Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.
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Bleeding Kansas and Andrew Horatio Reeder
His lawyer told him “Even if we lose, we’ll say we won. We will repeat this over and over and over until the sheeples believe the lie. We will make America great again.” 2016-2024,
When was America great? Was it when Andrew’s house was torn down, when he dressed as a woodchopper, was it when Kansas bled? Maybe when the red legs terrorized the people? Did the hill ever have a shining city? Where is brotherly love and the ability to work together for the good of all? The story of man goes in a dreary circle, have we learned nothing? Such heavy history questions I ponder, as I write this remembering my mother Jeane Miller Waddell born March 12, 1926.
Andrew Reeder is my 4 th cousin. And what was the Democratic Party is now the Republican Party and vice versus. Andrew Reeder switched parties.
I needed to write this story for myself. My mother loved her ancestry but she hadn’t found this story. Someone out there may need to read it too. It’s about changing and challenging political parties. It’s about unapparelled wrongs, It’s about a family, a part of my family and in memory of mom I write.
Just before Governor John Winthrop and his fellow settlers reached New England, Winthrop delivered his famous “City on a Hill” sermon. The Massachusetts Bay Colony would shine like an example to the world. Some must be rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and others in subjection. Thus God in his goodness dispensed his gifts to man, showing love, mercy, gentleness in exchange for their faith, patience and obedience. John Winthrop wrote the covenant with the people in the ships he brought with him saying “do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with our God, knit together in brotherly affection, work together and that the Lord our God may bless us in the land whither we go to possess it”. These are some of the words John Winthrop wrote in “A Model of Christian Charity”. What could go wrong?
My forefathers in times of persecution left England. My 5th great grandmother was Johanna Reeder, proven with DNA matches, married into the Hendrickson family. My eighth great grandfather was John Reeder, born on December 27, 1614 at Swaffham, Norfolk, England and died March 9, 1660, at Newton, Queens, New York. John, a single man immigrated from London, England in 1630 to Boston, Massachusetts in Governor John Winthrop’s flagship the “Arabella”. He would have heard the famous speech, A City on a Hill. John Reeder was an original purchaser in 1636 at Springfield, Mass. By 1652, John Reeder with twelve others, established Middleburgh, Long Island under the government of the New Netherlands, in 1665. The name Middleburgh was changed to Newtown. Here John Reeder ran an inn and trading post for the Housatonic Indians.
My lineage is: Wendy, Jeane Miller Waddell, Josephine Reinhardt, Samantha Hendrickson, Enoch Hendrickson, Nicholas Hendrickson, Johanna Reeder, Joseph Furman Reeder, Isaack Reeder, John Reeder and Margaret Isaacks. The first governor of the Kansas Territory, Andrew Horatio Reeder, the subject of this blog, share these grandparents with me.
Here is what political life was like during the time Andrew Reeder found himself in a pickle. The Missouri Compromise was legislated, 1820, to balance desires of northern states to prevent expansion of slavery while the southern states wanted to expand it. It admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state and prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Purchase. Andrew was thirteen at this time.
Missouri Senator, David Atchison, announced that he would support the Nebraska proposal only if slavery were to be permitted. While the bill was silent on this issue, slavery would have been prohibited under the Missouri Compromise. Finally, he took the position that he would rather see Nebraska “sink in hell” before he would allow it to be overrun by free soiler’s. The Free Soil Party was a political party, before it merged with the Republican Party. The Party focused on one issue of opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories of the United States. Another party called the Know Nothings grew out of a conspiracy that civil and religious liberty in the US was being hatched by Catholics. With the immigration of large numbers of Irish and German Catholics, religion became a political issue. The name Know Nothing originated in the secret organization when a member was asked about their activities, he was supposed to say, “I know nothing!” The party disintegrated due to inexperienced leadership and a split over slavery. It became the American Party. In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the long standing Missouri Compromise. It allowed the inhabitants of the territories to determine the status of slavery and outraged many Northerners, collapsed the Whigs and spurred the creation of a new anti-slavery party known as the Republicans. They described slavery as “a sin against God and a crime against man.” The Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court said the Constitution did not extend citizenship to people of black African descent, who would not enjoy the rights and privileges whites had. This overtly racist decision was also a crucial role in the start of the Civil War four years later. The Know Nothing Party joined the Republicans, against the Democrats, whose leaders included Catholics of Irish descent.
Bleeding Kansas they called it. Nebraska would become a free state but Kansas bordered the slave state of Missouri. Over the next seven years, Kansas became a battleground over the future of slavery in the US. They left their fields to defend their homes against irregular and predatory warfare. The Southern’s fought just as hard to make Kansas a slave state. The Missourians, flooded across the border. At risk in the south was their way of life and culture and their economy, which needed slaves to survive. “Rally” they called, “slave labor is productive for our imperiled state of civilization, don’t abandon our birthright.” An escalation between the struggle of anti-slavery and pro-slavery settlers for control of Kansas Territory, pushed many to join the Republicans. New England abolitionists sent settlers to Kansas to ensure it would become a free territory. Thousands of pro-slavery Missourians flooded into the new territory to illegally vote in Kansas’ first territorial election, November 1854. Pro-slavery candidates defeated two Free Soil candidates with only half the ballots cast by registered voters. And into this foray strode Andrew Horatio Reeder. The settlers left their fields to defend their homes against irregular and predatory warfare. Quantrill joined a group of bandits who roamed the Missouri and Kansas countryside to apprehend escaped slaves.
My 4 th cousin, Andrew Horatio Reeder 1807-1864, tried to do what he felt was correct against some very stiff opposition. I am finding so many similarities in history in telling his story. Special committees, ignored subpoenas, loyal to the Democratic Party, which in 1850, was pro-slavery, and the idea that the states should be able to decide. Some shenanigan’s went on however, as Andrew Horacio Reeder tried to shape the destiny of the territory of Kansas.
Andrew Horatio Reeder born July 12, 1807 – July 5, 1864 was the first governor of the Territory of Kansas. Andrew read law in a Pennsylvania law office and was admitted to the bar there in 1828. In 1831, he married Frederika Amalia Hutter and they had three sons and seven daughters. He quickly won distinction as a lawyer, in a district noted for its eminent members of the bar. At an early age, he became an active participant in political affairs and from the beginning, he was associated with the Democratic Party, although not always in harmony with its leaders. Andrew was a very loyal member of the Democratic party. He supported the idea of popular sovereignty which dealt with the territories decisions on the issue of slavery.
Andrew was also a most active land speculator in the territory. Today we’d call it a conflict of interest. It was in Pawnee City, on July 2, 1855 the stage was set for what would become years later, the greatest conflict the Union of States would face – The Civil War. Pawnee City was one of his investments, along with 1200 acres bought at .90/acre. Along the Kansas River, three miles wide, in the wilderness, was a beautiful location with the ridges rising above the valley. Pawnee was the territorial capital for exactly five days!
The site was selected as capitol by the newly commissioned first Territorial Governor Andrew Reeder. Governor Reeder had an economic stake in the site, as one of the investors. He wasn’t disappointed as within six weeks of making it the capitol, hundreds of people came to the town. New homes, stores and hotels sprang up and Andrew built himself a two story log cabin that became known as the “Governor’s Mansion”.
My cousin, aged 54, raised his right hand and was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 30, 1854. President Franklin Pierce had appointed Andrew Horatio Reeder as governor of Kansas Territory, taking his oath of office in Washington before Justice Daniel of the Supreme Court on July 7, 1854. He arrived at Leavenworth, Kansas on October 7 where he established a temporary executive office. He arrived a Democrat. In full support and an advocate of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, giving residents the choice of whether or not to allow slavery. When Governor Reeder came into the territory, many assumed that he would allow himself to be manipulated by pro-slavery advocates. His opinions were about to change. The Governor had failed to make an accurate territorial census before the first election of representatives. On March 30, 1855, the biggest fraud in voting history was perpetuated. In Pawnee there were 36 residents but 75 votes were cast. In polling places throughout the territory, more than 800 illegal votes were identified in the towns of Lawrence and Leavenworth and more than 4000 territory wide. With the March elections, thousands of Missourians crossed the state lines and overran the polls in Kansas. Free state interests had been bolstered by the arrival of new settlers with a Puritan background from New England who were aided by the Emigrant Aid Company. These people felt that Reeder had delayed the spring election until pro-slavery men from neighboring Missouri could arrive and cast votes. The end result was only 8 of the 39 men elected had free-state leanings. Appalled at the fraud, the governor, with the Free Soil party in protests over the election , Reeder agreed to discard the results. He called for a new election and felt it should be removed far from the slave state of Missouri. Using his power, he called the legislature to the new town of Pawnee.
