The HOUSE OF MANSUR PUBLISHED BY 0 MARY REBECCA ELLIS ILLUSTRATED "Money can do much, but cannot buy an Ancestry" 9 PRINTERS THE HUGH STEPHENS PRESS SEPTEMBER, 1926 ]EFFERSON, CITY Mo. COPYRIGHT 1926 BY MARY REBECCA ELLIS Tms VoLUME Is DEDICATED To THE MEMORY OF CHARLES HARLEY MANSUR JOHN H. MANSUR DR. ELLA MANSUR FOWLE WHO HAVE ALL ENTERED INTO REST And ADELLA MARY FOWLE CHARLES HARLEY MANSUR, M. C. 1835 - 1895 THE AMERICAN HERITAGE "Having already observed that the history of a nation is the history of the men who compose the nation, and not of their dwelling-place, and that it is, therefore, a record of what the men were and of what they did, let us consider what this includes. It includes, primarily, their character; that is to say, the dis­ tinctive quality of their habits, of feeling, thinking and acting, and secondarily, the institutions, social and political, in which those habits found expression. Institutions, when solidified by long practice, came to be, because respected and valued, a permanent factor in moulding and developing character itself. In its earliest form the American stock was the small branch of a large race dwelling in the North Temperate Zone, possessing already, in its old home on the European continent, certain dis­ tinctive gifts and qualities unlike those of the neighboring racial stocks, Celtic, Slavonic and Italic,, and having also institutions, though still in a rudimentary stage. Julius Caesar and Tacitus tell us that there were in the Germanic tribes kings honored for their lineage, war-leaders chosen for their bravery, and popular assemblies, in which the more important decisions were taken. We cannot talk of a Germanic Nation, but of tribes, branches of a widespread race, among them Angles, Jutes and Saxons, tribes often at war one with another, and as yet without a collective national consciousness. When some of these tribes settled in Britain, raiding north­ ward and westward from the spots where their war bands landed, they were still no more than the raw material of a nation, but they grew in the course of centuries to be a national state, and by the fourteenth century they had acquired a definite type of character, which was finding its expression in literature, and they had also created an elaborate system of institutions, includ­ ing a legislature, partly representative, courts administering justice throughout the country, an executive government, co­ operating with, yet sometimes in conflict with, the elected representatives of the people. Foreign observers in the fifteenth century, such as Froissart and Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (afterward Pope Pius II) and Philip of Comines already talk of the English as a people quite unlike the peoples of the continent. This may be called the second stage in the growth of the American Nation. The third state begins when an extremely small branch is transplanted to a new continent. The first migration was ( 7 ) 8 The HousE OF MANSUR from a continent to an island, the second was from an island to an immense continent. In that continent these transplanted Englishmen do not cease to be English, but they presently, though very slowly, develop into a different kind of English, under the new influences which began from the first to work upon them. Much later, when they were politically separated from the British crown, a new name was needed to distinguish them from the English who had remained behind in the old Mother Land, and so the term "American," theretofore em­ ployed to denote the aboriginal Red Men, came to be applied to the English of America as being now an independent nation. The use of the word made a great difference, for words have a curious power of implicit suggestion, a power inevitable, but often misleading. In this case the name did mislead, and has gone on misleading. It made the less instructed part of the American Nation forget the greatness of their spiritual heritage, and think of them­ selves as a new nation, when they were really part of an old nation to which their forefathers had belonged in those very days when it was reaching the highest level it has ever yet at­ tained in poetry and thought. The age which sent Englishmen to settle in Virginia and Massachusetts was the age of Bacon and Newton and Harvey, of Cromwell and Hampden and Jeremy Taylor and John Bunyan, glories of the English stock whom Americans have just as good a right to claim as has England herself. Thus the intellectual, moral and religious history of England for thirteen centuries, from the landing of the Jutish keels at Ebbsfleet in Kent in the middle of the fifth century A. D., is a part of American history. Whoever