From: James P. (Phil) Harris
March 3, 2001.
There has been a recent flurry
of activity on the Harris-Va message board
concerning the mystery of
the parentage of Capt. Thomas Harris of
Henrico, Virginia. Perhaps
it is time to pull everything together and
give a status report on where
Harris researchers stand at this point in
solving the mystery.
For anyone coming in late,
a will was discovered in Essex, England and
published in this country
as early as 1910 that proved that Thomas
Harris, the son of Sir William
Harris of Creeksea, died in 1617 and never
came to Virginia. Therefore,
the Capt. Thomas Harris that came to
Virginia in 1611 and died
in Henrico (will 1649) WAS NOT the son of Sir
William Harris of Creeksea,
nor was he the brother of John Harris who
settled at Shirley Hundred
in Virginia. This fact has only recently come
to be acknowledged by many
of us, and unfortunately there remains a vast
number of genealogies out
in the public sector that still carry the
incorrect information.
Many active Harris researchers are trying to do
all they can to correct those
who remain misinformed. The best way to do
this would be to find the
real truth about this man who is the immigrant
ancestor to so many American
Harris descendants. Who really were the
parents of Capt. Thomas Harris?
Right now there appear to be
four possible theories or scenarios that
various people have proposed.
There are some actual facts. There are a
lot of speculations.
It is still very much a "work in progress." I will
try to pull together what
I know about each theory and hopefully separate
the real and non-real information.
I will split this into three parts
because it will be lengthy
and the message boards will only carry
messages that are of a certain
length.
First, a little geography about
the East of London. In 1600, the area
just outside the east wall
of London was a suburban area. It was
situated between the city
wall and the River Lea, a low marshy stream
that separated the County
of Middlesex from the County of Essex and
emptied into the Thames.
Beginning at the River Thames, there were the
docks of Wapping. Just
north of Wapping was Stepney where the famous
Cockney accent came from.
The main parish church in Stepney was St.
Dunstan's. From Stepney
an old Roman road ran north, parallel to the
River Lea. The first
village one came to along the road was Edmonton,
followed by Hertford and then
Ware. Another Roman road ran to the
northeast from Stepney, crossing
the River Lea and running out into the
Essex countryside. Just
across the River Lea from Stepney is the village
of Leyton in Essex.
Continuing on along that road, one of the first
villages one would come to,
about fifteen miles out, was the village of
Shenfield, the home to one
branch of the Harris family. Eventually that
road carried all the way out
past Chelmsford into the Dinghy peninsula
where Woodham Mortimer, Southminster,
Creeksea and other Harris locations
are found. Often, the
wealthy merchants of London would maintain a home
just outside the city in Stepney
or Edmonton while their main home was
farther out in the countryside,
a day's ride or so from the city.
Keeping the mental map of the
East of London in mind, we now turn our
attention to the theories.
To be considered a good theory, we should be
able to create a plausible
"story" in England, a plausible "story" in
Virginia, and then the two
should be able to be connected. All of this
should be backed up by as
many primary records as possible. We already
know there are no more NEW
records to be found in Virginia, just better
interpretation. But
there are new things we can discover in England.
Here are the theories, as
I know them, in no particular order:
1. THE JOSSELYN/LEE CONNECTION.
This is probably the oldest of the
alternate theories.
As far as is known, Helen Harris Ott first proposed
the basic idea in the late
1970s. She lived in Essex for about five
years and did a lot of first
hand research while she was there. Her
collection of papers can be
found in the State Library of Virginia. She
had already recognized the
1617 will and made the determination that
Thomas Harris was not a son
of Sir William Harris of Creeksea. I have
discovered a number of new
things that lend support to and expand on her
basic theory.
The visitation records show
that Edward Harris was the second son and
youngest overall child of
William Harris of Southminster by his third
wife Anne Rutter. (Sir
William Harris of Creeksea was a grandson by the
second wife.) Edward
held the manor at Caige, his father's home outside
Southminster, while Edward's
brother Christopher lived at Shenfield. The
first wife of Edward Harris
was Elizabeth Barrington (daughter of Sir
Francis Barrington) by whom
Edward had at least his oldest son Francis
who would become Sir Francis
Harris. The senior Edward Harris secondly
married Anne (possibly Mary)
Josselyn of Torrell Hall on 9 July 1583, and
had at least four more children,
Anne, Arthur and two other sons.
