Madison County Genealogical Society

Minutes of the Meeting – October 10, 2019

The October 2019 meeting of the Madison County Genealogical Society was held at the Edwardsville Public Library on Thursday, October 10, at 7:00 pm.

President, Robert Ridenour, called the meeting to order.

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October Meeting

 

On October 10, 2019, David Axtell presented a program titled A Tale of Two Brothers — The Axtells in 17^th Century England and After

 

Back in 1642, a little quarrel broke out in merry old England, between the King, Charles I, and Parliament. This quarrel rapidly escalated into a civil war. From WIKIPEDIA:

 

The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians (“Roundheads”) and Royalists (“Cavaliers”) principally over the manner of England’s governance. The first (1642–1646) and second (1648–1649) wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third (1649–1651) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The war ended with Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651.

 

The outcome of the war was threefold: the trial and execution of Charles I (1649); the exile of his son, Charles II (1651); and the replacement of English monarchy with, at first, the Commonwealth of England (1649–1653) and then the Protectorate under the personal rule of Oliver Cromwell (1653–1658) and briefly his son Richard (1658–1659). In England, the monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship was ended, while in Ireland the victors consolidated the established Protestant Ascendancy. Constitutionally, the wars established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without Parliament’s consent, although the idea of Parliamentary sovereignty was only legally established as part of the Glorious Revolution in 1688.

 

At the same time, in the village of Berkhamsted, just north of London, two brothers were just coming into their prime. They were Thomas and Daniel Axtell. They came from an old English family that had been around since before the Norman Conquest in 1066. This is known as the name appears in the Domesday Book, the census taken by William I immediately after the Conquest. The name appears as Osketiel, Osketill and Ansketill. (Spelling was not too exact in those days.)

 

The name originally comes from old Norse, “Asketill.” This is a combination of “As,” the Norse name for the Gods, and “Ketill” or kettle. It apparently referred to the person who kept the container used to collect a blood sacrifice to the Gods.

 

The first recorded ancestor in their family line was Johannes Akstyl, born in 1520. His great-grandson was William Axtell, the father of Thomas and Daniel. Thomas and Daniel had six siblings, four brothers and two sisters. There is no record of the subsequent lives of those siblings.

 

After the start of the Civil Conflict, the lives of the two brothers took totally different paths. One avoided the conflict altogether, while the other joined in with a passion. Thomas, the elder, who had two children, elected to emigrate to America, which he did in 1642. Daniel enlisted in the forces opposing the King. Both were strongly religious, believers in the strict Protestantism of the Puritan faith. This belief led to their choices of their future lives, Thomas joining the Puritan migration to America and Daniel joining the “Roundheads” in opposing the King.

 

At first, Daniel was just an ordinary soldier in the Roundhead forces, but he exhibited exemplary abilities and was soon promoted to officer. When Oliver Cromwell became head of the Parliamentary forces, Daniel was promoted to Captain, then later to Colonel. As Colonel, he was the officer in command of the King’s guard at the execution of Charles I. For this reason, he is known as the “Regicide.” As Colonel, he was complicit in the violent oppression of the Catholic Irish, for which he was known in Ireland as “Bloody Daniel.” He was later made Governor of Kilkenny. He retired from the military in 1657, returning to Berkhamstead, where he was granted ownership of Berkhamstead House. He was also given a Coat of Arms, the motto of which is “We Glory Under The Cross.”

 

Daniel was married to Mary Marsam in 1639 and had a daughter (name unknown) and two sons, Daniel, born in 1640, and William, born in 1646. The story of Daniel Jr. we will get back to later. William was born in West Africa in what is now Liberia. He was probably a “natural child.” His mother was probably not white and what her connection was with Daniel is unknown. There is no further information about him.

 

In 1660, upon the return of Charles II to the throne, Daniel (Senior) was arrested and sent to the Tower of London by June 14, 1660, when he was specifically excepted from the general Bill of Pardon by Charles II, even though Daniel had not been one of the judges who signed the death warrant for Charles I. The trial of the Regicides was quite notable in London, even being mentioned in the diary of Samuel Pepys, a major English historian.

 

The trial for the regicides began October 9, 1660; Axtell was 11^th on the list. He initially refused to plead guilty or innocent, arguing precedents that the court had no power to try him. But after the Solicitor General counseled him that remaining silent was to admit guilt, he pled “not guilty.” The trial began October 15, 1660.

 

“I came to the trial of Charles I,” he said, “not voluntarily, but by command of the General, who had a commission from Parliament. I was no councilor, no contriver, I was no parliamentary man, none of the judges, none that sentenced, signed, none that had a hand in the execution, only that which is charged is that I was an officer in the army.” The Chief Justice complimented him on his manifest diligence in the study of law, but with his associates overruled his plea, deciding that the command of a superior officer constituted no excuse, for the superior officer whom he obeyed was a traitor and all that joined him were traitors.

