Book Reviews

Book Reviews The Ancestry and Posterity of Matthew Clarkson (1664 - 1702). Compiled by J. Robert T. Craine. Edited by Harry W. Hazard. (Privately printed, 1971. iv, 599 p. Index.) The late J. Robert T. Craine spent two decades gathering genealogical data on the family of Matthew Clarkson who came from London in 1691 with William III's commission as Secretary to the Province of New York. Clarkson's children and grandchildren married into the Anglo-Dutch merchant oligarchy of that province; the family has belonged largely to the urban Establishment in New York and Philadelphia down to the present day. Its two eighteenth century kingpins were its heads in the two cities, Revolutionary War Major (later General) Matthew Clarkson, a New York founder of the Cincinnati, and his namesake cousin, the "yellow fever Mayor" of Philadelphia. Through research and correspondence, Mr. Craine assembled for the present publication a hefty file of names, dates and places covering eleven generations of the first Matthew Clarkson's posterity (as well as the descendants of stepchildren and adopted children, although these do not appear beyond the initial entry in the book) and information on his ancestry in England. To his vital records he added such (unchecked) biographical data as was available in secondary printed sources or sent him by correspondents. This material was posthumously edited by Mr. Harry W. Hazard, an historian of the Crusades, who "excised" all of the compiler's source references, and has left intact a number of historical and genealogical imprecisions, even when he recognized them. To Clarkson descendants, the Clarkson genealogy will be extremely useful for information on general family structure and for instant reference, via a full index and the simple numbering system contributed by Mr. Hazard, to family anniversaries and locations. Genealogists will regret the m6lange with Mr. Craine's original research of work first printed elsewhere and with the lack of references which would make this distinction. All readers are the poorer for the absence of the sort of narrative and interpretative text which gave great interest to the two earlier family studies upon which Mr. Craine built, The Clarksons of New York (1875) and Memoirs of Matthew and Gerardus Clarkson (1890). The preface credits Miss Helm Gladys Clarkson, author of a "family chart" of 1950, with much of the information on the English background, but the significant addi- tions and corrections made by her, by the present reviewer, and by others, to the canon of the earlier Clarkson genealogies are not identified in the present published text. This reviewer contributed much of the detailed background of the Kenrick ancestry of Secretary Clarkson's mother and the all-important record of his parents' marriage which, in fact, proved the Secretary to be the son of his clergyman father's second wife, rather than the first as the earlier genealogies intimated. He provided Mr. Craine with the descent of the Kenricks from Edward I, through the Mainwarings and Suttons, this having been printed in 1950 in Thomas H. Bateman's Houston and Allied Families, Mr. Craine used, without acknowledgment, the bare bones and none of the significance of the undersigned's "An Eighteenth Century New Yorker in Holland," De Halve Masts, (October 1967, and January 1968). 256 Book Reviews 257 Sadly, even the importance of Mr. Craine's own original contribution to the family history is overlooked, except for a passing mention in the preface. It was the discovery that his Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, forebears descended from the marriage of a brother of Mayor Matthew Clarkson to a sister of artist Benjamin West, which brought back into the family fold a lost branch now spread widely through the Middle West, and provided the compiler with the impetus for his book. The inclusion by Mr. Crame of the extensive rural West Virginia posterity in the Prince line of David Matthew Clarkson, son of the mayor, results from clues furnished by this reviewer who developed David Matthew's career as first U.S. consul at St. Eustatius in the West Indies, and assembled notes an the early generations of his family in the islands. There must be other byeways in the "recovery" of Clarkson descendants and we would like to know something of them. Although Mr. Craine's work disappoints on the above counts, it is a prodigious effort packed with facts not easily available elsewhere and of great interest to the family. It is also helpful that the Craine papers will rest permanently in the collections of the Genealogical Society of New Jersey, at Rutgers University Library, and will provide a documented basis for clarification of individual problems. As a footnote it should be added that the forthcoming biographical dictionary of early members of the American Philosophical Society, by Dr. Whitfield J. Bell, Jr., will include sketches of Mayor Matthew Clarkson and his brother, Dr. Gerardus Clarkson, which will be models of the most exacting historical and genealogical scholarship. The book is available from Mrs. Edgar A. Snyder, 299 South Harrison Street, East Orange, N.J. FRANCIS JAMES DALLETT Scotch Irish Pioneers in Ulster and America. By Charles Knowles Bolton. