The 1660s and early 1670s continued to build on established Colonial foundations. The first generation of American-born colonists were now making their mark, continuing to expand their dominion by founding more cities, and establishing new laws and traditions.

Daniel Cone, having worked off his indenture, married, and no doubt wishing to distance himself from the iron works, removed himself from Lynn MA in 1662 to become one of the founders of Haddam CT, along with his wife, Mehitabel Spencer, 9x gg. Her name does not appear on the commemorative plaque, of course. She was the daughter of founder Gerard Spencer, 10x gg, and his wife Hannah about whom we know so little that her maiden name has not been discovered. Happily, the settlers purchased the land from the Wangunk tribe.

photo courtesy of your humble blogger, 2019

A few years later, Mr and Mrs Cone would move again, to be among the founders of East Haddam. Daniel's name appears on a similar plaque there as well, along with two of his Spencer brothers-in-law (and presumably, their wives), and Thomas Hungerford Jr, a 9x gg whose father has been mentioned already.

During our New England Road Trip I got to see a lovely old book, The Old Chimney Stacks of East Haddam... by Hosford B Niles. There was a chapter on the Cones, including this evocative passage, mentioning Daniel's son (and my 8x gg) Stephen Cone, who married Mary Hungerford, 8x gg, daughter of the aforementioned Thomas Hungerford Jr.

Stephen used to interest his grandchildren by relating how the family often sat on the back door-step and listened to the howling of the wolves as they were driven from the forest.

photo courtesy of your humble blogger, 2019

In 1663 another seminal document was signed, the Rhode Island Royal Charter. It is notable because it was the first to acknowledge that the indigenous peoples owned their land, and that Rhode Island could establish its own laws and elect its own leaders, as long as they did not conflict with English laws. Two ancestors already mentioned, Nicholas Easton and Samuel Gorton, appear as "primary purchasers and free inhabitants" in the document. Among those named as deputies are John Coggeshall [idem] and two more first generation colonist relations, 11x great-uncle John Coggeshall Jr and 10x uncle John Greene. The ubiquitous Benedict Arnold pops up again as Governor.

A detail of the original Charter, on display
at the Rhode Island Statehouse.
photo courtesy of the NPS

Another ubiquitous figure is Robert Treat [idem]. In 1666, leading a group of Puritans from Connecticut, he founded the town of Newark NJ. Captain Treat negotiated with the Lenni Lenape tribe for the desirable land along the Passaic River. He wanted to call it Milford, after the Connecticut town he had founded then departed (itself named after the village in England from whence many of its first inhabitants hailed). Another of the founders, Abraham Pierson, was a former preacher in Newark-on-Trent in England, and thought their new home should be called "New Ark of the Covenant." Pierson won out, although the name soon became shortened to Newark. I expect Treat did not mind, as he still had much to accomplish, as we'll soon see.

"Robert Treat Directing Landing of Founders of Newark,"
poster by Adolph Treidler, 1915.
courtesy of the Library of Congress

#America250

more "wicked...."

I have written in the past about relatives who lived outside of societal norms and even the law, and shared stories about both a ghost and a spook, but never a witch--until now. 

Edward Farrington, a paternal 9x great-grandfather, was born in Lynn, Massachusetts in July, 1662, and indicted on two counts of witchcraft. But before we get to all the witchy stuff, some background.

Not Edward Farrington.
"Ginger Witch," by AstraZero.

Edward's father, John Farrington (1622 - 2 May 1666) was born in Olney, England, and came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635 as a young man with his parents, settling in Lynn.

A few years later, father and son were among a party sent by Governor Winthrop to establishment an English settlement in what is now Southampton on Long Island, New York, at that time claimed but not occupied by the Dutch. An arrangement was made between the English and the actual first inhabitants, the Shinnecock Nation and the town of Southampton was founded. 

We know that John Farrington stayed in Southampton at least a few years, then returned to Lynn (and the historical record) by at least 1660, when he married Elizabeth Knight (abt 1642 - 1705). John was a cooper and farmer. Four years--and three sons later--he died. Elizabeth, a young mother of three boys including Edward, quickly remarried, and steps out of our story as well.

On 9 April 1690, Edward Farrington, now 27, married Martha Browne (abt 1670 - 22 May 1738) in Andover, Massachusetts. Their first daughter, Elizabeth (my future 8x gg) was born in December, and ultimately they had at least six children (records differ), the last born in 17-- "But we want to hear about the witch!"

