THE LEARNED FAMILY (LEARNED, LARNED, LEARNARD, LARNARD AND LPJRNED) BEHIG DESCENDANTS OF WILLIAM LEARNED WHO WAS OF CHARLESTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS, IN 1682. COMPILED BY WILLIAM LAW LEARNED IN PART FROM THE PAPERS OF THE LATE JOSEPH GAY EATON LARNED. ALBANY JOEL MUNSELL'S SONS 1882 PREFACE. This work was begun as early as 1850 by the late Joseph Gay Eaton Larned, then of New Haven, Conn. For several years he made investigations as to the early history of the family, and obtained information as to the later generations. Through Mr. H. G. Somerby he obtained most of the entries in the parish register of l3ermondsey, which are mentioned on a subsequent page. And from various sources he accumulated a large amount of material to be used in the history, which he intended to publish. He was, from time to time, engaged in this work down to his death, and had been constantly hoping to complete his undertaking. I had frequently corresponded with him and had aided him as far as possible. For this reason, after his death, the papers were sent to me by his widow, Mrs. Helen Larned, with the approval of his sister, Miss Ellen D. Larned. After receiving them I was for a time unable to do anything towards completing the work. When finally iv PREF.A.CE. undertaken, the task was found to require more labor than had been expected. None of the materials were ready for the printer. It was difficult to ascertain exactly what informa­ tion had been gathered and what was still wanting. I sometimes found indications, that in some matters, Mr. Larned had had information, which I was unable to discover among the papers. In the attempt to supply deficiencies, new subjects for inquiry opened, and thus the -labor continued to grow to the present time. Researches for this family history were made in England at my request during a few years past by the late Col. Joseph L. Chester. He became especially in­ terested in the investigation by his failure to find any traces of the name, excepting those herein mentioned, either in the records of that country or in his own large collections. In a letter written not long before his death, he spoke of, what he called, the mystery ; and said that he bore it constantly in mind and hoped some day to find a solution. I am indebted to Miss Martha E. Stone, of North Oxford, Mass., for a full and careful account of the Oxford families. Mr. George W. Learnard, Jr., of Boston, Mass., has furnished much information in regard to his branch. .And Mr. Charles Larned, of the PREFACE. V same place, has been of great service in collecting facts from many sources. Without his aid the work would be much less nearly complete than it is. Others also have aided, whose names I need not mention. The abbreviations of b. for born, m. for married, d. for died and s. p. for sine prole hardly need ex planation. Those who have undertaken other similar works will be the most ready to excuse the imperfections of this; imperfection~ of which I am not unaware. I could give it only such fragments of time as could be spared from important duties. Albaey, N. Y., December, 1882. W.L.L. LEARNED GENEALOGY. In the· parish records of Bermondsey, County of Sur­ rey, England, are found the following: Baptised. 1612, Oct. 29, Bethia, daughter of William Larned. 1615, Sept. 15, Mary, daughter of William Larnett. HHS, Sept. 30, Abigajl, daughter of William Larned. 1621, Mar. 25, Elizabeth, daughterof William Larned. 1623-4, Feb. 25, Isaac, son of vVilliam Learned. ~/Jfarried. 1623-4, Jan. 13, Thomas Ewer to Sara Learned. Buried. 1625, July 26, Mary Larnett, a child. Savage, in his Genealogical Dictionary, vol. ii, p. 132, says that Thomas Ewer, of Charlestown, came in the James, from London, in 1635, aged 40, with his wife Sarah, daughter of William Larned, aged 28, with his children, Elizabeth, aged 4, and Thomas, aged 1½. (See also Hotten's List of Emigrants ·for the ages and names of Ewer and of his children.) He united with the church in 1636, and died in 1638. In the Rev. John Lathrop's Records of Scituate and Barnstable, printed in the ;-: . E. Hist. and Gen. Reg., vol. ix, p. 246, is the following : 2 LEARNED GENEALOGY. '' Marryed since my coming to Barnstaple, being Octob. 11, 1 fi39 * " -x- my son Thos. and Brother Larnitt's daughter, widow Ewer, in the Bey, Decemb. 