Lane Genealogies
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LANE GENEALOGIES. VOLL'l\IE III. ENGLISH FAMILY, RrcK~!A'.';S\\'ORTH, HERTFORDSHIRE, 1542-1758. JOB LANE, JAMES LANE, EDWARD LANE, C0:.1PILED I3\' JA:.lES HILL FITTS. EXETER, N. H. tcl)e Nebls,11.rtter l'3ms. 1902. CoPYRIGHT, 1901, 1902, Bv '.\!ARY C. FITTS, ;'i'E\\"FIELDS, N. H. HOM~: OF THE LANES IN RICKMANSWORTH. ENGLAND J A!v1ES HILL FITTS. HIS Volume III of Lane Genealogies contains the last work T of Rev. J. H. Fitts. The body of the book was complete and in the hands of the printer. Mr. Fitts, on finishing the copy of an index, laid down his pen to go to the post office for his mail. Returning, a near neighbor setting some rare hedge plants, asked him to cross the street and see them. He handed the label with the name of the plants to l\Ir. Fitts, who read it aloud, returned it and at once fell forward lifeless, his face in the soft earth, N ovem ember 22, 1900. The cause of his death was heart disease, of which he had had some premonitions, but with no thought of such a termination. The Preface, toward which Mr. Fitts left notes, has been pre pared by Alfred Church Lane, A. M., Ph. D., F. G. S. A., of Lans ing, Michigan. The Annals, etc., have been arranged and completed by his brother, Lucius Page Lane, S. B., A. M., of Boston, who has also completed the indexes, by the aid of Miss Ellen W. Lane, and her sister, Elizabeth Nickerson (Lane) Church, of Malden, Mass. It remains for an old friend to add a notice of Mr. Fitts, especi ally in relation to his genealogical work, as a fuller general mem orial of him is in preparation. Rev. James Hill Fitts was born in Candia, N. H., March 3, 1829, of John, the 7th generation from Robert Fitts, 1640, and Abigail Lane, the 6th, from William Lane, of Boston, 1648.• He attended Pembroke Academy and Merrimack Normal Institute, N. H., and graduated at Bangor Theological Seminary, Me., 1858, and was a member of Andover Theological Seminary, 1870-71. He preached at Boxboro, Mass.; was ordained at Candia, N. H., November 2, 1859; installed at West Boylston, Mass., September 3, 1862; Topsfield, Mass., June 22, 1871; acting pastor at South Newmarket, now Newfields, N. H., April 18, 1880, till his death. tSee Gen. Fitts family, p. 03, and Lane Gen., Vol. I, p. 175. iv L.-\XE GEXBLOGJES. January r, 1862, he married .\lary C., daughter of C. I\1. and Dolly (Pillsbury) French, ,vho surri,·es him. Before study at Ban gor he taught in schools and academy in .\Iaine and .\Iassachusetts, served two terms of three months each on the Christian Commis sion in the ciYil war, and was on school boards where,·er he was pastor. As one of the School Board, :\Ir. Fitts wrote the annual reports, and the esteem felt for him was manifested by the attend ance on his funeral at his church in :Newfields, of the schools as a body, and their proYision for his picture to be placed in the school building. In 1895 l\Ir. Fitts represented the town in the state legislature, and was influential in changing its name from South Newmarket to l\ ewfields, the early designation of the southerly portion of the town of Newmarket a century or more before its dh·ision. This change was influenced by a legacy of ,$ 10,000 from Hon. John l\I. Brodhead, son of Rev. John Brodhead, to the town for a library on condition of such change. l\Ir. Fitts was a trustee of this fund. He was a member of the X ew England Historic Genealogical and the ::\" ew Hampshire Historical Societies, and of several missionary societies, and for thirteen years was scribe of the Piscataqua Association of Congregational and Presbyterian ministers. A writer of various historical and commemoratiYe discourses, and an indefatigable imestigator and successful collector of the facts of local history, perhaps no one man e\'er knew so much of the local history of south-eastern '.\ ew Hampshire and contiguous parts of l\Iassachusetts and l\Iaine as did .