"...four or five years since, in the town of Andover aforesaid wickedly, maliciously, and feloniously a covenant with the Devil did make and was baptized by the Devil and unto Him renounced his first baptism & promised to be the Devil's both body and soul forever, and to serve the Devil and signed the Devil's Book, by which diabolical covenant by him with the Devil made in manner and form aforesaid. The said Edward Farrington is become a detestable witch against the peace of the sovereign Lord & Lady the King & Queen, their crown & dignity, and the laws in that case made and provided."

That was Grandpa Edward's first indictment. Dated 13 January 1693, and witnessed by his own hand.  (Transcription modernized for convenience.)

Edward Farrington's indictment.
Photo courtesy of the Massachusetts State Archives.

The second indictment against Edward, brought the same day as the first, was slightly more mundane. He was accused of using

"Certaine Detesteable arts called witchcrafts  & Sorceries Wickedly and Mallishiously and felloniously" 

against Mary Warren, who was supposedly

"Tortured Afflicted Pined & Tormented Consumed Pined & wasted against."

Well then. That indictment was witnessed by Ann Putnam, one of the primary accusers in Salem. Belonging to one of New England's most prominent families, Ann began naming names at age twelve, when she first claimed she had been "afflicted." Ultimately she personally accused nearly one third of Salem's suspected "witches." Perhaps karmically, she died relatively young after years of actual chronic illness.

Mary Warren was apparently prone to fits and convulsions, whether genuine or not. Soon after Edward's indictment, she renounced all her accusations, after which she was accused and tried for witchcraft herself. Hysteria was in the air. Like Ann Putnam, Warren never married and died in her mid-thirties.

If their names seem familiar, it is because Mary Warren and Ann Putnam were immortalized as characters in Arthur Miller's 1953 play The Crucible. For those of you who forget your high school English class, Miller used the mass hysteria, suspicions, unsupported accusations, and persecution of "others" during the Salem witch trials as an allegory for the McCarthyism occurring in his own era. Sadly, it seems to be as timely today as when it was written.

From the original production of The Crucible.
Photo courtesy of Getty Images

Despite the two indictments, Edward Farrington was not tried, nor convicted. By May 1693 the craze had ended, the trials ceased, and everyone still in custody was pardoned by Governor Phips. (Some suggest it was because his own wife was now one of the accused.) Edward returned home to wife Martha and daughter Elizabeth, had more children, and lived an otherwise eventless--or at least undocumented--life for another fifty-odd years. 

"Captain Alden Denounced," Anonymous, 1878. 

Of course, it did not end so well for some of the accused. Edward Farrington was just one of over two hundred people who were called out, of whom thirty were found guilty and twenty put to death. In 2019, we visited the Salem Witch Trials Memorial Park. It was moving and tragic, even without knowing the family connection. The Museum had a thought-provoking exhibit about witch-hunts throughout history, that came down to the simple formula:

"fear + a trigger = a scapegoat." 

At the Memorial Park. Rebecca Nurse also appears in The Crucible.
Photo by your blogger.

I've only recently added Edward Farrington to my family tree, through a breakthrough in a brick wall provided by another online researcher. (Thanks again, Chip!) As I mention, I was not aware when we visited Salem that I had an alleged witch among my ancestors.

What I did know, however, was that some of the Putnam family appear in my extended family tree as well, on my maternal side, which perhaps adds a genetic twist to my parents' acrimonious divorce, but I digress. I did not consider them much, though, as the relationships were distant and not blood: two descendants of Ann Putnam's grandfather, Sarah Putnam (28 Nov 1708 - 13 Apr 1802) and Rachel Putnam (6 Sep 1757 - 10 Oct 1847), married, respectively, a 6x great granduncle of mine, Joseph Steele (1706 - 23 Feb 1788) and Samuel Steele (19 Feb 1751 - 13 Dec 1811), a 1st cousin, seven times removed. 

Families are interesting, and so is history. Considering my own family history always makes me think, and feel a profound connection to this country. Today's meditation?
"We are only what we always were." --Arthur Miller

"positive science" update

Since my last update two years back, there's been another iteration of my Ancestry DNA result. And I took a Y-DNA test to help me break through the brick wall of my Burnett line. Get comfy, put on your lab coat, and let's do some science!