Torrell Hall was located in
Wallingale, Essex just to the north of
Shenfield. There are
three other known sons, Edward, Robert, and THOMAS,
but we can't say for sure
to which marriage each belonged. We have to
assume Thomas was one of the
two unlisted sons in the second marriage and
was born in 1586 or 1587 for
this to work. This makes sense because the
other son in the first marriage,
as the second born, was probably the one
named Edward, leaving Robert
and Thomas as the two from the second
marriage. Edward Harris
died and the widow Anne Josselyn Harris
remarried Robert Leigh (Lee)
around 1589. The Leigh family was located
in Chingford, Essex on the
River Lea just north of Leyton. It is unclear
whether this is the same Sir
Robert Lee that was Lord Mayor of London in
1600 and an investor in the
Virginia Company, but it is usually reported
that way. Anne Josselyn
Harris Leigh had at least seven more children by
Robert Leigh.
Capt. Thomas Harris came to
Virginia on the ship "Prosperous" which is
reported to have sailed from
one of the ports in Cornwall on 27 March
1610/11. It has always
been attributed to Capt. Thomas Harris that he
was the Thomas Harris who
witnessed a will in Stepney in February 1610/11
(a month before sailing) for
one Folk Lee and received a small legacy.
There is no proof it is the
same Thomas Harris but it has always been
carried that way. It
has also been proposed that the legacy was used as
Thomas Harris' investment
in the Second Virginia Charter but how anyone
would know that is beyond
me.
The theoretical supposition
here is that Thomas Harris, son of Edward
Harris and Anne (or Mary)
Josselyn was the Capt. Thomas Harris born in
1586/87. While an infant,
his father died and he grew up with his mother
in the Leigh family providing
his connection to Folk Lee as a kinsman.
Adding a small credence for
a Virginia connection to this theory is the
fact that this would make
his stepfather, Robert Leigh as well as his
step grandfather Sir Francis
Barrington (or his son and heir of the same
name) both investors in the
Virginia Company. The problem is that we
can't identify Folk Lee.
He doesn't appear among the known family of
Robert Leigh nor does any
other record show up on him so far.
Sir Thomas Gates, Governor
of Virginia, however, may provide the main
Virginia connection.
Upon studying the Josselyn and Gates ancestry, we
find the two were closely
connected. While the Josselyns were in
Wallingale, the Gates were
in High Easter, just five miles apart. Even
more remarkable, is that Edward
Harris supposedly had a home or property
in Shellow Bowells which is
between the two other villages. Under this
scenario, if it were to stand,
Capt. Thomas Harris' great grandmother was
a Gates. Sir Thomas
Gates' mother was a Josselyn. The two men would
have shared great grandparents
and because of other family
interconnections would have
essentially been double second cousins.
The story has often been suggested
that there was a Thomas Harris who
accompanied Sir Thomas Gates
on his first voyage to Virginia in 1609 to
become Governor. This
was the voyage that became shipwrecked in Bermuda.
When Gates and his crew
finally arrived in Virginia, they found Sir
Thomas West had been sent
as Governor in his place so Gates and his crew
returned to England.
The voyage in 1611, which brought Capt. Thomas
Harris to Virginia with Sir
Thomas Dale, was part of an expedition to
bring Gates back to Virginia
to replace West as Governor. Sir Thomas
Dale, who was a close friend
of Gates (they had served together for
twenty years), was brought
as Gate's High Marshall or top military
command. Capt. Thomas
Harris was Dale's second in command. Jamestown
was floundering under Capt.
John Smith and West. It was going to be
politically tough for Gates
to come in and turn things around. Was the
combination of Gates/Dale/Harris
a deliberate move so that the top
leadership would be operating
with strong loyalty and trust backing it
up?
What do we need to do?
A. We need to find more primary
records in England to confirm and verify
the Edward Harris family and
hopefully identify the son, Thomas.
B. We need to do the same
for the Robert Leigh family and try to
establish the identity of
Folk Lee (Foulke, Fowlke, Fowke & Leigh or
Lee).
C. We need to explore and
confirm the ancestries of the Josselyn and
Gates families and provide
more proof of the relationships between the
two families.
D. We need to determine from
passenger lists or other historical records
if Thomas Harris really was
on the 1609 voyage with Gates.
2. THE MIDDLETON CONNECTION.
This is a theory that has very recently
surfaced. Although it
cannot be determined with certainty, it seems that
it came out of some professional
work that was done on the Middleton
family. Paul Tobler,
on the Harris-Va message board, has provided much
of the recent insight into
this theory.
As stated in the previous section,
Christopher Harris was the other son
of William Harris of Southminster
by the third wife Anne Rutter. He
married Mary Bridge and resided
at Shenfield. Although not confirmed by
the visitation records or
any other primary record sources, it is
frequently shown that they
had among their children a son named Thomas.
