| Notes |
- RESEARCH_NOTES:
1. "The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record," 86(1955):132-148, 209-221, "The Feake Family of Norfolk, London, and Colonial America," by George E. McCracken:
"Midway across the north coast of Norfolk lies the Hundred of North Greenhoe and in it, about three miles south of the sea, the parish, sometime manor, of Wighton in which the Feake family, as early as 1435, is found numerously settled. That this family reached prominence only after certain of its sons migrated to London in the sixteenth century and there became prosperous goldsmiths is evident from the complete absence of the surname from the "Visitations of Norfolk in 1563, 1589, and 1613" (Harleian Society, vol. 32), the "Visitations of Norfolk in 1664" (ibid. vol. 81; Norfolk Record Society, vols. 4-5), and Walter Rye's great work, "Norwich Families" (Norwich, 1913). The London branch of the family is represented in the records of colonial America by Henry Feake of Lynn, Sandwich, and Flushing (no. 46); by Henry's second cousin, Lieutenant Robert Feake of Watertown, Dedham, and Greenwich (no. 49); by Robert's niece Judith, wife successively, of William Palmer, Jeffrey Ferris, and John Bowers (no. 87); and by Judith's brother, Captain Tobias Feake, R.N., of Flushing (no. 88).
Since extensive and on the whole accurate accounts of the American careers of the three men were long ago printed by the late John J. Latting in "The Record," vol. II, beginning with page 12, we here turn our attention rather to the English ancestry of these four colonists which Mr. Latting was unable to identify, though he gathered some useful material on the subject.
The wills, parish registers, and other ancillary sources normally used for such a study as this, have in the present instance been augmented by framework derived from the following seventeenth-century pedigrees, none of which is at all complete, though they fit together with a minimum of inconsistency: (a) a pedigree made in 1623 for Edward Feake, son of William and grandson of James Feake of Wighton, published by Joseph Jackson Howard, ed., "Visitacon of Surry Made A° 1623, by Samuel Thompson, Windsor Herauld, and Augustyne Vincent, Rougcroix (London, no date), p.7; (b) the same pedigree with additions dating from 1667 taken from Harleian MS 1430, fol. 50, printed in the Surrey Archaeological Collections 6:310 f.; (c) a pedigree made in 1634 for John Feake, son of John, grandson of Simon, and great-grandson of the aforesaid James Feake of Wighton, contained in the Visitation of London in 1634 (Harleian Society 15:268); (d) a version of the preceding, dated 1664, taken by Mr. Latting from Harleian MS 1096, fol. 119, and, so far as we are aware, now in print only in "The Record,"11:13; (e) a partial pedigree continuing the two preceding, to be found in the "Visitation of Staffordshire 1663-4" (Staffordshire Record Society 5:126 f.); and (f) a variant of the last included in Gregory King's Staffordshire Pedigrees 1680-1700" (Harleian Society 63:85). See also John Ross Delafield, "Delafield the Family History" (privately printed, 1945), 2:540-6, appendix 16 on Feake; and Charles E. Banks, Manuscripts in the Rare Book Room, Library of Congress, folio vol. DG, p. 433. Considerable information has been generously made available by Messrs. John Insley Coddington and Clarence Almon Torrey; from the latter, especially, many items discovered by Colonel Banks but not included in the volume cited above...
James Feake, elder son of James Feake (no. 32) by wife Judith Thomas, was doubtless born in London, and the date is recorded as Feb. 13, 1598/9 in the record at the Merchant Taylors' School where James was a student in 1609/10. He is named first among the four children of his parents in the will of his maternal grandfather Robert Thomas in 1610. He married at the Church of St. Mary Mounthawe, London, on June 14, 1620, Awdrey Crompton, of whose origin nothing is known. The printed parish registers of London have been searched for other references to her in vain, but she was probably sister to a William Crompton who married at the same church about the same time. The baptism of Tobias Feake, son of James and Awdrey, is recorded at St. Mary Whitechapel, London, in August 1624, but the baptismal record of the daughter Judith has not been found. The registers of many London churches were burned in the great London fire, including that of the Church of St. Edmund the King in which we should expect to find many Feake entries. If there were other children, no trace of them has come to light. This James Feake was certainly dead by Dec. 5, 1639, and he probably died many years before that. No mention of him as living has been found after 1624. He is not named in the papers pertaining to the administration of his grandfather's estate in 1625, 1626, and 1634, though in the latter year his younger brother Robert did renounce his right to serve. Like his father and grandfather he was a goldsmith, but his apprentice papers have not been found, and he is not listed by Sir Ambrose Heal. No probate has been discovered.
That the James Feake under discussion was not the James Feake (no. 63) who was son of Robert Feake (no. 39) is made clear by the fact that, if so, the children of our James would not have inherited, as they did, property belonging formerly to James Feake (no. 32) and before that to William Feake (no. 13). That the husband of Awdrey Crompton was not James Feake (no. 32) is surely indicated by the fact that, though the latter had married Judith Thomas as early as 1593, his widow Judith Feake was still living in 1625, five years after the marriage of James Feake to Awdrey Crompton.
In 1639, however, the property which had been held in Lombard Street, London, for three generations, was to be sold to settle the estate, and since James' two children were then living in America, it was necessary that a power of attorney be obtained from them in order to sell. Thomas Lechford, the famous Boston notary, duly recorded on 228 of the printed version in "Collections of the American Antiquarian Society," v. 7, also printed separately) the following: "Lieuten't Robert Feke of Waterton in New England, gent., and Sergeant William Palmer of Yarmouth in New England & Judith his wife, and Tobyas Feake aged 17 sonne & Daughter of James Feke, late of London, goldsmith, deceased, makes [sic] a le[tte]r of Attorney to Tobyas Dixon, citizen and mercer of London, to sell one tenement or house & Shopp in Lumbard Street, London, held of the Company of Goldsmiths in London, whereof he dyed poss[ess]ed, late in the occupaçon of one Brampton."
