MECKLEMS OF THE WORLD (BUT MOSTLY PENNSYLVANIA, OHIO, WASHINGTON, OREGON, NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY, AND QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA) a work-in-progress featuring SAMUEL MECKLEM & RACHEL McDANEL, PIONEERS OF BEAVER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, AND THEIR CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN, GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN, AND GREAT-GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN, GEORGE MECKLEM OF NEWBURGH, NEW YORK, AND HIS DESCENDANTS, JAMES MECKLEM OF COUNTY MONAGHAN, IRELAND AND SOUTH PINE RIVER, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA AND HIS DESCENDANTS, WITH NOTES ON POSSIBLY RELATED MECKLEM AND MACKLEM FAMILIES. MECKLEMS OF THE WORLD by Todd Mecklem FIRST EDITION (MARCH 2014) Comments, suggestions, information, & family photographs always welcome. Contact info: Todd Mecklem, P.O. Box 8545, Portland OR 97207 (mailing address updated Jan. 2017) (503) 490-4497 [email protected] [email protected] 2 INTRODUCTION About a century ago, Millard F. Mecklem and Norman Wolfe Sr., grandsons of Samuel Mecklem and Rachel McDanel, began gathering information about the Mecklem family. Norman died in 1933, and Millard in 1934, and Millard’s son Millard M. Mecklem took up the challenge, writing letters to cousins across the country. In 1938 he made a chart of all the descendants of Samuel and Rachel that he had been able to locate. This chart was updated in 1958 and again in 1968. I’d like to think that this document carries on that work. For more than 30 years I’ve been collecting records of Mecklems and Macklems, and I’ve decided to finally summarize everything that I have…and that people will send me…in one place. It is indeed a work-in-progress. I have materials which I have not had time to add yet, and I’m always hoping to obtain more information, but I have not posted an updated version of my research since 1997, so as the year 2014 arrives, it’s time to release what I have. I hope that this information will interest Mecklem and Macklem descendants, will inspire more research, and will help me to get in touch with relatives around the world. Please feel free to direct people to this document, email or print copies of it, get copies into libraries and local history centers…anything will help. And, above all, send me information if you have it. I’d also like information on more recent generations, so we can get in touch with descendants who may not be aware of their family history. I am collecting information about all of the descendants of Samuel Mecklem and Rachel McDanel, early settlers of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, and also about other Mecklem and Macklem families and descendants. Versions which I post online will only extend down to about the fifth generation born in the 20th century, and for living members of that generation I will generally include only their name. To obtain information about others, members of the family should contact me directly. I hope that cousins, distant and otherwise, will get in touch with me and share thoughts and comments, and will consider sharing information and photos of our ancestors, and contact information for members of the current generations. A note about documentation: This document was created from thousands of pieces of information gathered over several decades. In most cases I do not denote the source of each piece of information. There will certainly be errors, but I feel that 3 The Millard M. Mecklem chart of the descendants of Samuel Mecklem and Rachel McDanel (1968 edition, with a cigar box for size comparison) 4 releasing what I have is more important than proving out every fact. If you have a question about certain statements, please feel free to contact me, and I’ll attempt to identify where I found a particular name, date, location, or story. In this document, I will use numbers for the children of each generation, unless there are more than nine children, in which case I will continue after 9 using letters, A representing 10, B representing 11, etc. In the text of this document I am using the Times New Roman font for the basic text and for the individual entries for each descendant, and the Calibri font for supplemental material about descendants and for photo descriptions. In the case of living descendants who are listed here, I am listing their names only, with no other personal information. This is for privacy reasons, as this document will be posted on the internet, and distributed (I hope) widely. If any of those descendants wish to add more information to future updates, they can contact me and give me that information, and permission to make it public. Merci beaucoup to my wife, Sue Saunders Mecklem, for transcription help, archives-wrangling, and for putting up with me during the very long process of researching and preparing this. TABLE OF CONTENTS POSSIBLE ORIGINS OF THE SURNAME … 8 THE SCOTS-IRISH … 10 LITERARY MECKLEMS … 12 MECKLEM ROADS OF THE WORLD … 16 SAMUEL MECKLEM, ANCESTOR OF THE PENNSYLVANIA BRANCH OF THE MECKLEMS, WAS PROBABLY THE SON OF WILLIAM MECKLEM OF CHESTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA … 17 5 BUCKS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA MECKLEMS … 20 SAMUEL MECKLEM AND RACHEL McDANEL: PRELIMINARY NOTES … 21 NOTES ON RACHEL McDANEL MECKLEM’S FATHER, ARCHIBALD McDANEL, OF NEW CASTLE COUNTY, DELAWARE & BEAVER CO., PENNSYLVANIA, AND WIFE (OR WIVES) AND CHILDREN … 23 SAMUEL MECKLEM, CIRCA 1767-1832, AND RACHEL McDANEL MECKLEM, 1783-1847 AND THEIR DESCENDANTS … 28 [THE NEXT 12 CHAPTERS ARE ABOUT THE INDIVIDUAL CHILDREN OF SAMUEL AND RACHEL, AND EACH CHILD’S DESCENDANTS] JETHRO J. MECKLEM, 1805-1837 … 31 ARCHIBALD McDANEL MECKLEM, 1806-1874 … 32 WILLIAM MECKLEM, 1808-1885 … 48 MARGARET MECKLEM STERLING, 1809-(?) … 78 ELI MECKLEM, 1811-1869 … 95 SARAH MECKLEM WOLFE, 1813-1895 … 161 ELIZA MECKLEM JONES, 1814-1896 … 169 SAMUEL MECKLEM, 1817-1885 … 171 JOHN MECKLEM, 1818-SOMETIME IN THE 1870s … 185 RACHEL MECKLEM TOY, 1820 (?) -1854 (?) … 190 SMITH MECKLEM, 1821-1849 … 193 GIDEON F. MECKLEM, 1825-1896 … 194 MYSTERY MECKLEMS … 238 6 SOME FAMILY REUNIONS OF THE SAMUEL MECKLEM / RACHEL McDANEL DESCENDANTS … 239 THE MACKLEMS OF NEW CASTLE COUNTY, DELAWARE AND THEIR POSSIBLE LINKS TO THE MECKLEM FAMILY OF BEAVER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA … 241 GEORGE MECKLEM OF NEWBURGH, NEW YORK, AND HIS CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN, AND GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN … 249 THE AUSTRALIAN MECKLEMS: JAMES MECKLEM AND CATHERINE McCULLAGH OF COUNTY MONAGHAN, IRELAND AND QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA AND THEIR DESCENDANTS, WITH RECORDS OF POSSIBLY RELATED MECKLEMS IN IRELAND … 302 CANADIAN MACKLEMS … 312 THE MAKLEM/MACKLEM/MECKLEM/MEKLEM FAMILY OF 18TH- CENTURY PELHAM, HAMPSHIRE COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS … 313 THE MECKLAMS OF CATTAURAGUS COUNTY, NEW YORK … 316 ENGLISH MICKLEMS … 317 PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY … 318 APPENDIX 1: MYSTERY REUNION PHOTOS FROM RICHLAND COUNTY, OHIO (THESE PEOPLE MAY OR MAY NOT BE MECKLEMS) … 319 APPENDIX 2: “HOW IT WAS SETTLED” BY AMY RANDOLPH … 326 APPENDIX 3: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LLEWELLYN GUY MECKLEM … 332 7 POSSIBLE ORIGINS OF THE SURNAME There are various possible origins for the surname “Mecklem” and the apparently related surname “Macklem.” The very similar surname “Micklem,” found mostly in England and in the state of Virginia, is generally accepted to have derived from a place name, Mickleham, in the county of Surrey, in southern England. “Mickleham,” in Old English, means “big homestead,” according to the Penguin Dictionary of Surnames by Basil Cottle (Penguin Books, 1967). “Mickle,” in archaic English, and Scottish slang, means great or abundant (from the Middle English “mikel,” Old English “micel,” and Old Norse “mikill”). “Ham,” in Old English, means home. There’s a small chance that the Mecklems and/or Macklems are a direct offshoot from the Micklem family. However, I think it’s much more likely that early Mecklems/Macklems, who considered themselves, by all accounts, Scots-Irish, were from lowland Scotland (or possibly from one of the English border counties), and that the surname might have derived from a similar place name farther north than Mickleham. Harry Alfred Long’s book “Personal and Family Names” (London: Hamilton and Co., 1883) states that the surname Meikleham or Meiklem means “great house”…clearly a parallel meaning to the meaning ascribed to Mickleham. A more northern place-name similar to Mickleham does exist, in the English/ Scottish borderlands, only 47 miles by road from the Scottish border, in the county of Cumbria (formerly Cumberland). This is the place called Micklam, near the coast, the former site of a brickworks. There was a farm there as well, and currently a group of cottages are know by the name. The closest village is Lowca, known mostly for having been the home of a chemical plant which was shelled by a German submarine during the First World War. Perhaps Micklam, or another similarly-named location in northern England or Scotland, was the source of the Mecklem and Macklem surnames. 8 A brick from the old Micklam brickworks near Lowca, Cumbria, England There are other theories about the names. The book “Ontarian Families,” which discusses the Macklems of Ontario, Canada, suggests (without substantiation) that Macklem was a variation of Maclean, a Highland Scots surname. George F. Black’s “The Surnames of Scotland, Their Origin, Meaning, and History,” (published by the New York Public Library, 1946), states that Meikleham, Meiklam, and Meiklem (surnames which may or may not be connected to Mecklem and Macklem) are scotticized forms of Macilwham, meaning “son of the servant of (Saint) Thomas,” and states that the name is a sept of the highland Clan Lamont (meaning the family followed or were allied with the chiefs of the clan). James R. Harris, a grandson of Millard M. Mecklem, in his 1991 document “Ancestors of Little Andrew,” stated his opinion that Mecklem derives from the highland surname MacCollum or MacCallum, later known as Clan Malcolm. Personally, I lean towards the borderlands place-name theory that I outlined above.