Hello W'tons, espec of NC, and moreso, of New Bern NC,
One of 'our' greatest goals is to establish the identity of the W'ton
emigrant who established the W'ton line(s) in the US. We have been working
on this diligently since much before I got involved in the late 1990s.
One of the greatest clues we have had to assist us in this quest is the
1722 Will of Robert Widdrington(e) / Witherington, a will which has been the
tool of many, most particularly Mike Smolek, who conducted a thorough. yet
limited analysis, and came to some conclusions of value to our efforts.
After Mike's efforts, and various analyzes by others, including myself,
it was decided that we would consult with a UK researcher since many of the
early records were there, and we had little input from such knowledgeable
sources. Geoff Nicholson was selected and eventually paid asomething over
$600 for his written analysis. His conclusion was that the likely ancestor
(father) of Robert W'ton, of the 1722 will, was Samauel Widdrington, f/o
Robert, Wm, Barbara, Mary, & Grace Widdrington, w/appropriate birth dates.
The facts seemed to fit, although no (or few convincing) actual records
supported the emigration of Robt, or any of that line. You will find a
significant body of discussion re: Samuel in the Archives.
In the meantime, further research/ anaysis continued. Then in abt early
2000s (?), an article was published in the MD? . . . ., sugesting our
analysis of the wife of this Robt W'ton d1722 w/will, was in error - that
Robt's wife was not Elizabeth Dare, but was rather Elizabeth Cleverly.
And for all practical purposes, that is where it now lies.
It isn't like there are no other likely candidates - there are, but the
1722 will has so many excellent clues, it is so very tempting to rely upon
it to the exclusion of the other potential founders of the W'ton Lines.
Other researchers have located a number of candidates, including the
following (neither accurate nor complete, see the results of such Trees/
results in:
http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/ (World Connect)
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp (Mormon site)
(see notes below)
http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/surname/w/widdrington.html [RootsWeb
Mailing List(s)]
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=board&r=rw&p=surnames.widdr...
(RootsWeb Message Boards(s)]
Google.com (Search)
Ship Lists (3-5 prominent ones)
And MANY specialized websites, see Archives of our Lists for
these.
A pay site of potential great value is
Ancestry.com - cost has escalated
to near $200/yr, but they do have the Goods - NO doubt about that. Many
Libraries arrange a full subscription for library visitors/ Researchers !
Search and email your finding to yourself ! ! ! Dont need to take notes in
Lib.
=============================================
Some of the other early W'tons you will run across while researching are:
(Witherington , Widdrington / Wetherington, and more than 40 more W'ton
Surname spellings)
Thomas 1600s ship Capt
Samuel 1600s UK father of 5
Edward & Nicholas, VA, 1600s
W'tons of PA & N Eng
You will find 12-15 more in our W'ton Rootswen Archives, see
http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/surname/w/widdrington.html
\where you can Leisurely Browse many messages w/interesting 'SUBJECT' Lines!
! !
Barbados early 1600s W'tons
etc., espec in the Mormon 'FamilySearch.com' Lists, most/all of which are
the subject of notes in our Archives.
=====================
Below is a special case about which I want to make a few comments.
(Dry history discussion for the purpose of establishing the likelihood of
pre-1700 W'ton births. bw
There are a few analyses which make the point there are no pre 1700
W'ton birthis in New Bern NC (or possibly all of NC. But the Mormon site
suggests otherwise, see below. Many experienced researchers will immediately
make the point that such records are unreliable. Not to put too finr a point
on it, but if everything was reliably reported, it would all be done and we
could retire. Each set of records deserves only that credit due it. The
Mormon data is / can be the most reliable info when it is based upon
actually determined source date. IGI records can be this type. The Church
wants accurate data, and many of its researchers feel duty bound to produce
relable data. On the other hand, much data arrives via submissions from
others, some of which can appear in the 'Ancestral File' category. Other
variations also exist.
Addressing the below data, the Ancestral File listing for "Robert
WIDDRINGTON - Ancestral File Gender: M Birth/Christening: < 1699 <New Bern,
Craven, North Carolina>," should be considered w/skepticism but the 2 IGI
Listings (doubtless, the same record) has a higher level of confidence. And
if Robt of the 1722 death & will is considered, he must have been born in
the late 1600s. While we tend to belive he was an immigrant, I do not
believe that has been established, so he could theoretically been born in
the US in the 1600s - OR, he could have fathered a child Robt b <1700 in the
US. Same goes for Thomas, Edwd, & Nicholas, and/or others. Robt died in
Calvert Co MD, abt 300 (less tha a week)miles from New Bern by protected sea
route, and many if not most New Bern arrivals were by sea for a seafaring
purpose. The mid 1600s were busy shipping periods, espec for Tobacco.