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1972. [Reprint of 1910 edition.] x, 398 p. Illustrations, maps, appendices, index. $11.00.) When first published in 1910, this work was projected as a systematic study of the migration of settlers of Scotch and English descent from the north of Ireland to the New World. Basically, however, it is a study of those settlers' migration to New England. According to Mr. Bolton, emigration of the Scotch-Irish from Ulster was not significant until after 1718. He devotes the first 130 pages to conditions in both Ulster and the colonies prior to that date, the year in which five ships arrived at Boston from Belfast, Coleraine and Londonderry, with between 500 and 700 immigrants. He then follows these immigrants to their settlements in New England: to Worcester, Dracut, Casco Bay, Merrymeeting Bay, Londonderry, Rutland and Pelham (pp. 154-266). This section is filled with names found in town records, extracts from the records themselves relating to the settlers, as well as quotations from contemporary letters. Chapter XIV (pp. 266-284) is the only one devoted to settlements of the ScotchIrish in New York, in the Delaware Valley and along the upper Susquehanna River. While it, too, has many names listed, these are all taken from published sources, and no original research appears to have been pursued, as with the New England settlements. Chapter XV gives a brief account of the later settlements in South Carolina. Six appendices, all but the last relating to New England, conclude the volume. The first begins with a listing of ships which arrived from Ireland between 1714 and 258 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine 1720. The second is a transcript of the 1718 petition to Governor Shute of New England from inhabitants in the north of Ireland who wished to transport themselves to New England. There are over 300 signatures appended to the petition. The third appendix is a copy of a deposition made in 1766 by one Jane Macfaden of her removal with her husband in 1718 from Derry to Merryrneeting Bay. Appendix IV lists the members of the Charitable Irish Society in Boston, 1737 - 1741, as well as a list of fathers entered in the Boston Presbyterian Church baptismal records, 1730 - 1736. The fifth appendix is a listing of the vital records begun before 1755 of Ulster towns which in 1910 were either in the Public Record Office in Dublin or in local custody. Since the Public Record Office was burned in 1922, it is a most point how many of these survive today. The last appendix (pp. 339 - 377) contains an alphabetical listing of Ulster families, 1691 1718, with their home towns and the year in which their names appeared in the records of presbytery and synod. HANNAH BENNER ROACH Two Centuries of Costume in America, MDCXX-MDCCXX. By Alice Morse Earle. (Rutland, Vt.: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1971. [Reprint of 1903 edition.] 2 Vols. boxed. xx, 388 p.; xxiii, 433 p. Illustrations, portraits, index. Paperback. $5.50.) How many times have you found a picture or sketch and have been uncertain of the identity of the person illustrated. If you could have identified the period of the clothes, would this have helped? This well-illustrated work of nominal cost includes not only clothes for the period 1620 to 1820, but wigs, beards, dolls, armor, arms and uniforms. At the turn of the century this was a standard reference work, and is equally useful today. It is unfortunate that a third volume has not been provided to carry the subject forward at least another century to 1920. WALTER LEE SHEPPARD, JR. The Cooper Family of Maryland. By F. William Cooper. (Baltimore: Gateway Press, Inc., 1972. 78 p., [11 p.], xiy p. Bibliography, appendix [facsimiles], index. $10.00) This slender volume might well be sub-titled "A Man in Search of his Ancestry," for the first 34 pages contain the story of the author's adventures ha tracking down his Catholic Cooper ancestor. Admittedly an amateur in genealogical research when he started out, he learned by trial and error as his trail wandered from Iowa, where he was born, through Pennsylvania and Maryland. He began with an aunt's family tradition that they were descended from one Thomas Cooper, an original Maryland colonist transported by Thomas Greene, Esq., on The Ark and The Dove in 1633. Mr. Cooper never succeeded in verifying that claim, but did persist until he got back to a Nathaniel Cooper, born ca. 1673, who was living in St. Marys County, Maryland, at the time of his death in 1732. His son Nathaniel, Jr., predeceased his father, leaving a son Henry, born ca. 1720, who moved in 1765 from St. Marys County to Harford