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SIMON CROSBY THE EMIGRANT:
HIS ENGLISH ANCESTRY, AND SOME
OF HIS AMERICAN DESCENDANTS
HIS ENGLISH ANCESTRY, AND SOME
OF HIS AMERICAN DESCENDANTS
BY
ELEANOR DAVIS CROSBY BOSTON
PRESS OF GEO. H. ELLIS CO.
1914
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Table of Contents
Front matter
Title page
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Chapter I. The English ancestry of Simon Crosby the emigrant
Chapter II. Thomas Crosby, father of Simon the eimigrant
Chapter III. Simon Crosby the emigrant
Chapter IV. Simon Crosby of Billerica
Chapter V. Early Crosbys in Billerica
Chapter VI. Two of the Crosby family in Billerica during the revolutionary period
Chapter VII. The first merchant in the family
Chapter VIII. The present-day Crosbys of this line of the family
Appendices
Genealogical index
Front matter
Title page
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Chapter I. The English ancestry of Simon Crosby the emigrant
Chapter II. Thomas Crosby, father of Simon the eimigrant
Chapter III. Simon Crosby the emigrant
Chapter IV. Simon Crosby of Billerica
Chapter V. Early Crosbys in Billerica
Chapter VI. Two of the Crosby family in Billerica during the revolutionary period
Chapter VII. The first merchant in the family
Chapter VIII. The present-day Crosbys of this line of the family
Appendices
Genealogical index
books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5QadA0jMb5HfqKIJeiB_PaEMMOJaUk6-s4C7-QHYSYDL9ZE0dfFiJNi3BjkzXKtMMRXd1kkDjhMIfWVNB1fQr2YSRA1fC0ZY7lQTQW7dn3BhxEHsXXc_FkMtxtsi_-rp2hPfa0m47QWvcPRPzW0SZftZ8N7O9idPgz7Nhyf98B89_G6B3PYb0XVtQ0Tm5ytXNMJTnfMUU2tRo_gN9JiykL0AbR6Uc2jwpYhiDgKh8fVoR6aqXD-krHaDOL1OWEOalUUch3quvxt7kWwrL2S6U5pwOFtWCTg
Simon the Immigrant pp xi - xiii
In all, Mr. Bartlett examined nine hundred wills, and all the records pertaining to the Crosby family to which he could get access in York County.
London, 28 March 1913.
My dear Mrs. Crosby, -I herewith submit report of the Crosby search, consisting of 237 type-written pages on the Crosby and allied families, 8 charts of the Crosbys and allied families of Lambert, Ellithorpe, Brigham, Sotheron, Millington, Watson and Belt, views of the church of Holme on-Spalding-Moor and a map of Yorkshire. Crosby.”
J. GARDNER BARTLETT.
Crosby, a township in the parish of Bottesford in Northern Lincolnshire, is mentioned in Domesday Book in 1086, as follows:
“Lands of Ivo Talbois in Lincolnshire. In Crosbi, Siward formerly had five oxgangs * of land to be taxed. There is .arable] land there for two ploughs. Five acres of land belong to the soke. Odo, a vassal of Ivo's, has there one plough and a half, six villanes,f one bordar f with one
*An oxgang varied in size; but in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire was about twenty-five acres.
t A villane was a peasant serf of the lord of a manor.
xii INTRODUCTION
plough, three mills of 8 shillings, and eighteen acres of meadow. Value in King Edward’s time 30 shillings, now 40 shillings.” (Bawdwen's Domesday of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, p. 486.)
About 1181, Alice, daughter of Isabel de Crokesby, renders an account of one mark for rights in forty acres of land in Crokesby. She has paid into the Exchequer and is acquitted. (Great Roll of the Pipe, Lincolnshire, 28 Henry II. (1181–82.) Translated from the Latin.)
This latter record is the earliest mention found of the use of a Crosby place as a family surname.
Crosby, a township in the parish of Leake in Yorkshire, is about thirty miles northwest of the city of York. This place also is named in the great Domesday Survey of 1086, in a schedule of the lands in Yorkshire of Earl Alan. “In Crocsbi to be taxed three carucates, and there may be one plough. Bernulf formerly held a manor there. The same now holds it of the Earl, and it is waste. The whole is two miles in length and half in breadth. There are moors there.
Value in King Edward’s time five shillings.” (Bawdwen's Domesday of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, p. 106.)