On July 2, 1855, the session opened, composed mostly of the pro-slavery delegates fraudulently elected. It was brief. They were unhappy with Governor Reeder decision to put the capital over 100 miles from the Missouri border, a location that favored the free state advocates in Kansas Territory. Not discouraged, the pro-slavery legislators’ ousted all the members who were opponents of slavery. An ousted member, rose to address in a prophetic speech, as he left the capitol, “Gentlemen, your acts will be the means of lighting the watch-fires of war in our land.” John Wakefield predicted the Civil War as there was no compromise on slavery in the territory or the nation.
At nearby Fort Riley a cholera epidemic spread beyond the Fort and reached Pawnee, where eight persons died from its attacks. The first case in Pawnee occurred on July 4th, with the legislature in full session. Alarmed by the epidemic and already upset about the location of the capitol, the politicians quickly passed a bill for an adjournment of the session.
By July 4, 1855, a bill passed to move the seat of government to the Shawnee Methodist Mission, back near the Missouri border. Governor Reeder vetoed the bill, recalling the expense the town had spent to build the capitol city. The Territorial Legislature overrode his veto, and the legislature adjourned to reconvene on July 16. Heavily armed ruffians showed up again, armed. Through illegal votes and intimidation, they ensured the election of pro-slavery legislators. Violence erupted and a group stormed the Free State stronghold of Lawrence destroying printing presses. looting homes and stores and setting fire. Because of its unscrupulous origin and actions, the group became known as the Bogus Legislature. They adopted Missouri’s slave code, a very harsh measure and petitioned the President to remove Reeder. The city of Pawnee was only the capitol for five days. Andrew Reeder remained in Kansas for a time, supporting the free state movement.
Many residents left the town of Pawnee. The cholera outbreak, hit them hard. The pro-slavery advocates made their complaints to Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War. A military survey of the settlement of Pawnee in September 1855, by Jefferson Davis, hoped it could be eliminated. (Was this the first gerrymandering to favour one political party). There were two maps: The town was shown on a map, but they accepted the version without the town. The Secretary of War, seeing the town still excluded, took a pen, drew a red line around it, and wrote on it, “Accepted with the red lines.” He then took it to the president, secured his signature, and issued orders for the removal of the inhabitants from that part of the reserve. The town of Pawnee was ordered destroyed. Notices signed by Pierce ordered everyone to leave by October 10. one thousand Texas troops were ordered to evacuate the residents, many were unwilling. The Governor, who had gone reluctantly to Shawnee with the bogus legislatures, had his home pulled down with its residents inside. In another residence a woman and an infant on a mattress were carried out. Many families faced financial ruin. The other towns who did not have free state leaning citizens did not suffer the same fate. Pawnee today is a ghost town.
Andrew Reeder was elected to the US Senate, assuming to take his seat as soon as Kansas was admitted to the Union. Indicted for high treason, issued by a proslavery grand jury, Reeder fled disguised as a woodchopper.
Those damned scalawags wanted him dead, because he wouldn’t conform and be contaminated by their corruption. It was the year 1856. He wrote it in his diary. Andrew had friends, and in the town of Lawrence, they kept him hidden, as he planned his escape. He would leave and get to Kansas City a distance of 40 miles His heart pounding in the dark, many times he left the road to let other horsemen by. Were they red legs or Quantrell? Another safe house was reached at 2 in the morning. Twelve days in hiding,
1856 map showing slave states in gray, free states in pink, U.S. territories in green, and Kansas in white.
According to a diary kept by Reeder, he remained concealed with a friend near Lawrence, until the evening of May 11, 1856, when he started for Kansas City, where he arrived about two o’clock the next morning. He then remained in hiding at Kansas City until May 23, when he embarked in a skiff with D. E. Adams and was rowed down the river to be taken on board the steamer Converse. Disguised as a woodchopper, with a bundle of clothing and an ax, he caught the steamer at Randolph Landing on the 24th, and three days later reached the State of Illinois. As he continued his journey eastward he was given an ovation in each of the principal towns through which he passed, the people assembling in large numbers to welcome him and assure his protection in case an attempt was made to arrest him.
On June 29,1854, President Franklin Pierce appointed my cousin to the office of the governor of the territory of Kansas and remained in office less than a year, until August 16, 1855, when he was fired. Pierce formally dismissed Andrew Reeder for his refusal to use his position to aid in making Kansas a slave state.
As governor of the Territory of Kansas, Reeder was a proponent of the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act which let each territory’s residents decide whether to allow or prohibit slavery. On March 30, 1855, one of the biggest voting frauds took place, when neighboring Missourians came into the Kansas Territory and voted. In May 1856, facing indictment for high treason, he left the territory disguised as a woodchopper. What would Andrew Reeder do now?
Bleeding Kansas they called it. Elections of 1855 for the first territorial legislature, thousands of heavily armed ruffians showed up again, armed. Through illegal votes and intimidation, they ensured the election of pro-slavery legislators. Violence erupted and a group stormed the Free State stronghold of Lawrence destroying printing presses. looting homes and stores and setting fire. Early on the morning of August 21, 1863, Quantrill’s Raiders descended on the still sleeping town of Lawrence. In this carefully orchestrated early morning raid, he and his band, in four terrible hours, turned the town into a bloody and blazing inferno unparalleled in its brutality.
If you were a thief, it was easy to counterfeit the uniform of the “Red Legs” and many went forth and pillaged the country-side. This gave the Red Legs a bad name when along the border the plundering was attributed to them. They would hunt down any man wearing the uniform without authority and killed them.
For seven years, pro-slavery and Free-State factions fought in Kansas as popular sovereignty degenerated into violence. Returning to Pennsylvania, Andrew Reeder remained in politics, continued his law practice and joined the recently founded Republican Party. On the vice-presidential nomination taken by delegates to the 1860 Republican National Convention, Reeder received fifty-one votes, which put him in fourth place.
An order removing Governor Reeder from office was issued in late July 1855, but he did not receive official notice of his removal until August 15th. He remained in the territory and took an active part in shaping the destinies of the new state. In October 1855, he was the Free-State candidate for delegate to Congress and won over John W. Whitfield, the pro-slavery candidate. When Congress assembled in December, Reeder went to Washington and began a contest for the seat. The matter was referred to a special committee, which decided that neither Whitfield nor Reeder was entitled to recognition as a delegate, and on August 1, 1856, the seat was declared vacant.
While this committee was hearing witnesses at Tecumseh, Kansas in the spring of 1856, a pro-slavery Grand Jury summoned Reeder to appear as a witness, the subpoena being served in the presence of the Congressional Committee. He ignored the summons, and the Grand Jury then found indictments for treason against Reeder, and others who had aided in the organization of the Free-State government. Again, he disregarded the action of the Grand Jury and defied the officers when they came to place him under arrest.
The battles between the opposing parties continued until a referendum was finally authorized by the English Bill of 1858, which dashed all pro-slavery hopes of Kansas Territory becoming part of the “South.” However, continued struggles would delay the admission of Kansas as a free state until January 1861. In the meantime, the bitterness between the factions continued on into the Civil War.
At the outbreak of the Civil War he was appointed a Brigadier-General by President Lincoln, but owing to his advanced age he did not enter the army. Three of his sons; however, took up arms in defense of the Union. Reeder died at Easton, Pennsylvania on July 5, 1864, and is buried in the Easton Cemetery. Reeder Street on College Hill is named for him.
As mom would say, “What shenanigans!”
The Stone of Scone and the Collar of Order of the Garter
Jacob found a stone and used it for a pillow. He slept and dreamt. Angels were coming and going on a ladder to heaven. At the the top was the Lord who said, ” I am the Lord God of your grandfather, Abraham. Your descendants are going to be like dust spreading west, east, north and south. All families will be blessed through you. I will watch wherever you go.”
