CHARLES SMITH AND RACHEL AMY BRYANT Their Jncestors and Vescendants By TENNEY SMITH Printed by THE VERMONT PRINTING COMPANY BRATTLEBORO, VERMONT TennevJ Smith CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 9 PART I SMITH FAMILY 17 BRYANT FAMILY THE WOMEN'S SIDE OF THE STORY FAMILY HISTORY DESCENDANTS OF CHARLES AND RACHEL SMITH THOSE WHO MADE THE OVERLAND JOURNEY TO CALIFORNIA 86 COATS OF ARMS, SMITH AND BRYANT PART II EMIGRANT ANCESTORS AND GENEALOGIES PAGE CHART OF ANCESTORS 95 FAMILIES PAGE PA.GE Allen, George 98 Marcelis 212 Alling, Roger 100 Morrell, Henry 214 Ames, William 106 Nash, Thomas 215 Babcock, David 107 Parker, Edward 219 Barrell, George IIO Peck, Henry 221 Bassett, William 112 Reyer, Elbertse 223 Beadles, Samuel 113 Rose, Robert 225 Bird, Thomas 115 Shaw,Jop.n 229 Blott, Robert 118 Smith, R'alph 231 Botsford, Henry . 120 Standish, Myles 250 Bower, George 122 Talbot, Peter 255 Bryant, Stephen 124 Tart, Thomas 265 Bunnell, William 1 55 Turrell, Daniel 266 Clark, James 156 Van Zant, Joseph 269 Clark, William 158 Vose, Robert 276 Colbron, William 16o Wentworth, William 279 Collins, Joseph 169 Wheeler, Thomas 287 Co!lins, William 172 Williams, Matthew 289 Hawes, Richard 173 Williams, Richard 324 Hicks, Richard 176 Williams, Thomas 329 Hobart, Edmund 177 Williams, Willoughby 33 2 Humphrey, Jonas 181 Wilmot, Benjamin 333 Jones, Aquila 184 Winston, John 334 Knowles, Richard 187 Wyatt, Edward 335 Ludington, William 191 SOCIETY OF THE DESCENDANTS OF THE BARONS 282 THE SHIPS THEY CAME ON INDEX 347 ILLUSTRATIONS Tenney Smith Frontispiece FACING PAGE Charles Smith 17 The House of Capt. William Smith Rachel Amy Bryant Smith Photostat Copies of the Records in the Family Bible of Jesse Bryant The House of Zopher Williams (top) 57 The Barn of Zopher Williams (bottom) 57 Grave Stones of Seth Smith, Sally Jones Smith, Chaun­ cey Smith, Jesse Bryant 63 'T'line Ul\1v111 /f'•11 er" 68 The "Chief Electrician" 77 Orrin Ernest Smith. Tenth Generation in the Direct Male Line from Ralph Smith 86 Smiths of the Eleventh Generation from Ralph Smith Coats of Arms 88 and 89 Ancestral Charts ABBREVIATIONS USED A. Age. Arrived. Ae. Aged. Ar. Argent, Silver. b. Born. B. Place of birth. hap. Baptised. C. Had a child or children. Capt. Captain. Ch. Church. Co. County. Col. Colonel. Cong. Congregational church. d. Died. dau. Daughter. D.H.F. Directory of Heads of Families. By Frank R. Holmes. Dr. Doctor of Medicine. G. Was a grand parent. G.S. Grave stone. H.D.F. History of the Dudley Family. By Dean Dudley. int. Filed intention of marriage. Jr. Junior. L. Lived after coming to New England. Lt. Lieutenant. m. Married. M. Was married before coming to New England. M.D. Mayflower Descendant. mo. Month. M.W. Madison, Wisconsin, vital records. O.S. Old style date. p._ Page. P Port of derarture of emigrant. P.C. Planters o the Commonwealth. By Charles Edward Banks. P.ch. Presbyterian church. Ph.D. Doctor of Philosophy. Reg. New England Historical and Genealogical Register. S. Was single at time of arrival in New England. s. p. Left no children. Sr. Senior. T.O.L. TheOriginalListofEmigrants. By John Camden Hotton. Unm. Unmarried. v.orvol. Volume. v.r. Vital records. X. In a name means the person signed by mark. INTRODUCTION "The lives we need to have written for us are of people whom the world has not thought of, much less heard of, who are yet doing most of the work." This quotation is from John Ruskin. This book is largely about the kind of people that he had in mind. People who stayed at home and at­ tended well to their own affairs. .. A study of the iives of our early New England ancestors is well worth while. We can but admire the courage and deter­ mination of the men and women who founded our institu­ tions and built up our great nation on a base of personal in­ dependence and high moral character. Who can study the works of such men as William Bradford and John Davenport without a feeling of thankfulness that we had such men to give the new land the benefit of their teaching and example? How hard they tried to advance the good and keep out the evil that would force itself into the new community. It has been particularly hard to follow out some of our line of ancestors because they were of the pioneer class and went into the wilderness in advance of recorded history. Most of them have been plain, everyday men and women who had neither time nor wealth to spare to allow them to spend much time in public affairs. Consider the Smith family. vVilliam Smith broke away from his family and