"The thought of our past years in me doth breed perpetual benediction."- TVordswort/1. TWO HUNDRED. AND FIFTY YEARS -OF THE--- \¥ ADS WORTH FAMILY IN AMERICA. (WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.) CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILY REUNION, AT DUXBURY, MASS,, SEPTEMBER 13, 1882, AND A GENEALOGICAL REGISTER, PREPARED EXPRESSLY FOR THIS WORK, ---BY--- HORACE ANDREW WADSWORTH, AUTHOR OF "QUARTER-CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF LAWRENCE, AND PUBLISHER OF THE LAWRENCE DAILY AND ESSEX WEEKLY EAGLE, LAWRENCE,.MASS, LAWRENCE, MASS.: p, , . D AT THE EAGLE STEAM JOB PRlNTrNG ROOMS, 1883. PREFACE. It is not without misgivings that this volume is handed to my kinsmen and namesakes, as a History of'' Two Hundred and Fifty Years of the \Vadsworth Family in America." The subject covers a great deal, and could be extended · ad infinitum. To collect, edit and publish, what really should find a place in the family history, would be the work of at least twenty years, and I find that the family historians of many well known names have been busy at least that time, and still the task is not completed. But the author of this history cannot delay twenty years, ten years, or even five years. The demand for the work will not admit of it. Letters have been received, almost daily, with the question, " How soon will the history be completed?" Not a few of our people who are deeply interested in this work, have reached, or passed, the ripe age of three score years anrl ten, and for their benefit, if for no other reason the promised work should be forthcoming. Therefore, in view of all the circumstances, it was deemed wise to publish and disseminate, at the earliest possible moment, such fragments of history and genealogy as have already been obtained in the limited time, and leave the completion to the future. Like the publication of all family histories, the work has been largely a labor of love. No one who has not given the subject thought,· can comprehend the difficulty of spanning across two centuries and a half, and tracing lines of descent, of which no previous record had been attempted. To this work, however, nearly all our people have contributed what they could, and for which they have our life-long and profound _thanks. That a good deal has been already done towards a satisfactory work, all of us·will admit, and now that a family association has been organized, let the work of preparing material go on, and when sufficient information is obtained, and the present inaccuracies noted and corrected, another work can be published which shall ?e a credit to our family and name. H. A, W. CONTENTS. Chapter. Page. l. THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS, 8 Il. ORIGIN OF NAME AND COAT OF ARMS, Ill. FAMILY TRAITS, IV. THE FIRST SETTLERS, 30 V. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, 42 VI. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES-( Continued), 52 VII. THE WADSWORTH NAME IN ENGLAND, 88 VIII. WADSWORTH FAMILY REUNION, 131 IX. WADSWORTH GENEALOGIES, 149 HISTORY. I. THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS. Two hundred an<l fifty years! At first thought, this appears a long time ; seven generations have lived and passed away and the eighth is now at middle life ~vith hairs already frosting with age, and soon to be gathered home with the fathers. We say this with no thought of sadness, for it is as wise a pro­ vision of nature to die as it is to be born, and had it not been so, we of to-day could never han: existed, as the world would certainly have been full long before our time. \Ve take our turn upon the stage in the great drama of life, make the best " hits" we can while we are here, put to use the best appli­ ances beq-ueathed by those who have gone before, and delight in handing down to posterity all the knowledge and all the treasure that it has been our lot to enjoy. But a generation is but an incident in the great march of events. As the poet Tennyson has sung of the brook: "Men may come and men may go, hut I go on forever." And even any of us, who have lived within two hundred and fifty years after the first English settlements in this country, will be set down in coming time as but the beginners in the great work of forming our country's destiny. The first settlers by the name of Wadsworth came to this country in 1632. This was twelve years after the arrival of the Pilgrims in the Mayflower at Plymouth, and about two years after the first arrirnls to form the ~,fassachu­ 0 setts colonies at Boston, Salem and Watertown. At that time there were hard.Jy a thousand white settlers in all New England. Plymouth colony had not extended beyond ~ bounds of the present town by the name, except for temporary habitation. A few planters had homes across the bay, at Duxbury, during the summer months, but had returned at winter to the principal settlement for better protection. But there was a great desire among the settlers at that time to push out into the undiscovered country all around them. They were like the frontier~men of our time, looking for new fields and new wealth. Few of us have a clear conception of this country at that time. ¥,Te have read a great deal of the blood-thirsty savages and the howling 9 WADSWORTH FAMILY HISTORY. wild beasts that infested the country. To be sure, both were here, but not in such numbers as we might readily infer. When Captain John Smith surveyed the New England coast in 1614, he found the savages so thick and fierce that he did not deem it safe for any of his crew to proceed in small boats up even the largest rivers any considerable distance. He represents the banks as literally lined with savages. Settlers at Jamestown, in Virginia, 16o7, compute the number of Indians at that time in New Eng­ land at I 23,000. But in 1617 this was all changed. A mortal disease broke out among them, known as the black death, and the bones of more than a hundred thousand of these savages bleached in the dust during that year. It was a terrible scourge, and no one as yet, as we have learned, fully understands the cause or exact nature of this devastating epidemic. This was three years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth ; and it will be remembered that the first settlers, in prospecting during the winter of 162<:r-2 r, found quantities of corn in the wigmams, left by those who died or fled during its ravages, which article of diet ministered greatly to the comfort of the settlers during that trying winter. The Indians gave them no trouble. What few they saw were frightened and running away. Careful computa­ tion sets the number that escaped the scourge in New England at less than 25,000. Had the Indians been as numerous, as bold and blood-thirsty at this time as they were five years previous, the name " Pilgrim Fathers" would never have been pronounced on these western shores, except in language of misfortune and folly. And is it not fair to presume that this destruction of savages, to open the way to a new race, new religion and new civilization, was a part of the great divine plan to work out His dispensations, as great as that of dividing the Red Sea for the passage of the Israelites, or other special providences recorded in holy writ? But the ways of Providence are past finding out. Of one thing we have become convinced by observation, and that is, that supply always comes with the demand, whether it be the work of the Lord or the devil. As the story goes: The poor, lone widow in her thatched cottage, in hungered condition, got upon her knees before an open fire and prayed to the Lord for bread. A mischievous si;hool-boy going past and hearing her. plaintive appeal, crawled upon the roof and dropped down the chimney his dinner basket, well laden with provision, which rolled out upon the hearth in sight of the poor widow. When she beheld the contents she again knelt down and proceeded to thank the Lord that her prayer had been answered; but the boy, feeling that she had been deceived as to the origin of the donation, went boldly in and told her that he had dropped down the basket, and that she need not continue thanking the Lord, but to eat and appease her appetite. The poor widow looked intently upon the boy a moment and ejaculated: "My, lad, the Lord sent it, if the devil brought it." It is not always easy to draw the dividing line in our achieve- WADSWORTH FAMILY HISTORY. JO ments between what we accomplish for ourselves by the aid of others and where favoring breezes of DiYine ProYidence are SJJecially apparent. Those great fa,·oring forces in nature, such as steam and electricity, existed two thousand years ago as much as now, but they were hidden froru our gaze till they were actually needed to minister to our comfort. The great coal fields or Pennsylrnnia and the west lay undiscoYered till there was a demand for their buried treasure. And so it is, and ever has been in the economy of nature, that her resources are adequate to meet every demand of her intelligent beings, and in some way or other they are brought to light just at the time when they are needed.