This Thomas Harris was supposedly
born about 1562 but that seems to be a
calculated date. There
is a marriage record in an LDS Vital Record
listing that shows a Thomas
Harris marrying Margaret Middleton on 24
October 1585 at St. Mary's
in Leyton, Essex. Given the record date and
proximity to Shenfield, it
is not a stretch to link this marriage to the
Christopher Harris family.
It then becomes a simple matter to propose
that Thomas Harris was the
first son born to Thomas Harris and Margaret
Middleton a year or so later
in 1586/1587, however, there appears to be
no confirmation of such an
event nor are there any primary records on
such a family. There
are a number of entries proposing this family group
on WorldConnect, but they
all seem to trace back to one source. Given
the amount of mistakes and
discrepancies in the data and the lack of any
listed sources, these cannot
be used as any type of confirmation and
should be discounted as pure
speculation.
Margaret Middleton is stated
to be the daughter of Gov. Richard Middleton
and Jane Dryhurst of Denbigh
Castle in northern Wales. Richard
Middleton/Jane Dryhurst had
16 children. This is confirmed by the
depiction of the nine sons
and seven daughters on the tombs of Richard
Middleton and Jane Dryhurst.
There are extensive accounts on at least
three of the sons in the Dictionary
of National Biography. A daughter
named Margaret is shown on
most family listings and, in various sources,
is stated to have been born
in 1555, 1556, or 1563. At least three of
the sons of Richard Middleton
are known to have ended up in London. Sir
Thomas Middleton became a
very prominent London merchant. He resided at
Stansted, just to the east
of Ware but in Essex. Three of his four wives
were from wealthy Essex families,
and he became Lord Mayor of London in
1613. He was a large
subscriber to the third Virginia Charter in 1623.
Robert Middleton was a merchant
who lived in St. Dunstan's parish in
Stepney. He was also
a subscriber to the Virginia Company. Hugh
Middleton was apparently the
closest sibling in age to his sister,
Margaret. He was a jeweler
and an engineer of sorts. He was in charge
of the project to channel
the River Lea to bring a new water supply to
London. While involved
in the project, he resided in Edmonton and
continued to maintain a home
there for the remainder of his life. His
wife was from an Essex family
and his oldest son married a daughter of a
Sir Thomas Harris whose identity
is unclear. The only problem is that
the water project did not
begin until 1604, almost twenty years after the
Harris/Middleton wedding in
Leyton.
Certainly, the prominence of
these three Middleton brothers in East
London and Essex society lends
itself to the idea that a sister may have
also had connections there.
The problem on this theory is that there is
only one hard record, the
marriage record, and there is nothing that adds
any support or connection
at all on the Virginia side.
What we need to do:
A. Find additional primary
record sources that lend support to this
Thomas Harris/Margaret Middleton
family group.
B. Find something about what
we know in Virginia that could tie back to
this theory in England.
Even if we can confirm that Thomas Harris
married Margaret Middleton
and had a son named Thomas in 1586, it is
still just circumstantial
to say that it was Capt. Thomas Harris.
3. THE OSBORNE CONNECTION.
The idea that Capt. Thomas Harris married a
daughter of Capt. Thomas Osborne
in Henrico has been around for a long
time. We know his wives
were named (1) Adria and (2) Joane from existing
records.. Some have
it as Adria Gurganey and Joane Osborne. Others have
it as Adria Osborne and Joane
Gurganey. Most who have done more than
just copy what someone else
had already done concluded that first wife
Adria was the daughter of
Edward and Anne Gurganey. This is because
later records showed that
Thomas Harris had been willed Gurganey land
upon Anne Gurganey's death
in February 1619/20 and was still married to
Adria in the 1625 muster.
Why would Anne Gurganey will land to Thomas
Harris if he weren't married
to her daughter in 1619? Records infer the
second marriage to Joane did
not take place until after 11 September
1626. Besides, Thomas
Osborne did not come to Virginia until 1619.
Now, there is nothing to prove
that either wife was actually named
Osborne or that he married
a daughter of Thomas Osborne. This seems to
have been first speculated
in a Ligon genealogy published in 1947.
Records on Thomas Osborne
really don't show any daughter. There are no
records that show a direct
connection between Capt. Thomas Harris and
Capt. Thomas Osborne.
All you can really say is that they were in the
same place, at the same time,
doing the same thing. They obviously knew
each other and were probably
close friends. But settling this debate is
not important to the theory,
because all we want to do is show there was
an obvious Virginia connection
between Capt. Thomas Harris and Thomas
Osborne which I think everyone
can agree did occur.
