The Puzzling Name Wrixham

The Puzzling Name Wrixham MARY BURTON DERRICKSON MCCURDY rr HE UNUSUAL given name Wrixham or Wrixam appears to be I recorded for the first time in 1680 when Wrixam White is named as one of the children of Mr. Ambrose White, deceased, late of Somerset County, Maryland, in the account signed (with her mark) by Comfort White, administrator, 23 August 1680.1 The three children, in order of naming, were Ambrose, Wrixham and Grace. Ambrose White died prior to 31 May 1680, when his widow Comfort came before the court to testify to his death.' He had previously lived in Accomac County, Virginia, and at the time of the inventory of his estate, 23 July 1680, several residents of that county were in debt to him., He patented land there as early as 1671.1 Before that he had acquired a tract called "Northfeild" by deed dated 28 May 1667, from Jenkin Price and wife, lying on the north side of the Pocomoke River. In this Somerset County deed he is described as a mariner from Wing, in the county of Bucks, England.' Thus he was not yet a resident of Somerset County. Comfort White, who probably married Ambrose in Accomac County, Virginia, was, as we learn from Whitelaw, a daughter of 3 Somerset County Inventories, Accounts, 1680-1682, Liber 7, folio 323, Hall of Records, Annapolis: account of the estate of Ambrose White belonging to his three children. 3 Somerset County Testamentary Proceedings, 1680-1682, Liber 12, folio 65, Hall of Records, Annapolis: appearance of the widow of Ambrose White before the court to testify to his death. 3 Somerset County Inventories, Accounts, 1680-1682, Liber 7, folio 313, Hall of Records, Annapolis: inventory of estate of Ambrose White. °Ralph T. Whitelaw, Virginia's Eastern Shore (Gloucester, Mass., 1968), II, 892, Ambrose White in Accomac. 'Archives of Maryland, LIV, 674, deed from Jenkin Price to White. 226 The Puzzling Name Wrixham 227 Nicholas Waddilow and his wife Amy Anderson, widow of Garrett Anderson. One of Amy's Anderson children, William (d. 1698) , whose daughter married the famous Presbyterian minister Francis Makemie, in his will mentions his half-sister Comfort. There were two other Waddilow children, Temperance and Patience. After the death of Waddilow in Accomac, intestate, in 1600, his widow married Thomas Fowkes, whose tavern was the meeting-place for the Accomac court. The court was still meeting there in 1673 when Ambrose White, the then owner, sold it. It is a reasonable inference that Ambrose White was a Quaker, since Fowkes and the Waddilows were know to be Quakers, and Comfort's sister Patience married a Quaker, William Nook, from whom Ambrose White bought two tracts of land in 1679 on the seaboard side of Somerset County. One tract was called "Fair Haven" and the other "Assawaman." In both deeds' Ambrose White is designated as of Somerset County, and in the second as a mariner. He moved with his wife Comfort into Somerset as least as early as 1678, as indicated by the Maryland Archives Index of Early Settlers, as also by the fact that in 1678 he bought 400 acres there from John White.' The widow Comfort White married John Roads of Sussex County, in the territory of Pennsylvania, before 1687 as shown by his will of 17 September in which he names his wife Comfort and bequeaths 100 acres to Grace White on Rehoboth Inlet adjoining "the land of her Brother Wrixham White."' This is the earliest reference found to a Wrixham in the Calendar of Sussex County, Delaware, Probate Records 1680-1800. The widow of Roads later married Jeremiah Scott, deceased, is acknowledging a deed of sale of 200 acres on the south side of Lewis Town near the head of Whorekill Creek.' It is evident from these records that Comfort and two of her White children, Grace and Wrixham, were residents of Sussex County before 1687. The name Wrixham was a favored first name for generations in 'Somerset County Deeds, Liber WW, folios 433, 439. Hall of Records, Annapolis: deeds from Nock to White. 7 Somerset County Deeds, Liber WC, No. 3 folio 5. Hall of Records, Annapolis: deed from John White to Ambrose White. °Sussex County Wills, Book AI, 10. Register of Wills, Georgetown, Del: will of John Roads. 'Sussex County Deeds, Book Al, 205 (microcard). Register of Deeds, Georgetown: deed from Wrixham White as administrator of Comfort Scott's estate to Michael Godwin. 