We have Henry Easterling (mentioned in the 1722 Robt Wton will)
established in 1658 in MD, d 1702. Although New Bern was not officially
founded until 1710, (named after Bern, Switzerland), it was the 2d city
founded in NC, no doubt for its seaport.
We know there was much activity in the New Bern area before its 1710
official founding. For example:
http://www.theinternetfoundation.org/RichardCollins/family/truhitte/Trewh...
. . . Lawyers Were operating in the Pimlico area before 1702, and Pamlico is
joined at the hip to New Bern:
Wills and other Documents of Bath County bear Levi Trewhitt's seal. On 7
July 1702 he was given title to 640 acres at Pamlico by George Montgomery.
On 24 Dec he sold this land to a Thomas Ivy for Valuable consideration. On
the 20th of June 1702 a Thomas Horsley gave Power of Attorney to his beloved
friend, Levi Trewhitt of Bath County, to handle or sell 640 acres. In 1705
Levi Trewhitt and Thomas Durham were ordered to pay a debt of 11 lbs. to
John Porter, Esq. In June 1706 Levi Trewhitt sold 330 acres on which he was
living to Thomas Sparrow. In Oct 1707 he deeded land on which he was living
to Edward Bromwich to settle a debt of 40 lbs of Sterling owed to a Giles
White, a Merchant of London. Levi may have borrowed this money to finance
his trip to America. On 29 Mar 1710 Ann Nelson, wife of John Nelson,
appointed Levi Trewhitt as her attorney to sell land to James Keith and
Richard Hill.
Queen Anne appointed her cousin to be Governor of the Carolinas. He in
turn appointed a William Glover to be his Deputy Governor replacing Colonel
Carey. Usually those appointed by the Rulers of England to rule in the New
Country were a friend or relative they wished to get rid of. This may have
been the case here.
Levi Trewhitt joined the ousted Carey and helped form a rebellion of
dissenters known as Carey's Rebellion of 1711. Levi was charged with
outfitting two vessels with cannon and attempting to overthrow the
Government of the Colony. Also for shelling Pollack's Plantation where
Governor Hyde, Queen Anne's cousin, had taken refuge.
Forced to flee, Trewhitt was captured along with Colonel Carey, George
Lumley, Challingham Ward and Edmond Porter. They were captured by Deputy
Governor Spotswood of Virginia. After being held in goal (jail) in
Williamsburg, the then Capital of Virginia, Levi Trewhitt was shipped, in
chains, to England on the EMS Reserve, Capt. Teate, Commander, to stand
trial for sedition.
There are a number of letters in the North Carolina Colonial Records where
Levi's name is spelled variously as 'Trewhitt' 'Pruchet'
'Treuit',
'Treuvit', 'Trewit' and 'Truwhitt' pertaining to this case.
Some state that Levi used his office to enrich himself. Governor Hyde, in a
letter to the Lord Proprietors dated 22 Aug 1711, stated, "It will be proven
the he, Levi Truehott, was famous for falsifying judgments and razing
records."
In England, after a delay of over a year, Levi's case was dismissed for lack
of evidence. He then returned to the 'Scence of his Crime' and settled on
the bank of the River Neuse, near New Bern and established a plantation. If
his so called crimes were true, why was Levi permitted to return and settle
here? Levi planted trees which, until the turn of the century, were known as
Trewhitt Oaks. There was also a road called Trewhitt Road out in the country
from New Bern.
http://www.lib.ecu.edu/ncc/historyfiction/document/vah/entire.html
In 1663, George Cathmaid came with his emigrants, and the growth began. Very
soon the Cape Fear settlements were securely established. The country
between Albemarle and Clarendon, on the Cape Fear River, was more slowly
occupied, the first settlers being the French Protestant refugees, who were
Calvinists from the colony on James River, Va., and who located in Pamlico,
near Bath, in 1690. In 1707, another colony of Huguenots settled on the
Neuse and Trent rivers, in Craven County.
