Archive:Henry Whitney's English Ancestry
Henry1 Whitney's English Ancestry
In S. Whitney Phoenix, The Whitney family of Connecticut, and its affiliations; being an attempt to trace the descendants, as well in the female as the male lines, of Henry Whitney, from 1649 to 1878; to which is prefixed some account of the Whitneys of England. (New York : Priv. Print. [Bradford Press] 1878), 3 volumes, there is given considerable information about the origins of Henry, and his ancestry connecting him to various famous personages. That information is false. It is the result of a fraud perpetrated by Mrs. Harriet A. (Bainbridge) DeSalis, an unscrupulous genealogist. There are two items documenting this fraud, a report and an article.
His parentage, date and place of birth, date and ship of immigration, first wife's name, and date and place of first marriage, are all unknown at this time.
He may have arrived before 1637, because of the following item, contributed by Norris Taylor:
(Most info here from Wesley L. Baker, Study of the Reeve family of Southold, Long Island, N. Y., and Southold descendants of the Southampton, L. I. Reeves family : and genealogy of said families up to 1800, 1970).
The Osman Deposition was reportedly "discovered" in a private collection of papers of the Southold, LI, settler, Barnabas HORTON, and was (first?) published in the 1638-1939 Southold Commemorative Book (not as a photo-copy, I understand, but a typed abstract). These papers apparently belonged to an heir and have disappeared. The original deposition has not been located. I get the impression, not explicitly stated, that not even a photo-copy, (so that handwriting can be evaluated) exists. Mr. Baker talks about a 1969 study of the Deposition by himself and Dr. Arthur C. Downs and I got the impression that a person could not be found that said they had seen the original, or where it was when they saw it (but I haven't seen that study). He further says, "we concluded that while it was not impossible for the men to be in Chowan as early as 1636-7 . . . it is unlikely they were there until a year or two later."
I have been told by a long-time Long Island researcher that at least several other long-time Long Island researchers view the validity of the Osman Deposition with apprehension. Of course, this is on the heels of the multiple frauds in 19th century genealogies that have been discovered, particularly [Gustave] Anjou. It would be interesting to see if Anjou, or others known to have "created" fraudulent documents, used the Osman deposition in any way, say before 1939, when it was apparently first published.
Here is the Deposition:
"March ye 18th, 1638
Swearinge be Ye Holy Evangelists that he with his now father-in-law William PURRIER, and his brother in law, James REEVE did go adventuring in ye Chowan Country for sperrits resin in ye yeare 1636 and there did meet William SALMON, Thomas REEVE, Thomas TERRILL, Thomas BENEDICT, Henery WHITNEY and others who had come hither from ye Summer Isles and ye said adventure failinge through ye overplus of adventurers, who had come hither prior to their coeing. They did set sale with one SUNDERLAND to a country the said SUNDERLAND had from his master one James FFARRETT by letters patent from ye Earle of Starlinge. And ye said OSMAN does farther depose that ye said company with others whose names he has forgotten did set downe on ye necke called Hashammomack and did ingage in distillinge sperrits resin from ye trees in ye greate swampe and further SUNDERLAND, SALMON, WHITNEY, and BENEDICT did from ye beginning owne ye said necke in equal shares and did so from our first sittingse down in year 1636-7.
Signed:
Thomas OSMAN
in ye presence of:
Barnabas HORTON
Thomas MOOR"
I answered:
"Something really new which I had not realized before is that it says that the group of five including Henry WHITNEY had come to the Chowan Country from "the Summer Isles". This I take to mean the Somer Islands, that is, Bermuda. We do know that other WHITNEY individuals were living there very early, from whom the southern branch of the WHITNEY family stem. This raises the possibility that Henry1 WHITNEY could have been a brother to or other relative of Samuel1 WHITNEY of Bermuda. This would be a wonderful and amazing connection, hitherto unsuspected!
One could try to verify that the BENEDICT, REEVE, SALMON, and TERRILL families were present in Bermuda before 1636. That could lend credence to the document if true, and give some discredit to it if false.
Norris replied:
According to Baker, who cites "English emigration records" (Hotten's referred to earlier in his work, so probably there), the following sailed for St. Christopher from London in 1635:
- Thomas REEVE, 24
- William SALMON, 25
- Thomas TERRILL, 18
By the way, William PURRIER, father-in-law of whichever REEVE it was that married his daughter, came over with family in the preceding month to New England. Note also a TERRILL married a PURRIER granddaughter later, too. SALMON was another early Long Islander.
The above Thomas REEVE had been thought to be William PURRIER's son-in-law since forever . . . as he was the only REEVE in the area, died before PURRIER (PURRIER referred to his daughter as if a widow), and had a wife with the same first name as she.
Until . . . this affidavit, which says a James REEVE was the brother-in-law of Thomas OSMAN, and thus the REEVE husband of "Mary REEVE" in William PURRIER's will. This is the only reference to him. No other reference to a James REEVE in early Long Island that cannot be attributed to the second generation James REEVE.
If this deposition can be believed, this would indicate that Henry1 WHITNEY's first wife and mother of his only known child John2 WHITNEY (b. ca. 1642) may have been from one of the earliest families of Southold, possibly a daughter or sister of one of the abovementioned expeditionaries. His second wife was a sister of the above William SALMON.
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