County, Maryland, where he died in the early years of the nineteenth century. His son Henry, Jr., born ca. 1759, after the Revolution moved his family to Cambria County, Pennsylvania, then part of Huntingdon County, and died Book Reviews 259 there in 1856 as a resident of Allegheny Township. In making this move he followed the migration, led by Michael McGuire, of Catholic families seeking an area remote from urban centers where they might practice their religion quietly. Leonard Cooper (1797-1860), son of Henry, Jr., in 1839 with his family moved west to Long Grove, Iowa, and was buried in the cemetery of St. Ann's Catholic Church there. His son Thomas Cooper, grandfather of the author, served in the 20th Iowa Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War. He died in Marshalltown, Iowa, in 1927 and is also buried in St. Ann's cemetery. The last half of the volume contains the skeletal genealogical record of Mr. Cooper's own line and, aided by information supplied by cousins in Cambria County, some of the collateral lines which he admits are incomplete since his main purpose was simply to establish his own ancestry. For documentation he presents wills in facsimile and transcription of three of his progenitors, and one deed of partition. There is no documentation for the collateral lines. In the course of his searching Mr. Cooper notes that he collected data on several other Cooper families in Maryland: that of William Cooper (1659-1739) of "Miles End," and of Richard Cooper, both of Talbot County; of Thomas Cooper of "Crackborne Purchase," St. Marys County; and of Nicholas Cooper (d. 1716), of Riverside Hundred, Charles County. This material he has deposited in the Maryland Historical Society where it may be examined by interested searchers. While the genealogical record in this book has numerous drawbacks (among them the ponderous numbering system whereby Mr. Cooper's own number is 111446211) the narrative portion is entertaining and informative, especially when he discusses the problems of locating early Catholic parish records. The book is available only from Mr. Cooper at 700 Jerusalem Road, Cohasset, Mass. 02025. HANNAH BENNER ROACH The Refugees of 1776 from Long Island to Connecticut. By Frederick Gregory Mather. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1972. [Reprint of 1913 edition.] 1204 p. Portraits, photographs, facsimiles, maps, Appendices, indices. 828.50.) As all genealogists know, wars came migrations regardless of who wins them. Civilians move to get out of the path of armies and out of the line of fire. Often they do not return to their original homes. The American Revolution of course displaced the Loyalist families, many of whom went to Canada or Nova Scotia. However, it may come as a surprise to many who have not seen this book how much movement and resettlement resulted from the military campaigns in New York. In his introduction, Mr. Mather tells how the book came to be written, and of his long and tedious searches to uncover early documents, and of the work in assembling and correlating the information they contained. The book is divided in three Parts. In Part I, Chapters 1 to 6, the author describes the war and its local aspects, especially the effect of the Battle of Long Island and the loss of New York City. Chapters 7 to 11 deal with war material he felt had been overlooked or insufficiently studied. Chapters 13 to 20 deal with the refugees as a group, and Chapters 21 to 26 with the conduct of the war on Long Island, in Westchester Co., New York, and in Connecticut. Part II (pages 239-690) is devoted to biographical material which is arranged alpha- 260 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine betically by surname. It includes a mass of genealogical data presented in condensed and abstracted form. Part III (pages 691-1100) is entitled "Documentary." It includes as appendices, abstracts of minutes, acts printed in colonial records of both New York and Connecticut, census data, lists of delegates to provincial congresses, journals, accounts from manuscript sources, payrolls, warrants, muster rolls, records of committees of safety and other "associations," civil and military biographies, and other archival material. There is an index at the end to the many illustrations which include autographs in facsimile, portraits, houses and public buildings, many of which no longer exist, tombstones and monuments, documents, etc. An excellent three-column general name index completes the volume (pages 1110 - 1204). This work should be on the shelves of all libraries (which do not have the original edition) dealing with genealogical material related to New York and Connecticut. WALTER LEE SHEPPARD, JR. The Alderfers in America. History and Genealogy. By Helen Aided er Stanley. (Allentown, Pa.: Printed for the Alderfer Family Association, 1972. xix, 636 p. Illustrations, photographs, maps, chart, index. $15.00.) The author of this nine-generation Pennsylvania-German