In England, we have two very
interesting records that have surfaced. The
Middlesex Marriage Index database
can now be found online at GENUKI. In
it are the two following marriage
records:
Thomas Osborne married Agneta
Haiwarde, 28 Jan 1571, Edmonton, Middlesex.
Thomas Harris married Agneta
Osborne, 2 July 1587, Edmonton, Middlesex.
Thomas Osborne is listed as
being born in 1577 and living at Little
Hadham right on the border
of Hertfordshire and Essex near Ware. This is
about twenty miles up the
River Lea from Edmonton. Capt. Thomas Harris
is listed as being 38 in the
February 1625 (1624/25) muster so he
calculates to being born in
1586 or 1587. If we fudge just a little for
inaccurate ages back then,
we could make a case for speculating that
Capt. Thomas Harris and Thomas
Osborne might have been half brothers.
Without incorporating the
fudge factor, they still could have been
stepbrothers. But again,
this is pure speculation.
There is another really wild
idea you can find online at LDS FamilySearch
that has absolutely no backup
from any record sources. Supposedly, there
was an Edward Osborne born
c1533 who married an Anne Gurganey and had a
son Thomas Osborne.
The generational timing works out perfectly for this
to be the Thomas Osborne in
the marriage record in 1571. This could
suggest the possibility that
the Harris, Gurganey, and Osborne families
were all interrelated back
in England.
What we need to do:
A. Just find a whole lot more
records in England to support this family
combination.
4. THE LANE/DALE CONNECTION.
Since Capt. Thomas Harris came over with
Sir Thomas Dale in 1611, it
is an obvious place to look for some sort of
connection. I haven't
heard of anyone else who has proposed anything on
this so I guess I have to
take credit (or blame) for this theory.
Fortunately, I was able to
find a tremendous amount of information at
Vaughn Baker's website on
Sir Thomas Dale. It is a password protected
site. You have to register
and be approved to get on. The ancestry of
Dale has never been concluded
and is the subject of a great deal of
study. One fact that
jumped out concerned a cousin of Sir Thomas Dale,
Dorothy Lane. She was
stated to be the widow of William Harris, mariner,
of Wapping.
Expanding on this led to a
number of interesting discoveries. First, a
timeline and placement can
be established with the following marriage
records:
William Harris and Dorothy
Lane, 16 April 1581, St. Dunstan's, Stepney,
Middlesex.
Rowland Coytemore and Christina
Haynes, 13 January 1590/91, Stepney,
Middlesex.
Rowland Coytemore and Dorothy
Harris, 28 March 1595, Whitechapel,
Middlesex.
(Whitechapel is a smaller
parish in Stepney)
Rowland Coytemore and Katherine
Myles, 23 December 1610, Harwich, Essex.
(Harwich is across the River
Lea from Hertford)
Rowland Coytemore was a close
friend of Sir Thomas Dale and served with
him throughout their careers.
He was Captain of the East India Company
and was on the voyage to India
with Dale when Dale died in 1619. By some
accounts, Rowland Coytemore's
family was from Prittlewell, Essex which
was where the Harris family
originated. Coytemore was an investor in the
second Virginia Charter.
Side note: It may help to recognize
the military fraternity to which many
of these men belonged.
A number of the men of East London and Essex had
served together under the
Earl of Essex in campaigns in Ireland, the Low
Countries and Spain during
the 1580/1590s. Most had also attended Gray's
Inn together. Among
this group was:
Wingfield, Percy, West, Gates,
Dale, Yeardley, Radcliff and Argall, all
of the first Governors of
the Virginia Company.
Also Sir Thomas Smyth, Sir
Edwin Sandys, Treasurers of the Virginia Company.
Captain Rowland Coytemore.
Smyth, Gates and West were
all knighted together at Cadiz.
West, Gates, Dale and Yeardley
all served in the same company in Ireland.
Smyth was overseer for Sir
Thomas Dale's will.
These men formed the core
of the group that was responsible for the
colonization of Virginia and
the management of the Virginia Company.
Although Thomas Dale's ancestry
is still a little uncertain, the best
accounts have him as grandson
of John Dale and Elizabeth Lane. John Dale
was a London haberdasher who
had a home in Whitechapel in Stepney and
also a home in Ware.
Sir Thomas Dale, in his will, described himself as
being "of Stepney."
Elizabeth Lane was a sister to William Lane and
niece to Ralph Lane.
The Lanes, of course, were both mariners who had a
large involvement in the Roanoke
voyages. Dorothy Lane, wife of William
Harris, is supposed to be
from the same family although the exact
relationship is unclear.
