Book Reviews

Book Reviews Abstracts of the Records of the Society of Friends in Indiana. Part Two. Edited by Willard Heiss. [Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, Volume VII.] (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1965. xii, 431 p. $10.00, paper, $12.50, cloth.) In this work, under the sponsorship of the Indiana Historical Society, Mr. Heiss continues his splendid project of presenting in abstracted form the extant records of Indiana Friends' Meetings. Part One contained the abstracted records of Whitewater, Wayne Co., Monthly Meeting, Silver Creek-Salem, Union Co., Monthly Meeting, and Chester, Wayne Co., Monthly Meeting. Part Two, the present volume, continues with the records of additional meetings in Wayne County: those of New Garden, Newport (Anti-Slavery), Springfield, Economy and Dover. Records of Randolph County monthly meetings included are: Arba, Cherry Grove, White River, White River (Conservative), Sparrow Creek-Poplar Run, and Dunkirk (Anti-Slavery). The volume concludes with the records of Camden (Hicksite) Monthly Meeting in Jay County. While the format generally follows the pattern established by William Wade Hinshaw in the original volumes of the Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, Mr. Heiss points out in his preface that since the present work was done at different times and by different people, it was inevitable some inconsistencies would occur. None appear to be very serious or disturbing. The meeting records are arranged in chronological order of establishment, beginning in 1815. Preceding the records of each is a brief historical sketch giving the time the meeting was established, and the later meetings set off from each, a most useful aid for the researcher running down people on the move. Unlike the Hinshaw volumes, there is no index, but this reviewer feels that while-an index would have been helpful, the alphabetical arrangement by surname, as in the Hinshaw volumes, is adequate under the circumstances. In the light of increasing costs of publication, the omission of an index is understandable. Copies of this most useful record are available from the Indiana Historical Society, 140 North Senate Avenue, Indianapolis, Ind. HANNAH BENNER ROACH A Hampshire Miscellany, III: Dissenters' Meeting House Certificates, 1702-1844. Arthur J. Willis, comp. (92 p. Facsimiles, appendix, indices. $3.50.) Winchester Ordinations, 1660-1829, II: Bishops' Registers, Subscription Books, Exhibition of Orders. Arthur J. Willis, comp. (156 p, Facsimile. Indices. $7.50.) These two volumes, all published by Mr. Willis at Hambledon, Lyminge, Folkestone, Kent, continue his presentation of extracts from the Diocesan Registry archives at Winchester. Previous publications in this series were reviewed in this Magazine, Volume XXIII, 269. The present volume of the Hampshire Miscellany contains abstracts of certificates or licenses issued under the Toleration Act of 1688 to Protestant Dissenters granting them permission to hold meetings. The abstracts give in tabulated form the parish, address of the premises to be occupied by the Dissenting meeting with the owner or occupier of the 234 Book Reviews 23 5 premises, denomination if given in the license, and date issued. Occasionally the minister's name or that of a deacon is given. Thus, in Denmead, parish of Hambledon, the premises of William Luff were licensed or registered 13 July 1717, and again on 20 February 1725/ 6, for Baptists, Edward Tisbourn (Fishbourn) the preacher. In the parish of Gosport, the outhouse in the yard of James Goodeve, gardener in South St., was licensed 27 January 1747/8, and on 22 January 1748/9, the Baptist Meeting House in Cross Street (lately the storehouse of Mr. James Hammond, brewer) was licensed. Two indices, one of surnames, the other for places, are helpful in locating such items. To use the second volume of abstracts of Winchester Ordinations compiled by Mr. Willis, the researcher must refer to the first volume, page xiii, for interpretation of the abbreviations used. The only ones identified in this present volume refer to places of ordinations. No detailed biographical data, such as is included in the abstracts in the first volume, will be found in this one. However, the abstracts of the "Subscription Books" and "Exhibition of Orders at Visitations" do supplement the entries of the first volume by covering periods before and after the Ordinary records in the first volume, and the period 1684-1742, for which Bishops' Registers are missing. There is an index of surnames and one of parishes arranged alphabetically by shire: Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Surrey, Wiltshire (two entries only), and the Channel Islands. A short, third index headed "Extra-Diocesan," includes three entries for Maryland and Virginia: Hamilton Bell of Maryland, 18 Oct. 1747; John Dixon, William and Mary College, Virginia, 31 July 1748; James Maury Fontaine, William and Mary College, Virginia, 9 Oct. 1761, all ordained as priests. Printed by offset from typed copy like the other volumes in this series, the present works should also serve the searcher working in the fields of genealogy, history and social studies. HANNAH BENNER ROACH Carolina Cradle. Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier 1747- 1762. By Robert W. Ramsey. (Chapel Hill, N. C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1964' mil, 251 p. Facsimiles, maps, appendices, bibliography, index. $6.00.) Since the settlement of Northwest North Carolina was primarily by migration from the land mass to its northeast, Dr. Ramsey starts his most interesting study with a panoramic view of the geography from New Jersey to western North Carolina. He then goes into the causes of migration (which took place from about 1740 to 1760) and of the places from which it originated. His outline maps show population densities, disputed areas, and even the township boundaries along the Susquehanna River. He discusses the border dispute between Maryland and Pennsylvania, and the population movement from the disputed area. By the third chapter he is well into the early settlements in Rowan County which "originally included practically all of central and northwestern North Carolina, and extended westward to the Mississippi River, having no western boundary The land was settled by Scotch-Irish, Quakers, Germans and Huguenots coming from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. Many names will be familiar to genealogists in the Philadelphia area, and the pages devoted to sources of the migration are useful background for local Pennsylvania area studies as well. Note particularly the outline map on page 