First, the Ancestry update, pictured here:

Yes, that is a lot of purple.

As before, in 2020, Ancestry has made some changes in their categories. Finland is entirely new (tell that to the Kalevala poets), and Sweden has gained Denmark without the tragic nuisance of invading. And of course, graphics can be deceiving. That massive purple blob, "Eastern Europe & Russia," that takes up so much of the map represents just 1% of my DNA, and that all coming from just one of my 2x great-grandmothers, Annie Miller (28 Jan 1865 - 2 Jul 1921), who was born in Szczecin, Poland to Polish parents. Anyway. Looking at the actual numbers, it breaks down like this:

Sweden went up from 36% to 46%

England & Northwest Europe went way up from 10% to 32%

Norway stayed more or less the same

Scotland plummeted from 32% down to 7%
Germanic Europe also dropped, from 12% to just 2%
And Finland and Eastern Europe/Russia both popped up at 1%  

Of course, my DNA hasn't changed. And some of it is due to Ancestry gathering more data and consequently refining. But it is still baffling, which leads me to a few questions and observations.

My current Scandinavian mix is definitely odd. I am legitimately 37.5% Swedish and Danish; those countries represent three of my eight great grandparents. Ergo, 37.5%! But that's it, no other ancestors are geographically close. So even if all of their genetic contribution made it into my DNA, a near statistical impossibility, it really should be closer to that previous 36%. And that doesn't even take into account Norway, which I mentioned in my previous update.

England/Northwest Europe and Scotland did a flip flop, but their combined totals are still nearly the same at about 40%. Fair play, as my Brit cousins might say. Germanic Europe and Eastern Europe/Russia are also pretty spot on. 

But what's the deal with Finland?

Anyway. Ancestry's DNA test is an autosomal DNA test, which takes into account both sides of your family tree, but only for about five or six generations.  Which makes those geographic anomalies all the more perplexing if you have a well-documented family tree for the last couple hundred years. Apart from some brick walls, mine is. And between what's documented and what's historically known about migration patterns (e.g., if you find three consecutive generations born in Sweden in the 1800s, for example, it's pretty likely the previous generation was from there too) there shouldn't be too many geographic surprises.

While waiting for Ancestry's last biennial update, I was also persuaded to take a Y-DNA test, which only tests Y (male) chromosomes. So rather than including your entire family tree, it basically goes from your father to his father to his father, and for centuries rather than a few generations. With my Burnett line coming to a dead end in exactly six generations at Isaac Burnett (1780 - May 1860), I need help.

Isaac had ten children, and they--and their spouses and children--are all accounted for. His wife, Deborah Grindle (25 Feb 1784 - bef 1870), through her mother, Hannah Lowell (23 Jan 1759 - 1802), leads me back to my "Gateway" ancestor, whose line takes me all the way back to English royalty, which I wrote about here. Yet, despite researching for years to find Isaac Burnett's parents, or a sibling, or anyone, I've had no success. He just shows up in Maine in 1780, apparently out of nowhere. 

So I mailed off for my kit, did the swab, and waited. When my results became available, I was thrilled... for about ten minutes. Then absolute frustration took over. Not only was I trying to learn an entirely new website that is not exactly what they call "intuitive," I was also faced with a slew of genealogical jargon, with words like clades and haplogroups indiscriminately used as if they were common enough to appear in "Goodnight, Moon."

When I finally stumbled onto a page of the website I thought I could understand, a list of my Y-DNA matches, I was practically palpitating. Now my questions would be answered, my Burnett ancestors revealed! The long list of names was mostly comprised of multiples of names like Martin, Donnelly, Mullican, O'Toole.... Admittedly, there were two Burnetts.

Diligent readers will note a couple things: that these are Irish surnames, and I have no Irish DNA. And that out of over two hundred matches, just two had the surname Burnett, when the majority should have. Your father then his father then his father, remember?

Grasping at straws, I remembered that in my family tree there is a Janett Mullickan (bef 1718 - ?), the wife of a maternal 6x grand-uncle, William Steele (1710 - 23 Feb 1788). Father, then his father, then his father...? Nope. An aunt, by marriage, on my mother's side. Wrong three ways.