It appears that all the places called “Crosby” are found named on records as early as the twelfth century, and probably all of them were founded and named by the Danes during the tenth century, which was the period of their greatest activity in settling in England. Although but two of the places (those in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire) are found mentioned as early as Domesday Book (1086), it must be remembered that Domesday does not cover Westmoreland and Cumberland at all, nor parts of Lancashire, in which counties the other places named “Crosby.” are located. These very early mentions of the name of Crosby have only a certain historical value and are of no great impor
INTRODUCTION xiii
tance in the history of a branch of a certain family except to the historically curious. In like manner, for those interested in the subject of heraldry the following information is given: Among coats-of-arms of various Crosby families in England appear the following (all except the first are given in Burke’s “General Armoury”):—
Sable, a chevron ermine, between three rams trippant argent, armed and hoofed or. These arms are on the tomb of Sir John Crosby, Knt., alderman of London, who died in 1475.
Sable, a chevron ermine, between three rams passant argent. Granted in 1771 to Brass Crosby, Lord Mayor of London.
Azure, on a chevron between three lambs passant or, as many roses proper. Confirmed in 1821 to Vinus H. Crosby, grand-nephew of Brass Crosby.
Argent, a lion rampant sable, between two dexter hands couped at the wrist gules. Crosby of Newcastle-on-Tyne, co. Northumberland, and of Yorkshire. (No other particulars given.)
Per chevron argent and sable, three guttées counter changed. Crosby (no place or other particulars given).
Per chevron argent and sable, three unicorns’ heads couped counterchanged. Crosby (no place or other particulars given).
Per chevron sable and argent, three goats passant counterchanged. Crosby (no place or other particulars given).
There are also several coats-of-arms assigned to Crosbie families of Ireland.
In like manner, reference is made to Matthew’s “American Armoury and Blue Book,” page 201, part 2, [1913].
xiv. INTRODUCTION
An extensive search has failed to show that the Crosby's of Alne and Holme-on-Spalding-Moor, Co. York, ancestors of Thomas' Crosby, the progenitor of the Crosbys of America, used or claimed any coat-of-arms; while they were of the best class of landowning yeomanry, they apparently were not of the armorial gentry, although the two daughters and coheiresses of Thomas" Crosby (eldest surviving son of Thomas' Crosby, the New England Puritan colonist) married into the armorial families of Belt and Bower of York shire. It is therefore to be concluded that the American Crosbys are not entitled to a coat-of-arms.
The derivation of the name of " Crosby " seems to be generally given as coming from “cross," the symbol of Christianity, and the Danish termination “ by,” which suffix is equivalent to the “bury," "burg," or "borough" of other derivatives meaning a town or centre of population, and hence "Crosby" meant "the town of the Cross," or the town located near a cross or where a cross had been set up. Which might very well have been, for when Christianity made its appearance in England in 597 with the advent of Augustine* it is not too much a stretch of the imagination to suppose that the establishment of a large cross near any hamlet which up to then had not been of sufficient importance to bear a name might thereafter be designated as the “town of the cross," or "Cross-by"; or even that such establishment of a cross in days when Christianity had not generally been adapted in Britain was enough of a challenge to the rest of the country that those who dwelt in its shadow were of the Christian faith and no longer worshiped WodenT and "the gods of their fathers.”
* Green's History of the English People, vol. 1, p. 48.
f Knight's History of England, vol. 1, p. 64 et seq.
INTRODUCTION XV
There is little doubt in the minds of etymologists that such was the origin of the name of “Crosby,” nor is there much doubt that the name attached itself to some town or towns before it came to be used as the surname of any family. For in early days in England among the middle and yeoman class and before the awakening of much family interest a man might be known as simply by his given name, such as Thomas, and, to designate him the better, he would be called Thomas of the town he lived in, as “Thomas of Crosby,” and later, removing elsewhere, would still be known as “Thomas of Crosby,” and then as Thomas Crosby; and hence began the use of the name as a family name.
And this appears to be borne out by the fact that in all the very earliest references to the name it appears as “de Crosseby,” which is the French way of saying “of Crosby,” and was so used as the family name for over two hundred years, viz., 1204–1415, when for the first time, so far as recorded, the “de” is dropped. It is interesting, also, to note that in the spelling of the name in those days the derivation from “cross” is plainer than it is to-day, by spelling the name “Crosseby.”
xvi INTRODUCTION
use did not come in until the eleventh century, which was coincident with the arrival of the Normans.