Sir Walter Scott translated the words on the Stone of Scone. Where’er is found the sacred stone, the Scottish race shall reign. James VI or I was crowned on the Stone of Scone and the legend was fulfilled for a Scotsman then ruled where the Stone of Scone was. The fate’s and the prophet’s voice was not in vain. This legend place the origins of the Stone in Biblical times, from Jacob’s pillow to the prophet Jeremiah taking it to ancient Ireland. A cult known as Culdees was worshiping at Scone early 700 A.D. and by 841 A.D. the “Stone of Destiny” as it was called was Scotland’s most prized relic and coronation stone, brought to Scone Abbey, Scone, Perthshire, Scotland. Kenneth I, King of the Picts, fought the Vikings and brought the stone from Iona to his new domain.
From Scotland to America shore’s to Canada, this is the story of my Scottish roots steeped in Scottish lore and legend. A story of a kingdom, of King’s James I through V, and James VI and the women I call grandmothers.
Margaret was the sixth of nine children, born to John Erskine, 1487-1555, 5th Lord Erskine, claimant to the Earldom of Mar, , and Lady Margaret Campbell, daughter of Archibald Campbell, 2nd Earl of Argyll and Elizabeth Stewart, daughter of John Stewart, 1st Earl of Lennox. On August 3, 1522, John Erskine my 14th grandfather was appointed guardian of the ten year old James V, King of Scots and Stirling Castle. Like so many of the Stewart Monarch’s, James V was crowned as a small child and endured a long and unstable minority. At seventeen months his father, James IV was killed at the battle of Flodden. On September 21, 1513, James V was hurriedly crowned at Stirling Castle. The King’s mother was Margaret Tudor sister to King Henry VIII. During his childhood, Scotland was governed by regents, first by his mother, until she remarried. Margaret Tudor gave Erskine strict instructions to hold the castle keys and set a password every night for the King’s guards. John Erskine was the Constable of Stirling Castle and his four daughters were called the “pearls of Loch Leven”. Thus the future King and Margaret grew up together. My 13th grandmother, was said to be the favorite mistress of King James V, or James Stewart. Amongst the King’s nine illegitimate children, was their child, James Stewart born 1531, the 1st Earl of Moray, regent during the minority of James VI. Another son, Robert Stewart became Prior of Whithorn and died in 1581. King James V contemplated having Margaret and Robert Douglas divorced and marrying Margaret Erskine; however, a treaty had been signed and for political reasons he needed a French wife.
Margaret married on July 11, 1527, Sir Robert Douglas of Lochleven, a Scottish courtier and landowner, and she was called Lady Douglas of Lochleven. Sir Robert was the son of Thomas Douglas and Elizabeth Boyd. They made their home in Lochleven Castle set on an island in Loch Leven.
The regent of James V was his cousin, John Stewart, Duke of Albany from 1515-24. Albany came back from France to be the regent. He was going to reduce the arrogance and power of the nobles. Offenders were seized, imprisoned and executed. It was hopeless to retain order in the Kingdom. Margaret Tudor had remarried Sir Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus. When Albany quit, The Earl of Angus, his stepfather and the Earl of Arran became guardian of the King.. James V rule as King began in 1528, when he escaped the custody of his stepfather, Archibald Douglas. He found refuge in Stirling Castle with the Erskine’s. His first action was to exile Angus and confiscate the lands of the Douglass’s. With a feverish energy, plagued with bouts of depression, a very intelligent King James ruled. At age 21, he took my grandmother, a married woman for a mistress. Clan feuds and revenge were part of Scottish life. There was strife between the clans and authority. James took up his authority rewarding and promoting men who had supported him.
Archbishop Beaton was forced to resign. He was the Archbishop of St. Andrews and last Scottish cardinal before the Reformation. He had a seat in the Scottish Parliament. He and grandfather Erskine negotiated the King’s marriages, first with Madeleine of France and afterwards with Mary of Guise. Beaton wanted to maintain the Auld Alliance with France and the nobles with the King’s mother, Margaret Tudor, wanted to associate with the English and were clamoring for Protestant reform in Scotland. The reigns of government passed into the hands of the Church. Parliament banned Luther’s books. In 1527, Patrick Hamilton, disciple of Luther, came home to Scotland. At St. Andrew’s Castle he was seized, tried and convicted and burned for heresy by Cardinal Beaton on February 29, 1528. The clan spirit gave the nobles social power and the affection of the people. It took until 1560, for the nobles to have revenge and overthrow the Church and destroy Scottish hierarchy.
Grandfather John Erskine travelled to England to collect the collar of Order of the Garter from Henry VIII of England on behalf of James V. The ceremony took place at Windsor Castle and later Erskine met Henry VIII at Thornbury Castle. The collar was gold and enamel forming twenty one garters containing a red rose. Membership to the Most Noble Order of the Garter for knighthood was the highest honor the sovereign could bestow. This was part of a truce between France, England and Scotland. His Uncle Henry VIII wanted to give him a token of everyone playing “happy families.” In 1535 Erskine returned to London, where Cromwell’s servant gave him a gift of silver plate.
James V in 1537 married Magdalene, daughter of the King of France. She died in his arms the same year with tuberculosis. The next year he married a French noblewoman, Mary of Guise, from a very powerful family. She would become a key figure in my families history, in the political and religious upheaval, about to occur in Scotland.
Relations became strained between James V and his uncle, Henry VIII of England. He urged his nephew to renounce the authority of the Pope. Hostilities broke out in 1542. With James refusing to break from the Catholic Church, Uncle Henry launched a major raid into Scotland. The Scottish army were poorly led and organized. Many Scots were captured or drowned in the river, at Solway Moss, pinned between the bog and the river. News of the defeat, was brought to the King, who was suffering from dysentery and high fever. “The House of Stewart, started with a lass, and will go with a lass”, the King said. They had also brought him news of a baby girl, born his only legitimate heir, named Mary Stewart. With these words, King James V turned his face to the castle wall and died, aged thirty.
A six day old baby inherited the throne, called Mary, Queen of Scots. She became the first woman to rule Scotland. She was married to the King of France and Queen there. She also had a strong claim to the throne of England.
My 14th great grandfather, John Erskine died November 11, 1554, in Castle Douglas, Kirkcudbrightshire at the age of 67. He was succeeded by his oldest son, John, who was later made Earl of Mar by Queen Mary, in 1565. Other children: Robert Erskine, Master of Erskine, father of David Erskine, Commendator of Dryburgh, Thomas Erskine, Master of Erskine, diplomat and father of Adam Erskine, Commendator of Cambuskerneth, Sir Alexander Erskine of Gogar, Catherine Erskine, who married Alexander Elphinstone, 2nd Lord Elphinstone, Margaret Eskine, Arthur Erskine of Blackgrange, master stabler to Mary, Queen of Scots, who married Magdalen Livingstone.
Aunt Jane Lane – Royalist Heroine
Jane was described as having wit, a quick and inventive way with words to invoke humor. I like her already. Ann was instrumental in saving the life of her king!
“Every girl wishes for her prince to ride in and rescue her on a white steed, but what if the prince is rescued by a comely lass on a red roan nag?” Wendy Harty
In England, it was troublous times, in the reign of King Charles I. Over centuries of history of church and state, the King believed he was chosen to rule by God, with the Divine Right of Kings. Parliament was summoned only if the King saw fit, however only parliament had the ability to raise taxes. Those who could vote were property owners, elected representatives to sit in the House of Commons. There were two opposing opinions: unquestioning support or the radicals who wanted a redistribution of power.
At King Charles I trial, he was pronounced guilty of treason, by 59 judges and he was beheaded. His eldest son, at age 21 became king, crowned Charles II. Forced to leave English soil, Charles II returned from Scotland after his coronation, with 10,000 men. Oliver Cromwell hastened to meet him and he was fully routed at Worcester.
My Jane’s mother was Anne Bagot, daughter of Sir Walter Bagot of Blithfield, landowner who sat as Member of Parliament for Tamworth. 10 generations ago, my grandmother, Anne married into another landowning family and wed Thomas Lane of Bentley in 1589 at St. Peters Church. For reasons of secrecy Anne Bagot Lane was not told of the adventure her daughter was to engage in. She stood on the steps of her mansion and laughed at the ungainly poorly dressed servant lad, as he tried to mount the strawberry roan nag her daughter had chosen for her trip to the sea. The King had a new identity of William Jackson. In addition, mounted was Jane’s sister, Anne and husband Mr. John Petre, a coronet in Colonel Lane’s regiment, Henry Lascelles, and another serving man on horseback.
