ENGLAND
TO CONNECTICUT
The First
Generations Although
earlier records of Parmelees have been found on the Continent who may very well be our ancestors, their
relationships with our proven family have not been
established with certainty. With my finds in Lewes and
the records I've collected over the years about our
Colonial ancestors, I've concluded that these three
generations of our family are the last in England and the
first in America.
Our name can only be found
in two areas of England during this era: south of London
in Lewes, and up north, near the border with Scotland,
in Middleton-in-Teesdale. The northern family's given, or first names
don't fit in with the Connecticut family's, but those in
the south, found in Lewes parish records,
do. Parmelee records that survive at All Saints, right, run from 1572 to 1620 and those at St. Michael from 1628 to 1638 (with one in 1610). No
Parmelee records can be found in Lewes after November,
1638, shortly before John Sr. left for New England and
helped found Guilford, Conn.
I'm fairly certain the vast majority of
North American Parmelees of various spellings can call Lewes their ancestral home, while the
smaller Parmley family that first settled in Pennsylvania
and then moved to the Midwest and Salt Lake City, are
tied to Middleton-in-Teesdale. The two families may be
linked in England but as of yet, I don't know how.
I.
John of Lewes ?
-1583
Probably
born before 1554. His burial was recorded May 1, 1583, at All Saints, Lewes,
Sussex [now East Sussex]. He was married Jan. 11, 1572, at All Saints to Alice RUSSELL.
I have found no record of her death nor a second
marriage.
Their children, recorded at All
Saints:
|
i. |
Margaret * |
-
baptized Oct. 27, 1573. |
|
ii. |
Catherine |
-
baptized Jan. 30, 1578/79; buried April 3,
1579. |
+ |
iii. |
John |
-
baptized Aug. 30, 1584. To
Connecticut. |
|
|
* This entry
is atop a torn page in Volume I of the All
Saints parish register. The digitalized
microfilmed copy of it reads "Margare
... ye daughter of ... baptize ... xxvijth
of October 157(2). Pam e l e." ... Mrs.
Richard V. Shanklin Jr. of Panama City, Fla.,
after returning home from England in 1976,
wrote the late Parmelee historian Dorothy
Smallwood of Washington, D.C., to share her
findings. Shanklin's letter lists the
Parmelee records she found at All Saints and
St. Michael, including a baptism for
Margaret, daughter of John, on Oct. 27, 1573.
While this year is one off from the copy I've
located (all entries around it are 1572),
most of Shanklin's data corresponds with what
I've found in microfilmed records. Perhaps
she viewed the actual parish register with
the page intact in 1976 before it was
microfilmed in 1984? |
II. John Sr. 1584
-1659
Baptized Aug. 30, 1584,
at All Saints. It looks as if his widowed mother waited
several months to do the christening. His will, dated Nov. 8, 1659, was filed at New Haven,
Conn., with an inventory dated Jan. 2, 1659/60, and
valued at £78, 13s. Records show
he had at least five wives and 13 children, only three of
whom are known to have survived to adulthood.
John's
signature, right, appears on a counterpart deed
of covenant
[ref SAS/RF/13/1] dated Jan. 2, 1608, and held in
Lewes at the East Sussex Record Office known as
"The Keep." John, identified in it as a
bricklayer, agreed to lease a property on the
King's Highway from Thomas and Constance Trayton.
Sussex Archaeological Society deeds identify this
property today as one occupied by Trinity
House on School Hill Street, running east of
High Street beyond the War Memorial. |

|
Reproduced
with the permission of East Sussex Record
Office, copyright reserved
|
The Trayton family was in possession of
the property from the mid 15th century through 1770. The
building stands on the site of the Church of the Holy
Trinity and long has housed the offices of attorneys,
proctors, notaries and solicitors, as it did when I
visited in 1997.
On Feb. 15, 1616, John, again
identified as a bricklayer, witnessed the sureties of
marriage of one of his first wife's brothers,
husbandryman Thomas Howell of Kingston Near Lewes, to
maiden Judith Garrett, of the same, according to records
of the Archdeaconry of Lewes.
