Hello All,

I have a comment regarding both the Washington and Martiau families and their position among the Virginia elite in the seventeenth-century as well as on the connection of another important seventeenth-century family, that established by Edwin Conway and Martha Eltonhead of Lancaster County, to one contemporary political figure.

On the subject of Washington’s ancestry, the best recent treatment (in my opinion) is Douglas Richardson, Kimball Everingham, and David Faris, Plantagenet Ancestry:  A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families (2004), pp. 753-755.  The authors provide a summary of the lineage with a brief discussion of supporting documentation.

Lawrence Washington, Gent. (c. 1568-1616) was son and heir of Richard Washington, Esquire, of Sulgrave.  Lawrence married Margaret Butler on 3 August 1588.  Margaret was a descendant of John Sutton, 1st Lord Dudley, and of Elizabeth Berkeley, and the purported Plantagenet descent is through them.

Reverend Lawrence Washington, son of Lawrence and Margaret, was a fifth son, however.  This meant that, as such, he was expected to earn his own way in the world if his family line were to survive and prosper; an inheritance necessary to sustain him and his offspring could not be guaranteed unless the more senior branches of the family became extinct.  This Lawrence accordingly studied at Brasenose, Oxford, taking his B.A. in 1623, his M.A. in 1626, and his B.D. in 1634.  He then became Rector of Purleigh, Essex, from 1633 to 1643.  Washington, a Royalist, was ejected from Purleigh but then installed at Little Braxted, near Malden, Essex.  He died on 21 January 1652/3 and his widow, Amphyllis Twigden Washington, on 12 January 1654/5.  As a fifth son, Washington’s clerical education was sufficient to ensure him a respectable position among the lesser gentry, but this position did not automatically guarantee great wealth or prestige.  Faris et. al. note that he died “without estate sufficient to warrant the grant of letters of administration,” a fact to which the instability caused by the Civil Wars no doubt contributed and which probably prompted at least two of his offspring to seek their fortunes across the Atlantic.

To my knowledge, baptismal records do not document the births of the next generation of Washingtons with the exception of yet another Lawrence, who was baptized 18 June 1635.  John, who is thought to have been older than Lawrence, came to Virginia in 1656 and married Nathaniel Pope’s daughter there.  In terms of landholding and political service, the Washingtons of Westmoreland seem not to have possessed the wealth or political clout of the “great” Tidewater families during the seventeenth-century.  Professor Wiencek’s description fits well with my own conclusions regarding their status among political officeholders in Virginia during the seventeenth-century.  (I follow English historians in making distinctions between "greater" and "lesser" county gentry in seventeenth-century England.  While they prospered, the early Virginia Washington's lacked the wealth and political position of, say John and Robert Carter or of the first two William Byrds.  On the other hand, they possessed a bona fide familial tie to the English gentry which many other wealthy Virginians - such as the first John Carter or the first William Byrd, for instance - lacked, at least in their paternal lines.  In terms of wealth and officeholding, I would classify the Byrds and Carters among the "greater" gentry and the seventeenth-century Washingtons among the "lesser", but status in seventeenth-century Virginia was an ambiguous matter.)

With regard to Nicholas Martiau, probably the most authoritative discussion of his early career, background, and family connections is John F. Dorman, ed., Adventurers of Purse and Person in Virginia, 1607-1624/5, now in its fourth edition.  This work was originally published in 1956 by Annie Lash Jester in collaboration with Martha Woodroof Hiden and was reprinted in 1956.  Dorman edited the 1987 version as well as the expanded multi-volume edition recently completed.  

Martiau, a French Protestant who sailed for Virginia on the Francis Bonaventure in the spring of 1620, came to the colony as an agent of the Earl of Huntington.  He lived until 1657 and was active in the colony for nearly four decades during a period when high mortality rates cut short many lifespans.  He was called Captain Martiau as early as 22 March 1621/2 and served as a member of the House of Burgesses in 1632 as well as a justice of York County from 1633 until his death in 1657.  Martiau is a controversial figure because of his role in the “Thrusting out” of  Governor Sir John Harvey in 1635 as well as questions in 1626 and 1656 (which seem to have been politically motivated) of his allegiance to England.