Luckily, I had a mentor who helped me understand how the website is laid out, and what some of the most relevant lingo means. What she couldn't answer is where my Burnetts were. 

Despite the "Burnett Project" having 37 distinct Haplogroup categories, with further subgroups ("Descendants of Thomas Burnett b 1785 Workington England & Sarah Outterside," or  "John Burnett and his wife Lucretia"), I fit into none of them. No other Burnetts son of Burnetts match with me. So either I was a fascinating anomaly, an entirely new line!--possible, but unlikely, as Grandpa Isaac had ten children, and they all had between four and ten (so many Nathaniels and Isaacs and Marys and Deborahs), the broods decreasing slightly through the generations--or... 

My mentor did have one suggestion, and out popped another bit of genealogical argot, this one an acronym: "NPE." It's short for "Non-Paternal Event," a polite way of saying "oopsie." Or bastard. That one I understood. 

Apparently that is one of the most common consequences of a surprising, if historical Y-DNA test result. It's like an episode of "Springer," but on PBS. She discretely asked if I had considered this--which I hadn't.  

I hadn't, in part, because I share autosomal DNA with descendants, both male and female, of four other children of Isaac Burnett and Deborah Grindle, beyond just their son, my 3x gg Nathaniel Spalding Burnett (12 Mar 1826 - 10 Oct 1885). So unless Grandma Deb cheated on Isaac so often that almost half their children weren't his, that didn't seem likely. 

What then? The next suggestion was to try to locate another living, male Burnett descendant (through male descendants) of Isaac Burnett, and have them get a Y-DNA test as well. If we matched, then we were a brand new Burnett line! It seems like more of an honor than it is, though, because it would get us no further in our lineage. I've tried a few leads, but none of them have responded.

My last line of inquiry is still inconclusive. Looking more closely, I noticed that my ancestor, Nathaniel, was (now) believed to be the last of Isaac and Deborah's ten children, born twenty-two years after their first child, Margaret "Peggy" Burnett (17 May 1804 - 7 Feb 1884), and after a four year gap from his next oldest sibling. Isaac and Deborah's next two children were girls as well. The three eldest sisters would have been between 22 and 18 years old when Nathaniel was born. None had married--yet. Is it possible that Nathaniel is the illegitimate child of one of them, passed off as their mother's and father's?

That would explain the autosomal DNA matches to Isaac's children; the DNA would be from wife Deborah, or possibly even Isaac, as he would actually be my 5x gg, not 4x. But the male to male to male Y-DNA would no longer be Burnett.

I dug through the US Federal Census pages for Newport, Maine for 1820 and 1830. The population now of Newport is about 3500; it was even less then. I expanded my search to the few neighboring cities, looking for any likely Grandpa Martin, Donnelly, Mullican, O'Toole.... I didn't find any.

Newport, Maine a few generations later.
No Burnetts, or any other relevant surnames.

I may never know. Science keeps improving, more records get discovered and digitized every day, more people are becoming interested in finding their roots. So I'm hopeful.

If nothing else, we've got another Ancestry update next year to look forward to.

"given up by traitors"

 

In my previous post, I wrote about my English royal family connections. This time I'm going to share the stories of two common folk, whose lives were changed tremendously because of their support of the English monarchy--all the more interesting because they were both Scottish.

These men are also notable because they are proper Scots laddies, unlike the many Scotch-Irish families I have in my tree, who lived in northern Ireland for several generations before immigrating on to North America. Readers of this blog will recognize such Scotch-Irish names as Steele, Morrison, Ketchum, and Tolliver.

Even my two closest surnames, those of my mom and dad, Brown and Burnett, are believed to be of Scottish origin, but neither is proven. They continue to be among my highest brick walls. 

My two subjects, Daniel Cone and James Claghorn, share a couple interesting qualities: Scots who were loyal to an English king, and who came to colonial America directly from Scotland. But it's the how and why they came that is the most interesting--along with what came after.

First, though, some historic background. Context is king! But what king, or is there a king at all? That was the real question. The English Civil War raged for almost ten years during the middle of the 1600s. Complex enough to have involved England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland in various combinations, it has been called by different names and even subdivided into three parts. But ultimately it came down to a battle between the Royalists (sometimes called Cavaliers), who favored the monarchy, and the Parliamentarians, AKA the Roundheads, who wanted a republic.