Shortly after it opened,
John's family moved to St.
Michael, right, built by merchant and Puritan sympathizer
John Stansfield. But John soon ran
into trouble with church authorities.
In the 1630s, restoration of the "sacrament of
the altar," which meant moving communion tables back
to their pre-Reformation locations, had become a flash
point within the Church of England. The new Archbishop of
Canterbury, William Laud, arrived at Lewes' St.
Thomas-in-the-Cliffe in 1634 and decreed that, among
other things, its table be place in a north-south
position at the upper end of the chancel and "rayled
in with a decent Rayle to keep off dogs and to free it
from other pollutions." Other churchwardens
throughout Lewes were expected to follow suit. Two years
later, those of St. Michael still had not.
When the Archdeaconry Court of Lewes convened at St.
Michael on July 19, 1637, diocesan chancellor William
Nevill was horrified to see that the table remained in
its east-west position and personally moved it
north-south. A week later, someone who surely thought the
table's altar-wise positioning looked popish moved it
back.
On Aug. 1, parish clerk Abel Bodle was summoned to the
judge's office of the court and asked: "By whom or
by whose appointment the communion Table was removed and
altered since the last Court day, it being then set by
Doctor Nevill North and South, and now standing East and
West."
Bodle replied that "on Satterday the xxvjth
[26th] of July last past, about seven of the
clock at night, John Parmely, one of the church wardens
of the sayd parrishe came to him and demanded the key of
the Church Dore, which he thereupon delivered unto him.
And he [John] went forthwith from him with the sayd key
unto the church, And did charge this respondent [Bodle]
that when he came the next morning into the church
whatsoever he saw there, hee should not meddle to alter
anything in the church.
"And afterwards the same evening the sayd Parmely
sent the key unto this respondent [Bodle] by his
apprentice, whose name hee knoweth not, And hee [Bodle]
sayth further, That the next morning being Sonday, when
he came into the church aforesaid, he found and sawe the
communion Table, which Doctor Neville had the last Court
day viz. the xixth [19th] of July,
with his own hands placed in the east end of the chancel
north and south, removed and set from the wall East and
West as now it standeth."
The parish was ordered to pay 7 shillings for John's
absolution, and it appears not everyone had supported his
strike against popery. The following year, after he had
ceased to be a churchwarden, John and wife Joane were
accused of "living in incontinency before their
marriage," a serious offense among Puritans. The
only evidence offered was the birth of daughter Rachael,
baptized Nov. 5, 1638, "within one or two and thirty
weeks next after their [April 3, 1638] marriage"
about one month premature. The charge was apparently
rejected. But John decided he'd had enough of England.
With
daughters Hannah, 7, and Mary, 5, most likely in tow,
John, who would have been about 55, boarded the St. John, which set sail out of London
on May 20, 1639, under Capt. Richard Russell and arrived
at New Haven between July 10 and 15. Whether wife Joane
made the voyage remains a mystery. I have yet to find a
burial for her in England nor a mention of her in
Connecticut.
John was among the signers of
Guilford's Plantation Covenant,
dated June 1, 1639, while the St. John and an
unnamed second ship were at sea. Most of the signers were
from counties Kent and Surrey, members of the flock of
the Rev. Henry Whitfield of St. Margaret's in Ockley
Parish, Surrey. With Whitfield the party's spiritual
leader, they founded Guilford, just east of New Haven,
that fall.. John's original 2½-acre
home lot was north of the Village Green, just east of
the 1st Congregational Church, left. Like many of the
town's settlers, he became a planter.
John was one of many who testified
about a shoemaker's shoddy workmanship at a 1647 New
Haven hearing. He was voted a freeman at Guilford on May
22, 1649. He returned to New Haven, where he was married
for the final time in 1653 and was admitted as a freeman
there or Aug. 8, 1659. He died three or four months
later.