Dorman suggests that Martiau was married three times, first to an unknown woman and second to Mrs. Jane [-----], whose daughter Jane Barkeley was named a headright in Martiau’s 1639/40 patent.  Following Jane’s death, he married, prior to 5 November 1646, Isabella (Sibella) [------], widow of Captain Robert Felgate, and of George Beech.  Mrs. Jane Barkeley Martiau, Dorman suggests, was the widow of Lt. Edward “Barkley”, who with wife Jane arrived aboard the Seaflower in February 1621/2 (and not in any way a descendant or relation of the Lords Berkeley of England).  

The Martiau line became extinct with the death of Nicholas Martiau, Jr., and the bulk of the Martiau holdings – as well as perhaps some of Martiau’s political influence -- fell to Nicholas’ daughters and their husbands:  Elizabeth Martiau, wife of George Reade (and ancestor of the Warners and Washingtons); Mary Martiau, wife of Col. John Scasbrook of York County; and Sarah Martiau, wife of Captain William Fuller of Maryland.

In addition to Dorman, a good recent source for background on Martiau is Martha McCartney, Virginia Immigrants and Adventurers, 1607-1635:  A Biographical Dictionary (2007). 

To shift from Washingtons and Martiaus to another group, I have recently been working on a study of the several daughters of Richard Eltonhead who settled in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake and the social, economic, and political significance of their families in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake.  In the course of researching these women, I have run across a trivial but interesting finding.  Of the Eltonhead offspring to settle in the Chesapeake, Martha Eltonhead married Edwin Conway.  They settled first on the Eastern Shore, where Edwin was an early Clerk of Court, but later appear in Lancaster County.  Among their descendants was Nelly Conway Madison, mother of President James Madison.  

In a recent posting regarding Barack Obama and John McCain, the value of comments regarding contemporary politics on this list was questioned.  I agree, but (for trivial purposes, at least) it is notable that contemporary pedigrees indicate that Barack Obama is a tenth generation descendant of Eltonhead Conway (daughter of Martha Eltonhead Conway) and Henry Thacker through their daughter Martha Thacker who married Thomas Hickman in Middlesex County.  If correct, Obama has rich ties to northern Virginia as well as to many of the colony's leading seventeenth-century figures.

Best regards,
Dan Knight

Thomas Daniel (Dan) Knight, D.Phil.
Assistant Professor and Assistant Chair,
Department of History and Philosophy
The University of Texas -- Pan American
1201 West University Drive
Edinburg, TX 75839-2999



-----Original Message-----
>From: Henry Wiencek <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Oct 14, 2008 10:13 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Washington's Earliest Ancestor
>
>I am pleased that Anne Pemberton has brought my George Washington book, "An
>Imperfect God," to the attention of the list; not so pleased that it has
>provoked some bilious remarks. But I guess that's what we traffic in these
>days. 
>
>This is what I wrote about the Washington family's economic status in Virginia: 
>
>"George was a fourth-generation American whose family had built up a
>middling plantation enterprise on the Northern Neck with modest
>slaveholdings." (p. 26.) In the following pages I provide the background for
>that assessment. Is there some major problem here? I was not aware of
>Nicolas Martiau and I am pleased to learn about him from Connie
>Lapallo--another example of the important contribution genealogy makes to
>the study of history.
>
>As for GW's social status--his coat of arms notwithstanding--I took my cue
>(p. 9) from something Clifford Dowdey wrote in "The Virginia Dynasties," p.
>343: "Not even retroactively, not even after George became the absolute
>number one citizen of Virginia and the new nation, were the Washingtons ever
>included in the aristocracy."  Dowdey was speaking, of course, about the
>Virginia aristocracy. 
>
>Henry Wiencek
>
>Patrick Henry Fellow
>C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College
>Chestertown, MD
>
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