History and Genealogy of the Stackpole Family
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Jl o o o o HISTORY AND GENEALOGY OF THE STACKPOLE FAMILY BY EVERETT S. STACKPOLE SECOND EDITION 1920 a- . A THE WEF yn^^ PUBLIC J.,! BR A RV ' ux'-^:'^-e . ASTOB, LEN:*^ ^,;j 'TILDEK F ''DaHo..\:s| 1* Journal Printshop and Bindery Lewiston, Maine CONTENTS Chapter Page I. Origin "7 42 II. Stacpole Family in Ireland III. The Coat of Arms 52 IV. James Stacpole, the Emigrant 54 V. The Old Farm 65 VI. Second Generation 75 VII. Third Generation 87 VIII. Fourth Generation 95 IX. Fifth Generation 115 X. Sixth Generation 160 XI. Seventh Generation 264 XII. Eighth Generation 304 XIII. The Stackpoles of Pennsylvania 306 XIV. Later Arrivals 314 XV. Military Record 319 XVI. College Alumni 335 XVII. Reunions 337 Index 339 ILLUSTRATIONS The Stack Rock Frontispiece Stackpole Court Opposite page 10 Sir Richard de Stakepol 15 Church of Stackpole-Elidyr 21 Sir Elidyr de Stakepol 22 Wife of Sir Elidyr de Stakepol 22 The Eight-Arch Bridge . 29 Approach to Stackpole Court 38 Post Office at Stackpole, Wales 40 John Stacpoole of Cragbrien 47 Edenvale, Ennis, County Clare, Ireland 49 Coat of Arms 52 House of James Stacpole, 1680 58 The Old Farm 69 Stackpole Memorial 72 Where Our Ancestors Lived 74 William Stackpole 127 David Dunning Stackpole 140 Samuel Owen Stackpole 144 Lorenzo Stackpole 194 Annie W. Baer 194 Joseph Lewis Stackpole 205 John Ward Gurley Stackpole 207 William Stackpole 236 Rev. Charles Henry Stackpole 237 Everett S. Stackpole 239 Alice Aberdein 244 Nellie S. Stackpole 258 Charles Harper Stackpole 277 George Dallas Stackpole 278 Joseph Lewis Stackpole 295 Joseph Lewis Stackpole 296 George F. Stackpole 298 George H. Stackpole 301 Charles F. Stackpole 302 Edward James Stackpole 311 Residence of E. J. Stackpole 312 Capt. Everett Birney Stackpole 328 Capt. Philip West Stackpole 330 Fifth Reunion, Rollinsford, N. H., 1902 . 337 I ORIGIN Sometime during the tenth century the Danes con- quered the southern coast of Wales and remained long enough to give to about thirty places names which still remain. One of them was Stakepol, derived from the Danish stak, meaning a heap or pile. Many piles of rock around the coast of Great Britain are called Stack Rocks. The letter k was not used in the old Saxon language, neither is it found in Welsh and Irish, yet the old spelling, Stakepol, persisted for centuries. The Normans, too, used the letter k but little. Clerk is in both Saxon and Norman clerc. The combination of c and k as in stack, is due to the insertion of a k in such words as stacking, stacked, etc., where without a k the sound of s would be given to c, coming before i and e.* Pol in old English, and pwll in Welsh, means a pool of water. Hence the small inlet back of the Stack Rock, at Broadhaven, was called Stakepol, and perhaps it was pro- nounced in three syllables. The place gave origin to the surname, which in the oldest records is always written de Stakepol, after the Norman style. The Normans made their first permanent settlement in Pembrokeshire about the year 1091, A.D., and within the next fifteen years all the southern part of Pembrokeshire was occupied by them. It has long been known as Little England Beyond Wales. The founder of the Stackpole family must have settled here about that time. Who was he ? In the first edition of this book a tradition was pub- lished concerning a GUILLAUME de MONTVALAI, who *Roemer's Origins of the English People and of the English Lan- guage, pp. 129, 314. 8 STACKPOLE FAMILY came over in the train of William the Conqueror and was assigned an estate in Horsham, Sussex, not far from the battlefield of Hastings. No mention of such a man has been found in history, nor of his son, Richard. These were, probably, fanciful creations of Count George Stacpoole of Paris, and he persuaded the College of Heraldry to publish, in 1776, a genealogical account of the early Pembrokeshire Stakepols, in which there is but little historical truth. Before the Norman Conquest no surnames existed in England. They were just beginning to come into use in France. Many surnames arose from names of places in which families lived. This was especially true of the nobility. Such is the origin of the surname Stakepol, and it dates back certainly to the end of the eleventh century. Very few surnames are as old. The historian, Freeman, smiles at the claim of some families, in search of an ancient ancestry, to a surname dating before the Conquest. A recent historian* says, "The name Stackpool was at first the designation of an inlet near the Stack, a project- ing rock at its mouth, and the first Norman