John
was married first
May 15, 1608, at All Saints to Anne HOWELL. She
was baptized April 28, 1585, at
Kingston-near-Lewes, the daughter of John and
Joane (Geere) Howell of Rottingdean and
Wivelsfield, Sussex [now East Sussex]; her burial
was recorded Feb. 3, 1629, at St. Wulfran in
Ovingdean, Sussex [now East Sussex], about eight
miles south and west of Lewes. |
From the
bishop's transcripts of St. Wulfran parish
records (Old Style):

The third of February
1629, Annie Parmely the
wife of John Parmely of the p[ar]ish of
St. Mychells
in Lewes was buried
|
Their children, recorded at All
Saints:
|
i. |
John |
-
buried Dec. 16, 1609. |
|
ii. |
Elizabeth |
-
baptized Dec. 3, 1610 -- and Dec. 2, 1610 at St.
Michael, Lewes;
buried at All Saints on Feb. 16, 1612/13. |
+ |
iii. |
John |
-
baptized Sept. 6, 1612. |
|
iv. |
George |
-
baptized Dec. 11, 1614; buried April 14,
1615. |
|
v. |
Anne |
-
baptized March 17, 1615/16; probably died
young. |
|
vi. |
Mary |
-
baptized June 5, 1620; probably died young. |
|
vii. |
Johan / Joane |
-
buried at St. Michael on July 30, 1628. |
- - - - -
John
was married second April
29, 1630, at St. Michael to Hannah WILBUR. She was buried
Feb. 20, 1634/35, at St. Michael.
Their children:
|
viii. |
Hannah |
-
baptized May 20, 1632, at St. Michael, living
as late as 1693, married Sept. 30, 1651, at
New Haven to John JOHNSON (1613-1681), son of
Robert and Adeline Johnson. They had nine
children. |
|
ix. |
Mary |
-
probably born about 1634 in England, died
March 16, 1667, in Connecticut, married Sept.
16, 1660, at Guilford to Dennis CRAMPTON
(1630-1689/90). They had three children. |
- - - - -
John
was married third to
Elizabeth HOLTER on June 1, 1635, at St. Michael. She was
baptized March 25, 1610/11, the daughter of John Holter,
at St. Thomas-à-Becket, Cliffe in Lewes, and
buried Sept. 1, 1637 at St. Michael.
Their children, recorded at St. Michael:
|
x. |
Elizabeth |
-
baptized Feb. 7, 1635/36 **; may have been
buried Sept. 5, 1637, but probably
April 13, 1638 |
|
xi. |
John |
-
baptized Aug. 30, 1637; buried Dec. 12, 1637.
|
|
xii. |
Martha |
-
baptized Aug. 30, 1637 **; possibly buried
Sept. 5, 1637. |
** Elizabeth's burial is recorded
twice, in 1637 as "the daughter of
John," and in 1638 as "the daughter
of John and Elizabeth"; I think the
first entry may be for Martha; John would
have been married to his next wife, Joane,
when young Elizabeth died, hence the later
burial entry for her reads "daughter of
John and Elizabeth." |
I'm wondering if this 11th child, John,
was named for his half-brother John who left two years
earlier for America. One fellow genealogist says it was
not that rare for a man to have more than one son with
the same name -- virtually always when he had multiple
wives -- and named "the younger" and "the
elder."
- - - - -
John
was married fourth to
Joane COBDEN, on April 3, 1638, at St. Michael. I have
found no mention of her in Connecticut; she probably died
in England.
Their child, recorded at St. Michael:
|
xiii. |
Rachael |
-
baptized Nov. 5, 1638, buried Nov. 10, 1638. |
Rachael's burial is the last Parmelee
entry found in Lewes. John's ship set sail from London on
May 20, 1639.
- - - - -
John's
fifth wife was Elizabeth (----) BRADLEY, widow of Daniel
Bradley, whom he married Nov. 8, 1653, at New Haven. She
died in January 1683 at New Haven. (Her maiden name may
have been SHEAFFE but this has not been proven.)
