Sherrill Genealogy
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THE SHERRILL GENEALOGY THE DESCENDANTS OF SAMUEL SHERRILL OF EAST HAMPTON, LONG ISLAND NEW YORK BY CHARLES HITCHCOCK SHERRILL SECOND AND REVISED EDITION COMPILED AND EDITED BY LOUIS EFFINGHAM de FOREST CoPnxG:e:T, 1932, :BY CHARLES IDTCHCOCK SHERRILL THE TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR COMPANY, KEW KA.VEN, CONK. SHERRILL THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY SHERRILL ANCESTORS WHO SERVED THE STATE EITHER LOCALLY OR NATIONALLY AND TO MY DESCENDANTS WHO SHALL ALSO DO SO TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE.. Editorial Note . vu Introduction ......................................•... 1 First Generation ..................................... 24 Second Generation . .............••... 31 Third Generation ....................................• 34 Fourth Generation . •• 41 Fifth Generation . 58 Sixth Generation . 98 Seventh Generation ................................... 151 Eighth Generation . ............................. 201 Ninth Generation .................................... 229 Tenth Generation . .................. 236 Bibliography . ................. 237 Index of Persons . ............... 241 V EDITORIAL NOTE The first edition of this work was compiled by Charles Hitchcock Sherrill and published privately by him in the year 1894. In this second and revised edition General Sherrill has written the entire Introduction and First Generation which are signed with his name. The editor assumes the usual responsibility for the remainder of the book and hopes that it will be acceptable to the Sherrills and to his fellow genealogists. The arrangement of material is the one generally found in modem genealogies. Each head of a family is given a number, in a sequence beginning with the first settler who is No. 1. By looking ahead to the given number the succeeding generation will 4 be found. The superior or raised numbers ( as Jonathan ) indicate the degree of descent from the founder of the family in America. The usual abbreviations are used. Thus : b., d. and m. stand for born, died and married. In some of the earlier generations the double calendar is used. It will be recalled that in England and her colonies, until 1752, the year began on March 25th and March was reckoned the first month of the year. It was frequent in the colonies for a period of some years to use the double dating for the days between January 1st and lYiarch 25th. The editor is grate£ ul to many members of the family for their assistance. He is sorry that he cannot mention them all, but he must acknowledge his particular indebtedness to Miss Adaline M. Sherrill of East Hampton. Like all compilers of genealogies, he regrets the many unanswered letters and the resulting gaps in the record. The editor regrets that in a few cases information came in too late for an individual to receive a number as a head of a family. The editor owes his warm thanks to his wife, Anne Lawrence de Forest, for her critical assistance throughout the book. L. E. DEF. New York, N. Y., April, 1932. .. V11 INTRODUCTION Bertil Blome, of the University of Uppsala, Sweden, in a dis sertation publicly discussed there May 15, 1929, at 10 A. M., "The Place-Names of North Pevonshire," does us the honor of beginning his treatise on page 1, with- 4:'1. Shirwell Hundred. Scireuuelle, uuille 1086 DB, Schirewelle 1169-70, 1174-5 (-well) P. S(c)hirwell, Sirewell 1228 DFF; see further Shirwell infra. This is an almost compact hundred situated in the NE comer of the county on the Bristol Channel and on the outskirts of the Exmoor Forest. Shirwell parish ~s in the extreme SW part of the hundred." The "infra" to which he refers is found at page 8; "Shirwell. Shirwell 118 F7 Aiscireuuilla ( Ascerewelle Exch) , Sireuuilla 1086 DB, Sirigvilla 1093 France, Shirewill '1242 Fees 784, Syrewill' 1242 Fees 787, Shirwell 1263 Ipm, Sherewill 1428 FA,? Shurwell 1655 B Mi.-OE scirau-wiellan 'clear spring.' The initial syllable of the DB is possibly the OE preposition ret." The initials in capital letters ref er to the sources of his informa tion, i.e., OE-old English; DB-Domesday Book; P-Public Record Office; DFF-Devonshire Feet Fines; etc. Of the comparatively few purely Saxon family names, unchanged by the N ormanizing effect which was but the natural result of the Conquest, there is none which has retained its original form more exactly than that of Sherrill. Extensive search throughout Eng land indicated that Devonshire was the home of the Sherrills. Devonshire was the last of Saxon England to furl the Saxon ban ner with its rampant ,vhite horse and yield to the superior force of the Normans; this they did long after the invaders were firmly seated in the rest of the country. This longer persistence of Devon's freedom from Norman influence was due partly to the wild character of that county (often called "the Switzerland of England") and partly to its remoteness in