Lauren who is a cousin from my Elliott branch, has found some information about very early Elliott family line that is haplogroup C. We have chatted about the fact that she has hopes that these are our very early ancestors that are found on a genealogy site with information about Peter Elliott:
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~ellotclan/genealogy/pafg01.htm#1287
I am having trouble jumping into this information because I don't see a link between the men who have done yDNA testing for this line and our own Jacob Elliot. So I am trying to do a bit of looking at the parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents of Jacob. Other researchers suggest that Jacob's parents were John and Sarah Elliot and that they may have lived first in NJ and have been a part of Burlington MM.
So I will start with Burlington Monthly Meeting.
On the Burlington MM
https://burlmhcc.org/history/
I found information of great interest:
History of the Meeting House
The history of the Meeting House includes a sail across the Atlantic, purchase of land from the Lenape, rebuild for gender equality and renovation for re-purposing.
1676 Burlington purchased
In 1676, representatives of the West Jersey Proprietors bought from the Lenape Nation the land where Burlington City is now and roughly 15 miles of land along the river in each direction.
1677 Meeting for Worship under sails
“Burlington, as a Friends’ settlement, is older than Philadelphia, and second only to Salem, in this part of the country. It was the ship Kent which in the year 1677 carried two hundred and thirty Friends from England, where they were suffering persecution for conscience’ sake.
True to their religious character immediate provisions were made for gatherings for worship. The sail of the ship Kent provided the first shelter.”
(Bulletin of the Friends Historical Association, Volumes 4-6).
Burlington MM is located at the red marker just up the River from Philadelphia. In 1677 when the Kent sailed to these shores, William Penn had not yet founded Pennsylvania. William Penn did not come to America until 1682.....five years later.
I will begin this part of my Elliott research with a look at Burlington MM and if there is a record of the early members of the MM and those who sailed on the Kent.
Several of the Ancestry trees suggest that John Elliott was born in the Province of West New Jersey in 1690. These same trees suggest that he married Sarah in 1715 in Burlington, NJ.
This morning in October 2021, I am looking on Ancestry for leads as to how John Elliott and his wife, Sarah, arrived in Burlington, NJ. Were both born in this location? Do they have parents in West Jersey. i am looking at:
The Burlington Court Book: a record of Quaker Jurisprudence in New Jersey, 1680-1709.
On page xiii, the author explains that the Duke of York made over West New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the Quaker families between 1680 and 1682. Looking in the index after skimming the introduction show no Elliott/Ellot mentions in the book.
But the question is: How did John and Sarah get to Burlington MM? I am starting today with Hinshaw's Encyclopedia Volume II. Volume II is the Philadelphia Yearly meeting, but it includes New Jersey MM's.
The first entry is found on page 27 and is a part of the entries for Salem MM. Salem MM was established much earlier than Burlington in 1676. You can see on the map below it is a bit farther south than
I could find no Ellet nor Smith in the right time frame for my ancestors at this MM when I look at Hinshaw's Encyclopedia.
Again, according to Hinshaw's Encyclopedia Burlington was next to be formed:
But no information discovered that might lead to parents of either John nor Sarah.
Perhaps they were not Quaker when they first moved to the area near New Jersey? Who else settled in the area?
In October 2021 I am again looking at Burlington MM. This time am looking at the copies of original records found on Ancestry....and lo and behold I find a Thomas Ellit at Burlington MM in the 10th month of 1706. He seems to be a witness to ....hmmmm not sure....perhaps condemnation of a sin committed?
I continued to read. From a site called Quakers in the World, I found an article called Mission Work and settlement in Colonial New Jersey. This article mentioned the below:
The only way to travel overland between north and south was the Indian trail (later the Burlington path) through the forest. The earliest Quakers to pass this way were Josiah Cole (from Gloucester), and his companion Thomas Thurston, in 1658. Far from being threatened, as they might have feared, they were frequently fed, sheltered and guided by the Susquehanna Indians whose home it was.
This led me to begin reading about the Quakers in Gloucester.
With the death of Charles II, circumstances changed again in London. The new king, James, wished to enforce a Catholic policy on the Church of England and tried to enable Roman Catholics to hold high office. Anglicans were outraged and James therefore resolved to find allies elsewhere by uniting the cause of Catholics and Dissenters.107 In March 1686, he issued a Declaration in which he expressed his wish that all his subjects might be Catholics, but for the sake of peace he would maintain the Church of England and suspend the laws against Dissenters.108 Among those released from prison were 1,200 Quakers.109
William Penn played an important part in these events. His father had been a friend of James, and although William had previously supported a campaign to exclude James, he now needed royal support to retain his charter for the colony of Pennsylvania. James, for his part, could see that Penn had useful influence among Quakers.110 It was Penn who led a deputation from the Friends’ Yearly Meeting to express thanks to James for his clemency.111 Similar deputations came from Baptists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians.112
And guess what I found? The next paragraph talked about a John Elliott in Gloucester:
As a result of the Declaration fifty-six Quakers were released from Gloucester county gaol and fifteen from the city gaol.113 The six Gloucester men and nine women had been imprisoned in December 1681 and had languished there for four years.114 Of the others imprisoned in 1681/2 one (Henry Riddall) had died in prison in 1685.115 John Elliott and his wife had been bailed out by relations, but at the next Assizes had been were returned to prison for refusing to be of good behaviour. After four or five weeks they had again been bailed out.116 John Elliott appears once more in the diocesan records in 1684 for refusing to pay a church rate for communion rails in his parish church.117 He was clearly undaunted by his trials. There is no recorded mention of the remaining seven prisoners.