genealogy deserves a medal for her dedicated and persistent labours compiling this record of the descendants of a pioneer settler in what is now Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Begun in 1956, under the auspices of the Alderfer Family Association, she has put together, from many sources — civil records as well as published and private sources — the records of over 2000 descendants of Frederick Alderfer (Alldorfer). He arrived in Philadelphia in 1733, at the age of 18, from Steinsfurt in the Kmichgau, went to Lower Salford Township (then in Philadelphia County), married the widow of his employer Hans Klemer (Clemmer), sired four sons and two daughters, and died there in 1801. What sets this book apart from the average Pennsylvania-German genealogy is the inclusion of data on Frederick Alderfer's European origins. Through the interest and generosity of a descendant, research was undertaken in Swiss and German records, the results of which are summarized at the beginning of the book. A chart shows his direct ancestry as well as collateral lines back to 1537 in Switzerland, when Jacob Altorfer was baptized in the Parish of Kloten, north of Zurich. His great-grandson Hans moved to Steinsf art, where his grandson Frederick, the emigrant, was born in 1715. Although baptized in the Lutheran Church, because he settled among Mennonites and married a Mennonite, he adopted that faith, and for five generations most of his descendants were members of that denomination. Even in the ninth generation, thirty percent of the heads of families listed in the book were still professed Mennonites. There is scarcely a family listed which does not go back to one or more of the pioneer Mennonite settlers of the Skippack region in Montgomery County; this book, therefore, is a most useful contribution to the growing records of that denomination. Vital records for these families, from tombstones and Bible records, are augmented by reminiscences and anecdotm gathered from family records, documented transcripts of wills and inventories, deeds and tax records. They put flesh on the bare bones of cemetery inscriptions, and add to the local history of the area. Records of those families which migrated in the mid-nineteenth century to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and points westward are Book Reviews 261 generally less detailed, apparently because representatives of those families failed to keep in touch with their relatives "back east." Following the end of the 9th generation, the author presents a short genealogical account of some of the descendants of another Frederick Aldorffer who arrived in Philadelphia in 1732, aged 25, and settled in what is now Lebanon County. The arrival of two men, similarly named, on the same ship, but a year apart, for a long time was a source of confusion. When the Alderfer Family Association erected about 1885 a tombstone to the memory of their ancestor, they erroneously attributed 1732 as the year of his arrival, instead of 1733. This book now corrects that error. The index which concludes the book is a name index of the descendants of both Frederick Alderfers. It does not include the names which appear in the section devoted to the Swiss and German ancestry of Frederick of Lower Salford Township. In a work as extensive as this it would be remarkable if there were no typographical errors. Such as have been noticed in the present book do not appear to be very important. This reviewer takes exception, however, to the English translation of one phrase in the chart. No. 5 Jacob Altorfer (1537-1585) is described therein as "Bauer under Untervogt" which is translated as "Farmer and Lt. Gov." Considering the period in which this man lived, this would more properly be translated, perhaps, as "Farmer and Underbailiff." Certainly "Governs?' in the modern sense was not a term applied then to a man who was in the service of a superior. The position of under-bailiff was indeed important — he was the "man-on-the-job" — and his position was often, as in this case, passed from father to son. The book is available from Sanford Alderfer, Main Street, Harleysville, Pa. HANNAH BENNER ROACH Pennsylvania Women in the American Revolution. By William Henry Egle. (Cottonport, La.: Polyanthos, Inc., 1972. [Reprint of 1898 edition.] 