On Jan. 20, 1661, New Haven Colony appointed a committee
to seat people in the Meeting House; "Sister
Parmely" shares the "little short seat"
next to the wall with "Sister Allen." [Mrs.
John Allen was Ellen, Elizabeth's daughter with Daniel
Bradley.] Elizabeth's third husband was widower John
EVARTS, whom she married May 27, 1663, at Guilford; he
died May 10, 1669, making her a widow a third time.
III. John Jr. 1612-1687/88
Baptized
Sept. 6, 1612, at All Saints, Lewes. His will, dated Dec. 20, 1684, was inventoried Feb. 8,
1687/88, in Guilford in the amount of £259, 4s. He had 10
children and at least 74 grandchildren.
"Jo. Palmerley" is listed as
a 20-year-old passenger on the Elizabeth and Anne,
the first member of the family to immigrate to America,
arriving four years before his father. Master Roger
Coop/Cowper/Cooper was at the helm when it was cleared to
leave the Port of London on April 13, 1635 -- the
Winthrop Society says it left in mid-May -- and arrived
at the Charlestown section of Boston late that spring or
early summer. No other family members are listed on that
roster.
He was one of the original settlers of
Guilford, his first home lot being a 1½-acre parcel on the east side
of Crooked Lane, the fourth lot north of Buck Lane. He
took the oath of freeman in Guilford on Feb. 14, 1649/50,
a little less than a year after his father did. He became
the drummer of Guilford's train band, the colony's chief defense unit, and served as
sexton for many years, "warning" settlers to
meetings and church services by beating his drum.
Guilford town records show that he was a husbandman: At a
court session held Nov. 8, 1648, Thomas Jones sued Richard Bristow, the Goodwife Bushnell and John for damages done
to his corn by their hogs, "but no distinct proofe
being made of ye pticular trespasses or of the
inst value of the damages, the Court could not proceed to
issue the case."
And he reported to train band practice
while intoxicated:
At a Court held here
Jan 1st [1656/57]
John Parmelin
the younger (being called to answer about a comon
ffame or report of his inordinate drinking upon a
Traineing Day of late apeareing in his gesture on
[the] 1st Answered That he did
acknowledge that he ffell downe at the stile [steps
that allow people but not animals to climb over a
fence or wall] at bro [Thomas] Cookes
doore & hit his drumme agst the pales there; also
That he did wade through ye water agst Mr. Kitchells
Lott, & the he againe went fro the way so ye
pales agst Hen[ry]: Goldams Lott & then hit his
drum agst ye Pales And ffurther he doth Confesse that
he had drunk too much strong drink that day
Considering that he was empty & had eaten little
& so acknwledgeth yt he did evill
& was not so watchfull over himselfe nor so
carefull to avoid giveing offence as he should, for wch
he was sorry:
Hee being asked why he so went fro'
the plaine beaten way when he mr. brother Bartlett to
crosse over to the Pales: Hee answered that he had
reasons to himselfe wch he would not
declare:
Thomas Betts & his wife being called to
testify wt they knew in this Case, did
declare that comeing from Brother Cookes that
Traineing Day in the evening they did see John
Parmelin a little distance from' the Ordinary[?] doore
fall downe & knocked his drum agst the Pales,
where upo' the said Thomas Betts did speake to him
& tell him that he feared he had drunk a Cupp too
much, but hee denyed it, wch occasioned
them to observe more of his gestures & caryages
& wn the said Betts & his wife
came to the water besides Mr. Kitchells Lott, where
they lay some Batts [lids or covers] upo'
wch they & others used to cover over
the water & being both [run] over they
stood still to tye a Bagg wch the said
Thomas caryed wth Apples, & then came
the said John Parmelin after them, who wn
he came at ye water & endravured to come over the
Batts his feet slipped beside, & then he waded
through the water & so passed on before them, But
they coming after him overtooke him about Henry
Goldams Lott where they saw him turne out of the way
to goe by the side of the Pales & there againe
knockt or inmbled his drum agst the Pales
as he went whereupo' they meeting wthe
bro: Bartlet, brother Betts said to him, doe you not
see bro: Parmelin, I doubt he hath drunke a Cupp too
much, who answered that he feared so also;
Brother Bartlet testifyed that it was true that he
did so meet & observe Brother Parmelin there to
turne out of the way & inmbled his drum as he
went by the Pales & did so expresse his feares as
brother Betts hath testifyed.