Lower, in his excellent work on English surnames,” says: “It is certain that the practice of making the second name of the individual stationary and transmitting it to descendants came generally into use during the eleventh and three following centuries. By the middle of the twelfth it began, in the estimation of some, to be essential that persons of rank should bear some designation in addition to their baptismal name.” Which would appear to explain why the “de” was used in 1204 when the Norman influence was still strongly felt. But that the name “Crosby.” should be of Norman origin is rendered extremely doubtful from the purely Danish suffix “by” and the entirely English way of spelling “cross,” viz., “Crosse.” Then, too, the fact that we find eight or ten towns called “Crosby” and all located in the north of England, in Scotland, and in the Isle of Man, must surely indicate that some of these towns were of an origin prior to that of the Normans; for mention is made of a Crosby f in Lancashire in the reign of Henry III. And it is hardly to be supposed that all these towns were founded after the arrival of William the Conqueror, and all in that part of England furthest away from the influence of the Normans, even in Scotland, whither William drove many of his enemies as exiles in their flight. f
The campaign of 1068, in which William impressed his personality on the north of England, was absolutely on his part a campaign of vengeances for the slaughter of his garrison in York, and he so devastated the country as far as the
* “English Surnames,” p. 31. f Testa de Nevill, 1220 A.D.
fºreen's History of the English People, vol. 1, p. 125. § Ibid., p. 124.
INTRODUCTION xvii
Tees “that no hold might remain for future landings of the Danes. Crops, cattle, the very implements of husbandry were so mercilessly destroyed that a famine which followed is said to have swept off more than a hundred thousand victims. Half a century later indeed the land still lay bare of culture and deserted of men for sixty miles northward of York.” (Green.) So we can hardly imagine an unfriendly people giving expression to their gratitude after such an experience, naming several of their towns at that time by a name distinctly Norman in its origin. In brief, we should expect to find any towns named Crosby, had that name been of Norman origin, located in the south of England, where Norman influence was most felt, and not in the north, where, as we have seen, those were driven who still adhered to the cause of Saxon England.” But is it not more logical to suppose that “Crosby” was the name of towns in the north of England before the Normans came at all, and that the name not only meant “the town of the cross,” but, in meaning that, it held a special significance? For we read how Oswald of Northumbria kneels before the cross at Hexham,i showing that the establishment of crosses was not general at that time, and therefore still more to be supposed that towns which theretofore had set up the symbol of Christianity were sufficiently proud of their progress and enlightenment in the midst of pagan surroundings to proclaim themselves residents of “the town of the cross,” or “Crosby.” And this, it would seem, must dispose of any argument that admits of any other origin than the Danish origin we first mentioned.
* Knight's History of England, vol. 1, p. 196. t Ibid., p. 173.
xviii INTRODUCTION
And of these towns so named there appear to have been ten, as follows:—
1. CROSBY in Lincolnshire.
2. CROSBY GARRET in Westmoreland.
3. CROSBY RAVENSworTH in Westmoreland.
4. CROSBY in Cumberland.
5. CROSBY (possibly Crosby Cannonby), also in Cumberland.
6. GREAT CROSBY in Lancashire.
7. LITTLE CROSBY, also in Lancashire.
8. CROSBY in Yorkshire.
9. CROSBY in the Isle of Man.
10. CROSBY in Ayrshire in Scotland.
This list of towns and hamlets called “Crosby” is given here simply to identify their location in the north of England in the light of the probable origin of the name, and not be
cause any of them have any special interest to the student of the Crosby family in America, for it does not appear that the ancestors of Thomas Crosby of Yorkshire, the founder of the family in America which we are writing of, were in any way connected with any town named “Crosby,” except so far back as that time, previously indicated, when the surname “Crosby” might have attached itself to a family living in a hamlet so named.
* Mentioned in Testa de Nevill, 1220.
† Philips's Handy Atlas of the Counties of England. London, 1888.
INTRODUCTION xix
dependency of Thorneholme (and thus of Thornton Abbey) and of the Gaykewell Monastery, and situated on the Deaconate of Manlake.”*
Crosby Garret rises to the importance of a place on the maps, as does Crosby Ravensworth, which is six miles north west of it. These two places are in the southeast part of Westmoreland between Kirkby Stephen and Appleby.
“Crosby Garret (also called Crosby Gerard, Crosby Gerrard, Crosbygere and Crossebyger) is in Westmoreland, about sixteen miles east of Ulleswater. It is probably the same with ‘Parva Crossebygg, in Westmoreland,’ of Edward II.'s reign, 1310. It is mentioned in Richard II.'s reign, 1380, and afterward.”f
There is a small place on the coast of Cumberland called “Crosby,” but very insignificant in importance. The principal place of this name in Cumberland is just north of Carlisle. “Crosby (called Crosseby, Crosseby juxta Eden, Crosseby in Allerdale, and perhaps Crosby Cannonby, and in Edward I.'s time “Alta Cresseby,’ 1300) is a barony, four miles north of Carlisle, in Cumberland. I find it first mentioned about 1300, in the ‘Placite de quo warrante” of Edward I.” f
Ernest Howard Crosby, in his pamphlet on the Crosby family, says, “The parish of Crosby-upon-Eden, near Carlisle, in Cumberland, containing the villages of High Crosby and Low Crosby, which is supposed to have derived its name from the ancient cross to which the inhabitants resorted for prayer before the church was built on its site in the reign of Henry I.” (“The Crosby Family of New York,” by Ernest Howard Crosby, p. 1.)