228 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine lines connected with the Ambrose White family. Such is the case with the Whites, Lewises and Wests of Sussex County. Grace White and her husband Peter Lewis had a son named Wrixham." Wrixham is thus introduced into the Lewis line. They also had a daughter Elizabeth who married a Robert West, and the third son of this union, born 30 July 1720, was named Wrexham"— sometimes spelled Wrixham or Wrixam; and the name was carried further down the line in the West family. Richard D. Uhrbrock in his article, "Pilchers (Pilchards) and Reddens of Delmarva,"19 speculates on the origin of the given name of Wrixham Pilchard and raises the question whether it could refer to the town of Wrexham in North Wales, since one writer had suggested that the Pilchers came from Wales. Mr. Uhrbrock notes that the name Wrixham was found in Worcester County, Maryland prior to 1777. (Worcester County was earlier the seaboard part of Somerset County, the area bordering on Sussex County, Delaware.) Since Wrixham Pilchard, born 8 January 1804, was the son of Levin Pilchard and his wife Agnes Watson, the daughter of Jonathan West Watson of Worcester County, Maryland, it seems possible that he owes his given name to a relationship with the West family mentioned above. Wrixham or Wrixam looks like a surname. It is possible that there was a family of this name allied with the family of Ambrose White or Comfort Waddilow. We do not know the English origin of Nicholas Waddilow, or the maiden name of his wife, but we do know that Ambrose White came from Wing in Buckinghamshire. The Wing parish registers are extant from 1546. I have not seen the original registers, but on examining the extracts of christenings and marriages made by the Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," I have found only one reference to an 14 Sussex County Deeds, Book Al, 209; Book F6, 146. Hall of Records, Dover, Del.; deed from Thompson to Lewis. See my article "George Thompson, the Welcome Passenger," The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine, XXIX, (1975), 21-26. 11"Notes on the West Family of Sussex County, Delaware," contirbuted by Rev. C.H.B. Turner of Lewes, Publications of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, HI, (1907), 139. 12 Richard S. Uhrbrock, "Pitchers (Pilchards) and Reddens of Delmarva," The Virginia Genealogist, 18, (July-September 1974) 193. la This Society has gathered the christenings and marriages from the Wing parish Registers 1546-1812, and arranged each set of records alphabetically according to family names in chronological order. These records have been microfilmed and were ordered from Salt Lake City by the Raleigh, N.C., L.D.S. Branch Genealogical Library for my use there. The Puzzling Name Wrixham 229 Ambrose White in Wing, the christening 22 August 1659, a son Thomas born to Ambrose White and wife Bridgett. If this was the Ambrose White of the Eastern Shore, then Comfort was not his first wife. A Thomas White, possibly Ambrose's father, judging from the name of his son, was married to Joan Dorsette in Wing, 16 May 1633, and they christened a son John there 3 September 1637. Possibly this John was a brother of Ambrose, and the John White from whom Ambrose, as already noted, bought land in Maryland. Other Whites in Wing parish were christening children between 1603 and 1660. There is no evidence of a marriage connecting the Whites with any Wrixham, a name which does not appear in any variation in the register extracts of this period in Wing. However, the somewhat similar surname Rixon, with variations Wrixsonne and Risson, can be found in other parishes in the county of Buckingham, though not connected by marriage with any White." The nearest approximation to the name Wrixham found in Buckinghamshire is Wrexham, which is indexed only once in The Victoria History of the County of Buckingham. This proves to be James Wrexham, rector of Haversham, about 15 miles northwest of Wing. Of him it is written that he was "a melancholy divine and very often disturbed," he became deeply occupied with speculations on the Second Coming, to the point of madness before his death in 1684.11 Such a man may have made a lasting impression, by his fervent convictions, on Ambrose White when he was of Buckinghamshire and it is conceivable that Wrixham White owed his name to the rector of Haversham. As to the occurrence of the name in other records, Alumni Oxionienses 1500-171418 gives William Wrixham (Wrexhame, Wryham, Wryxham) , rector of Handsworth, Staffordshire, who died in 1505, and John Wrixham, secular chaplain in 1520. 14 Microfiche cards for the county of Buckingham, England in the files of the LDS Branch Genealogical Library, Raleigh, N.C. The Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, collated christenings and marriages from many English parishes by counties, including many parishes in Buckingham, including Wing. These records are arranged alphabetically and chronologically under each family name, denoting whether the record is of a marriage or christening, with date and place. is The Victoria History of the County of Buckingham, ed. by William Page, (London, 1905) I, 335. 