\Ir. Fitts. It is hoped that the mass of manuscript information he left may be given to the public or presen-ed for future use. In the course of his researches he took genealogical notes of the Hilton, \\'iggin and other historical families of south-eastern l\ ew Hampshire, which are esteemed of great rnlue by some of their descendants and kindred. His first formal work in this line he published in 1869, the "Genealogy of the Fitts or Fitz Family in America," 91 pages. His later and larger efforts h::n-e been for the Lane families of his mother's name. He aided ReL Jacob Chaprnar. ma'terially in the preparation of Yol I, and l\Ir. Chapman did what he could to aid and encourage l\lr. Fitts in compiling the succeeding rnlumes of Lane Genealogies. J.1,rL~ H111, Frrh. V These works were doubtle,s stimuhte(l and their pu1Jlication en couraged by the preya]ent popularity of genealogical research, but the immediate cause oi Yol. I, and so of the rest, was a suggestion by ~Ir. Fitts toward org;rnization. The occasion of that suggestion was in the old church yard at Stratham, '.\. H ., where are the gra,·es of Dezi. S:tmllel Lane, the eldest child of Ilea. Joshua, of Hzimpton, and representatiYes of fi,·e generations of his descend:mts. \\"hen Jzibez, the yolln,:est son of Dea. Samuel, hacl set the stones at the gro.1·es of hi, po.rents, he took his children there and charged them to keep those stones erect as long as they should li1·e. His son Charles told his son, John \\'illiam, of this, who took it as an injunction to do like11·ise, anrl was im pelled to search for the older gra1·es of the family at Hampton and perhaps Boston. '.\o clew could be found for the graYes of the first \Yilliam and wiYes, probo.bly in Boston. But search in Hampton among the bushes of the old "gra1·ey:irrl" re1·ealed a foot-stone inscribed "Dea. Jo,hm Lane." Proceeding through the bushes the headstone wets found erect, but the headstone of his wife, Bathsheba, was broken and lying on the ground. Dea. Dow, the historian of Hampton, was the only one founrl who coulcl haYe told where those graYes were. John \\'. took his father, Charles, when past eighty, to see for the first time, the gret1·es of his great grand parents, and they temporarily reset the head stones, both thrown flat on the grounrl, it was saicl, by cattle running in the yard. The idea of a more permo.nent memorial was suggested, but how to interest descendants w3s a question. After discouraging efforts and considerable correspondence, beginning in 1 8 i 6, ~Ir. Fitts was consulted, who wrote, ~larch 16, 1885: "l think the matter of a Lane monument has been talkerl of in a general way about long enough. Get specifications of monument with inscriptions as a basis of work. A meeting of the famil:,- at Hampton, whether a dozen or a hundred attend, will gi\·e it something of a business character. You haw made an heroic beginning. Go ahead!" Further search in the old ground betel shown fome initial head stones near Dea. Joshua's gran. The one next north 1\·ets irnbedded in the grown roots of a pine tree some eighteen inches in diameter, letters inward. The second stone bore the initials, "W. L." In a vi LA:s;E GENEALOGIES. diary of Dea. Joshua, was found for 6th January, 1745, "My honored and dear mother died," and for 14th February, 1747, "My honored father died at my house, aged above ninety." It was thought if on the broken stone in the pine tree should be found the initials, " S. L.," these grans next his own must be of the parents of Dea. Joshua: \\"illiarn, son of \\'illiam, of Boston, and Sarah (Webster), his wife. A petition to the selectmen of Hampton resulted in an article in the warrant and a vote of the town, :\larch 10, I 885, permitting the tree to be taken out and a monument erected. The tree was dug out; the fragments of stone carefully removed and placed together showed the desired "S. L." To this, in part, l\Ir. Fitts referred as " an heroic beginning." The meeting he suggested was called at the Town Hall, in Hampton, August 18, 1885. Organization was effected and committees were chosen as suggested by :'.\1r. Fitts. Plans were made to raise funds for the monument. Relics of the family were shown, including the broken initial stone, with its "S. L.," the family tree of Dea. Joshua, and an original copy of the "Tear of Lamentation," read at Dea. Joshua's funeral, by his son Jeremiah, once owned by his daughter Abigail. By the generosity of Dr. J. \\'. \\'hite, of Nashua, N. H., it was voted that this address be reprinted and a copy given to enry contributor of $1 or more to the monument fund. The sons of Re\·. Jas. P. Lane did the printing, as they did of the address of their father, given September 1, 1 886, when Gov. Frederick Smyth was present, by whose generosity this address was also given to contributors of $1 or more to the monument fund. Thus dona tions came from Maine to Georgia and California, and one each from England and the Sandwich Islands.