forgets this truth will fail to understand that history as a whole, in its more es­ sential features." -From the "Study of American History" by Viscount Bryce. FOREWORD When Charles Harley Mansur was representing Missouri in Congress, he desired to become a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. He began to prove up his ancestry to that period. He added the record of those belonging to his im­ mediate branch and published a brochure in 1889. A few years later John H. Mansur of Royersford, Pennsylvania, added quite a lot more to that published by Charles H. Mansur, and issued a small book in 1901. Doctor Ella Mansur Fowle of Jaynesville, Wisconsin, spent a year with her son, Thomas, in Chicago, putting him into a dra­ matic school. She occupied her time in genealogical research in the Public Library. She and her daughter, Adella Mary Fowle, heard of John H. Mansur, who was continuing research. He turned over all his records to Adella Fowle, who was a fine, ca­ pable business woman of Denver, Colorado. The writer assisted in collecting records of the Missouri Mansurs and their descend­ ants. In 1917 Adella Fowle turned over all records to Mary R. Ellis. They were received as a sacred trust. Much has been added and the records brought down to date as far as possible. It is quite easy and simple to trace your own line as well as collateral lines throughout this entire record if you will inform yourself, by reading this page, of the plan of this work. The first Mansur of whom we have any American record is Robert Manser of Charleston, Massachusetts. He married Elizabeth Brooks, a widow, June 6, 1670. There were five children, whose records we have been able to trace, except Robert's. Perhaps you may understand better if I will trace my own line for you. In giving the record the person is always referred to as the son of whom, together with the number of generation and the number of his place in his own family. I am VII. 1-2-2-6-4-5-3, Mary Rebecca Ellis, daughter of Emma (Emeline) Mansur. I am the third child of 1-2-2-6-4-5 Emma Mansur, who was the fifth child of 1-2-2-6-4 Charles Mansur, who was the fourth child of 1-2-2-6 Stephen Mansur, who was the sixth child of 1-2-2, William Mansur, who was the second child of 1-2 John Mansur, who was the second child of 1 John Mansur, who was the son of Robert Manser and Elizabeth Brooks. Their oldest child was John. We begin with the first John as number 1. I give you this key to the records. (9) 10 The HousE OF MANSUR Many names are repeated over and over, but if you will remember to look for the generation, and the place in the family, you will soon trace the pesson you want. The place of the num­ ber in the line will give you the generation, the number itself the person's place in his own family. We have tried to place the members of a family in the order in which they belong, as well as in the generation. There are photographs of six direct, consecutive generations, beginning with Stephen and coming down through Charles. There are five Charleses in a line and four generations through Isaiah. Information has been got from Congressional Library, town records, family Bibles, public records, private papers and records, and personal knowledge from those living. Grateful and loving acknowledgment is made to all those who have helped in any way in tracing and completing this history. It has been a labor of love for past generations and those yet to come. It is, in reality, American history. MARY R. ELLIS. 4111 Warwick Blvd., Kansas City, Mo., September, 1926. ORIGIN OF THE MANSURS OF NEW ENGLAND The name Mansur is not a corruption of any similar French name. It is derived from the old Norman Mansur, which was a Christian name and by the Normans introduced into England, but not now frequently met with in England. The earliest mention of the name in New England occurs on the marriage record of Charlestown, Mass., and it is there spelled "er." James Manzer was a passenger to Barbadoes, in the Alex­ ander, May 2, 1635. See "Drake's Founders of New England." He was aged 27. "The name is from Richard Manesier, Normandy, 1198." Quotation from "The Norman People," by Henry S. King & Co. It is probable the Mansurs in this country came from Ipswich, England. There was at that time a family spelling the name just as we do, living in Ipswich, and one of the men was a mariner. He may have owned a ship which came to this country, or have been in command of one, and have brought a relative over, and that relative may have become the ancestor of the family in this country; that would account for no one of the name being listed among the passengers of any of the early vessels.