The Court Considering wt the said John
Parmelin had confessed together wth the
said Testimonyes & some other Circumstances about
the matter, did ind[ul]ge the said Parmelin to be
disabled in his understanding by drinking &
therefore sentenced that he should pay ye ffine,
according to ye Order in that Case p'vided.
William Leete
-- Guilford Town Records, Vol.
A, pp. 155-156
John
was married first to Rebecca ---, probably in England.
She was born --- and died Sept. 24 or 29, 1651, at
Guilford. (It has not been proven that her
maiden name was EATON.)
Their child, born at Guilford:
|
i. |
Nathaniel |
-
born in 1645, died about February 1675/76,
married Sarah FRENCH on Oct. 24, 1668. To
Killingworth. He served as the town drummer
and died in King Philip's War. He had three children. |
- - - - -
John
was married second to Anna (---) PLAINE/PLAIN, the widow
of William
Plaine/Plain, in Guilford in
1651.
William, another signer of the Plantation
Covenant, appears on the very
first page of Guilford's town records, Aug. 14, 1645, as
the witness to a deal over a load of hay between the Rev.
Whitfield and Goodman Crittenden, and was given the OK to
"carry out ye works of ye dammer" Sept. 4,
1645, as the town built a mill. Months after being
appointed the village chimney inspector and sweep on Jan.
8, 1645/46, William found himself in serious trouble:
Mr. [Thelonius] Eaton, the governor
of New Haven, wrote to the governor of the Bay to
desire the advice of the magistrates and elders in a
special case which was this: one [William] Plaine of
Gilford being discovered to have used some unclean
practices, upon examination and testimony it as found
that, being a married man, he had committed sodomy
with 2 persons in England, and that he had corrupted
a great part of the youth of Guilford by
masturbation, which he had committed, and provoked
others to the like above 100 times. And to some who
questioned the lawfulness of such a filthy practice
he did insinute seeds of atheism, questioning whether
there were a God, etc. The magistrates and elders (so
many as were at hand) did all agree that he ought to
die, and gave divers[e] reasons from the word of God,
and indeed it was horrendum facinus [a
horrible crime] (and he a monster in human shape),
exceeding all human rules and examples that ever had
been heard of, and it tended to the frstrating of the
ordinanace of marriage and the hindering the
generation of mankind.
-- June 4, 1646
entry of Massachusetts Bay Colony Gov. John
Winthrop's journal
 |
William
was executed in the summer of 1646 in New Haven. His 2-acre home lot south of the Village
Green and a parcel of marshland in the great
plain became John Jr.'s when he married William's
widow, according to this April 13, 1668, entry,
left, in Vol. 1, p. 41 of Guilford's terrier
books. The 4½-acre property
was bounded by on the north and west by John
Hoadley's, on the east by John Fowler's, and on
the south by William Leete's.
Anna was buried March 30, 1658,
at Guilford. John and Anna had no children.
|
John Parmelee married the Widow
Plaine and so those two parsels of land
as they are here teriord became his [illegible]
posession and so this is his terier of lands
This was entred this 13 of April 1668
|
- - - - -
John
was married third to Hannah about 1659. Hannah died Jan.
8, 1687/88, in Guilford.
John, "with the consent of his
wife Hannah," traded Guilford properties with John
Goodrich in a deed found in Guilford Land Records, Vol.