* “A Crosby Family,” p. 3, by Nathan Crosby. (These references to “A Crosby Family” are given only on their face value, and have not been confirmed by the author of this work, as it was not considered of sufficient importance to do so. They are credited to the researches of a Chancellor Crosby, who is said to have made them about 1855.-ED.)
XX INTRODUCTION
Crosby Station in the Isle of Man is in Glenfaba, a few miles west of Douglas. The Crosbys located in Yorkshire and in Ayrshire in Scotland are of even less importance.
*These records of the reign of Henry III. were ordered printed in the time of George III.
as per report of the sub-committee of the House of Commons, as follows: “In the King's Re
membrance Office of the Court of Exchequer are preserved two ancient books called the Testa
de Nevill or Liber Feodorum. The entries, which are specially called Testa de Nevill, are
evidently quotations; they have in all probability been copied from a Roll bearing that name,
a part of which is still extant at the Chapter House of Westminster, containing ten Counties;
the Roll appears to be of the age of Edward I. and agrees with the entries in these books.
INTRODUCTION xxi
where he did come from. But the wish must have been father of the thought, for we are unable to find any connection between the family which settled on the shores of New England in the early part of the seventeenth century and the family of Crosbys which were known to have come from Lancashire, some of which achieved some reputation in the affairs of the country afterwards. And, from what we have already said, it is open to a good deal of question if the Crosbys we are concerned with were in any way connected with Crosby in Lancashire, for we find them living in Yorkshire as far back as our records go, and very likely they were there for a still longer time previous to the time to which we are able to go back, and may have got their name from the town of Crosby in Yorkshire or have come to that county from any of the other Crosbys in the north of England. And so, while all this history of the Crosby family is interesting to the student of the subject, the matter is so enshrouded with mystery and uncertainty that the probability is that it will never be known exactly where the family we are interested in got its name nor at what time. These are the sorts of thing that crystallize and take form out of apparent nebulous mists of antiquity, and are only valuable as a thing to dream and speculate upon.
Before leaving this subject we must give a little attention to Sir John Crosby and Crosby Hall of London, more because of the name they bear than because of any proved connection with the American family of Crosby.
For many years there has been a rumor or tradition among the Crosbys of America that Simon the Emigrant must have been descended or connected with Sir John Crosby of London, builder of the famous Crosby Hall; in this case, again, the wish being father of the thought. In 1466, one John Crosby, a wealthy London merchant,
xxii INTRODUCTION
built in Bishopsgate Street an exceedingly handsome house, which eventually became known as Crosby Hall, and which was considered to be one of the finest examples of Gothic domestic architecture belonging to that period *; which, be cause of its beauty, historical interest, and that protecting fate which sometimes preserves things for us in spite of the ruthless onward rush of progress and civilization, came down to modern times, when its fame was increased by the excellence of the chops served in it. Neither the date of his birth nor his birthplace, so far as we have been able to discover, is known.f The report that he was a foundling and derived his name from having been found near a cross is, of course, absurd.
Sir John Crosby, Knt., was born about 1410, son of John Crosby of London living 1406 and 1415, grandson of John Crosby of London living 1390, and great-grandson of Sir John Crosby, Knt. who was an alderman of London, lord of the manor of Hanworth, and died before 1375.
He inherited from his ancestors the manor of Hanworth, and, embark ing in trade, in 1452 became a freeman of the Grocers’ Company, and soon amassed a large fortune as a wool-dealer and import grocer.f
His life in London was an active one, occupied much with public affairs and public charities. In 1440 he was elected sheriff of London, being already an alderman. Whether he was knighted for resisting the attack of the Bastard Falconbridge as some seem to think,' and hence received the honor for gallantry in the field, or whether it was upon the occasion of his going forth to meet Edward IV. in 1461 be tween Shoreditch and Islington, upon the entry of that monarch into London, and upon which occasion he attended in his capacity of alderman, is possibly uncertain; suffice it
* “Crosby Hall,” printed by Marchant Singer & Co. London, 1876.
f Report of E. S. Carlos, 1832, on “The Preservation of Crosby Hall.”
INTRODUCTION xxiii
to say that he was knighted as the reward for a public duty well done. In 1472 he was appointed one of the commissioners for settling the differences between Edward IV. and the Duke of Burgundy, having by that time built Crosby Hall, and become himself one of the foremost men in London.*
He then became a member of Parliament for London, and received further commissions from his sovereign, showing in what high regard he was held.
SUMNER CROSBY. BROOKLINE, MASS., August, 1914.