WHAT IFS OF KNOWLTON HISTORY – JOHN(5) KNOWLTON (1633 - 1685)
Wendy Mulligan
Many history buffs love to toss around ideas related to what ifs of history. For instance – what if General George Washington had been fired by the Continental Congress early in the war? Many influential people wanted him fired. How would things have been different?
Well, the same historical what if game can be played in genealogical history. Early Knowlton history provides us with a big one. Because if it weren't for a little quirk of fate, many of you who are John (5) descendants might not be here today (or at least not as Knowltons) or would have an entirely different early Knowlton tree.
John (5) Knowlton was born in Uxbridge, England in 1633 and came with his parents John (2) and Margery Kenninge Knowlton and sister Elizabeth to Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1639. John (2) and Margery had other children but their son John was the only one to survive to adulthood and raise a family.
By 1675 John (I will no longer refer to him as John (5) because he's the only John Knowlton in the rest of the story) and his wife Deborah had nine children and were well settled in the town of Ipswich. But John was nevertheless ready to pull up stakes and settle in the remote community of York in what is now Maine. John was not the only one. Margaret Blair has documented at least 15 other Ipswich families who made the move during this time. (1) Clearly something was afoot in Ipswich. We may, perhaps, be able to guess what this mini exodus was all about based on the politics of the time and the character of the two men most involved in gathering new settlers for the town of York.
The two men, Samuel Sayward and John Davis, were former Ipswich residents who had settled at York. About Sayward we know very little except he was probably about John Knowlton's age and they were close friends. John Davis, however, is another story. Davis was a very early settler in Ipswich. He appears in early land records of Ipswich and owned at least one property that abutted land owned by William (3) Knowlton, John Knowlton's uncle. But it is the court records that give us insight into John Davis' politco/religious sentiments. At a time when all the affairs of the town of Ipswich were firmly controlled by a rigid Puritan theocracy, John Davis was frequently hauled into court to explain his independent behavior, was known for his speeches defying authorities and his refusal to remove his hat in court. Davis clearly had Quaker sympathies and non-conformists were not tolerated in Ipswich. He lasted in Ipswich until sometime in the 1650's when he decided to spend more of his time in York where he became a prominent citizen and a trusted leader of the community. (2)
It was this man that John Knowlton called “my much respected friend”. Is it possible that John Knowlton's desire to leave Ipswich was not all economic? While not as bold and outspoken as Davis, perhaps John Knowlton shared some of Davis' non-conformist views and looked forward to living in a place where his every word and deed would not be heavily scrutinized. Could this view have also applied to at least some of the other 15 families that left Ipswich?
Sometime in the 1670's John Knowlton had obviously traveled to York, obtained a grant of land and built a house. Returning to Ipswich, he must have had every intention of packing up the family and resettling in York. But then fate intervened. Only 42 years old, John discovered he was going blind and called off the move to York. In an emotional and heartfelt letter dated April 5, 1675 he informed Samuel Sayward and “my much respected friend Capt. Davis” of his difficult decision to stay in Ipswich. It is clear from the letter that John Davis was responsible for John Knowlton's grant of land and that the grant was given under the condition that Knowlton follow the trade of shoemaker which he could not do with failing eyesight. John Knowlton's letter also instructed Sayward and Davis to sell his house. (3)
But what if John's eyesight hadn't been a problem and the Knowltons had made their home in York?
York was a far cry from Ipswich who,
never in it's history, experienced an Indian attack or any kind of
real threat from the French. York, on the other hand, was a frontier
settlement on the front lines of the battle between the English and
the French and their Indian allies for control of New England. While
the French claimed all the land to the Kennebec River (only 70 miles
from York), they actually coveted all of what is now Maine as part of the their province of Acadia.
Initially York did not suffer like other remote communities in this part of New England. But only two years after John Knowlton gave up on his plan to move to York, fourteen people were killed and untolled numbers taken prisoner in two separate Indian attacks on the town in 1677. (4)
Just a year after those attacks, on March 12, 1678 the house built by John Knowlton, “the shoemaker's house”, was sold to John Parsons with the condition that he follow the shoemakers trade. And that he did until January 24, 1692 when massive numbers of Indians attacked the town and John Parsons along with about 100 other people were killed. Much of the town was burned to the ground. An estimated 80 people were taken captive and marched through the snow to Canada to be held for ransom, redeemed by French families who took them in or kept by the Indians as slaves. Among those taken captive were John Parson's four children, John Jr., Mercy, Ruth and Rachel. Of fifteen year old John Jr. it is known he was baptized a Catholic and remained in Canada as a convert. The fate of his three sisters is unknown.(4)
So, what if John Knowlton had taken his family to York? How many of his family would have survived? Would some of you not be Knowltons? Or would you be French Canadian with quite a different and perhaps surprising journey back through the genealogical records.
But, of course John Knowlton stayed in Ipswich. However, in another little twist of fate, John's granddaughter, Elizabeth Black (Blake) Wallis, the first Knowlton to live in Maine, was abducted by the Indians when they attacked Purpooduck Maine, in August 1703. She was held captive until 1716 when she was ransomed.(5)
Occurring just one week after two girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts began having strange fits, many historians see considerable linkage between the January 1692 attack on York and the frenzy that resulted in the Salem Witch Trials in the same year. At the time, many people believed the attack on York and other unfortunate events around that time, were proof that the people of New England were being punished for their wickedness and “the devil was on the land”. Another link was the fact that two of the girls whose fits and hallucinations were the cause of many people being brought to trial, were orphans whose parents had been killed in Indians attacks in Maine.
Wendy Mulligan
References
(1) “Essex County Connections Found In Early Maine Deeds” by Margaret Blair, The Essex Genealogist, Volume 29, Pages 118-120.