29 showing the townships of Lancaster and Chester Counties in 1740. The footnotes provide abstracts of wills, deeds and court records of the source 23 6 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine states. Fourteen pages of appendices are invaluable tabulations of the names of immigrants, taken from New Jersey and Pennsylvania Friends' Meeting records, of German settlers matched with the Hinke-Strassburger shipping lists, and of names of possible French origin. They include also tabulation totals of immigrants by religious preference, lists of name duplications of those who served as elders in Presbyterian congregations in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware, and as tax assessors in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The valuable twenty-page bibliography offers guidelines for extending the research on any facet of the study. The amount of information that has literally been cnnuned into these pages is astonishing. It is a very useful book that should be on the shelves of every library, and in the home of every student. WALTER LEE SHEPPARD, JR. Descent front Seventy-nine Early Immigrant Heads of Families. Compiled by James S. Elston. (Burlington, Vt.: Chetwado Service, 1962. 127 p. Index. $5.00.) Ancestors of Francis Walker and Effie Vinton Kelley. Compiled by James S. Elston. (Burlington, Vt.: Chetwado Service, 1964. 130 p. Facsimiles, genealogical tables, portraits, index. $5.00.) The value of these volumes lies particularly in those portions of them that are based on previously unpublished material, especially the families of Biggs, Chalfant, Decker (Jan Gerritsen), Green (Martha of Burlington, N. J.), Griffith, Harding, Hussey, Jewell, Martin, Manthome, Mead, Shields, Stanfield, and Way, all in Seventy - nine Early Immigrants, and of Silas Wright, John Kelley, Elkanah Hinckley, and George Cooper in Walker - Kelley. In Mr. Elston's research he has relied largely on printed matter, though his use of his material demonstrates analytical understanding of basic source material and good critical faculties. Unfortunately his transcription of references is not always exact, as evidenced by American Ancestry for The American Genealogist (under Bolles), and occasional errors in the pagination of references. The usefulness of both volumes would have been enhanced by a list, with page num: hers, of families included. Though the families are given in alphabetical order, the indexes of names give only the name of the family in which the name occurs, and cites no page. Mr. Elston has condensed the published biographical material that he has found — and in the case of the Dymond family, for instance, in Seventy - nine Early Immigrants, has omitted all geographic locations and cited no evidence. An index of places would also have been helpful. This reviewer has not checked every family, but has noted one serious error. In Walker - Kelley, page 22, Mr. Elston indicates the wife of Joseph Bolles (baptised 1608), as probably Mary, daughter of Morgan Howells of Cape Porpois. On page 74, he shows for Morgan Howells: "probably only one daughter Mary, who married William Dyer." He farther states (with citation) that Mary Dyer was sole heir and executor. On page 51, he shows that William Dyer had three children, one being Mary who married Joseph Bolles, and since the other two are born in 1640 and 1648, the reader would guess her to be born in the same period. On page 24, Samuel 0 Bolles (born 1646), is shown married to Mary, daughter of William Dyer. The facts of the matter are these: Morgan Howells in 1666 bequeathed everything to Mrs. Mary Bolles (identified as the wife of Joseph except a bed, kettle, and one cow to Mary Frost, senior (who was a daughter of Joseph Bolles and his wife Mary. and was Book Reviews 237 married to Maj. Chocks Frost), and a heifer to Mary Frost, junior (her daughter who died young. See Libby, Noyes and Davis' Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire [Portland, Me., 1928-38], 362, 101, 246.) William Dyer's daughter Mary did marry Samuel Bolles (ibid., 213), but his wife has never been identified Morgan Howells is not known to have had a wife or children, and it is generally believed that Mary Bolles was his sister. She was certainly too old to have been his daughter. WALTER LEE SHEPPARD, JR. Index osnd Abstract of Deeds, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania: Deed Books A through IC (1729 to 1766). By R. Thomas Mayhill. (Knightstown, Ind.: Eastern Indiana Publishing Company, 1965. v,ii, 159 p. Maps, index. $10.00, cloth; $9.00, paper.) This slender volume, containing neither abstracts nor précis of deeds, is actually a calendar of land records. Data found in each record is reduced to a bare minimum, including only the date of the record, acreage involved and its location when given, grantors and grantee and their places of residence if shown, and any previous title if given. No metes or bounds, conditions to which the sale was subject, witnesses or date of recording are included, as would normally be found in an abstract. Nevertheless, as in most calendars, there is enough basic data presented to furnish a starting point for the researcher. Regrettably, in the interest of brevity all dates are given in numerals. Consequently it is not clear whether, as on page 37, 1-16-1750/1 is actually January 16 or March 16. The less experienced researcher will no doubt jump to the conclusion it is the former, while the careful reader, even though he has read the introduction, will be uncertain until he has seen the actual record. Four maps of the county show the township divisions at varying periods: in 1729; in 1775 those in the upper part of the county which later were cut off and added (in 1785) to Dauphin, and (in 1813) to Lebanon County; and in 1753 the lower townships with their later divisions. The name index is arranged by Deed Book and page, since the deed extracts follow the original consecutive order of the individual books. An errata and addenda page for Deed Book A, with its own additional index on the reverse, has been inserted at the beginning of that book's entries. A further page of corrections terminates the extracts of Book K. Apparently printed on a high-speed newspaper press, the result leaves much to be desired from the standpoint of appearance, and the general format is disappointing. But the value of the information presented overrides these faults. Mr. Mayhill is to be commended for undertaking the monumental task of transcribing these records into a form available to alL Copies are available from the Eastern Indiana Publishing Company, Box 57, Knightstown, Indiana, 56148. HANNAH BENNER ROACH