the southwest comer of the kingdom. It is but natural that in such a neighborhood the Sherrills should cling to their Saxon ways and name, that they should be jealous of the new order of things, and should transmit the name to later generations in its original form. As to when 2 SHERRILL GENEALOGY the name probably originated, the fact of its being so thoroughly Saxon when cited 1086 in the Domesday Book demonstrates its existence long before the coming of the Normans, and that, there fore, it must come down from the first part of the eleventh cen tury, at the latest. In Gentry's ''Family Names" it is derived as follows: "Sherrill: Scir, shire, district, El, indicative of a person. A resident of a shire." This derivation encourages one to deduce a still greater age, for it would certainly seem that if it were desired to distinguish an old established resident of a district from other men more recently arrived there, no more apt term could be used than "a resident." If there be anything in this reasoning, it would move our name's origin back to a still earlier part of the Saxon era. There are numerous variations in the spelling, but the pronunciation of all resembles closely our modem American form; in Saxon times "sc" was pronounced as "sh" is nowadays. The English of to-day in pronouncing the name "Sherwill" almost omit the "w" sound. There is a town of Sherwill in North Devon which lies only a dozen miles northeast of Barnstaple, and yet the sign posts along the road between those two towns show three different spellings of our name. The Probate of Wills in Devonshire shows even wider divergences. In the Dec. 8, 1687, will of "Nicholas Sherrill of Walkha.mpton" (Devon) the name appears in the calendar as '~Shenvill," but throughout the will itself it is clearly written Sherrill. In the Comwood (Devon) Parish Register under Baptisms it is spelled Sherril (Nov. 22, 1695) "Samuel, son of Thomas Sherril & Elizabeth his wife." And again (July 10, 1696)-"John, son of Richard Sherril and Ann his wife." In the same town's Register is a Marriage entry "1694. Richard Sherrill & Ann Bennett," and a Burial-"1727. _.<\.pril 20, Elizabeth Sherrell." I myself commenced a collection of spellings taken from envelopes addressed to me, but when the total reached 27 I gave it up. Some were mystifying and one was amusing-" Sherrible." Besides the town near Barnstaple there are two other Devon places named Shenvill, both located a little to the east of Plymouth in the southern part of the country. One town is very small indeed, and lies about midway between Comwood and Ivy bridge. Just west of it is Sherwin Wood, with the Great W estem Railway line running through it, while a short way to the southeast is Sherwill Cottage. Sherwill, Sherwin Cottage and Sherwill Wood SHERRILL GENEALOGY 3 together form an equilateral triangle with short sides. Not very far away, another town of our name, Sherwell, lies close to Hemer don, on its east side. It is clear that ours is an old Devon family. The graveyards of southern Devonshire, particularly in and around Plymouth, afford ample testimony in support of this statement. From \Vorth's "History of Plymouth," his "Early Commerce of Plymouth," "Calendar of Plymouth Municipal Records," and "History oj Nonconformity in Devonshire," Jewitt's "History of Plymouth," Yonge's "Plimouth Memoirs," Alexander Brown's "Genesis of the United States" (to mention only a few books) and numerous documents of the 17th century, we learn that a certain Thomas Sherwill represented Plymouth in Parliament continuously from 1614 to 1628 and always in company with John Granville (Jewitt's ''History of Plymouth" spells this name Glanville, but Worth, in his many Plymouth books, writes it Granville). Election of Ply mouth's Burgesses in Parliament ca.me at irregular intervals. During this 14 years period of Thomas Sherwill's continuous Parliamentary service there were only six elections, three under James I (1614, 1621 and 1624) and three under Charles I (1625, 1626 and 1628). This same Thomas Sherwill also was Mayor in the years 1608-9, 1617-18, and again in 1626-27, when he prob ably died of the plague which was then raging. One record book states that Plymouth had three Mayors in that one year, Thomas Sherwill, Robert Trelawney and Abraham Colmer, and that the first two died. Another record shows our Thomas completing his year, while it lists Trelawney and Colmer as both Mayors the next year, the former dying in office. Thomas' brother Nicholas was also Mayor three times, in 1618-19, 1627-28 and 1637-38. Plymouth records run very far back, and are full of history that concerns not only that town but all of England. R. N. Worth says "in the latter part of the 16th century Devonshire was the foremost county of England and Plymouth its foremost town." Plymouth was by far the most important port in England all through the period when British seafaring men were building up her marvelous prestige upon the waters.