Bentley Hall, Staffordshire, England
The Lanes of Bentley assisted in saving the life of the King Charles II. Sir Thomas Lane had married Anne Bagot and they had four sons and five daughters:
John, a Colonel, in the Royal army, born April 8,1609, Walter born May, 1611, William baptized on August 7, 1625, settled in Ireland, Richard, a Groom of the Bedchamber and George, captain of the 54th Regiment and was commandant at Chatham.
Of the daughters, Jane, afterwards called Lady Fisher, Anne, Elizabeth, Withy and Mary, who married the son of Sir Oliver Nicholas, cupbearer to King James I and carver to King Charles I. the family was very connected to the Royal House of Stewart.
Of these, Jane, Withy and Mary shared with their brothers, John and Richard, in the concealment and escape of King Charles II. Their father, that very fateful day, was on his way to Worcester. Sir Thomas Lane was a person of excellent reputation, a good name and was very greatly respected in his old age, as Justice of the Peace for the county of Stafford. He used due diligence to find out where his king was, that he might get him to his house at Bentley, where he could conceal him.
The Battle of Worcester, fought on Wednesday, September 3, 1651, would forever change my Lane ancestor’s futures. The youngest son of Sir Thomas, Richard Lane, a Groom of the Bedchamber, rode one of the fourteen horses sent by Mrs. Mary Graves, for the use of the King before the battle. Fully routed, the battle lost, the King fled. After the Battle of Worcester Charles II escaped and headed north with several companions. His companion, Lord Henry Wilmot, was at nearby Bentley Hall, the home of Jane’s brother, royalist Colonel John Lane. A 1000 pound reward was offered for the king’s capture. Anyone helping him would be executed for treason. The King was easily recognizable at 6″2″ and dark. There were cavalry posts out looking for him. A servant brought word soldiers were coming to search Whitgreaves. Hurriedly the King was stuffed into the priest hole. When Queen Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558, Catholics were persecuted. There were several Catholic plots to remove her. Many of the great house had a priest hole built so they could conceal the priests when searches of the building were made. Reaching another safe house at Boscobel and disguised as a woodman, the King climbed into a gigantic oak tree in the woods. It became known as the Royal Oak. From the oak Charles could see the patrols of Parliamentary soldiers searching for him. The evening of September 9, Colonel John Lane, the eldest son arrived at Moseley and met his royal master in the orchard of Mr. Whitgreave’s. The King had failed to reach Wales. In the silent hours of the night, arriving early morning the King was conducted to the family home at Bentley and led up the back stairs to an upper chamber. Securely lodged he slept.
What was the daring plan devised. Catholics by law could not travel further than five miles from their homes without a pass. Lady Jane had such a military pass, signed by Captain Stone, the Parliamentary Governor of Stafford, for herself and her servant through the Parliamentary troops. Jane, was going to visit her kinswoman, on the coast, soon to give birth. The King would become Jane Lane’s servant, as no lady would travel alone; they’d travel to Bristol and find a ship to take him to France
The horse threw a shoe. The King playing the part took the horse into the next village’s blacksmith. The talk was of the whereabout of the King. King Charles played his part saying, “If that rogue Charles Stuart were taken, he deserved hanging more than all the rest, for bringing in the Scots.” By nightfall, they were under a roof and the cook requested help with the jack to wind up the roast, and so clumsily did he do his duty, it angered the cook. “I am but a poor tenant’s son of Colonel Lane’s,” pleaded the King in excuse. “We seldom have roast meat and don’t have a jack.” Aka, William Jackson and Jane continued on. They continued through Stratford-upon- Avon and on to Long Marston where they spent the night of September 10 with another relation of Jane’s, John Tomes. The next day to Cirencester and proceeded to Abbot’s Leigh, the residence of the Norton’s in Gloucestershire. Here they remained for three days. They stayed at the home of Mr. and Mrs. George Norton, the Lane’s friends. During these three days, the Norton’s were unaware of the King’s identity. They couldn’t find a ship leaving for France. Ellen Norton miscarried the baby. She wanted Jane to stay with her. Jane wrote a counterfeit letter calling herself back to Bentley, thus she had an excuse to leave with the King. September 16, the pair rode out and reached Trent in Somerset. The next morning they continued on to Chipping Sodbury and then to Bristol, arriving at Abbots Leigh on the evening of September 12. They stayed in the home of Colonel Francis Wyndham, another Royalist officer, another safe house. The King witnessed the local villagers celebrating, believing that he had been killed at Worcester.
Jane Lane, aged 25, had safely escorted her King, and the heroic sister of Colonel John Lane took her leave, heading home with Mr. Lascelles; the King went into exile.
By October 14, the Council of State was told that Jane had helped with the escape. Before they came and searched Bentley Hall for her, she and her brother, John, left on foot, walking to Yarmouth posing as a wench and farm helper. She travelled to France, arriving in Paris, December 1651 and was welcomed into the French court. With her wit she became a favorite of Queen Henrietta Maria and the King. King Charles didn’t forget her kindness and arranged for Jane to become Lady-in-waiting for his sister Princess Mary in Holland. King Charles wrote to her often.
Colonel Lane returned to England. Parliamentary forces promptly put he and his father, the gallant old Squire of Bentley, in prison in June 1652. King Charles wrote Jane Lane a letter signed, “Your most affectionate friend, Charles R.” assured her she was in his remembrance and would if in his power give her kindness. He was sorry her father and brother were in prison, and he was the more sorry for it.
How does the story end? King Charles II was restored to his throne after thirteen years! The Stuart monarchy, in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland took place in 1660 and Parliament sat again. Parliament declared that King Charles II had been the lawful monarch since the execution of Charles I in 1649. Charles entered London on May 29, 1660, his thirtieth birthday. The Royalists said it was a divinely ordained miracle! and they’d been delivered from a political chaos that was interpreted as a restoration of the natural and divine order. All those who had been involved in the uprising against Charles I were pardoned except those involved in the trial and execution of Charles I. 31/59 judges were still living who had signed his death warrant; hunted down they were put on trial. Those that were found guilty of regicide were hanged, drawn and quartered. Three escaped to the American colonies and during the American Revolution, streets were named after them. Four corpses including Oliver Cromwell were exhumed and hanged in treason posthumously. Many of the exiles returned to England. The Church of England was restored as the national Church in England. People pranced around the May pole as a way of taunting the Presbyterians and Independents. As Charles II had already been crowned at Scone in 1651, he was proclaimed their king and the people celebrated and rejoiced. Any laws forced on his father Charles I were made void and null back to 1633. The American Colonies weren’t happy; they’d supported the Commonwealth and the other side. It highlighted the failure of puritan reform, but they too agreed. In England, with The Restoration and Charles coronation, it was like overnight from repression of the stringent Puritan morality to one of free license. Woman became actors on the stage, in bawdy comedy that talked of gambling, drink and love, took to the stage and news became a literary art form in the papers. Magnificence and opulence marked artistic influences from Holland and Spain with carved flowery walnut instead of oak, with furniture of twisted supports, tapestries and velvet coverings Jane returned to England and the king gave her a pension of 1000 pounds per year and many gifts, one a picture of him and his lock of hair. Parliament voted to commemorate her service with a 1000 pound jewel. Her family for their courageous loyalty earned three Lions passant guardant on a red field on their coat of arms. The Royal Crown in the crest bears recognition to the family as does their motto “Guard the King”.
Jane married Sir Clement Fisher, on December 8, 1663. Fisher had served under her brother, John Lane, as a captain during the First Civil War. Jane died on September 9, 1689 aged 64.
Jane Lane, my 9th aunt, on mom’s side, is memorialized in several paintings, one of the King and she on a horse. In fiction novels, Under the Storm and Royal Escape, Jane Lane is a main character, The main theme is that without Lady Jane’s bravery, King Charles II of England may never have worn his crown again.
I am descended from her father, Sir Thomas Lane Knight of Bentley Hall, Staffordshire, born May 17, 1585 and died on June 13, 1660.
He Called His First Child Missouri
His first child, Major Andrew Henry called Missouri. So of course this caught my attention. Rather a unique name for 1796. My father’s side of the family made history. Andrew Henry was one of four men who founded the Missouri Fur Company.
