Oldham Families One Name Study by Robert F. and Janis Oldham 6325 Nightshade Drive Indianapolis, IN 46237 www.oldhamfamilies.net [email protected] ii Table Of Contents Origins of The Oldham Name 1 Coat of Arms 3 Earliest Known Oldham Family 5 Coming to America 7 Settlement of the New World 9 History of Block Island 19 The Pequot War 21 Our New England Families 29 Descendant Report for William & Phillpa Sowter OLDHAM 31 Descendant Report for Richard OLDHAM of Norfolk County, Massachusetts 159 iv 1 2 COAT OF ARMS A coat of arms is a distinctive heraldic design on a tunic used to cover and protect armor, but the term is more broadly applied to mean a full heraldic achievement which consists of a shield and certain accessories. In either sense, the design is a symbol unique to a person, family, corporation, or state. Historically, armorial bearings were first used by feudal lords and knights in the mid-12th century on battlefields as a way to identify allies from the enemy soldiers. As the uses for heraldic designs expanded, other social classes began to assume arms for themselves, even though they would not be engaged in a battle. Initially, those closest to the lords and knights adopted arms, such as persons employed as squires that would be in common contact with the armorial devices. Then priests and other ecclesiastical dignities adopted coats of arms, usually to be used as seals and other such insignia, and then towns and cities to likewise seal and authenticate documents. Eventually by the mid-13th century, peasants, commoners and burghers were adopting heraldic devices. The widespread assumption of arms led some states to regulate heraldry within their borders. However, in most of continental Europe, citizens freely adopted armorial bearings. Many Coat of Arms for Oldham families, cities and states have been included, although many do not have designations as to the original family origin. 3 These are the Coat of Arms Of Bishop Hugh Oldham Oldham England Council Crest Oldham England Borough Crest 4 THE EARLIEST KNOWN OLDHAM FAMILY Adam de Eccles became Lord of Oldham and Wernith. (Wernith is a Celtic word meaning Scrubland or land of Alders). He was succeeded by Alwardus de Aldhame of Werneth in 1207-1372. His sons were William de Wernith and Robert. William's family was, Richard, living 1324, Eva, who married Richard de Tetlow of Chember Hall and Adam. Richard had two daughters, and when he died, Margery, the elder, was married to John Cudworth from Yorkshire. Alwardus de Aldhame (Testa de Nevil. Fol.372) in the reign of Henry lll (1216-1272) held two bovates of land in Vemt for 19d and the moiety for one farthing. This Alwardus was the founder of the family of Oldham. In 1375 Margery sole heir of Richard de Oldhame (the last male heir in the line of succession) married John Cudworth of Yorkshire. At John's death this marriage conveyed Werneth Hall and its manor to the Cudworths. The Coat of Arms of this Oldham family consisted of a Sable, a chevron between three owls argent, on a chief d'or three roses gules. Hugh Oldham claimed to be descended from this family, and wore a badge of an owl on his sleeve. This is it - his rebus. In the Lancashire dialect Oldham is still pronounced "au'dm". 5 6 Coming to America 7 8 The Settlement of the New World Emmigrant John “Mad Jack” Oldham John Oldham (1592 -1636 ) was an early Puritan settler in Massachusetts . He was a ship captain, enterprising merchant and Indian trader. It is said he had more courage and enterprise than piety and proved to be a “disturber of the colony” and a rover. He purchased a grant of land between the Charles and Saugus rivers and carried on a large trading endeavor with the local Indian tribes. In 1628 he travelled back to England to present a commercial scheme to the Massachusetts Company. But the Company feared that he would interest others in his opinions and denied his title to the land he had purchased and forbid him to trade beaver with the Indians. He was active in the early government of Watertown and explored much of the area from Boston to the Connecticut River, using Indian trails and lodging in their cabins. His death at the hands of Indians was one of the causes of the Pequot War of 1637. Oldham was believed to be born in Derbyshire, England in 1592, and was baptized at the Church of All Saints in Derby on July 14, 1592. A follower of the Puritans from an early age, he emigrated to Plymouth Colony with his wife, children, and sister in July 1623 aboard the ship Elizabeth & Anne. Captain John Oldham was the brother of Lucretia Oldham Brewster, who married Jonathon Brewster, son of William Brewster, a signer of the