16 Alumni aronienses, 1500-1714, ed. by Joseph Foster, (Oxford & London, 1927), IV, S—Z. 230 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine Alumni Cantabrigienses of this period" gives no Wrixham or Wrex- ham but only, as an approximation, Ambrose Wrightson, who was admitted sizar at age 19 in 1639 at St. John's, son of Thomas, husband. man of Larington, Ronaldkirk, Yorkshire. In the New England Historic and Genealogical Register, surnames Wrixon and Wrixen are cited from English records." In the first instance, a letter of 12 September 1661, is referred to which concerns Lord Baltimore's interest in Newfoundland and the testimony of William Wrixon and others. The Wrixen spelling is from Dorsetshire in 1654, the county in which Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr. has noted that the surname Wrixon was found in the 17th century; and he is of the opinion that Wrixham may be a variant of Wrixon and may be derived from the name of a place. Mrs. D. A. Potter of Lewes, Delaware, says that Wrixham is also Rixsom, Ricksun and Wrexham in Wales, and she believes it is chiefly a Welsh placename. In the index of places in the New England Historic and Genealogical Register there is reference to Wrixham in Derbyshire and to Wrexham in Denbighshire, Wales." However, the place-name Wrixham is not found in the Quarter Inch Atlas and Gazetteer of Great Britain," nor in The Survey Gazetteer of the British Isles." Both gazetteers list Wrexham, North Wales. The latter gazetteer also lists another Wrexham, a hamlet in south Buckinghamshire one and one half miles northeast of Slough. This hamlet, however, is really Wexham,,not Wrexham; and the gazetteer in fact gives both placenames with the same description. The history and location of Wexham are given in The Victoria History of the County of Buckingham.22 It is the smallest parish in Stokes Hundred and very near u Alumni Cantabrigienses, comp. by John & J. A. Venn, (Cambridge, 1927), Part I, earliest times to 1751, IV, S—Z. New England Historic and Genealogical Register, XL (1886), 177. Wrixon in Egerton MS 2395; items 308, 309. Ibid., LXXIX (1925), 414. Wrixen in a marriage record found in parish registers of county Dorset. 1.9 1sIew England Historic and Genealogical Register, IV (1850), 245; XXVIII (1873), 425. Wrexham, Denbighshire, Wales. Ibid., XI (1857), 112. Wrixham, Derbyshire. 49 Quorter Inch Atlas and Gazetteer of Great Britain, pub. by Director General, Ordnance Survey, (Southampton, 1969). 21 The Survey Gazetteer of the British Isles, pub. by John Bartholomew and Sons, Ltd., (Edinburgh, 1932). "The Victoria History of the County of Buckingham, III, 318, cited in note 15 above. The Puzzling Name Wrixham 231 Stokes Poges. This history of Buckinghamshire lists no place named Wrexham. The Wrixham in Derbyshire cited above also seems to be an error, in view of the fact that the reference concerns an agreement between Edward Kidder of Wrixham in Derbyshire and Theophilus Yale of Chester, by which Kidder was to serve Yale four years after arrival in Boston. Probably Kidder was rather from Wrexham in Denbighshire which is only twelve miles from Chester, the residence of Yale. Wrexham, North Wales, remains the nearest approximation of a place-name to Wrixham. Furthermore, Wrexham is said to have been Wrightesham, (compare Ambrose Wrightson above) , in Anglo Saxon times, the poet Churchyard in the sixteenth century characterized it as "Trim Wricksam towne," which suggests it was so pronounced." Does Wrixham, or a variant of it, occur as a surname in the neighborhood of the residences of Ambrose White and his immediate family in the Colonies in the seventeeth century? The answer is negative for Virginia and for Sussex County, Delaware, insofar as covered by Torrence's Virginia Wills," Nugent's abstracts of Virginia land patents," and the probate records of Sussex County, Delaware." As for Maryland, it fails to occur in the Maryland Calendar of Wills;'- but there is a John Rixon who proves his right to fifty acres of land for finishing his service in the province, 10 January 1671." This same John Rixon of Someset County recorded a patent of two hundred acres, 27 June 1679, called "Dowgate," on the Chesapeake Bay." (Incidentally, Dowgate is the oldest of the London ports.) The tract called "Dowgate" was transferred in June 1701 by John Christopher, Jr., and wife Mary, daughter of John Rickson, 23 Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th Ed., (Philadelphia, 1889), XXIV, 726. 24 Clayton Torrence, Virginia Wills and Administrations, 1632-1800. (Richmond, 1931). ea cavaliers and Pioneers, Abstracts of Virginia Land Patents and Grants, 16231666, abstracted and indexed by Nell Marion Nugent, (Baltimore, 1969). 26 Calendar of Sussex County, Delaware Probate Records, 1680-1800, comp. by Leon de Valinger, (Dover, Dol., 1964). 27 The Maryland Calendar of Wills, comp. and ed. by Jane Baldwin, (Baltimore, 1904). asmaryland Patents, Liber 16, folio 536. Hall of Records, Annapolis, John Rixon proves his right to 50 acres of land. nMaryland Patents, Liber 21, folio 20. Hall of Records, Annapolis, patent of "Dowgate" to John Rixon. 