settler, Sir Elidur, called himself De Stackpool. The spelling Stack- pole is incorrect and misleading." He says again, "On a creek, sheltered and woody, Stackpool Court, on the site of a castle founded by the Norman, Elidur de Stackpole, eleventh century, formerly belonging to the Lorts, now to the Earl of Cawdor." The description given by Richard Fenton in 1810 is so interesting that it is here copied at length. In a footnote he adds, "Notwithstanding the modern spelling of the name, I have taken the liberty to write it as above on the authority of the MS referred to, and the most ancient documents I have consulted." His description is as follows : — "Stackpool Court, the elegant seat of Lord Cawdor, undoubtedly took its name, and so I find it noted in a MS. I have had access to in the Bodleian Library, from the Stack rock at the mouth of the pool or estuary of Broadhaven, at the head of which it stands. The house is situated on *Annals and Antiquities of Counties and County Families of Wales, by Thomas Nicholas. Vol. II, pp. 897, 836. London, 1875. ORIGIN y the western side of the water, on a fine eminence at the edge of a bold declivity, and before it yielded to the present noble edifice had partly a castellated form, though it had been for a century before, by every addition and alteration it experienced, gradually losing its ancient and honorable baronial character and moulding itself to the fashion of the times. However, there can be no doubt of its retain- ing much of its castle strength and massiveness at the time of the civil wars, as it was fortified and garrisoned for the king; for in the account given by the parliamentary forces of the siege they say, "The walls were so strong that the ordnance did but little execution." It surrendered on quarter, and sixty soldiers completely armed were found in the house. The mansion now occupying the same site, of wrought limestone, was built by the grandfather of the present noble possessor who was son of Sir Alexander Campbell, of Cawdor Castle in Scotland, the first of the name who set- tled here, by marrying Miss Lort, the sole heiress of this great property. Though there have been objections to the heaviness of its architecture, it is a large and magnificent pile and well adapted to its site. It has two fronts, the principal facing phe pleasure grounds and the grand ap- fine of water at the proach ; the othei* looking over a piece foot of the slope it stands on to the park. You enter the latter from a terrace of great breadth, extending the length of it, and after descending a flight of steps, continued on a lower level the whole length of a spacious conservatory, fur- nished with a choice collection of the rarest shrubs and plants. On the opposite side is the park, of great compass and well stocked with deer. The hills skirting the lake by the house and forming its boundary are richly wooded in every direction, as are the pleasure grounds and shrubbery in front, beyond which, but completely hid, are the gardens, including the hot-houses, on an immense scale. A charm- ing piece of water admirably planned now fills the vale under the house, which, till this change of late years took place, crept an inconsiderable stream, checked with reeds and osiers all the way to the place where it felt and was 10 STACKPOLE FAMILY lost in the tide. The dam for altering the level, necessary to unite the water, is happily hid under an elegant bridge of eight arches, connecting the grounds on the side of the mansion with the park. The lake is most abundantly stocked with aquatic wild-fowl of every sort if wild they may be called that collect at a call and come in flocks to dry land to be fed like barn-door poultry. The house is distributed into a number of very noble apartments, and the library is large and well furnished. In one of the rooms, hung round with family pictures, there is a portrait whole length of Lord Cawdor, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and of Lady Cawdor by William Breechey; and in an adjoining room an original portrait of the late Lord Holland. The offices are all well arranged, and the stables forming a detached quadrangular building are in a style of princely pretension. Of Stackpool, without straining compliment, it may be safely said that there are few places which display more magnificence without or more sump- tuous hospitality and elegant comfort within. This, like all baronial residences in the country, had its mill, an inseparable appendage on the little stream below it, though long since swept away ; but of which Giraldus has left a memorable record, as connected with a most ludicrous story he relates.