Though Tobias Feake of this power of attorney is called aged seventeen but had been baptized only fifteen years previously, the discrepancy is not serious. It is clear from Lechford's careful language that Judith Palmer and Tobias Feake were children of a goldsmith named James Feake, and also that Robert Feake of Watertown was not their brother, though obviously a relative, or he would not have been included in the power of attorney. He was, of course, their uncle, and he appears in this precious document because he was acting as guardian to his nephew, informally if not also officially.
It has many times been claimed that Robert Feake was indeed the brother of Tobias and Judith, an error arising from the fact that Robert had a known sister Judith, and the fact that the father of each of the three persons was named James Feake. While many circumstantial considerations point clearly to the uncle-nephew relationship, there is also on record specific testimony by Tobias Feake that Robert was his uncle (see below). Children: 2:
i. Judith,1 b. in London, probably in 1621, omitted from all the pedigrees. She probably accompanied the Dixons to Germany and may also have crossed the Atlantic with her brother Tobias. She married, first, most probably at Watertown, Mass., and before Dec. 5, 1639, Sergeant (afterwards Lieutenant) William Palmer; of Plymouth, Yarmouth, and Newtown, Long Island, who died in the last-named place ca. 1661. His parents are as yet unknown; though he was at Plymouth in 1638 about to move to Yarmouth at its founding, he was not the William1 Palmer of Duxbury, nailer, or either of the nailer's two sons, both named William. There is some reason to think that William may have come from either Swaffham or Great Yarmouth, co. Norfolk. William and Judith Palmer were the parents of four sons and one daughter: William, Ephraim, James, Joseph, and Judith, whose births are not recorded but whose names are certain. Judith Feake married, second, in 1662 or thereafter, as third and last wife, Jeffrey Ferris, of Greenwich, Conn., who died May 31, 1666, and, third, before May 6, 1667, John Bowers who married again, following Judith's death, the widow Hannah (Close) Knapp, and made his own will on March 16, 1693/4. Judith's death occurred, according to Spencer B. Mead, in 1667, but he cites no evidence and the year seems early. Connecticut Vital Records do not supply any of the missing dates. Several sketches of William Palmer are in print of which the only trustworthy one is by Donald Lines Jacobus and appears in Lillian L. M. Selleck's "One Branch of the Miner Family" (New Haven, 1928) pp.142 f. See also Spencer B. Mead, "History of the Town of Greenwich," (New York, 1911), pp. 618-20, where... true Henry's family gets mixed up with William's. This error was copied by Marion H. Reynolds and Anna C. Rippier, "History and Descendants of John and Sarah Reynolds, etc." (Brooklyn, 1924) p.31 note, and by Josephine C. Frost, "Ancestors of Evelyn Wood Keeler" (1939) pp. 60 f., but corrected by Mrs. Frost in "The Record,"71:362. The late Dr. Byron S. Palmer's sketch No. 2150, Part II, in the Boston Transcript for Aug. 26, 1925, avoids the main errors but wrongly gives William and Judith Palmer a son John who died at Greenwich before Oct. 26, 1672, estate settled at Greenwich April 24, 1724, these papers supplying the names of William Palmer's children. We think this John may have been the John Palmer who m. at Swaffham, Norfolk, on Oct. 13, 1631, a wife named Margaret Pratt, and he was probably brother of that Henry Palmer who married in the same parish on Nov. 3, 1635, Katherine Springell. Henry Palmer of Wethersfield, Conn., is known to have had a wife named Katherine, and, among others, a son named Ephraim, born at Wethersfield ca. April 25, 1648. As William Palmer also had a son Ephraim, we are inclined to think that he, Henry Palmer of Swaffham and Wethersfield, and John Palmer of Swaffham and Greenwich, were brothers. No William Palmer appears in the marriage registers of Swaffham, but as we suppose our William married Judith Feake at Watertown, this absence is a help, rather than a hindrance, to our theory. The baptismal and burial registers of Swaffham should be examined.
ii. Tobias1, bap. Aug. 1624, St Mary Whitechapel, London; to Watertown, Greenwich, and Flushing; d. in Wapping, co. Middlesex, England, between 1669 and 1672."
2. Source cited below notes profession as goldsmith and affiliation with the Church of England.
3. This individual mentioned in the following article about Robert Feake per "The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633," Volumes I-III:
"Robert Feake...
Associations: Henry Feake of Lynn and Sandwich was apprenticed to James Feake, father of Robert Feake, for a term of nine years in 1606 and was Robert's distant cousin. Tobias Feake & Judith (Feake) Palmer were niece and nephew of Robert Feake, children of Robert's brother James Feake of London [NYGBR 86:209, 211-12; Lechford 228-29]. Comments: In his lengthy article on the Feake family (see Henry Feake for full citation), George E. McCracken went into great detail..."
SOURCES_MISC:
1. FHL book 929.273-K727kf: "Knapp's N' Kin, The Ancestral Lines of Frederick H Knapp and Others," compiled by: Frederick H Knapp, Rt. #2, Box 438C, AB Hwy, Richland, Missouri, 65556; 1987; Revised/Updated 1991. It notes the following sources, none of which I have yet reviewed:
-Feake Fam. of Norfolk, London, and Colonial America, by Geo. McCraken (Jul 1955).
-7 Gen. of Judiths, by Art Gibson (1986).
-Gen Frangments, by J.J. Latting.
-Amer. Ancestry (1963 and 1986)
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Chris & Julie Petersen's Genealogy
1599 - 1639 (24 years)