The Bates Bulletin SERIES X VOLUME 5 SPRING 2013 NUMBER 1 LAST bulletin STICKER If you have a last bulletin sticker on the front of your Bulletin, then it means we have not received your 2013 Dues. To con- tinue receiving the Bulletin we must have your dues. If you are not sure of the amount etc., contact Sandy at The signature of William Bates, signed when he was witness to a [email protected] or 222 Line Road Greene Maine marriage in County Wicklow 04236 or call 1-207-946-7067. OFFICERS RE-ELECTED William Bates and his Family Enough votes have now been cast for the 2013 election of offi- lived in Ballymurrin, Quaker cers. All votes went for the re-election of the same slate of Farmstead, County Wicklow, officers. None were against. Thanks to all who took the time to vote. Much Appreciated. Ireland from 1671 to 1681 By Philip Geoghegan PICTURE OF FERN BATES In the Winter 2012 Bulletin on page 506 I ran the information Introduction on the baby picture of Fern Bates. Shelley Cardiel had ac- quired this picture and shared with us. Shelley has now do- My temerity to write about William Bates is not so much nated and sent, this picture to The Association Library. initially related to the Quakers or to the name Bates, but William Bate/Bates from England to to an opportunity to live in a very old farmhouse 30 miles South of Dublin, reputed to have been lived in by Ireland to Newton Creek New Jersey By Sandy Bates Quakers. Little else was known about the history of the place. As architects we were fascinated with the beautiful Up to this point we have discussed William of Hanover NJ. Originally, I thought this was my Line and DNA for yet austere appearance of the building and its attractive William of Newton Creek. However if we accept Tho- courtyard layout, and we were curious to put an accurate mas Bates of Wales being the father of William of Hano- date on the building of the farmstead. ver, then we have to look elsewhere for William of New- ton Creek. This means I have no DNA to establish my We contacted the Quaker Historical Library in Dublin, William of Newton Creek. A Rolland Bates took the initially in 1995 to help us find out more about Bally- DNA believing he was of the William of Newton line, murrin House in Wicklow. We made an appointment and however he matches the Henry/Nicholas Line out of CT. arrived to find a substantial pile of documents on the ta- So that lets me with no proven DNA Line for my Wil- ble, which we were invited to peruse. They included reg- liam. We know that William emigrated from England to Ireland and he was married to a Mary. He had family isters of all births, marriages and deaths in the Wicklow there and he was put in prison for his Quaker beliefs. After getting out, him and his family, except for a daugh- In This Issue ter; came to NJ settling at Newton Creek what is now known as the Cottonwood area. We will now look at Ire- Last Bulletin Sticker………………………...………. Front land and where William and his family lived. Officers Re-Elected………………... ………...……...Front The following is written by Philip Geoghegan of Ireland, Picture of Fern Bates………………...…………….... Front who now owns the homestead of William. We want to William Bate/Bates from England……………...…... Front give Philip a great Big Thank You for sharing this infor- William Bates and His Family……………………….Front mation and pictures with us. His web site is: William of Newton Creek……………………………...521 www.ballymurrin.ie/index.html. Here you will find more Obituaries …………………………………………….. 522 pictures and information. Volunteers & Trustees ……………………………….. 524 THE BATES ASSOCIATION FOUNDED IN 1907 The Bates Bulletin Page 514 area and a collection of records of meetings of Quakers. In summarising our findings here, we wish to allow the So started our adventure into researches which were well facts to shape understanding of the period in which Wil- outside our field of expertise as architects; genealogy and liam Bates and family made their brief appearance at history. Ballymurrin. To do justice to that, we have back dated Our interest initially was to pin down the date for the the story to establish from whom the first family settling building of Ballymurrin House on the site - we were able in Ballymurrin acquired title to the land. get close relatively easily, by drawing conclusions from the available information on births, marriages and deaths, and some of the descriptions in the old registers. We dis- covered documentary evidence that the farmstead had been lived in since 1668. As we proceeded, it was evi- dent that the period we were looking at, from the sixteen sixties to the sixteen eighties, was a tumultuous one, es- Ballymurrin Quaker Farmstead, set in its landscape context in pecially for religious groups like the Quakers, with