Born in Pennsylvania to George Henry and Margaret C. Young, Andrew Henry was named after my 6th great grandmother and given her middle name of Young, in 1775. Andrew Young Henry moved to the port town of Ste. Genevieve, Louisiana now called Missouri from Tennessee. Andrew was justice of the peace and a trustee of the school called Ste. Genevieve Academy. A few years later, Andrew and his friend William Ashley purchased 640 acres in the mining district of Washington County, Missouri, known as Henry’s Diggin’s. In 1805, Henry married Marie Villars, a short lived marriage.. In 1806, Henry bought out Ashley’s half of the mine.
The Academy was built by using blue stone. In 1809 smallpox epidemic swept through the area. Very few of the people had taken advantage of vaccination and the town was ravaged. Perhaps this is how Missouri Henry and his brother, Patrick, died, as a very young youth? It also delayed the building of the school, and its subscribers were asked to make payment in money, lead or produce. The financial backers or subscribers included wealthy men, as well as the lead mining magnates. They promised to pay $1904 in cash and &814 in materials to build an Academy. The concept of the school was to teach both English and French, in the French speaking territory. Further, to teach poor and Indian children beside the sons of the great planters and merchants. To pay the builder the board authorized in lieu of cash to be paid at the rate of $5 per one hundred pounds of lead.
By 1809, Henry had new friends to accompany him: Jean Pierre Chouteau and William Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame. Away explored Andrew Henry into the Montana wilderness to open up the area for the fur trade. They built cabins and wintered in deep snow. Game was scarce and they had little to eat but horses. Henry took only a thin catch back to Saint Louis after a season’s work of 10 packs of beaver pelts. One of the first posts in the area was established by Henry at Three Forks on the Missouri where the Blackfeet caused it to be abandoned. Henry went back to Missouri where he ran a lead mining operation.
The town was shaken by the Madrid earthquakes of the magnitude of 7.2-8.2 on December 16, 1811 followed by aftershocks. It hit again in January and February 1812, the most powerful recorded east of the Rocky Mountains.
With the War of 1812, Andrew Henry participated and held the rank of Major. In 1812, he married again and became the father of four more children.
The Academy’s Father James Maxwell died in 1814 and the school closed. Creditors descended like vultures upon his death. It was then operated by the Christian Brothers, for three years. During Andrew Henry’s life, the school on the hill west of his town became an old dilapidated stone building. River men passing by thought it was haunted. It had failed for lack of means or lack of teachers.
In 1822 Henry’s partner William Ashley, announced in an ad, their novel plan! Rather than using trading posts, the idea of having a rendezvous and instead of alcohol they’d trade for useable goods. Both of these ideas lured the natives to meet them instead of trading at competitors trading posts.
The add read, ” To Enterprising Young Men, The subscriber wishes to engage one hundred men to ascend the River Missouri to its source, there to be employed for one, two or three years… For particulars, enquire of Major Andrew Henry near the Lead Mines, in the country of Washington (who will ascend with and command the party) or to the subscriber at St. Louis“
Wm. H. Ashley.
These two transformed the fur trade when the ad was published in St. Louis newspapers, and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company was born. Henry took 150 men up the Missouri. They erected a fort and called it “Fort Henry”, at the mouth of the Yellowstone. Many of these men would become the Mountain Men which lore would known their names of Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, David Jackson, William Sublette and Jedediah Smith.
These Scottish Henry’s were very into command whether in military or business endeavors or government. Patrick Henry of “give me liberty or give me death was his cousin”! Guiding his men west would demand both skill and leadership, which Henry as Major of the Missouri Militia had gained. Tested during the next two years, while he was away from home, some of his men were attacked by his nemesis the Blackfeet near Great Falls; some were killed. They were forced to flee back to Yellowstone. Another fort was built at the mouth of the Bighorn River, which would open up the rich beaver country of Wyoming in the Green Basin.
In the spring of 1824 Henry went down the Bighorn, to the canyon’s mouth and crossed through Bad Pass. He joined up with Jedediah Smith and others trapping the Green River area. The season was highly successful. A rendezvous was made on the Sweetwater River. They decided to split into two parties to go homeward. Half chose the southern route back to the Platte River and lost their furs on the water. Henry led the other half back through the Bad Pass, then floated the Bighorn to St. Louis where he arrived in August. He made some money but not enough to justify the high risk of the fur trade.
Henry decided his fur trading days were over and he sold his share to Ashley. The rendezvous system he helped make popular grew over the next decade and was a thriving enterprise. The route, Henry traversed across Bad Pass would be used by partner Ashley, who brought back over $100,000 in beaver pelts.
For the last eight years of his life, Henry continued the lead mines and died at the age of 57. Henry died intestate at his farm, on June 10, 1832 and was burried in Bennett Bryan Cemetery. His widow, in the 1850 census was living with her daughter, Jane and husband Robert Cain.
Henry was the forefront of those would explore and become knowledgeable to tackle the American West. In Montana three forts would be named for Henry. In Idaho, a fort, a camp, Henry’s Lake and Henry’s Fork of the Snake River, Henry Creek and Henry Mountain.
Is it any other wonder that I often feel the need to see what is over the next hill; it must come from my Scottish Henry’s DNA that runs in my veins. Named for his mother, my 6th great grandmother Margaret C. Young 1742-1801, Andrew Young Henry is my 5th great grandmother’s youngest brother. Elizabeth Henry known as Betsy married into another Scottish family that had come to America of the name of Buchanan. I have 25 DNA matches!
Woodman Stockley Sidbury
This information about Woodman found below was contributed by Tom Sidbury on findagrave.com
Son of Stockley Sidbury and Agnes Barlow, my 4th great grandparents. Brother of William Barlow Sidbury and Stockley Sidbury, Jr. brother of my 3rd great grandmother Judith Sidbury Costin Atkinson Costin and brother to the youngest Aggy Sidbury.
Woodman Stockley Sidbury
BIRTH 26 Aug 1792 DEATH 27 Nov 1866 (aged 74)BURIAL
Nixon Cemetery Sloop Point, Pender County, North Carolina, USA
There are 6 Nixon Cemeteries, this is where Woodman Stockley Sidbury is buried near Sloop Point, NC called Nixon Cemetery
When Woodman Stockley Sidbury was born and given the family names of his great grandparents, Woodman and Elizabeth Stockley Sidbury, his father Stockley L Sidbury was 40 and mother, Agnes Barlow or Aggy was 32. Born at Topsail Sound, North Carolina, he was named in his father’s will to share equally the property, with his other four siblings. Woodman married his neighbor Nancy Nixon. They named their first son Woodman Stockley Sidbury Jr. He would only live to be four years dying in 1843. Hannah C was born in 1841, a boy they named James Nixon Sidbury was born in 1843. James Nixon was called a patriot soldier in his obituary, found in The Daily Journal, Wilmington, NC paper. It says that he fought for liberty, for freedom bled. At Richmond he was wounded, and would come home to die in his father’s residence on Topsail Sound, July 26, 1862.
The deceased boy, was a member of Co. G, 18th Regt. NC. Only 19, James, was an open hearted boy and a brave soldier. It must be some consolation to the grief stricken parents that he could not have been given to a better cause. The family supported the Confederates. A baby daughter, named A.O. wouldn’t live long, only two months, in 1845. Henrietta was born in 1847 and both she and Hannah would marry the neighbor King’s boys. Another son was born in 1853 named Franklin Pierce, Ivey William in 1855 and Charles William in 1860. It was in the middle of the Civil War 1863, that Stonewall Jackson Sidbury was born, January 6, 1863, named after a Confederate general considered one of the most gifted tactical commanders. The Civil War brought crushing inflation and deflating of the Confederate currency. The following story tells of the death of the father, leaving some very young children, whose mother Nancy would also die later that fall, November 26, 1866 at only age 46.