232 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine late of Somerset, deceased, and Ann Rickson and Susannah Rickson, youngest daughters of the aforesaid John Rickson, to David Shele.3° It is stated in the document that the land had been granted to "John Rixon" in January 1679. Contemporary with Wrixham White of Sussex County, who left a widow Hannah and unnamed children in 1719/20," was Simcock White, who died intestate in Accomac County in 1719, leaving a wife Mary and a son Wrixham;32 and contemporary also was John Wharton of Somerset, formerly of Accomac, who died 1720/21, leaving a wife Susannah and a son Wrixham.33 Kinship between all these persons is suggested by the name Wrixham, but Simcock White was not a brother of Wrixham White, nor was Susannah a sister, to judge from the distribution of Ambrose White's property, referred to above. The question arises whether Susannah, the wife of John Wharton, and Mary, the wife of Simcock White, were two of the daughters of John Rixon, mentioned in the Christopher indenture of June 1701. John and Susannah Wharton sold an Accomac tract of land to Simcock and Mary White, so they at least had a business connection." Whatever its origin, the name Wrixham descended in the Wharton family in Maryland to at least the end of the eighteenth century. A very interesting conjunction of variants of Wrixham is found in the will of John Cropper of Somerset, probated 12 November 1709.35 He leaves to his youngest son, "Wrixsom Groper" 150 acres of the 700 acre tract of his home plantation called "Wrixsom." On investigation it turns out that the 700 acres that John Cropper had inherited from his father, John Cropper of Somerset, was itself a portion of a 1200 acre tract called "Rixsome" in the father's will so Somerset County Deeds, Liber L07, 1691-1706, folio 623. Hall of Records, Annapolis, deed from John Christopher, Jr., and wife Mary, Ann Rickson and Susannah Rickson, to David Shele. 3,Sussex County Wills, Book Al, 127. Register of Wills, Georgetown, will of Wrixham White. 32 See Whitelaw, II, 1144, cited in note 4, for Simcock White, wife Mary and son Wrixham. 33 Somerset County Wills, Liber 17, folio 21. Hall of Records, Annapolis, will of John Wharton. 84 See Whitelaw, II, 1144, cited in note 4, for land from Wharton to Simcock White. 35 Somerset County Wills, Liber 12, folio 248ab. Hall of Records, Annapolis, will of John Cropper, Jr. The Puzzling Name Wrixham 233 of 5 September 1686." This was the elder John Cropper's home plantation and was located on a bay on the seaboard side of Somerset County. The tract is not found under that name among Somerset County patents, or in any Maryland deed to John Cropper, so no date for the name has been established. Clearly, the name of John Cropper's plantation and the name of his grandson are the same. The elder John Cropper had some acquaintanceship with the family of Ambrose White, for on 9 August 1680, he furnished part of the bond of 15,000 pounds of tobacco for Comfort White as administrator of White's estate." It seems probable that Wrixham White was born in Accomac County before his parent moved to Somerset County in 1678 and did not owe his name to John Cropper's tract of land in Somerset. No association of John Cropper and Ambrose White with John Rixon has been found, but all were contemporaries in Somerset County, Maryland, and all may have originated in Buckinghamshire, England as all three names are found in the parish records there. The fact that Wrixham was written Wrixam in many documents indicates that the h sound was not emphasized in pronunciation, and it must have sounded much like Wricksam, as the Welsh town, Wrexham, was called in the sixteenth century. Wrixsom, Rixsome, Rixon and Rickson, could be other phonetic interpretations of Wrixham. The name Wrixham in Delmarva can be used by genealogists to help trace family connections although the mystery of its origin is still unsolved. "Somerset County Wills, Liber 6, folio 33. Hall of Records, Annapolis, will of John Cropper, Sr. "Somerset County Testamentary Proceedings, 1680-1682, Liber 12, folio 111. Hall of Records, Annapolis, bonds for Comfort White, administrator of the estate of Ambrose White. The Board of Directors, on January 20, 1976, accepted with regret the resignations of Effingham P. Humphrey, Jr. as a member of the Board and as Editor of THE PENNSYLVANIA GENEALOGICAL MAGAZINE. The president expressed on behalf of the Society its recognition and appreciation of the very substantial and meritorious service given by Mr. Humphrey in his positions as Editor and member of the Board. The Society trusts he will have a complete recovery from the physical ailment which necessitated his resignations.