Later in the article there is a list of the Quakers of Gloucester and John Elliott is listed as an upholsterer.
Is there a connection between this John Elliott and the John Elliott who is found in Gloucester? And where is Gloucester?
And then some pages later John Elliott is mentioned again:
The severest persecution came in the period 1680–85. John Elliott and John Edmunds of Gloucester were requested to attend the Assizes in order to assist Friends278 and John Elliott and Nicholas Wastfield were charged to care for the prisoners in Gloucester, with the quarterly meeting paying any costs.279 In 1682 £8 10s. was given for the prisoners in the castle and £4 for those in the city’s north gate.280 In 1684 another 20s. was given for the prisoners in the north gate and 20s. for those from the nearby village of Westbury-on-Severn. A year later John Elliott and John Edmunds were allocated 33s. to pay for the ‘chamber rent of the poor friends in prison’ and £2 14s. for prisoners in the castle and the north gate.
Whilst the Quakers endured the persecution with courage, it was nevertheless their policy to challenge the legal correctness of the charges whenever this was possible. Petitions to judges and the king on behalf of the persecuted were frequent. The suffering of Friends was laid before the judges of Assize in Gloucester in 1677,281 and before the bishop of Gloucester in 1680. In the same year all monthly meetings were asked to write regarding the sufferings to the county’s members of parliament, and the sufferings were again laid before the judges in February 1684.282 Three months after that a petition was presented (via the yearly meeting) to both king and parliament. Following such efforts one can imagine that the quarterly meeting had considerable pleasure in drawing up an address to the king in August 1686 acknowledging his kindness ‘in stopping our persecution’.283
So this John Elliott is still in Gloucester in 1680-85. Which would shoot my theory that he moved so early that he was already living in New Jersey when the Burlington MM was established in 1678....but in looking up this date, look what I found! An entire list of meetings that are not indexed by Hinshaw!
Listed below are the 10 earliest (1678-1750) Quaker Meeting Houses in Burlington County, New Jersey, in the order of their founding (sources: Joe Laufer and the Plone Foundation (in footnote))
1. Burlington MM - 1678 (#16 on map at right) - This is the only Burlington area monthly meeting records included in Hinshaw's encyclopedia, volume II. The first meetinghouse on this site was a hexagonal frame structure built in the 1600s.
2. Rancocas MM - 1678 (#18)
3. Chesterfield MM - 1684 (#11) (subsequently named Crosswicks) - Still has a cannonball imbeded in one wall, a result of a Revolutionary War battle!
4. Moorestown MM - 1700 (#3)
5. Mount Holly MM - 1716 (#17)
6. Mount Laurel MM - 1717 (#4) - Associated with Moorestown Friends Meeting.
7. Upper Springfield MM - 1727 (#10)
8. Mansfield MM - 1731 (#14)
9. Bordentown MM - 1740 (#13)
10. Amey's Mount MM - 1743 (#9)
Again from the same source:
Emigration
Mention needs to be made of emigration at this time. The number of Friends leaving Gloucester was not large, but the impact would have been significant since they were young and enterprising. At a time of persecution or hardship the prospect of a fresh start in the New World must have had its attractions, and for those who survived the perils of the sea,350 disease and hostile natives, there really was a land of opportunity. In the 1680s land in Pennsylvania could be purchased for 2s. 6d. per acre, and there were even better deals for larger purchases. The sum of £100 could secure 5,000 acres, and smaller parcels of land were offered at 250 acres for £5 and 500 acres for £10, albeit there was an annual ‘quit rent’ to pay.351 It is therefore no surprise that five hundred
Quaker families per year are reported to have emigrated to America between 1676 and 1700.352 ....Among them were some from Gloucester. In the sixth month of 1697 Elizabeth Webb, who became a Friend when she was nineteen, was sitting in the meeting in Gloucester when her spirit ‘was as if it had been dissolved with the love of God, and it flowed over the great ocean, and I was constrained to kneel down and pray for the seed of God in America, and the concern never went out of my mind day nor night, until I went to travel there’.3.....The proximity of Bristol made emigration easier, and it is of note that there were more emigrants to America from Bristol at this time than from any other area in England outside London.365
....It has been shown that the early Gloucester Friends were mainly tradespeople and artisans, with textile workers, as elsewhere, the largest single group.366 There were no wealthy merchants,
From the above it would seem likely that the John Elliott that I have been looking at did not emigrate? Phooey.
When I woke up this morning I decided not to throw these ideas out. What if this John Elliott did not emigrate to New Jersey, but he had a son also named John Elliott who did make the move? Or even a grandson named John Elliott who did make the move? Or a son of any name who made the move who had a son named John Elliott?
Equally there is no mention in the extant records of any refusals to take oaths, although the issue was still important. In 1692 the Gloucestershire quarterly meeting wrote to members of parliament urging them to repeal the law requiring Friends to take oaths, and the next year letters of concern were sent to all the knights of the shire. The person entrusted to draft these letters was John Elliott of Gloucester.157
I do not have time to work on the next thoughts today, but I do not want to loose them. Richard Guy arrived on the ship Griffin with his wife Bridget. The ship landed 25 June 1675 at Salem on Oct 5 1675. These passengers were traveling with John Fenwick. I need to find out from where John Fenwick was before this trip. There were members of a Guy family living at Bristol. I do not know if the two families were related yet.
Ok.,..,.another theory with holes shot in it. John Fenwick was from Northumberland County in Great Britain which is a far north county in England....a long way from Glouster!.