The Daily Progress (Raleigh, NC), April 1, 1864 (Friday)
An Attempted Highway Robbery — An attempt of highway robbery and murder was made upon the person of an old gentleman, Mr. Woodman Sidbury, on Saturday last, while he was on his way from Wilmington to his home on Topsail Sound. It appears that two men in soldier’s uniforms, accosted him in the public road, and demanded his money, which he refused to give up when the fiends struck him several blows on the head with a club, thereby stunning him very severely and rendering him insensible. From some cause the culprits ceased their operations on the old gentleman without getting his money. He was still in his buggy insensible, and when he came to his senses, he found that his horse had carried him near to a neighbor’s on the sound. He then succeeded in getting home, where his wounds were dressed. Mr. Sidbury is in a very critical situation, and there is considerable doubt of his recovery. We presume the matter will be fully investigated. We learn Mr. S can identify the men. Mr. Sidbury is quite an old and feeble man, and it is a great wonder that he got home after having received at least four blows on his head with a club. The parties engaged in the outrage had first ascertained that he had no weapons. Their leaving him without consummating their purposes is, no doubt, due to their hearing some noise and fearing that someone was coming. — Wil. Journal
Children
Woodman Stockley Sidbury1839–1843
Hannah C. Sidbury King1841–1925
James Nixon Sidbury1843–1862
A O Sidbury1845–1845
Henrietta Sidbury King1847–1932
Franklin Pierce Sidbury1853–1915
Ivey William Sidbury1855–1945
Charles William Sidbury1860–1933
Stonewall Jackson Sidbury1863–1918
Court Cases 1652, The Court of Assizes
A wealth of historical experience, are the scales today out of balance? sketch by Wendy Harty
Imagine you can start your own world. Set up your own court to rule over it. That is what happened when the first ship left the Netherlands and landed in 1624 on the shores of what would become New Jersey. On the shores of the Hudson River, the Dutch West Indies Company built a fort, interested in a private business venture to exploit the fur trade. Six years later, the governor the company sent, negotiated to buy the land from the natives.
At the same time, rich men came and made settlements, wanting their own government. One was named Van Rensselaerswyck. They and others would name it New Netherland. Active in politics and the military, this family amassed a million acres. By 1632, this Patroon of the colony claimed all the land on the west side of the Hudson River. The West Indies Company said the land belonged to them because they built the fort there. Conflicting claims and the fight was on for who would control the lucrative fur trade. By 1648, there were only three houses next to the fort, one being the patroon’s trading house. In the next four years, more people moved towards the fort, probably seeking safety in numbers and 100 more houses were built under Brant van Slicktenhort, sent as administrator for the colony.
Director General, Peter Stuyvesant, was in charge of the companies interests at New Amsterdam. He was drawn to the settlement and ordered its destruction as it endangered the security of the fort. A bitter controversy ensued. Van Slicktenhort was summoned and thrown in prison for four months. To settle this dispute, Stuyvesant went to Fort Orange and a new village was proclaimed as “a court for Fort Orange and a new village to be called Beverwyck, apart and independent of the Colony of Rensselaersvyck. Stuyvesant would have the final say over the court appointed judges.
Eight Books of Minutes were written from the courts, written in the Dutch language. Human nature does not shine in these records as they tried to instill law and order. Some made me laugh, some made me cry, some I was totally horrified by. I thought today, I’d share some of my findings at court.
The baker and his wife, were often in the court records of 1652. Geertryt, the baker’s wife had fisted (assaulted) and used abusive language, was fined 6 guilders.
An unnamed man was owed 8 beavers to be paid in 10 days on pain of execution. Jochem Becker, the baker owed 136 beavers for wages owed to another. His wife hadn’t paid her fine. His wife was ordered to deliver her fine, condemned to pay it by June 18, 1652.
The court prohibited tapping of wine and beer on Sunday during divine service. Then they limited innkeepers to charging only 8 stivers for brandy and 9 for a can of beer.
Two women were each fined 12 guilders for fighting and calling names and ordered to hold their tongues and leave each other in peace.
As a soldier, Corporal, Bensnich at Fort Orange in service of the West Indies Co. sold his house to the new Reverend and as he can’t read or write, but had been fully paid, the transaction was entered into the court record.
The court having read the authorization granted by Hon. Director General and Council of New Netherland September 28, 1652, then read the defendants confession to him. He again confessed. The whipping post was to be made ready for tomorrow, to punish the delinquent as an example to others. The delinquent was informed he could appeal. Two bailsmen were summoned, Willem Fredrixsz and Marten Hendrixsz, asked to be excused from bail, after hearing the confession. The whipping was recorded in a separate Sentence Book.
Jan Van Bremen says he doesn’t want to fulfill the contract because he was drunk when he signed it. A quorum wasn’t present and court was adjourned.
On December 3, 1652, Peter Stuyvesant proclaimed in a letter to be published in the town which prohibited the use of grain for brewing. Then he prohibited baking and the sale of white bread and cakes and malting of hard grain to the natives. This brought the baker back into court. Jochan was fined. As others protested, a letter was written to the governor and the court asked for patience awaiting his answer.
Rut Adriaensz, tailor, was defendant against Lysbet on account of carnal conversation. They were ordered to appear in the next court. Rut declared the said Lysbet is and will remain a whore and that he does not want to marry her, February 2, 1653. A witness was called, said Rut had promised to legally marry her and give her a ring, before sleeping with her.
The baker put up a pigsty which annoyed his neighbor, being too close to his front door. Jochem was ordered to tear it down.
Peter Stuyvesant, ordered a day of fasting and prayer the first Wednesday of each month. The baker was fined again. 50 guilders to be paid in the next 24 hours, on pain of execution, 1/3 to go to the poor. His guilt? Contempt of court, slander, he had challenged the judge to a sword fight and put his sword on and he had refused to move the pig pen to annoy his neighbor. They condemned him 100 guilders in hopes for his better behavior and his promise and he had to tear down the pig pen. Becker was back in court saying his neighbor threw dirty water on his lot, April 29, 1653.
When these lower courts failed to reach a verdict, or it was appealed, once a year a Court of Assizes was held in New York City. Joost Jan van Meter, one of my aunts husbands, sat on this court. It was composed of the Governor, at that time the peg legged Peter Stuyvesant, his Council and the Justices of the Peace in attendance. What criminal matter did Joost rule on? After the trivialities, listed above, of the local court he sat on, must have been quite the experience. This tribunal was the court of last resort unless the case could appealed to the Crown in London.
I Could Have Been Named Jeanesdotter
“I am a flower of the open field and a lily of the steep valleys, like them whose bloom is brief, I to shall fade away.” Watercolor by Wendy Harty, 2023, Jeane’s daughter.
Four hundred years ago, people didn’t use last names. As they gathered into villages and left the hunter gather era, their identification changed. Sometimes they used the place where they lived as an identifier. Thus, my 12 the grandfather, was called Hendrick Roelof Schenck Hendrisckse Van Nydeck 1446-1520. Isn’t that a handle? Schenck meant cup-bearer, the “se” meant son of Hendrick, Van meant of and Nydeck was the name where they lived.
My eleventh great grandmother was Neeltje Evertson Lambertsdotter 1524-1570. Can you guess her father’s name? Lambert Evertsz Hendrickse, born 1501 at Ultrecht, Pays-Bas which would today be Holland. Neeltje did not have the Hendrickson name that my great grandmother, Samantha, would use as a last name, it was dropped. And when she married Barrent Rutgerse Hendrickson, they named my 10th great grandfather, Lambert Barrentson Hendricksen 1550-1625 who was a famous sea faring Rear-Admiral. He destroyed the Spanish Armada, which led to the treaty that ended The Eighty Year War. In researching, I found that it was general custom in Holland to use the father’s given name as the middle name for all his children, male and female, the family name in many instances omitted entirely, sometimes even lost. This really makes for some sleuthing, as “my” Hollanders” arrived on America shores, they gave up New Amsterdam with out firing a shot, and the English with their four sloops of war, rather than slaughtering them, let them stay on the shores of New Jersey. After this, within the next hundred years, their names became more angelized. Hendrickse became Hendrickson, sometimes Hendrixson and sometimes Hendricks.
With no social security numbers, or birth certificates one has to rely on church baptismal records. The Dutch Reformed kept very very good records. It has also helped that the Hendrickson family loved genealogy as much as I do. They gathered in 1904, had a reunion and Geo. Beeckman wrote the history book, “The Hendrickson’s of Monmouth County” New Jersey. Beeckman! two of my relatives were Beeckman, that married into the Hendrickson families. How did that name evolve?
Wendy Jeanesdotter is off to research some more!
Fire on The Tyger
What’s that one word that strikes fear into this women’s heart? It is the word fire as it must have been for Cornelius Hendrickson my 9th great grandfather.
“Fire, fire!” dreaded words in 1613. The “Tyger” was ashes, her cargo of furs destroyed. With Cornelius on board as navigator the Tyger had explored the Lower Hudson River and filled the hold with furs, traded for trinkets. By November, they were moored in the North River, near the tip of Manhattan Island.