Mayflower Compact. Oldham's company was granted ten acres in the assignment of lands in 1623 presumably for each person in Oldham's family and for the following: Conant, Roger, Penn, and Christian. Oldham grew wealthy from his coastal trade and trading with the Indians. During 1623 Richard Vines and several others began a permanent settlement at Saco. John Oldham, a gentleman of property and high position, took up his residence there with his servants, and during the next six years he brought over many colonists at his own expense. Upon their arrival the employees of the Laconia Company occupied the house built by David Thompson at Little Harbor in 1623. Obviously, this building was the meeting place selected by John Oldham and the Laconia pioneers, since it was called "Rendezvous" in later years. The structure was rebuilt of stone materials, fortified with cannon and styled the "Great House" and "Mason's Stone House." By this time there were several settlers on Arrowsic island, near the mouth of the Sagadahock, and upon the mainland at the entrance of the river at Sheepscott, at Damariscotta, at Pemaquid, and at St. George's river. Most were thought to be reckless adventurers, runaway seamen, fugitives from justice, and others who for various reasons sought security from all civil and religious restraints. This state of affairs caused the Council at Plymouth serious concern, and it determined to adopt vigorous measures to reduce society to some condition of law and order, and to this end Robert Gorges was sent over as Governor, Francis West as Admiral, and Rev. William Merrill, an Episcopal clergyman, who were invested with full authority to manage public affairs. John Oldham associated with Reverend John Lyford, who plotted to overthrow this government 9 and replace it with Episcopal rule. John apparently wrote letters to persons in England critical of the church and Plantation. Rev John Lyford and John Oldham started exerting their Church of England views within the Plantation. They disagreed with the powers that be, and attempted to establish a separate manner of worship and to alter the form of Colonial Government. Oldham’s letters were intercepted in 1624, and Oldham and Lyford were tried and banished from Plymouth Colony. He was exiled for plotting against the government at Plymouth. He left the Plymouth Colony went to Nantasket and Cape Ann. Nathaniel Morton notes in his New England’s Memorial that, though John was to leave the Plantation immediately, "his Wife and Family had liberty to stay all Winter, or longer, until he could make provision to remove them comfortably" [p. 58; cf. Plym. Ch.Rec., 1:56]. John was forcibly removed from the Plantation in 1625, having to run a gauntlet before being "conveyed to the Water-side, where a boat was ready to carry him away" [p. 59]. Morton reports that John afterwards took a voyage to Virginia, on which voyage his life and the lives of his fellow passengers were put in great danger. Oldham confessed the crimes he had committed, the ship was saved, and he was subsequently welcomed back into civil society. The Western Adventurers of Dorchester, England sent John Oldham to Cape Ann, Massachusetts in 1625, but he accomplished nothing there. As a trader, Captain Oldham sailed to Virginia and England, but by 1630 he was back in the Massachusetts Bay. He took up residence on an island in the Charles River and was a member of the church at Watertown. Oldham represented Watertown in the colony's first General Court or assembly in 1634. He continued in the Indian trade, sailing the coast from Maine to New Amsterdam. According to the book, Pioneers on Maine Rivers, in 1626, John Oldham arrived in Maine in the ship Happy Entrance, from Canada. John Oldham may have been a transient resident at Pascataqua. Although Bradford asserted that his family remained in Massachusett. He had sojourned for a while at New Plymouth and Nantasket, but in 1626 he was in Virginia as passenger on board a vessel from "Canada," which then included Northern Maine. He was an active agent In the deportation of Thomas Morton took charge of the prisoner, from the time Morton was transferred from one of the uninhabited Isles of Shoals, near the mouth of Pascataqua River, until he was confined in an English jail. Taking Morton back to England, meant he had to deliver him to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and this gave Oldham the opportunity to gain from the Council of New England (then controlled by Gorges and Captain John Mason) a grant for much of the land at the bottom of Massachusetts Bay which had just been granted by the King to the Massachusetts Bay Company.