.* But the earliest anthentic date of any settlement is 1662. In this year,
George Durant, who had probably been banished from Nansemond, in 1648, by
Governor Berkley, secured a grant from the Yeopim Indians of the tongue of
land on the north side of Albemarle Sound, between Little River and the
Perquimons. It is still known as “Durant's Neck.” He stands the oldest
landholder in Albemarle. Mr. Durant is said to have been a Scotch
Presbyterian elder, a godly man in his congregation.† Like a Scotchman, he
brought his Geneva Bible with him; and it is the first known to have been in
Carolina, and is preserved as a precious relic in the Historical Society of
North Carolina, at Chapel Hill.
In 1672, William Edmundson, an eminent English Quaker, was sent by
George Fox from Maryland, where they had recently arrived, to North
Carolina. Accompanied by two friends, after a distressing journey of two
days through a wilderness, with no English inhabitants, and no path-ways, he
reached “the place where we intended, viz., Henry Phillip's house, by
Albemarle River” (Perquimon's River, says Martin). “He and his wife had been
convinced of the truth in New England, and came here to live; and not having
seen a Friend for seven years before, they wept for joy to see us.” Phillips
and his wife were the only two Friends he mentions meeting in this brief
visit of three days. Warmly welcomed, he here celebrated the first public
rites of Christian worship in Carolina. Others now received the truth, and
were enrolled at this meeting on the Lord's day, and another held on the
morrow at Justice Tems. Many attended the services. They had little or no
religion, or sense of the proprieties of divine worship, for they sat
smoking their pipes; but the Word of God was with power on their hearts.
In the Fall of the same year, the distinguished George Fox made a preaching
tour of eighteen days in the Albemarle region; but Edmundson was not with
him, as Dr. Hawks states. Fox, the envoy of humanity, with the charming
simplicity of Solon and Thales, travelled with Governor Stevens on foot
through the ancient woods—the trees being blazed to mark the roads between
the sparse settlements,—or was guided by others in canoes towards “the north
part of Carolina,” and making a little entrance for the truth there and
among the Indians, returned to Bonner's (Bennet's) Creek, where the horses
had been left. The people were “tender and much desired after meetings,”
“and they were taken with the truth.” As he “opened many things concerning
the light and Spirit of God that is in every one,” his eloquence reached the
hearts of these hermits of the woods, and impressed them anew with the value
of their heritage of freedom of conscience, and of the truth of God with
benevolent reason to guide them in the happy paths of hospitality, virtue
and piety, that are still trodden by their children in the old North State.
As this venerable apostle of humanity and equality was closing his exile on
earth to go home, his vivid memory recalled such episodes of the forest
[Page 20]
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glades, and his last words were, “Mind poor Friends in America.” How
beautiful his brief epitaph by his peer, William Penn, “Many sons have done
virtuously in this day, but, dear George, thou excellest them all!”
In 1676, Edmundson “was moved of the Lord to go to Carolina” on a second
visit. His short journal of the trip ends thus: “I had several precious
meetings in that colony, and several turned to the Lord. People were tender
and loving, and there was no room for the priests, for Friends were finely
settled, and I left things well among them.” While in 1672, neither of these
preachers met all the Quakers in the province, it seems certain they were
not numerous. Considerable growth had occurred before Edmundson's return. In
the Shaftesbury papers, in the British Public Record Office, is a
remonstrance, sent to the Lords Proprietors, and signed by twenty-one
Quakers, some of whom were prominent men, members of the Assembly. Most of
them had been living in Carolina since 1663 and 1664, and they were
vindicating themselves as “a separated people, who are in scorn called
Quakers,” but had “stood single from all seditious actions in Albemarle,” in
1677. They and others may have entered Carolina as Friends. In later years,
Thomas Story, an English Quaker, and Governor Archdale, also one, increased
greatly the influence of the body. Henderson Walker, who was at different
times member, clerk and President of council, Attorney-General and acting
Governor, says, in a letter to the Bishop of London in 1703, “We have been
settled near fifty years in this place” (Carolina), “and, I may justly say,
most part of twenty-one years, on my own knowledge, without priest or altar,
and before that time, according to all that appears to me, much worse.
George Fox, some years ago, came into these parts, and, by strange
infatuations, did infuse the Quaker principles into some small number of
people, which did and hath continued to grow ever since very numerous, by
reason of their yearly sending in men to encourage and to exhort them to
their wicked principles.” They fortunately continued to grow, and formed the
nucleus around which gathered mainly friends of liberty and foes to a
[Page 21]
Church establishment. In these early days Dissenters outnumbered
Episcopalians. There are not many Churchmen recorded as coming to the
communion of the Lord's Supper—even Colonel Pollock was sluggish about it.