Of German/Dutch descent, Cornelius Hendrickson, with a stocky German build, sandy hair and blue eyes, lived among a small handful of people in a morsel of territory, ever a danger of being swallowed by the sea. His homeland was Holland, part of the Netherlands.
Other powers coveted their wealth, a constant temptation. Dreaming of distant colonies, Cornelius grew up on stories of a mercantile marine, laden with products of the earth – pepper and spices, gold and silver. The unscrupulous powers of Europe had been hated and feared. They had looked at the little country and it’s small population as an easy subject. But the Hendrickson family and many others had been invigorated after the Duke of Alba and tortures of the inquisition and had a love of liberty and independence. Cornelius also loved adventure. Probably around age eleven, as was the custom of the times, he boarded the ship of his father, and learned the skills he’d need to cross to ocean.
Born around 1572, the son of Lambert Barrentje Hendrickson, an admiral in the Dutch Navy and Senorita Jennetje Prien Y Nadal of Spanish extraction, he loved the seas as much as his father.
Another mariner, Adrian Block, married Neeltje Hendricks van Gelder and had five children. (My 8th great grandfather, one of Cornelius’s sons would marry a Van Gelder). They lived in Amsterdam. Block would sail for America with Cornelius Hendrickson, in 1613. By 1590, Block had been in the shipping trade, transporting wood. In 1601 he convoyed with Dutch ships to the Dutch East Indies. He bought rice, cotton and nuts and coming back in 1604 on this trip he had written permission from Dutch authorities to capture enemy ships. As a privateer, he took a ship as a prize and made a lot of money, and bought the Two Hooded Crows house for his family. Dutch merchants in Amsterdam listened intently to Henry Hudson who had explored the Hudson Valley in 1609. There was a lucrative market in Europe for beaver pelts and the Dutch sent the ship Tyger to explore, captained by Block. Cornelius Hendrickson set sail with the Dutch fur trader, Adrian Block, and they had met friendly natives happy to barter for beads and knives for valuable furs. The Tyger, accidently caught fire and rapidly burned to the waterline. The charred hull was beached. The crew salvaged some sails, rope, tools and fittings. The stranded seamen built some driftwood huts and over the winter, Block and his crew began to build a sloop called the Onrust (Restless), with help from the natives. The ship was framed so solidly that no tossing over the waves could break them. The strong timbers, hewed with hand tools and braced frames was built and continued exploring the East River and Long Island Sound. The Onrust was 44.5 feet long and had a capacity of 16 tons. Block turned the Onrust over to Cornelius Hendrickson. Off Cape Cod, Block was sighted by another Dutch ship and rendezvoused with a boat, the Fortuyn and returned to the Netherlands, where he was the first to apply the name New Netherland to the area between English Virginia and French Canada.
In 1614, Cornelius continued exploring, navigating and charted going through Barnegat Inlet to the Toms River, along with Barnegat Bay and Great Bay to the south. Late in 1615, Hendrickson sailed into Godins Bay (Delaware Bay) and up the Zuyd River to the Schuylkill River, searching for a site to establish a trading post for the Dutch West India Company. They built another vessel, on the shores of America, the IJseren. Some of the Dutch sailors remained at Fort Nassau to engage in the fur trade. The Mohawk persuaded three of these to accompany them on a raid against the Susquehannocks, with the Dutch firearms. The next spring the sailors were captured and brought south. In exploring, Hendrickson met a band of Susquehannock (Minquas) and ransomed the three for kettles, beads, and trade goods.
In summary, after Captain Block left, Cornelius became the captain and surveyed between the 38th and 40th parallels at Delaware Bay, from 1614-1616 on the ship Onrust. In 1616, he sailed the ship up the Zuyd River, now known as the Delaware to its northernmost navigable reaches, on a voyage to ransom three fur traders taken from Fort Nassau on the North River. Back in Amsterdam, Cornelius filed the first definitive map of the New Jersey coastline.
By 1624 the 38th and 39th parallels region came under the jurisdiction of the Dutch West India Company. Block’s and Cornelius’ maps created new interest by the Dutch in America. A group of thirteen merchants acquired a charter from the State General for exclusive trade on the American East Coast and chose an island just below present day Albany for their center of trade. Empire building was not their goal, but trading was. It was decided in 1614, six years before the Mayflower would bring the Pilgrim Fathers to the new continent. For nine years they continued at Fort Nassau, doing well in the fur trade. In 1621 the Dutch West India Company was formed and the thirteen original were absorbed into the new company. Again the Dutch State General granted the company the monopoly for trade on the American continent. The trading post had to be protected by soldiers, soldiers had to be fed, so farmers were sent. On March 31, 1624, a ship carrying settlers left Holland. Settlers arrived to New Netherland, including the Walloon and Flemish families. The first boat load stepped off at Fort Orange, the trading post built by the Dust West India Company, near Albany, New York today. A sloop went up the Zuidt or South River and established Fort Wilhelmus. Eight men were also left on Nut Island to promote the fur trade and 18 more families populated Fort Orange. New Netherlands was transformed into a Dutch province.
Cornelius Hendrickson, mariner and explorer died in 1650, in Utrecht.
Oh the tales, Cornelius Hendrickson had to tell to his wife and children. The youngest, Daniel, born on March 4, 1605 in Utrecht, Netherlands married Lady Emma Van Guelder, and had seven children. I’ll be tracing my mom’s Hendrickson family as they come to America from Holland, and oh my the stories I’ll tell my grandchildren!
A Lighthouse Warns of Danger
Water color “Lighthouse” by Wendy Harty, January 2023. I don’t think I need a light house, I should have drawn a lifeboat?
I was 5. Awakened. From my darkened bedroom I crept to find my mother still up. I wouldn’t settle, put paced and she took me into arms repeatedly asking what was wrong? At midnight the phone rang
Last night I had another awakening. There is no mom, to hold my hand, she passed 15 years ago. But my dad’s voice came from the crevice deep inside my brain. “When you enter a room, know where the exits are. And in a crowded room, never sit in the middle with your back to people, seek an outside wall, so you can see what’s coming at you, and see the exits.” I always thought these were lines from an old cowboy movie, but still pretty profound. As I grew up I learned that half of what I worried about never happened, the other half did and I had little control over it, so why worry.
Unable to sleep last night, I turned on the news. The first story was MTG on the committee for homeland security and oversight. Then that liar also got on two committees. The news anchor then spoke of a default, a possibility of not paying the United States debt, that could come as soon as Thursday. When America sneezes, Canada catches the cold. My matriarchal chant kicked in, money in a sock, food in the pantry and gas in the tank. The news screen switched again, two thirds of the east coast is without gas in their filling stations.
It was all very doom and gloom, with many unanswered questions. Will the senior members in government who were overpassed for the hostage taking rookies, revolt? Cross the floor, or just quit? Will financial chaos engulf the whole world? Will 20 people really be able to shut down the world? I put myself in a corner of room, watching the exit sign blinking red above Roy Rogers and Dale Evans heads as they entered my dream world. And as I drifted off into an uneasy sleep, “How long can I make a tank of gas last?”
He Called Himself “Rambo”
Drawing by Wendy Harty, the Swedish ship “Kalmar Nyckel”, to the Colony of New Sweden, Colonial America. Dec 2022.
Peter left the company store. He owed more guilders; more than his little farm could ever repay. With 22 others he wrote his letter of complaint. I can feel his despair at “owing his soul” and his dreams of Rambo, disappearing. I wish Peter could feel my jubilation at finding him, my 9th great grandfather and my Swedish heritage, which ancestry says is 13% on my mother’s maternal tree, he wouldn’t be disappointed in his life and tribulations, as he succeeded.
Gunner Peterson and Anne Paulsdotter welcomed baby Peter into their lives on June 10, 1611. In Sweden he was known as Gunner’s son. Dutch merchants had been enticed to settle at Hisingen by King Charles IX, in 1607. The inhabitants of the island rock spoke Dutch, had free trade and freedom of religion. The Danes destroyed the town in 1611 during the Kalmar War, the year Peter was born. The island was part Norwegian and part Swedish, open to attack and its harbors vulnerable with borders to Norway and Danish Holland. The Swedish army fought back with scorched earth and guerilla warfare tactics. Nearby to his home the Danish conquered two forts on the border, but then the mercenaries in the Danish army deserted from lack of pay.