(2) “John Davis of York” by Mr. Henry H. Edes, Paper presented January 1898 before the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume 5, Pages 167-186.
(3) Stocking, Rev. Charles Henry Wright. D.D. The History and Genealogy of the Knowltons of England and America. New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1897. John's letter to Samuel Sayward and John Davis is reproduced faithfully on page 23 and 24. However, almost all the other information about John (5) on pages 22-24 is wrong. The Errata pages 4 and 5 corrects some of the information – mainly the identity of his children.
(4) History of York, Maine by Charles Edward Banks, Volume 1
John Parsons and his family, pages 271, 295, 304-305
The 1677 Attacks on York, page 282
The 1692 Attack on York (Candlemas Massacre) page 287-299
(5) Elizabeth Black (Blake) Wallis - Scouring the records I have not been able to find any Knowlton living in Maine before newlyweds Elizabeth and her husband Joseph Wallis settled there in 1702. Elizabeth was only 17 years old when she was taken to Canada. Elizabeth in my tree on Ancestry
https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/89316435/person/432078291924/facts
Other Sources
The Sayward Family Genealogy; https://archive.org/details/saywardfamilybei00sayw/page/6/mode/2up
The Raid on York (1692); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_York_(1692)
The Candlemas Massacre and the Salem Witch Trials; https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/candlemas-massacre-salem-witch-trials/
Steve Hunter
On Feb 24, 2020, at 9:11 AM, Wendy Mulligan <chauci...@gmail.com> wrote:
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Kent Knowlton
Mike Arnett
Thanks, Wendy. Great sleuthing. Your information prompts this: It’s a small world.
My dad’s paternal grandmother, Eliza Knowlton, descended from John (5)—he who wanted to move to York, Maine—through his son Nathaniel (19). We’ll return to them.
My dad’s mother was Lela Angelina Warren. Her 5XGGF, James Warren, a Scottish prisoner of war and indentured servant, arrived at the Great Works in 1651. More on him later, but for now I’ll just say that if John Knowlton had moved to York, they might have met, as James was a town selectman for several years.
One of James’ daughters, Grizel/Marie-Madeleine Warren, was born 6 Mar 1661/62. She was captured by Indians 27-28 June 1689 in the raid on Dover, NH, also known as the Cochecho Massacre, that started King William’s War. Her husband, Richard Otis, was killed in the raid.
Richard Otis was also my wife’s 8XGGF by his first wife, Rose Stoughton. So, my wife and I came “that close” to being related.
My Knowlton line descended from Nathaniel (19) through Nathaniel Jr. (74) through William (197) who moved to Ashford, CT. His grandson, Stephen (1036) migrated to Upstate New York sometime after his father William (423) died in 1784, then on to Indiana just before 1820. Stephen’s son Jesse Swan Knowlton 1801-1871 moved on to Arkansas by 1840, when my 2XGGF William R. was 10. My great-grandmother Eliza was born in Little Rock in June 1878. Shortly after her birth, they pulled up stakes and were in West Texas by the time of the 1880 federal census. Eliza married my great-grandfather Calvin Curlee “Lee” Arnett in June 1899 and had my grandfather Clyde nine months later in Rocksprings, Texas. After their second son was born in 1901, Lee and Eliza moved to Ventura, California. Lee later found work in San Bernardino, some 125 miles east of Ventura, and a plot of land to farm in Calimesa, another 15 miles east of San Bernardino. There, my grandfather met and married Lela Warren in 1920 and the Knowlton-Warren connection was finally made. Most of the family is still within 15 miles of Calimesa, but my parents moved north for a time after they got married, and I showed up in Morgan Hill, CA in 1951, exactly 300 years after James Warren arrived in Maine and exactly 100 years after Lela’s father (my GGF), Mark Bemis Warren, Jr., arrived in California, as you will see.
Back to James Warren. On 3 Sep 1650, he was on the losing Scottish side at the Battle of Dunbar in southern Scotland. He was taken prisoner and force-marched 100 miles south to Durham, England, where they arrived 11 Sep 1650. Of the 5000 POWs who started the march, only some 1400 or 1500 survived the march and imprisonment in Durham Cathedral. James was among 150 POWs who were deported on 11 Nov 1650, to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, arriving in Charlestown in late December of that year. 15 the prisoners were indentured to Richard Leader, the former manager of the Saugus iron works near Boston. He had recently started the Great Works lumbering and sawmill operation on the Great Works river on the Maine side of the border between present-day New Hampshire and Maine. Needing laborers, he paid £20-£30 each for the 15 he took to the Great Works. Their terms of service were probably six or seven years. By 1656, James had been granted land, and he subsequently acquired more.
Fast forward to 1851, exactly 200 years from James’ arrival in Maine. My great-grandfather Mark Bemis Warren, Jr. was 19 and not getting along with his new step-mother. Mark, Sr. gave Jr. $200 to help him on his way. Mark, Jr. promptly secured passage from Boston to Panama, crossed the isthmus via mule train, then caught a steamer to San Francisco to try his luck in the gold fields. Apparently, he reckoned he could do better freighting than he could in the mines. He did well. In 1860, we find him in Southern California with a couple of teams and wagons and a ranch in San Bernardino. In 1863 or so, on an eastbound trip across the Mojave Desert, he encountered a broken down westbound wagon train and helped them on their way. On the return trip, he found one wagon from the train still stranded. He threw their goods on his wagon and took them to his ranch. A couple of years later, he married the 14-year-old daughter, Silvia Paine, my great-grandmother. She bore him 11 children. The last was my grandmother in 1892, the first white female born in the Morongo Valley, where Mark had homesteaded in 1880.
Mike Arnett
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