Scotland had long been a separate kingdom from England, and Charles I had ruled over both countries, as had his father, James I before him. When the problems began, the Scots initially supported the Parliamentarians (during the First English Civil War), then switched sides (now we're up to the Second English Civil War) to support Charles I--that is, until his beheading in 1649.

Our fellas show up in the third section, also known as the Anglo-Scottish war, which took place from 1650 until 1652. With the monarchy dissolved, a new republic was formed: the Commonwealth of England. Its head--so to speak--was Oliver Cromwell, who, along with his parliamentary supporters--whatever shape their heads--were wary of Charles I's heir, Charles II coming to power.

Left: Oliver Cromwell, c 1656 by Samuel Cooper
Right: Charles II, c 1653 by Philippe de Champaigne

The Scottish government declared Charles II as King of Scotland in May 1650, then raised an army to fight on his behalf to restore him to the English throne as well. The English army, sixteen thousand men strong, crossed into Scotland that July.

On September 3, 1650, a clash came, and the Battle of Dunbar occurred. It was a resounding defeat for the Scottish Royalists. Outnumbered by over twenty-five percent, many of their best soldiers not present, the Scots were routed. Although only a few hundred died, many more were wounded, and some five thousand Scottish soldiers were taken as prisoners of war, according to accepted history.

A year later--to the day!--was the decisive Battle of Worcester, the end of Scotland as a distinct kingdom, and the end of the "War of the Three Kingdoms," yet another name for the English Civil War. Ultimately, Charles II was restored as King of Britain in 1660, Cromwell having died--in a tremendous, but well-documented coincidence--also on a September 3, this one in 1658.

Where do my ancestors, Daniel Cone and James Cleghorn fit in to all this? They were both at the Battle of Dunbar, and both became Scottish prisoners of war.

Little is known about either of their lives prior to the battle. So little is known about Daniel Cone, one of my 9x great grandfathers, that we don't even know if that is his actual name. Nonstandard orthography accounts for part of it; he is also known as Daniel Mackhoe, or Daniel Colquhoun. There is also a theory that he might have changed his name once in America, as that is where all records show Cone, or, as it appears in his only surviving signature, "Conn." At any rate, he was believed to be born in Edinburgh in 1626, and may have been an officer in the Scottish army. Whatever his rank, he was taken prisoner at Dunbar.

James Claghorn (or Cleghorn), a 10x great-grandfather, provides a bit more detail. He was baptized in Edinburgh on 4 November 1624; his parents are given as Henry and Elspeth Claghorn; her maiden name may have been Herriot or Adamson. The Claghorns of Edinburgh were mostly merchants. James may have been a professional soldier, and may have been living in Yarmouth prior to his capture at the Battle of Dunbar.

So both these men fought, their side lost, they were captured. What next? According to the Scottish Prisoner of War Society,

Captured soldiers traditionally would be ransomed or exchanged, but military leaders feared that healthy men would return to the Scottish army and fight again. The English also did not want to deport Scots to Europe or Ireland, for fear they would join the armies of the Commonwealth's enemies. 

The severely wounded were dismissed, and the remaining prisoners--including Daniel and James--were marched south to Durham. Accounts vary, but it is believed well over one thousand men died en route, and about fifteen hundred were imprisoned at Durham. 

But what happened to the remaining prisoners? Presumably the strongest and healthiest, from Durham they were marched to London, a trip taking almost two months on foot, mistreated and nearly starved along the way. Many died. Once in London, those that were still healthy--perhaps just two hundred or so men!--were sold into slavery or indentured servitude, to be taken to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

One hundred and fifty of those men were put aboard the ship Unity, which departed the port of Gravesend on 11 November 1650 and reached Boston about a month later. Daniel Cone and James Claghorn were two of those unwilling passengers. 

Once arrived, they were sent their separate ways; they had no choice. Daniel Cone was sold to a John Gifford, of "The Company of Undertakers of the Iron Works of Lynn," a business venture founded by John Winthrop the Younger, son of the founding Governor of the Massachusetts Colony, John Winthrop. The first successful iron works in North America had opened in Lynn (now Saugus, Massachusetts) just a few years earlier. The history website MassMoments writes:

There, under oppressively hot, noisy, and dangerous conditions, men turned ore into cast and wrought iron. Although the Saugus Iron Works lasted only 22 years, it laid the foundation for the iron and steel industry in the United States.