The theoretical assumption
is pretty easy to make. William Harris and
Dorothy Lane, married in 1581,
were the parents of Thomas Harris, born in
1586. William Harris
died before 1595 and Thomas Harris grew up with his
mother and stepfather, Rowland
Coytemore. Coytemore provided his stepson
with the proper military training
and convinced Sir Thomas Dale to allow
his young cousin to serve
under him in the exploits into Virginia. Upon
his mother's death around
1609, Thomas Harris had all the motivation to
leave his London home a go
to Virginia with Dale. A perfect story for
the facts, but still total
speculation.
We do not know the identity
of William Harris of Wapping other than that
he was a mariner. It
makes sense that he married Dorothy Lane since she
was from a large family of
mariners. Dale researchers say that he was
from the Essex Harrises but
that may just be an assumption designed to
try and tie him to Sir Thomas
Smyth.
One additional thing that may
provide a link here. Sir Thomas Dale was
married to Elizabeth Throckmorton.
She was a cousin to William Berkeley
who was to become the first
Royal Governor of Virginia. Her brother,
William Throckmorton was the
main force behind the establishment of
Berkeley Hundred. John
Woodliffe had come to Virginia in 1608 but
returned to England before
1619 leaving his wife, two children and four
servants in Virginia.
He became a 1/3 partner with Throckmorton and
returned to Virginia in 1619
to act as Captain and Governor of Berkeley
Hundred. He was back
in England during the 1625 Muster and, since his
wife had died, he left his
daughter, Anne, with Thomas Harris. In the
1625 Muster, Thomas Harris
is listed as a "kinsman" to Anne Woodliffe age
7 (spelled Woodlase in the
muster). Is Dale possibly the connection
here?
What do we need to do:
A. Find records in England
that will identify William Harris of Wapping,
determine if he is an Essex
Harris, and determine if he and Dorothy Lane
had a son named Thomas.
B. Find more records on the
Dale and Lane families. Amazingly, these two
historically important families
seem to have very little on them. There
is not even much speculative
genealogy on either one of them.
C. Explore the John Woodliffe
connection more. After all, this is the
only other family we know
for sure that Capt. Thomas Harris was related
to.
There could be other theories
developed and I would encourage anyone to
do so. That is what
propels us to find new information. It could even
end up being some combination
of these theories. For instance, combine
the Middleton Theory and the
Osborne Theory. Thomas Harris, son of
Christopher Harris marries
Margaret Middleton in 1585. She dies in
childbirth having son Thomas
Harris in 1586 and the senior Thomas Harris
remarries widow Agneta Osborne
in 1587 making Thomas Harris and Thomas
Osborne step brothers.
There is still a lot we can
do. You may already have a needed clue in
your research, so start there.
There is so much online now that we need
as many people as we can searching
through all the online databases
especially for English records
we have not been exposed to before. Just
don't use the submission databases
such as WorldConnect, World Family
Tree, or LDS FamilySearch
as confirmation. The genealogist should always
consider what he/she finds
on these to be incorrect because, most of the
time, it usually is.
They should only be used to locate new sources if
the sources have been included
in the submissions.
This will be posted on the
Harris and the Harris-Hunters mail lists on
Rootsweb as well as the Harris-Va
list. The main discussion on this will
probably be on the Harris-Va
list. Postings should go to
Harris-Va-L@rootsweb.com .
I do not subscribe to the other two lists
myself. Your opinions
are welcome. Your ideas are welcome. And your
information is needed provided
it is valid information.
Let's solve this mystery for
Capt. Thomas Harris and for all the Harris
descendants.
I do
not have any official position with the Harris-Va mail list. I'm
just
a participant like everyone else. I suspect this posting on Capt.
Thomas
Harris will result in my e-mail being flooded with general
inquiries
on Harris information for the next week or so. I can't really
help
you. My interests are totally with the first generation of Harrises
that
settled in Virginia in the early 1600s and determining their English
origins.
If they came after that time or migrated west of Richmond, then
I do
not have any reason to retain that information. If you write to ask
me if
I have any information on your Great Grandfather Harris who moved
from
Kentucky to Texas in 1837, then the answer is "No! I'm sorry. I
don't
have anything and I can't help you." And you should consider this
your
response because I will not reply to individual inquiries like that.
If
you want to write directly to me to tell me your opinions about this
topic,
ask questions about the early Harrises or their English origins,
or to
even tell me you think I'm crazy, then I welcome hearing from you.
Thanks. I appreciate your understanding.