208 p. $10.00.) The 69 sketches presented in this volume first began to appear serially in 1893 under the heading "Matrons of the Revolution," in Mr. Egle's Notes and Queries. These sketches in 1898 were corrected and updated, and published in one volume entitled Some Pennsylvania Women During the War of the Revolution. In all the sketches, biographical data about the ladies' husbands predominates, so that all of the titles under which these accounts have appeared are misleading. Nevertheless, the present work is a useful little volume and a handy source of information, though none of it is documented. The sketches are, in the main, about men and women who lived and died on the frontiers, served in the Indian wars and in the Revolution, and participated in the formation of the Union. Included in the book are sketches of such persons as Elizabeth Wilkins and her husband John Allison, Elizabeth Depui and her husband Daniel Brodhead, Rachel Marx and her husband Alexander Graydon, and Elizabeth Parker and her husband Captain Andrew Porter, to name but a few of the subjects. Unfortunately there is no index, but the biographical sketches are listed alphabetically on page 5 by the married name of the subject, with the husband's name subjoined. HANNAH BENNER ROACH 262 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine A History of the Quarrier, Laidley, Bickers, Eskew and Allied Families. By Roderick Koenig Eskew. (Philadelphia: 1971. xiii, 210 P. Portraits, photographs, illustrations, coat of arms, facsimiles, charts, appendices, index.) This book is in effect a series of biographical sketches of the Author's ancestors, and is not set up as a standard genealogical family record. It is divided into five parts. Each part contains sketches of the earliest family ancestor, with information on his background and on collateral lines. These accounts are interesting and well written in narrative style, and are based generally on much primary source material. Few specific references to such material are included, however. In each family section, following the individual sketches, are brief accounts of some of the children of the particular ancestor, and are then summarized by an unnumbered genealogical table, in outline form, of some of the descendants of those children. Each of these tables is in reality no more than a list of "begats;" they appear to have been condensed from previously published or unpublished family genealogies. Five pedigree charts supplement the information present in the main text by showing interrelationships. The author starts with Alexander Quarrier, a coachmaker by trade, who came to New York from Scotland in 1774, proceeded to Philadelphia, married, and by 1787 had removed to Richmond, Va., where he married a second wife. From Richmond he moved to Kanawha County, W. Va., about 1816, and died there in 1827, leaving thirteen living children of the seventeen he sired by his two wives. The second part is devoted to the Laidley (Laidlaw) family, the first of whom was Thomas Laidley who arrived in New York from Scotland in 1774. He, too, came to Philadelphia, and after the Revolution, in which he served, went to what is now Morgantown, W. Va., where he died in 1838. His son James Grant Laidley married the eldest daughter of Alexander Quarrier. The third part deals with the Beuhring (Biirig) family and allied lines of Koenig and Dannenberg. The emigrant ancestor was Frederick George Louis Beuhring who came to Baltimore from Germany about 1805, at the age of fourteen. He married Frances Eleanor Dannenberg, niece of Frederick Koenig of Baltimore, and soon moved to Cabell County, now in 'West Virginia. He died in Barboursville, Va., in 1859. His daughter Anna Maria married James Madison Laidley, grandson of Thomas and son of James Grant Laidley. Part IV is concerned with the maternal (Bickers) line of the author's father, John Garnet Eskew, who married Juliette Shrewsbury Laidley, daughter of James Madison Laidley, while Part V deals with the Eskew (Askew) family. Robert Bickers, the earliest known ancestor of this maternal line, settled in Spottsylvania County, Va., by 1728, while John Askew was in Louisa County, Va., by 1726. Following Part V are two appendices. The first lists the references found in Scottish records to the Alexander-MacAlexander families in Scotland between 1398 and 1798. Most of these the author shows as referring to the family of Margaret Alexander who was the mother of Alexander Quarrier. The second appendix lists snnilar references between 1335 and 1809, to the Quarrier family. In this listing, however, only four references are positively known to refer to Alexander Quarrier's own family, one of them being his own baptismal record. The book concludes with an index to names and places mentioned m the sketches given in the text. It does not include names in the pedigree charts, nor an the outlined tables Book Reviews 263 of descendants. It is regrettable, for as a result it is a tedious task to try and locate any one of the descendants, especially where the surname varies. The text is embellished with many illustrations: photographs of old homes, views in Scotland relevant to the family, pen-and-ink sketches of homes no longer standing, as well as numerous portraits of various members of the family. HANNAH BENNER ROACH The Hereditary Register of the United States of America, 1972. Edited by John Griffin Richardson Rountree and Charles Owen Johnson. (Washington, D.C.: 1972. x, 474 p. Portrait, insignia. $22.50.) This long-awaited publication provides some but not all of the answers to questions which have plagued genealogists for years as