It was abandoned and fell into disrepair. In more recent years, it has been restored and open to the public as Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site. Daniel Cone worked there, or possibly another nearby iron works for almost six years. Records of the time are scarce and inexact, the more so as Scots were considered almost less than human. An order from the General Court in May 1652 states, "all Scotchmen, Negroes, and Indians inhabiting with or servants to the English" were to receive military training, presumably to defend--or be cannon fodder for--their betters. 

Your humble blogger at
Saugus Ironworks National Historic Site
in August 2019.

Although alien, they were still part of the community. Historian and genealogist William Saxbe, Jr writes:

Relations with the surrounding Puritan communities were not always smooth: a local observer noted that "At the Iron Works wee founde all the men wth smutty faces and bare armes working lustily.... The headmen be of substance and godlie lives. But some of the workmen be young, and fond of frolicking, and sometimes does frolicke to such purpose that they get before the magistrates. And it be said, much to their discredit that one or two hath done naughtie workes with the maidens living thereabouts."

I cannot vouch for Grandpa Cone's behavior while under indenture. After fighting a bloody battle, imprisonment, and slaving at a foundry, perhaps he deserved a little frolicking. We do know, however, that after being freed (c 1657), he married a young woman from Lynn, Mehitable Spencer (1642 - 1691) in 1661. 

Mehitable was one of the daughters of Gerard Spencer (1614 - 1685). He was born in Bedfordshire, England, and at twenty years old immigrated to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was granted four acres. Within a few years he was married, and living in Lynn, where he operated a ferry. 

By 1662, the Spencer and Cone families moved on, being among the earliest inhabitants of "30 Mile Island," now known as Haddam, Connecticut. They were among twenty-eight families who received this land grant from the Connecticut Colony. I'm glad to say that the land was purchased--not stolen--from the original inhabitants, the Wangunk people.

An early map of Thirty Mile Island, now Haddam, Connecticut.

In 1685, the Cone family, now complete with ten children, moved on again, and were among the earliest inhabitants of East Haddam. Their son, Stephen Cone (1676 - 1 Dec 1758), my 8x gg, went with them, of course, and on 5 February 1702 he married Mary Hungerford (1681 - 17 Mar 1683), daughter of another of East Haddam's founders, Thomas Hungerford (1648 - 11 Jan 1713) and Mary Green (1650 - 1706). 

Below the names of ancestors Daniel Cone and Thomas Hungerford 
are Samuel and William Spencer; they are in-laws of Cone's.

The original Cone home was a log house. The Old Chimney Stacks of East Haddam, by Hosford B Niles, published in 1887, shares this story:

The settlers in those early days used to assemble at times and surround the wolves, starting as far as Middle Haddam, and driving them down on the Neck, where they became good targets for the hunters.

Stephen used to interest his grandchildren by relating how the family often sat on the back door-step and listened to the howling of the wolves as they were driven through the forest. 

I was lucky enough to see the book when visiting the East Haddam Museum & Historical Society in 2019. In a happy coincidence, the docent there who located the book for me was another descendant of Daniel Cone!

Daniel Cone, despite many tribulations, ultimately lived a long, prosperous--and I hope happy--life, dying at age 80 in East Haddam. He is buried in the old cemetery there. Try as I might I could not locate his grave, although I did see those of some of his descendants.

RIP Daniel Cone.

James Claghorn's life took a different path. Upon arriving in Massachusetts, he was indentured to Bernard Lombard, of Barnstable, Massachusetts. Three years later, on 6 January 1654, Claghorn married Abigail Lombard (1634 - 21 Aug 1677). Yes, James married his master's daughter. But the marriage was probably a necessity, as their son, also named James, was born just twenty-three days later. Clearly not Puritans.

While that sinks in, let me tell you about Bernard Lombard, an 11 x great-grandfather, however unwilling. Like others of his era, there are many variations on his surname: Lumbar, Lumbert, Lambert, etc.... Future generations settled on Lombard, so I shall too. He was born in Thorncombe, Dorset, about 1608 to Thomas Lombard. His mother's name is unknown, as Thomas had married three times by that point. Ultimately he had one more wife and at least eight more children, one of whom is another of my direct ancestors, making Thomas both my 11x and 12x great-grandfather on different lines. And this, gentle readers, is what is called "pedigree collapse," a topic I will save for another time. 

