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As promised, the following summary of ongoing research since my last posting, is offered as concerns the origin of Joseph Longfellow, witness 21 Jan 1710 to the will of Elizabeth Browne, that was proved 28 May 1711:
1. No proof has been found that Elizabeth Browne was the mother-in-law of Joseph, or that Joseph "married Mary Browne, daughter of Elizabeth Browne [Fegley:197]. Fegley yearns for a connection between the Browne's and Longfellows. He may have been influenced by the repetition of the name "Elizabeth." No record of such marital union has been found of any "Joseph Longfellow," in Maryland archives.
2. In the absence of any detail from descendants, or researchers, it can be reasonably concluded from my research the likely source for the belief Joseph was son of William2, is: "Fegley-Longfellow Family Tree, the ancestors of Molly Ann Fegley and Susan Pauline Fegley, children of Robert L and Alice B Fegley" [1971, New Canaan, CT, Robert L Fegley, privately published], LCCN 86-461950. The case bound book is on file at the New Canaan Historical Society, New Canaan, CT, and the Connecticut State Library, Hartford, CT. Relevant pages were provided by the NCHS Librarian.
3. The book is 286 pp, and treats the lines of the author and his wife, Alice Blaine (Longfellow) Fegley. [Apparently] there are a substantial number of descendant charts. Per my request only those containing Longfellow names were provided to me. The charts trace the Longfellow ancestry of the authors wife from her father, Matthew Livingstone Longfellow, grandfather David Syms Longfellow, Joseph, John and then to the immigrant, Joseph of Maryland, shown to be born c1697 [sic].
4. As previously noted on these postings, another work by Esther Longfellow Prather [c1988] provides solid indications she relied on Fegley's opus and input to support their common hypothesis Joseph was son of William2. Prather's unpublished, bound booklet "Our Longfellow Heritage," can be found at the Cambridge Longfellow Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Verbatim passages from the Fegley opus are quoted by her, albeit without attribution.
5. Fegley concludes [pg 197] Joseph is known through three records (1) witness in 1710 to the will of Elizabeth Browne; (2) the baptismal record of "a son" born to Joseph and Elizabeth; and (3) the deed [27 Mar 1769] granting John Longfellow land "on which Joseph Longfellow formerly lived."
6. Fegley next concludes [verbatim] "Who was this Joseph Longfellow and where did he come from? He or his father may have come to Maryland from England or Virginia, but this is unlikely because there is no Longfellow among the list of immigrants to Maryland between 1633 and 1680. 'The Early Settlers of Maryland,' compiled by Gust Skordas in 1968 from the land patent records in the Maryland Hall of Records, is a complete list of land patents and is regarded as the most complete list of white immigrants to Maryland. No Longfellows are in this list. Nor are there any Longfellows in the excellently indexed seventeenth century records of baptisms, marriages, burials, tax assessments, probates, testamentary proceedings, or abstracts of wills at the Maryland Hall of Records. Nor are there any Longfellows in C.G. Greer's very complete 'Early Virginia Immigrants 1623-1666' or Torrance's 'Index of Virginia Wills and Administrations.' Fegley then concludes that "Because of this complete lack of seventeenth century Longfellows in Maryland and Virginia, (and their rarity in the eighteenth-century records) we have concluded that Joseph Longfellow was the son of William Longfellow (born 1679 in Boston) who put out to sea in his 'teens in the 1690's and was never heard from again in Boston. Because of the sudden appearance, in 1710, or Longfellows in Maryland, it is presumed that William put in at one of the port towns of Talbot Country [sic], Maryland, married Mary Browne, daughter of Elizabeth Browne, and had a son Joseph." Fegley goes on the point out the physical resemblance of Matthew Longfellow and other Maryland descendants to the New England poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
7. David Uhrey has provided a copy of the transcribed birth record of the child "John son to Joseph & Elisabeth Longfellow, born 6 Jan 1740." [St Luke's Parish, Church Hill, MD, Parish Registers 1722-1850, MD Historical Society].
8. This birth record raises the question of the father's generation, or further identification. Was it Joseph who witnessed the 1710 will, or could it be his son who [30-years later] who was father of this John?
9. Birth records previously announced as children of William and "Elizabeth Ringold" [affidavit Atty Hutchins, Dover, DE, 1903] are in my opinion either an outright fabrication by a client of Hutchins' or speculative at best. Inasmuch as no descendant or other researcher has come forward with documentary proof of such births; and no Maryland record has been found to corroborate such births or a marital union, leaves the accuracy of such births as highly unlikely.
10. Finally, the prevailing wisdom in England is that most Longfellows originated from Yorkshire. This is no surprise, and supported by "A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames with Special American Instances" [Charles Bardsley]; and other surname dictionaries which confirm the "earliest instances of the name are in Yorkshire [email 12/16/05, Sue Gibbons, Librarian, London Society of Genealogists].
As previously stated [by others and Fegley], they erred in some of their assumptions, the most glaring omission being the death of William2 at Boston 16 Nov 1702 [source: Robert J Dunkle, Ann Smith Lainhart, Deaths in the Town of Boston: 1700 to 1799, pg 576], a mere five months after his marriage to Mary Davis. He could not have been the "runaway sailorboy" [Fegley:198], who fathered Joseph; unless of course William2 immediately after his marriage to new wife Mary Davis in Boston, went to Maryland [as speculated] immediately impregnated 'Mary Browne,' who then gave birth to Joseph about 1703, who witnessed the will of Elizabeth Browne at age 7. This is a most unlikely scenario.
I stand by my previous posted remarks that some assumptions are prompted to satisfy a personal desire to be linked to Boston and the poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
My efforts and research continue. As always, I welcome constructive comments, suggestions and sharing of similar research.
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