From the Fortress of Solitude
Pleasant Grove
Hello All,
I'm doing battle with the mother of all colds today. I carry a snot rag with me everywhere I go. I think I might just tie a towel around my neck and let my nose drip to its heart's content. The towel will catch the discharge, sparing my shirt. It started with a nasty sore throat and developed quickly into something that caught my attention. I survived the night thanks to NyQuil. The downside to guzzling NyQuil is the hangover in the morning. I felt like I had Vaseline spread over my glasses for the first few hours I was awake. My hips are bruised from stumbling around
WynCo. I might have knocked over a display of Generic Ravioli but I can't be sure.
Today we're going to take a moment to learn more about our
McCrillis ancestry.
Once upon a time there lived a gentleman named......
RELATIONSHIP CHART
John McCrellis. b. 1670/75. Northern Ireland. married. Margaret Burnside b. 1675. Londonderry, N. Ireland.
to
Daniel McCleres b. 1707. Londonderry, N. Ireland married Elizabeth Thompson b. Bellewoolen
to
Robert McCrellis. b. 1740 Lebanon, Maine. married Mary Kenney b. 1753 Lebanon Maine.
to
John K. McCrillis b. 1775. married Hannah (Betsy) Evans. b. 14 Oct. 1784.
to
Joseph E. McCrillis b. 20 March 1808. Orange, Vermont. married Almira Swift. b. 6 Jan. 1809 Corrinth Vermont
to
Isabel Deanora Helgerson McCrilles. b. 1851 Topsham, Vermont. married Hohn Mayberry
to
Vesta Althea Dennis b. 1892. Hot Springs, South Dakota. married Walter Edwin Pierce. b. 23 Aug. 1885, Cascade Springs, South Dakota
to
Violet May Pierce married Walter Albert Matson
to
Luella, Linda, John and Marvin Mattson
to
US. The Mattson Cousins
John
McCrillis was of Scotch ancestry, who emigrated from Scotland to North Ireland about the middle of the seventeenth century (that's the 1600's for those of you that struggle with your years and centuries). He married in
Londonderry, Ire., about 1700 to a beautiful (my
guess) Margaret Burnside, also of Scotch descent, and settled in
Aghadowey near
Londonderry.
After all his children were born. His wife Margaret died around 1726. Around the middle of the 1700's he came to America, bringing five of his children leaving behind a daughter, Jean.
Mr.
McCrillis sailed from Port Rush, Ireland on 7 Aug., 1726, and arrived at Boston 8 Oct. Imagine spending two months tossing and heaving this way and that on the Atlantic! John moved to
Haverhill on 26 Oct. 1726 where he stayed until 19 April, 1727. After that day he moved to Derry.
Later John bought lands in Nottingham, "two home lots" from George St. for £100, on which he settled as early as 1734. Unlike most of the Scotch- Irish emigrants who remained faithful to the Catholic Church, John was a member of the Church of England. The rector of the Episcopal Church in Portsmouth went to Nottingham to baptize his grandchildren. Other Scotch-Irish families such as the
McClarys,
Harveys,
Kelseys and
Simpsons came in the same ship with them, all of whom settled in Nottingham. These families did not intermarry with the Irish.
As you well remember from another post some months back in the blog we discussed our 5
th Great Grandfather Robert
McCrillis, son of Daniel and Elizabeth
McCrillis of Lebanon. His father, Daniel
McCrillis, the original
McCrillis to settle in town was the son of the Scotch-
Irish emigrant John
McCrillis who came to Lebanon from the north of Ireland soon after 1745.
This family was probably living in Lebanon before 1750, for on 30 July, 1749, the Rev. Amos Main entered upon the records of the First Parish of Rochester, N. H., the following
"Also Baptized
Robert McCrelis."
At that time the Rochester church was located about four miles from where the
McCrillises lived.
Robert
McCrillis was a private in Capt. David Place's Company, stationed on
Seavey's Island, being named on a return dated 5 Nov. 1775.
On 14 July, 1776, the Rev. Isaac
Hasey of the First Parish of Lebanon recorded in his diary as follows :
"Bill up by Rob't McCrellis for himself bound into ye Army." His name occurs on a roll dated at
Charlestown 27 July, 1776, in Capt. John Drew's Co. raised for Canada out of Col.
Evans's and Col. Badger's
Reg'ts.
Origin of our Family Name McCrillisBy,O. Jay
McCrillis.
