The Stantons in America The Patrilineal Ancestry of Charles Howland Stanton Patrick Hoggard December, 2015 Contents Introduction 1 The Rhode Island Stantons Robert Stanton 5 John Stanton 29 John Stanton 45 The Nantucket Stanton Samuel Stanton 66 The Peripatetic Stantons William Stanton 72 Zaccheus Stanton 88 The Indiana Stantons Eli Stanton 118 Dilwin Stanton 129 The California Stantons Will Stanton 141 Charles Stanton 153 Final Thoughts 158 Introduction To follow the Stantons from their first arrival in America down to Charles Howland Stanton is largely to trace the history of Quaker migrations in this country. Consequently two of the questions we shall be asking are who was the first Stanton Quaker in this line and who was the last Quaker. Also, out of general interest, inquiring minds would like to know how or whether this line is related to the two most prominent Stantons in American public life, Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War under Lincoln, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (meaning, of course, her husband). But first, a very brief introduction to Quaker movements in America. The birth of the Quakers in England is set by many in the year 1652, when George Fox began to attract large number of followers to his ideas. He and his Friends of the Light shortly thereafter began to be referred to as Quakers because of references to trembling before the Lord. The first Quakers appeared in America in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1656, getting an icy reception there. Quakers were persecuted indefatigably, and four of them were hanged in Boston in 1660. The first real settlement of immigrant and converted Quakers was in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, where they were tolerated. A split among sects led to what would become an even larger group of Quakers in Newport, a few miles distant.1 Smaller enclaves grew up in the various colonies, like Maryland, that would refrain from chasing them out. Then in 1681 William Penn acquired the charter for Pennsylvania and, himself a Quaker, threw open the doors. Around 1700 a Quaker settlement arose, more through conversion than immigration, on Nantucket Island in Massachusetts. It grew rapidly.2 Later in the 1700s, North Carolina attracted large numbers of Quakers. The first settlement, in the early part of the 18th century, consisted of a group that migrated from Newport and Portsmouth in Rhode Island and settled in Carteret County, on the eastern seaboard. The second settlement was in the interior, in what was called New Garden (today part of the city of Greensboro), and came about from a massive and extended migration beginning in the 1750s, mostly of Quakers from Nantucket, the whole island at the time almost entirely Quaker and, in fact, running over with them.3 Beginning around 1800, Quakers from the South began to emigrate to Ohio, in large part to escape the slave-owning society around them. Abolitionist sentiments were not a big part of the Quaker faith at the beginning, but abolitionism developed over time and became quite strong after the Revolutionary War. The centers of Quaker settlement can be inferred from the locations of their yearly meetings. Friends attended their local or “monthly” meetings twice a week and a regional meeting four times a year. Once a year they would travel, if they could, 1 Thomas D. Hamm, The Quakers in America, 2003. 2 Ibid 3 Ibid 2 however far they had to go to attend the yearly meeting. Quarterly and yearly meetings were multi-day affairs. New Garden was the location for a yearly meeting, but it stopped being so after losing most of its Quaker population. The new yearly meeting site in Ohio was in Mt. Pleasant, in Jefferson County.4 4 Ibid 3 The Rhode Island Stantons 4 Robert Stanton (1599-1672) The first of the Charles Howland Stanton line to arrive in America was Robert Stanton. He was probably also the first Quaker, although not for many years after his arrival. Robert Stanton was born in England in 1598 or 1599. He married Avis Almy while still in England. They embarked for New England, probably in the early or middle 1630s. The name of the ship is unknown, but they probably landed at Plymouth (the Plymouth Plantation, as it was then called). By 1638, however, they were living in the Rhode Island Colony, shortly after the first settlement at what is now Providence by Roger Williams in 1636. Robert Stanton is listed as one of the early settlers of Rhode Island in Wikipedia,5 in particular as one of the original inhabitants (in 1638) of Aquidnick island. Roger Williams founded Providence after he was exiled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for heresy. He reached it from Salem