to qualifications for membership in hereditary societies. Here, in Part I (p. 3-303), are listed in chronological order of formation a selective list of such societies in the United States, the first being the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts, founded in 1637, and die last, The Order of the First Families of Mississippi 1699 - 1017. At first glance, the list of societies appears to be comprehensive, but closer examination reveals 1 number of omissions. The stated purpose of the work, to include only those hereditary societies which require applicants, in at least one membership class, to establish descent, by rigid genealogical standards, from a qualifying ancestor (p. a), leaves one wondering why such organizations as the National Society of Magna Charts Dames, the Society of Descendants of the most Noble Order of the Garter, or the Colonial Dames of America (parent organization of The National Society of the Colonial Dames of America) were not included. Does this imply their qualifying standards are not rigid enough? Each of the eighty-some accounts of the societies included in the present volume is headed by a reproduction of the society's seal. A brief historical account of the factors contributing to its founding is followed by the society's objectives, membership requirements, and the current national officers. In some cases, founders are listed, as well as first officers and distinguished past and present members. Part II, The Hereditary List, contains an alphabetical listing of some of the "prominent officers and members" of some of the foregoing societies. These are not biographical sketches such as one finds in Who's Who or similar compilations. The only information given includes the place of birth of the listee (but not the date), parentage, education, marriage, children if any, clubs and the societies to which the listee belongs. In many cases, there is nothing included which indicates why the kstee was included. The volume concludes with what is called an Index, but is merely an alphabetical listing of the various societies included in the book. There is some cross-indexing as to the titles of the societies, but it is quite inadequate for easy searching, if one is not entirely aware of the accurate title of the society sought. It would more usefully have been placed at the beginning of the volume, where it would then serve the purpose of a Table of Contents. It is the announced intention that The Hereditary Register will be issued each January. New listees will be included in each new edition if they are sponsored by per- 264 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine sons already listed. The book is available from United States Hereditary Register, Inc. 1629 K.. Street, N.W. Suite 546, Washington, D.C. 20006 HANNAH BENNER ROACH The History of Wyoming With an Appendix Containing a Statistical Account of the Valley and Adjacent Country. By Isaac A. Chapman. (Cottonport, La.: Polyanthos, Inc., 1971. [First published 1830.] 209 p. Notes, appendix. $10.00.) One wonders what the determining factor was in the decision to reprint this particular work. The avowed purpose of the original manuscript, written in 1818, and later supplemented (before its first publication in 1830) by information drawn from several journals of officers who were present during the Wyoming controversy, was to recount the early history of the region and the conflict with the Connecticut settlers. Appearing sixty years before Volume XVIII of the Second Series of The Pennsylvania Archives (which is entirely devoted to the Wyoming controversy) the book undoubtedly did serve a useful purpose. But since the comprehensive publication of the last of the eleven volumes of The Susquehamm Company Papers in 1971, the value of Chapman's work as a reprint is questionable except as an antiquarian curiosity. Perhaps the most interesting part of the work is to be found in the appendix. This in effect is a gazeteer of the townships of the period; township boundaries as they were then organized are given, population data is included, and the topography described. It is to be regretted that this reprint is not a clean reproduction of the original. By enlarging the type and page size, the imperfections of the original type have been magnified, and many pages are faint and hard to read. The original title page was not reproduced, and the last page not only is not an exact copy of the original, but the last line is defective. Let us hope Polyanthos, Inc., in the future will show more discrimination in the selection of works to be reprinted. HANNAH BENNER ROACH Cxxisnetir KoHL, from Frankfort on the Maine, in Germany, is about 34 years from home, about 50 years of age, a Baker by trade. Whoever gives an authentic account of his place of abode, life or death, to the subscriber, living in Lancaster, in the state of Pennsylvania, shall receive a reward of six pounds, paid by N. ROHL Pennsylvania Packet, 30 November 1786