Thomas' son, Jedediah Lombard (20 Sep 1640 - aft 1683) is a 10x great-grandfather of mine. Ultimately, Jedediah's great-great grandson, John Lombard, married his brother Bernard's 3x great-granddaughter, Priscilla Harding; so their daughter, Mary "Polly" Lombard (11 Feb 1784 - Oct 1843) is a grandmother of mine two ways. As I've written before, the old joke goes "I'm so New England, I'm my own cousin." Indeed. 

But this is really meant to be James Claghorn's story. So, he had married his erstwhile master's daughter, and had a son very shortly after.  A few years later the family relocated to Yarmouth, a nearby town, and more children followed. Over the generations, the Claghorns prospered and were "very high in social standing," according to one account. Another work, New World Immigrants, Volume 1, edited by Michael Tepper, says this:

He [James] was the ancestor of Colonel George Claghorn, who built the Constitution. It was good sturdy stock that lent its sterling qualities to the native New England strain, and they rendered good accounts of themselves in the Indian, French, and Revolution [sic] wars, in defense of the Colonies. 

Alas, the Lombard stock was not quite as sturdy, or stable. James' wife Abigail, also known as Abiah, is believed to have suffered from an unknown mental illness in her later life. She died by suicide, hanging herself from a beam in their attic on 21 August 1677. She was discovered by two of their children. If you're inclined, you can read more about it in the photo below, beginning midway down the page.

James Claghorn never remarried, and died just a few years later.

from Records of Plymouth Colony,
Court Orders, Volume 5, 1668 - 1678

Showing just what a small world colonial New England was--the entire population was less than 120,000 in 1670--two of the names seen at the top of the page above in an unrelated record are also in my family tree. Constant Southworth (1614 - 1685) and Thomas Huckens (1617 -1679) are a 10x great-uncle and 11x great-grandfather, respectively, although those two lines would not come together until a little over two hundred years later, when on 1 September 1879 Charles A Burnett married Ella Swarts in Spring Lake, Minnesota; they are paternal 2x great-grandparents of mine.

Remarkably (or perhaps inevitably) Charles and Ella are also the direct descendants of this post's subjects, James Claghorn and Daniel Cone, respectively. I am deeply curious if James and Daniel ever actually met. Did they speak on the long march to London from Scotland, or on board the Unity, curious about what might come in the new world? And what might they think had they known that their descendants would, generations later, find each other--in Minnesota?

Of course, not every life is full of second chances, or coincidental meetings and marriages. It was just a few years ago that the world learned what happened to the other, unnamed and unknown Scottish prisoners of war, who were confined at Durham.

In 2013, excavations just outside the Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin, and St Cuthbert of Durham, more commonly known as Durham Cathedral (a World Heritage site) revealed a skull, and other bones. As Archaeology tells us:

Further excavation made clear that the remains were part of a mass grave. "A large number of burials were tightly packed on top of each other with absolutely no artifacts at all--not a pin with them," says [Richard] Annis. "It looked like they had been dropped naked into a pit in some disarray. Some were face up. One was face down. A couple were on their sides, tumbled in." A few feet away, separated by an area that had been disturbed in recent times, the archaeologists found another mass grave. In all, they excavated the remains of somewhere between 17 and 28 people, all male and generally aged 13 to 25, with the majority toward the younger end. "There was very little evidence of healed injury, " says Annis, "so they weren't a bunch of battle-hardened soldiers or anything like that." All of this fits in with what was known of the Scots who had fought in the battle of Dunbar.

Durham Cathedral, and remains of an unknown soldier
photo courtesy "The Daily Express" 24 August 2016

I began this post by glibly saying it was going to be about commoners. Reflecting on the extraordinary lives and experiences of Daniel Cone and James Claghorn, the things they lived through, and the amazing coincidence that their descendants would come together, I realize how very uncommon those men really were.

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[For those of you who are more visually inclined, below are two charts that will show the interlocking descendancies of both Charles Burnett and his wife Ella Swarts. One shows how James Claghorn, Jedediah and Bernard Lombard, and Thomas Huckens connect to Grandpa Charles. The other shows the connection Daniel Cone and Constant Southworth have to Grandma Ella.]