Undoubtedly the "Land of Heather" is the birthplace of the name of
McCrillis, or of the name from which it has been derived, and the home of those who first bore it. Diligent search has, however, so far failed to reveal the origin of the name and the clan with which the family affiliated.
Little is known of this family prior to the immigration to America, except as they shared the common lot with many others of the same race. The latest investigation indicates that somewhere in the region near Glasgow lived the first who bore the name. It is true that at least one branch of the family, living in America during the last fifty years, traces its ancestry to Scotland by one direct immigration. As many of the Scottish names were materially changed, often for the purpose of concealing identity, it seems probable that this was true of the name
McCrillis, and thus the evidence by which the family's history could be traced is lost. The spelling believed to be most ancient is
Maccrellish or
Maccrillish. The former style of the name is now borne by persons in America, and it is reported that it also appears in Ireland and Scotland. Other spellings now used by different branches are:
McCrellis,
McCrellias,
McGrillis, and
McCrillis, of which the last is most common.
The evidence of general history and the traditions of older members of the family, make it certain that, like the ancestors of very many of the best people of our land, those of most of the
McCrillis family of this country made two journeys in coming to America. The first was the emigration from Scotland to County
Antrim, in the north of Ireland, which is thought to have been about 1680, and the second —that of probably a generation or two later—from Ireland to America.
The first of the name, of whom a record exists in America, is John
McCrillis, who sailed with five and perhaps six of his children as a part of a company from Port Rush, near Giant's Causeway, in Ireland, Aug. 7, 1726, and arrived in Boston, Oct. 8, following. He was the progenitor of the New Hampshire and also the Maine and Vermont branches of the
McCrillis family in America. The next known authentic records locate another John
McCrillis at
Coleraine, Mass., in 1747; William
McCrillis at Boston in 1740; and Daniel
McCleres (known to be a
mis-spelling of
McCrillis) in Portsmouth, N. H., in 1740. It is now settled that Daniel, the progenitor of the Vermont branch, was one of the sons of the John
McCrillis first spoken of. Without doubt, relationship existed between the first John and the two
Coleraine settlers—John and William—but just what it was has never been ascertained. Two daughters of John
McCrillis, of New Hampshire—Martha and Mary—married
Coleraine men. It is believed that the John and William who settled in
Coleraine were related as uncle and nephew. William married in Boston, in 1740, and reared a family there during the next eight years, as shown by the records of the old Federal Street (or Long Lane) Presbyterian church. He appears in
Coleraine in 1749, buying land. John
McCrilis, supposed to have been the uncle of William, must have preceded him to Cole.
raine, as he is mentioned there in 1747.
It is very possible that ' these four—the two Johns, Daniel and William—came in 1726, or at different times very near that date, and lived in Boston for some years. There is a persistent tradition in the family that they landed and lived at "Noodle Island," which is now East Boston. The records that most concern this ancestry show definitely that the uncle and nephew, as it is supposed—John and William
McCrillis—joined, sometime after 1740, a company of their countrymen who were developing a new town called
Coleraine, perhaps from the old city of the name so near their former home in Ireland. The first deed for a lot of land in the town was dated January, 1738, and the first town meeting was held in January, 1741. John "
McCrilis," as the name is spelled in his will, and who was evidently the elder of the two of that name, was the first ancestor in America of O. Jay
McCrillis.
He was probably born in County
Antrim, Ireland, in one of the small towns in the valley of the
Bann river, about 1700. His parentage is unknown, as is also the exact date of his arrival in America. As one of the early settlers of
Coleraine, he acquired a lot of land in the southeasterly part of the new township, not far from the Green river. There he built a house and reared a family, some of the children of which must have been well grown when they came to live in
Coleraine. John
McCrilis is said to have been prominent in the town affairs. McClellan's historical address on
Coleraine mentions him as a member of a military company, under Lieut. Daniel Severance, which was stationed in
Coleraine in 1747 and 1748, during the French and Indian war, to fight the Indians.
The same address also mentions that John
McCrilis and others protested against having the master or mistress of the school, which, on March 5, 1753, the town voted to hold, paid by lots, but by the scholars that attended the school. John
McCrilis mentions his wife in his will, but her maiden surname is unknown. Their children were as follows: Margaret
McCrilis, who married Lieut. Samuel Wells, of Greenfield, Nov. 11, 1751.