In 1708, Rev. James Adams angrily wrote that the Quakers, “though not the
seventh part of the inhabitants,” in conjunction with the Presbyterians,
controlled the government, and absolutely turned out patriots, because they
were Churchmen, that “shoemakers and other mechanics should be appointed in
their room, merely because they are Quaker preachers and notorious
blasphemers of the Church!” Dr. Hawks estimates that, in 1710, the Quakers
composed about one-half of the Albemarle settlement, and that the whole
population of the province was not seven thousand. From these Quakers has
come valuable Presbyterian stock.
Martin (I., p. 155) says that before Edmundson left, he established a
quarterly meeting in Berkley for proper government and discipline. Of the
eight Quarterly Meetings, which constitute the present North Carolina Yearly
Meeting, four were established, as follows: in 1689, 1759, 1780 and 1790.
The others arose in this century. At present the Quakers in this State
number about 5,000, and are most valuable citizens. In colonial days they
were not as quiet as their principles required, and doubtless troublous
times brought insincere accessions to their ranks. They were not perfect,
neither were the Churchmen or others who roundly abused them. At first their
strength lay chiefly in Perquimons and Pasquotank; but they multiplied and
spread. When Judge Iredell, as a young man, came from England to North
Carolina, in 1768, he was commended by his relative, Henry E. McCulloch, to
a prominent and substantial Quaker merchant, named Williams, in New Bern,
“who will supply you with what money you want, and show you every civility.”*
General Character.
Of the settlers for the first hundred years, it may be said, there were many
highly educated citizens scattered throughout . . . .
http://www.lib.ecu.edu/ncc/historyfiction/document/vah/entire.html
Obviously, persons were born before 1700 in the area, and many were
citizens of England, see above discussion. A Widdrington birth bef 1700 is
not unlikely.
bw
Robert WIDDRINGTON
B: < 1699
<New Bern, Craven, North Carolina>
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/AF/pedigree_view.asp?recid=4207588...
2 Henry EASTERLING B1658
, Calvert, Maryland D1708
M: Abt 1658
1 Elizabeth EASTERLING B: 3 Jan 1703
Port Republic, Calvert Co., Maryland
Family Robert WIDDRINGTON B: < 1699
<New Bern, Craven, North Carolina>
3 Family Elizabeth VINES B: < 1675
, , Maryland
12:41 AM 5/23/2005
====================
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp
You searched for: Robert Widdrington [refine search]
Birth/Christening, 1695 - 1705, North Carolina, United States
Exact Spelling: Off
Matches: All Sources - 3
Ancestral File
1. Robert WIDDRINGTON - Ancestral File
Gender: M Birth/Christening: < 1699 <New Bern, Craven, North Carolina>
Matches: Ancestral File - 1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Genealogical Index - North America
2. ROBERT WIDDRINGTON - International Genealogical Index / NA
Gender: Male Birth: < 1703> <New Bern, Craven, North Carolina>
3. ROBERT WIDDRINGTON - International Genealogical Index / NA
Gender: Male Birth: < 1703> <New Bern, Craven, North Carolina>
Matches: International Genealogical Index/North America - 2
========================================================
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/WIDDRINGTON/2002-07/1026086443
Robert WIDDRINGTON
B: < 1699
<New Bern, Craven, North Carolina>
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/AF/pedigree_view.asp?recid=4207588...
2 Henry EASTERLING B1658
, Calvert, Maryland D1708
M: Abt 1658
1 Elizabeth EASTERLING B: 3 Jan 1703
Port Republic, Calvert Co., Maryland
Family Robert WIDDRINGTON B: < 1699
<New Bern, Craven, North Carolina>
3 Family Elizabeth VINES B: < 1675
, , Maryland
12:41 AM 5/23/2005
====================
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp
You searched for: Robert Widdrington [refine search]
Birth/Christening, 1695 - 1705, North Carolina, United States
Exact Spelling: Off
Matches: All Sources - 3
Ancestral File
1. Robert WIDDRINGTON - Ancestral File
Gender: M Birth/Christening: < 1699 <New Bern, Craven, North Carolina>
Matches: Ancestral File - 1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Genealogical Index - North America
2. ROBERT WIDDRINGTON - International Genealogical Index / NA
Gender: Male Birth: < 1703> <New Bern, Craven, North Carolina>
3. ROBERT WIDDRINGTON - International Genealogical Index / NA
Gender: Male Birth: < 1703> <New Bern, Craven, North Carolina>
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/WIDDRINGTON/2002-07/1026086443
Matches: International Genealogical Index/North America - 2
Barry Wetherington