11, 1639." There can be no doubt, then, that the widow Ewer who was married to Thomas Lathrop was the Sara Learned, who had been previously married in England to Thomas Ewer. And since her father is spoken of as "Brother Larnitt," we may be confident that he was in this country and known to Rev. Mr. Lathrop. William Learned was here as early as 1632. Thus Wil­ liam Learned and his son Isaac, the first of the name in this country, are identified with the William and Isaac of Berrnondsey parish. There are no other entries of the name in the records of Bermondsey parish than those which are given above. Sarah must have been born about 1607, and there is no record there of her baptism. A marriage license was granted by the Bishop of London, Ju1Je 4, Hil2, for James Hull, of the city of London, gentleman, and Ann Larned, spinster, daugh­ ter of -- Larned, deceased. This Ann may have been a sister of William. These are the only traces of the name which have thus far been found in England, either of an earlier or of a later date. Col Joseph L. Chester has examined his own MSS. collections from Parish Registers (some 11 O folio volumes containing about 400 pages each); the calendars of wills in the General Registry, from 1383to 1700 ; the various lists of names at the Public Record office, the British Museum and Herald College, with­ out finding the name. The name does not appear in the army lists of the civil war period, though that of Learner does. Col. Chester has also examined, with the LEARNED GENEALOGY. 3 same want of success, the lists of wills in the Preroga­ tive Court of Canterbury, the calendars of the local registries covering Essex, Hertfordshire, Surrey, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, and the portion of Kent included in the diocese of Rochester, and the parish registers of vVare and the indexes at the Public Record office ; the regis­ ters of the oldest Dissenting churches, and of the old French churches, now dep'osited in the office of the Registrar Genera], and many other lists of names. In the lists of the French emigrants who were natur­ alized the name is not found; nor is any found which is like it. Nor was there any French name in England, at the date of the Bennondsey records, which could be translated into Learned. The name is not found in the directories of the pres­ ent day, either of London or of the counties in Eng­ land ; or in the poll lists, or indexes to CG .mty _his­ tories. There has been a be]ief that the name was French. Perhaps this has arisen from the circumstance that the name begins with Le, or with L; thus suggesting L'­ Arned. But there seems to be nothing to justify this belief, so far as any thing can be learned from the i:lames of the French emigrants to England. Yet the absence of the name from any English records appears to indicate a foreign origin. The fact that James Hull would seem to have been ignorant of the Christian name of his wife's father may also be a slight indica­ tion of this. William, the emigrant, wrote his name Learned. The variations in the spelling in the Ber­ mondsey parish register and the spelling in Rev. Mr. La- 4 LEARNED GENEALOGY. throp's records, show that the accent was on the first syllable, as it v:n,s then pronounced. The name of William Learned's wife, Ctoodith, whether a corruption of Goditha, or a mistake for Judith, seems not to be foreign. The name seems to have been pronounced ''Larned," judging from the Bermondsey records, and from Dr. Lathrop's diary. It is not probable, therefore, that it was a corruption of Leonard. ln regard to the orthography of the name there is some uncertainty. William, the ancestor in this coun­ try ,vrote ''Learned." (Bond's Watertown.) The name must have been sometimes pronounced ''Larned." (See Rev. Dr. Lathrop's diary above cited, and the extract from the minutes of the court.) Sometimes, '· Lerned," as in the town orders and in the discharge of his son, Isaac. The extract from the records of Bermondsey, has ''Learned" anp. '' Larned "and" Larnett." In may reasonably be conjectured that the true spell­ ing was '' Learned," and that the true pronunciation was " Larned." The other pronunciation, " Lerned, '' may have come from a desire to pronounce according to the spelling. Many of the North Oxford branch of the family have spelled the name '' Learned" and pronounced it ''Larned.,; 'l'he old epitaphs are generally ''Larned" and some of the Oxford. branch have so spelled the name. The Thompson branch has spelled and pronounced it "Larned ;" excepting, however, most of the descend­ ants of Ebenezer5, who have spelled and pronounced it ''Learned." In Oxford, Webster and Dudley it has generally been spelled '' Larned.'' LEARNED GENEALOGY. 5 The members of one family in Hnpkinton, N. H., have spelled the Dame " Lerned.