282 feet above the sea on Raven’s Mountain, with a view of the newly founded city of Gothenburg, Sweden and harbor, Peter’s home for 27 years was on the island. The mountain rock was called Ramberget (where the ravens lived) and bo in Swedish means homestead or farm. I believe the name Peter called himself when he reached American shores was a combination of a dream and a place. Peter’s dream was to have a Raven’s homestead; to find a home with a new and better society amongst 1000 Protestants who would migrate to “New Sweden”. On the ship’s manifest he called himself Peter Rambo.
A 27 year old unmarried man crossed the gangplank of the ship Kalmar Nyckel, a wooden sailing ship, on its second voyage in 1640. The ship had an extraordinary record of endurance making eight successful crossings or four round trips between Gothenburg and Fort Christina, more than any other documented colonial ship of the times.
The ship’s cargo space was limited. Did the young man think about profit, scarcity and resource management, in the difficult transatlantic voyage, or just look forward to his adventure? Gunnar Peterson’s son took the last name of Rambo, and the one thing he packed was apple seeds! He travelled with Sven and Brigetta Gunnarsson and their two small children. Imagine on the small ship as Brigetta, pregnant gave birth to another son Olle while on the sea. Sven had been in prison for poaching. He arrived in servitude, laboring for close to five years on the company’s tobacco plantation in the state of Delaware.
Sweden had been at war since 1566. The Religious Reformation brought revolution during the 80 Years War. As a major military combatant, Sweden’s 30 Year War, 1618-1648, included Norway, all of Finland, portions of Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Germany. Sweden wanted to expand its tobacco and fur trade. King Gustavus Adolphus sanctioned a trading company, through stock subscriptions. The Swedish South Company was founded in 1626 by Willem Usselincx, a merchant, investor, and diplomat who had previously founded the Dutch West India Co.
Minuit had been governor of New Amsterdam and purchased the island of Manhattan from the Natives for trade goods valued at 60 guilders or about $24. Both parties went home with different ideas of the agreement as the natives couldn’t trade water, air and land, as they belonged to all. Minuit, with 30 Dutchmen, with a whaling ship with 18 guns for defense, had brought over colonists to the state of Delaware. They built a palisaded fort, built with a red lion of Holland on the gate. Called Zwaanendael Colony, the natives destroyed it and not a soul escaped. They built a new fort and called it Fort Christina. For unknown reasons and with hard feelings Minuit was replaced. In 1636 a plaque went through and in 1641, the Dutch Colony sold to Sweden. It was to Fort Christina that the Kalmar Nychel sailed up the river, and Peter Rambo stepped upon American soil, to join the colony called New Sweden.
In 1637, the first Swedish colony in the New World was located on the lower Delaware River, which previously had been claimed by the Dutch. Minuit, after starting the New Sweden Colony, drowned during a hurricane when his ship sank.
Peter Rambo, worked as a laborer for the Swedish South Company and learned to grow tobacco. The colony along the Delaware River had a good trading relationship with the Susquehannock natives in the region. Peter learned their language and later would be included in the peace treaty negations of 1675 in the conference including Governor Andros, the magistrates of New Castle and the Indian sachem of New Jersey. Peter acted as a translator in 1677 with Captain John Collier commander in another conference with the natives and Upland Court, on which he served. The Swedish supported the Susquehannock in a successful war against the Maryland colonists, encroaching on their hunting territory. Around 1640, New Sweden had a monopoly on flintlock firearms, which greatly increased the tribes power against the French in Canada and their native allies, which were competition for the fur trade. New Sweden, in the Delaware Valley, and on the coastal bay for shipping interrupted trade with the Dutch further north on the coast. When the English defeated the Dutch, the result of the war was the Susquehannock traded exclusively with New Sweden. From 1642-1650, the Province of Maryland declared war on the Susquehannock. The tribes were also fighting each other; the Susquehannock fought the Seneca and Cayuga nations and won over their territory for furs. But smallpox brought by the Europeans decimated the natives numbers.
Peter Rambo and Britta Mattsdotter married on April 7, 1647. He would be declared a freeman, which meant he could vote and own his own farm. The Swedish-Finnish settlers brought their skills of log house designs to America and soon Peter and Britta had a log home for their growing family. And Peter planted his apple seeds.
The new governor prohibited the colony from trading for furs with the natives, making it law that only the Company could trade. By March of 1648, many owned the company store and/or Governor Printz, 160 guilders. Disillusioned and angry, a complaint was submitted to Governor Printz. On August 1, 1653, Printz wrote, “the debt was law” and called it a mutiny. Printz threatened the colonists and many fled for safety to the Dutch.
Printz sailed away on the next ship to Sweden. A new governor came, Johan Rising. He attempted to remove the Dutch from their colony, by seizing their fort, below Fort Christina. They had no gunpowder and surrendered without a shot. The Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant was furious! In revenge 7 armed Dutch ships and 317 soldiers came up the Delaware River the next year. The Swedes surrendered. However, the Dutch let the Swedes and Finns remain, governed by a court of their own choosing, practice their religion and organize militia and retain land ownership and trade was resumed with the natives people for furs. Governor Peter Stuyvesant took over administration of the colony, ruling it from New Amsterdam (New York City now). Peter Rambo was finally prospering; he and Britta raised six children to adulthood, Gunnar, Andreas, Peter, Gertrude, Katherine and John.
Initially Peter and Britta Rambo lived in Kingsessing, beside the Gunnarsson’s, in a neighborhood in southwest Philadelphia. The first gristmill was operated by Sven Gunnarson, and Peter Rambo would take his wheat to be ground there. Within ten years, the government changed hands three times. The Gunnarsson’s recieved a patent from Stuyvesant’s successor for a large tract of land west from the banks of the Delaware. Only months later, the Dutch were forced to yield their colony to the English. Peter and Britta moved by 1669 to Passyunk on the north side of the Schuylkill River. This land had originally been “sold” by a sachem of the Lenape people to the Dutch West Indies Company in 1646. A piece of land called by their people Wiqquachkoingh, angelized to be called Wicaco, it was located on the South River of New Netherland. During Governor Rising’s rule 1654-55, Peter Rambo served in the Governor’s Council. He continued to serve as justice under both Dutch rule, 1655-1664 and English rule 1664. 1680, a long time Magistrate of the Upland Court, Pennsylvania’s first governing and judicial body. Rambo was among the welcoming delegation who greeted William Penn when the Great Proprietor landed at Upland, now, Chester, Pennsylvania. In May 1675, the English Governor Lovelace authorized the Swedish settlers to construct a new church in their vicinity. Gunnerson donated the land. The first church building was fortified to withstand any native warrior attacking, it was made of logs. The newly consecrated church, on June 5, 1677 was entrusted to a minister named Jacob Fabritius, a Polish fellow, preached in a dialect of Low Dutch (German). Described as a turbulent, well educated fellow, fond of wine and brandy, knowing how to curse and swear. He preached at Wicaco, to Peter and Brigitta and the Swedes and Finns found in his congregation, who traveled to the church by canoe from upriver. for 15 years, becoming blind.
Peter and Brita were known for their hospitality. Court was often held in their home. And the apple seeds he planted were called Rambo apples.
Married for 46 years, Brita died at the Passyunk Plantation October 12, 1693. I can imagine it surrounded by river, woods and fields near a pretty little city of Philadelphia (where Quakers lived) two musket shots to the north, of the church of Wicaco. Peter was buried beside her at the Swedes log church, Wicaco, on January 29, 1698, aged 83.
Two daughters had preceded by 1694 when Peter revised his will naming his 6 children. The family were neighbors with the Cock’s for years and very good friends. Three of Peter’s boys married three of Peter and Helen Helm Cock’s girls.
Gunner Rambo, born 1649, married Anna Cock and had 9 children.
Gertrude Rambo, born 1650, married Anders Berigtsson. He drowned in the Delaware River, had 9 children.
Peter Jr. Rambo , born 1653 married Magdalena Shute, had 9 children.
Catherine Rambo 1655 married Peter Mattsson had 9 children, a grandson Baron John August Sandels became a famous general 1764-1831.
Anders (Andrew) Rambo born in 1658 married Maria Cock, 6 children.
and John Rambo1661-1741 married Brigitta Cock, 11 children.
An interesting note I found on the Rambo family; if you have Rambo in your family tree, as he was the only one to immigrate, we are all descended from Peter and Britta Rambo! My tree continues with Gunner Rambo, named after his grandfather back in Sweden.
A Picture and 1000 Words 