Family tree post #80 (26 Nov 2023)
On 30 August 1651, Oliver Cromwell despatched the Worcestershire horse to secure Bewdley Bridge. This is 20 miles north of Worcester and was on the Royalists’ line of retreat. And the predecessor of the very bridge I crossed in post #77 to look at Beale’s Corner… Cromwell himself would lead the attack on the southern ramparts of Worcester city. 3000 men were killed at the Battle of Worcester, and the Royalist leaders were executed.
At the same time, less than 10 miles east – on the main road to Stratford – lived a young cobbler, George Maris. It has been speculated that the slaughter of the Battle was what persuaded George to become a Quaker. Eight years later, George’s father (also George) died, and the will makes it clear that there were tensions within the family, likely to have been caused by the religious conversion.
In 1670, puritan soldiers of the “Clergy Band” raided George’s house in Grafton Flyford during a Friends Meeting. When George was able to pay the exorbitant £20 fine, he was gaoled for eight months.
A contrast to Bewdley is marked by the local watercourse being, not the Severn, but the Piddle. But it was probably the religious persecution that led to George’s leaving home, rather than river envy. Indeed, such persecution pushed many Quakers to migrate to the American colonies.
In 1683, George obtained a glowing testimonial from the local Friends, and purchased the rights to 1000 acres from a Worcester man, a fifth of what he had in turn had bought from William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, and himself a Quaker.
He booked passage for his family on the Comfort of Bristol, provided with a year of staple food, and material to continue his business: “10 dozen dressed calf skins; 1 qtr. malt; 3 1/2 qtrs. wheat; 3 bushels oatmeal; 90 lbs shoes; 2 flitches bacon; 6 doz. woolen stockings; 10 cwt. cheese; 1 bbl. beer; 3 doz. plain sheepskin gloves; 1 1/2 firkins buter; 33 yds. flannel; 11 pcs. English earthware; 1 1/4cwt. lead shot; 1/4 cwt gunpowder; 20 bells English linen; 10 parcels several wares value 18 pounds 10s”
Perhaps surprisingly, he also arrived in Delaware with “1/2 cwt. pewter; cwt. brass manufactured; 20 cwt. (a ton of) wroght iron; 1/15 hhd. aquavita (i.e. four gallons of whisky!)”. Within about a year, he had aquired 1000 more acres around Edgmont township, Chester County. He became a Quaker minister, a JP, and member of the local assembly, and eventually of the provincial council.
George Maris snr was my 10th great-grandfather (via the Hedges family). This is normally the genealogical distance which starts to strain the credulity in having navigated surviving records, without mistake or wishful thinking. But George has many descendants – 320,000 of them are apparently documnented! (And I am indebted to such previous research, available online.)
A routine search of family members in DNA connexions’ trees, reveals five matches to Grafton Flyford, all descendants of George snr, and so my distant cousins.
They are separated one from another by at least seven generations, and were born in Indiana, Illinois, New York, and Texas. None in England or Pennsylvania so far, but a good illustration of the power of DNA to confim slightly musty paper trails!