we find him in Stoughton, Mass., at a time when there were more Indians than white men living there. His grandson, Seth Smith, was one of the first settlers in Northfield, Vermont. He died in Wisconsin, where his son, Charles Smith, had gone four years before Wisconsin became a state. The Bryant family was even more pioneer- 9 ing. Samuel Bryant was among the early settlers of Berk­ shire Co., Mass. His son, Prince Bryant, was in Illinois in the year 1800. By 1860 Prince Bryant's grandchildren were permanent residents on the Pacific coast. To gather the information that is contained in this volume it has been necessary to visit many towns and examine the land, probate and vital records and to talk with many in­ dividuals who could give special information. The writer has personally visited as many places as possible where his ancestors had lived. This has given him an idea of the sur­ roundings amid which they lived and has brought many things to his notice that would not have been found by any amount of reading. The heavy work has been done in the New York public library, the library of the Long Island Historical Society, in Brooklyn, N. Y., the Congressional library in Washington and the Boston Public library. But that was only the foundation. Such towns as Hingham, Orleans, Barnstable and Stoughton, Mass., were visited and records examined.. The State Library in Hartford, Conn., was found to have a great wealth of old documents and an obliging and efficient staff to make the information available to those who wished to find information. Vermont has an excellent system of keeping vital records. New Haven, Conn., and Newark, N. J., have been visited many times. Towanda, Pa .. , is remembered for the courteous and obliging people who were met with there. Madison, Wis., offers an excellent set of vital records from every county in the state. Illinois and Iowa were visited in seeking information and California and Oregon have not been neglected in the search for family history. In the beginning it was intended to write only a short story of the family of Charles Smith and make a record of his descendants with a brief account of such of the ancestors of IO he and his wife as could be found. As the work went on branches of the family, that had never been heard of were found and the record broadened out until it included a host of the oldest families in Massachusetts and Connecti­ cut. Some of these, as the Smith, Bryant, Ludington and Matthew Williams families have of necessity been carried out to great lengths. Others have been confined to three or four generations, when they merged into another line. About some there is very little known to tell. It would have made a book so large as to make it cumbersome and beyond the natural limits of its purpose to have told all that might have been desired about every family. So only a short ac­ count of some of the families has been given. To this has been added the names of books that may be consulted by those desiring further information about a family. In the case of the emigrant ancestor of the Babcock, Ludington and Nash families the account given here will be found to differ from the account usually given, but an ex­ tensive search of the old records has brought the conclusions here given. As to the occupations of the people, almost every man was a farmer in the early days in New England. If any of the men named did anything notable outside of his farming an effort has been made to mention the fact. Most of the farm­ ers, in the early days were carpenters, stone masons, black­ smiths, tanners and shoemakers enough to turn their hands to any work that needed to be done. This kept them busy the year round. There was always something that needed to be done. One thing comes to mind that the present genera­ tion has hardly heard of. Many farmers, in the old days had what was called a shaving horse. That was a plank set up on four legs. Above the plank was a small table, on which was a viselike clamp for holding a piece of wood. The man sat II astride the plank with one foot on the ground. With the other foot he operated a lever that opened and closed the clamp. With this simple machine he made ax handles, gun stocks, bar~ell hoops, chair posts, shingles or any other article of wood that he wanted. His main tool was a drawing knife, but he used a rasp or some other tool as the work re­ quired. This shaving horse was of such universal use that it seems strange that it has become almost forgotten and is so rarely mentioned in books.