overland and by canoe, and brought several families with him. The following year a different group of “heretics”, including 5 Wikipedia, List of early settlers of Rhode Island 5 several prominent citizens, was first disarmed,6 and several months later exiled. One group of 19 exiles sailed with their families to Providence in early 1638 and were advised by Roger Williams to settle on the north end of Aquidnick island, as it was known even then. Aquidnick was sometimes called Rhode Island, and the original name of the colony was Rhode Island and Providence Plantation. In March, 1638, the island was purchased from local tribes, as Providence had been, and the new settlement was called Pocasset.7 A year later its name was changed to Portsmouth. Robert Stanton was not among the initial purchasers of Aquidnick, but in the fourth town meeting held in Pocasset, in September, 1638, the only item of business appears to have been the following:8 By virtue of a Warrant, George Willmore, George Parker, John Lutner, John Arnold, Samuell Smith, Robert Stanton, Anthony Robinson, John Vahun, being summoned to appeare before the Body for a Riott of drunkenesse by them committed on the 13th of the 7th month [i.e., September in the Julian Calendar]: It was accordingly agreed and ordered in Regard the default was different in some Circumstances, That George Willmore and George Parker shuld pay into the Treasury 5 shillings a peece, and to sitt till the Evening in the Stockes; and that John Lutner shuld pay 5 shillings and sitt one howre in the Stockes; and that Samuell Smith, Robert Stanton, Anthony Robinson and John Vahun should pay 5 shillings a peece as fine for their default. 6 Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, Records of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, Vol I, 1628-1641, Boston, William White Press, 1853, p. 211. 7 Edward Field, State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the End of the Century: A History, Boston, Mason Publishing, 1902. Note: at that time the Julian calendar was in use and the year ended in March, so it was recorded as 1637. 8 Howard M. Chapin, Documentary History of Rhode Island, Vol. 2, 1919, p. 44 6 In March of 1639,9 Robert Stanton was admitted as an inhabitant of Pocasset in another town meeting. In the spring of 1639, many of the inhabitants decided to move to the south end of the island, about 15 miles south of Pocasset. This seems to have happened quite rapidly. In a Pocasset town meeting on April 28, 1639, it was decided to “propagate a plantation in the midst of the island, or elsewhere.” 10 During the next town meeting, on May 16, 1639, it was “agreed and ordered that the Plantation now begun at this south west end of the island shall be called Newport.” Robert Stanton was one of the people to relocate to Newport, where he was admitted as a freeman (i.e., with the 9 Recorded as 1638. 10 Richard M. Bayles, History of Newport County, Rhode Island, 1888, p. 141 7 right to vote) on Dec. 17, 1639,11 and the land he occupied, along with that of the other ten original proprietors of Newport, was entered in the records in March, 1640.12 Newport grew rapidly and in May, 1641, there were 62 freemen in Newport. The map shows the inhabited parts of the colony of Rhode Island around 1660, Warwick having been first settled around 1642, and settlers having taken up residence in the area that became Pawtucket later in that decade. Robert Stanton remained in Newport until his death in August of 1672. His name appears several times in the town records, as a jury member and as a “sarjant” on the town council. In 1642 he purchased an additional tract of land from its first English occupant, Thomas Beeder.13 Many years later he was a party to a purchase of still more land, directly from the Indian owners. Robert and Avis Stanton, according to Our Ancestors, The Stantons,14 had six children: Robert, born 1627 in England Sarah, born 1640 in Newport Mary, born 1642 in Newport John, born 1645 in Newport Daniel, born 1648 in Newport Prudence, born 1649 in Newport I can find no independent evidence for a Robert Stanton Jr., purportedly born in 1627. As an individual, he appears in 11 Chapin, loc. cit., p. 80. 12 Bayles, loc. cit., p. 142 13 Ibid, p. 137 14 William Henry Stanton, A Book Called Our Ancestors the Stantons, 1922, p. 30. 8 several hundred family trees on Ancestry.com, but without the names of a wife or children, and with no source records. Sarah, however, is known to have married Henry Tibbetts in 1661, the marriage being recorded in the Rhode Island Friends Records.15 Rhode Island here means specifically Aquidnick Island (the terms were still synonymous at the time), i.e., the towns of Portsmouth and Newport.