per- County Wicklow, with Wicklow Mountains behind. secution and harassment motivating families to move from England to Ireland in search of a more peaceful and 1 Dunganstown Castle, and Sir John Hoey, Knight tolerant life. We don't have to travel far from Ballymurrin to under- However, that was not to be the case; their difficulties stand its origins. Ballymurrin is in the ancient parish of persisted and many long suffering Irish Quakers saw the Ennisboyne, with Dunganstown Castle and Church at its opportunity to make a second new life in America, espe- centre. This parish on the East Coast of Ireland, is where cially in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. William Penn St Patrick, according to tradition and scholarly place- had been 'convinced' and became a Quaker in Ireland, as name work, is reputed to have landed. He brought Chris- well as heir to the fortunes of his father, Admiral Sir tianity to Ireland in the year 430AD, one thousand and William Penn. The son's wealthy background and six hundred years ago generating from this church site Quaker commitment stimulated him to encourage Quak- the parish within which Ballymurrin is situated. ers to seek a new life based on a more liberal agenda and The castle was burned during the Catholic rebellion of a guarantee of religious freedom. 1641. The Protestant Hoey family rebuilt part of the cas- Meanwhile, back at Ballymurrin in the 1990s, we had tle and continued as a family in residence until 1850, a embarked on a ten-year program (optimistically) to re- tenure of over 250 years. Their legacy is the church at store the house and its outbuildings and to faithfully rep- Dunganstown and the ruins of both Castle and the great resent them as a rare example of self-effacing, plain, 17th house. century architecture. We are still working at it, nineteen The Ballymurrin lands, at the time of Cromwell's notori- years. Our reward is to live in a beautiful, simple house ous survey of Catholic lands in 1654 and subsequent with generous rooms in a stunning undulating landscape, confiscation, were owned by Sir William Parsons, a Lord close to the sea in the foothills of the Wicklow Justice, Protestant, who lived at Milltown about three 'Mountains'. In 2010, the buildings, very belatedly, were miles away. Sir John Hoey of Dunganstown married his designated as of being of national, historical, architec- daughter, Jane Parsons. Sometime between 1664 and tural and cultural interest by our Department of Arts, 1668, 223 acres of land, the townland of Heritage and Gaeltacht, after which we opened our doors 'Ballymooranbegg', (Ballymurrin Lower) was acquired to the public to show its unique architectural features to by the Quakers from those families. The first recorded the public for sixty days a year. date of Quakers' settling there is 1668. THE BATES ASSOCIATION FOUNDED IN 1907 The Bates Bulletin Page 515 (This information is extracted from the book 'Credo', of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers” from about Dunganstown Parish, by Canon Robert Heavener, 1650 to 1689, published in 1753, and a book on “Tithes published in 1993 by Cromlech Books, Jordanstown, taken from Irish Quakers”. Ireland) Bates family information is informed from recent infor- mation found on “Roots Web's World Connect Project: the Fowler family. It is valuable as it offers approximate dates for the births of William and Mary's children. Wil- liam was born at different dates according to different searches, but between 1635 and 1640. His place of birth is elusive. There is consensus that he was born in Eng- land, and a case made in the Fowler family genealogy, which shows that one of William's daughters, Abigail, married Joshua Hearne from Hartington in Derbyshire, The ruined shell of mediaeval Dunganstown Castle, foreground, England, shortly after they arrived in New Jersey, sug- and early 1600s House, behind gesting that they may have known each others' families at an earlier time. It remains of course to prove this, but 2 The first family recorded to be living in Ballymurin it is a credible explanation as many of the Irish Quakers Quaker Farmstead arrived from counties in northern England. They were the Judds, Ambrose, born in Brandon Ferry, The Bates family is only recorded twice in the Wicklow Suffolk in SE England, and his wife, Jane (Eves), from Quaker Registers as living in Ballymurrin; when a son, Leicestershire in England's Midlands. In Ireland, at the Joseph, was born there in 1675; and when their eldest time of their marriage, she was living in Ballykeane, daughter, Elizabeth, (claimed to have been born in Ire- about five miles from Ballymurrin, and his parents were land in 1662), was married to Mark Eves, from Bally- living in Dunganstown.