B, p. 212, and dated Feb. 1, 1681[/82]. They relinquished
a 4-acre parcel of upland and meadow "in the great
plaine by Mr. Andrew Leete's marsh and by Richard Brissol's [Bristow's] marsh by the way that goeth to Mr. John Leete's
poynt of Rocks."
On Jan. 26, 1684[/85], John -- again "with
the consent of Hannah his wife" -- agreed to sell
Richard Huball, formerly of Guilford and now of
Fairfield, a parcel "of upland and marsh lying and
being in the great plaine in Guilford" containing 2¼ acres, more or less. John
and Hannah signed with their marks, right. The agreement, in Guilford Land Records, Vol. B,
p. 231, and signed with their marks, gives the boundaries
as "the highway on the east, running back to the
marsh lands of John Bishop on the west. bounded by the
lands of John Fowler on the north, and by the lands of
George Bartlett on the south."
The clauses "with the consent of
his wife Hannah" and "with the consent of
Hannah his wife" would indicate John was
transferring the title of land that Hannah likely
obtained by inheritance. Because these parcels would have
been considered part of her dower and returned to her if
John had died, she had to consent to the sales. Married
women in colonial America were not allowed to transfer
property on their own, but once a widow, they could
transfer title under their own signature.
Just who did Hannah inherit these
properties from? The Widow Plaine's parcels were in
Guilford's great plain. We're these two women related?
John and Hannah's children, all born at
Guilford, were:
|
ii. |
John |
-
born Nov. 25, 1659, died March 21, 1725, at
Guilford, married Mary MASON on June 27,
1681, at Guilford. His tombstone can be seen at Guilford's
Alderbrook Cemetery. He had seven children. |
|
iii. |
Joshua |
-
born about 1661, died in June 13, 1729, in
Guilford, married Alse/Alice EDWARDS about
July 10, 1690, at Guilford; and widow Hannah
DeWOLF Stone in 1716, at East Guilford [now
Madison]. He had 13 children. |
|
iv. |
Caleb |
-
born about 1663, died about 1741*, married
Abigail JOHNSON on April 11, 1690, at
Guilford; Abigail HILL on April 23, 1693, at
Guilford; and Mary DURHAM on Jan. 11,
1737/38. To Branford. He had seven children. |
|
v. |
Isaac |
- born Nov.
21, 1665, died Jan. 13, 1748/49, at Guilford,
married Elizabeth HYLAND/HIGHLAND on Dec. 30,
1689, at Guilford. Their home, the Hyland
House, still stands
east of the Village Green. He had nine
children. |
|
vi. |
Hannah |
- born Nov.
5, 1667, died ---- , married Tahan HILL in
November 1688; and Thomas MERRILL on May 25,
1693, at Saybrook. To Saybrook. She had six
children. |
|
vii. |
Stephen |
- born Dec.
6, 1669, died April 4, 1736, at Newtown,
married Elizabeth BALDWIN on June 20, 1693,
at Guilford. To Newtown where he was the town
drummer.
He had 11 children. |
|
viii. |
Job |
- born July
31, 1673, died March 6, 1765, at Guilford,
married Betty EDWARDS on March 11, 1699, at
Guilford. He had seven children. |
|
ix. |
Priscilla |
- born May 8,
1678, died Dec. 10, 1692, at Guilford. |
|
x. |
Joel |
- born about
1679/80, died July 20, 1748, at Durham,
married Abigail ANDREWS on June 30, 1706, at
Durham. To Durham. His tombstone was found at Durham's Old Cemetery
near the top of the hill. He had 11 children. |
* Many old genealogies state that
Caleb died in 1714, but I believe that these
last two digits have been transposed, for he
can be found buying and selling land with
Caleb Jr. from 1724 to 1740. Also, Mary
DURHAM is often listed as Caleb Jr.'s third
wife but Caleb Jr.'s estate papers refer to
Jemima as his widow, and Jemima's tombstone
at Branford calls her the "relict of
Caleb." |
John Jr.'s 10 children make up the
major branches of the largest North American Parmelee
family.
|