 

The result was certain from the first. The prisoner, finding his argument of no avail, said, “I leave all to the jury in whose hands I and my little ones and my family are left.” The jury, as well as the court, could be trusted for their part, and so they brought in a verdict of guilty. The old account goes on to say, “returning from his trial at court to his prison with a cheerful countenance and his wife coming to him full of trouble, he said to her ‘not a tear, wife, what hurt can they have done me, to send me sooner to heaven.’ In prayer he laid all his comfort in the blood of the crucified Christ and upon the covenant of free grace, and did heartily desire pardon for all his judges, jury, and those false witnesses.”        

 

His daughter coming to him he said, “Where hast thou been all this while, I thought thou hadst been ashamed of my chains but they that will not bear the cross shall not wear the crown. Bid our friends,” he said, “keep close to Christ and love the image of Christ wherever they see it, in the Presbyterian, Independent, Baptist, or others.” Speaking of his faith, he said, “I believe in all the things written in the Old and New Testa­ments as the principles and doctrines of a believer’s faith. I believe the blessed ordinances of Christ, that it is our duty to hear the word preached, to seek unto God in prayer and to perform family duties and walk in communion of the saints. For my part, I am a member of a congregation of which I judge to be the way of Christ which is the company of men born again by His grace that walk in the way of Christ blameless and harmless.”

 

His execution occurred at Tyburn, October 19, 1660. Francis Hacker was executed with him, and Colonel Axtell, at Hacker’s request offered prayer for both. One portion of the prayer was filled with earnest pleadings for the people standing· near, for the City of London, for the magistrates and hangman, and for the Chief Magistrate of the nation. The prayer was offered while he stood in the chief hangman’s cart with a rope around his neck. After it was all over, no one was found to put forward the horse, the cartman saying, “that he would lose both the cart and the horse before he would have a hand in hanging such a man.” The great crowd of spectators behaved civilly. Only two cried out, “hang them, hang the rogues, traitors, murderers,” whereupon a man desired them to be civil, and they were silent and gave attention to Col. Axtell’s speech and prayer at which they were very much affected. He was subsequently beheaded and his goods and lands were forfeit.

 

Thomas, his brother, on the other hand, landed in Massachusetts in 1643 and set about starting a farm in the village of Sudbury. He bought five acres of land from a fellow immigrant from Berkhamstead, Edmond Rice, and began to plant. His adventure did not last long, however, as he died of natural causes in March 1646. Fortunately, (for me anyway) he had a son, Henry, who was born in 1641 before leaving England. Thus, the family line continued.

 

Thomas’ wife, Mary, remarried a widower, John Maynard, in June 1646, and raised Henry, five, to be a good member of the community. Just as an aside, Thomas’s entire estate was valued at 31£ 10s. In 1660, at nineteen, Henry helped found Marlboro, west of Sudbury. In 1665, he married Hannah Merriam, and had six children by her. In 1676, he was killed in an Indian War and his widow was remarried to Will Taylor in 1677. Of his children, only two were male, Thomas and Daniel. My ancestor was Daniel, born in 1673. Again, I narrowly avoided extinction.

 

In 1695, Elder William Pratt organized a church in Dorchester, Massachusetts, then later went off as a missionary to plant his church in South Carolina. Daniel apparently accompanied Elder Pratt on his journey. He apparently had reasons other than religious fervor, as he married Thankful, the daughter of Elder Pratt, in 1702. They lived in South Carolina until 1707, when the family returned to Massachusetts, settling in Bridgewater, later moving to Taunton.

 

While resident in South Carolina, Elder Pratt and Daniel were received by Lady Axtell, widow of Landgrave Daniel Axtell, wherein lies another curious story. John Locke, the celebrated philosopher, worked for a time for the “Lords Proprietors,” the eight nobles commissioned by Charles II to settle the Carolinas. Locke drew up a form of semi-feudal government for the proprietors called “The Grand Model.” There were various orders of nobility and serfdom. One of the chief orders of nobility was to be the Landgrave, and one of the twelve who held this position was Daniel Axtell, the son of the Regicide. Hence, his widow was called “Lady Axtell.” He died in 1686, and his son Holland, named after his mother, Rebeckah Holland, became Landgrave in his place. The latter died childless in 1692, and with him the name perished in South Carolina.

 

Apparently, after the execution of his father, Daniel Junior had a difficult time in England. He had a degree in law from Oxford and was a successful merchant, but was under constant suspicion of being involved in some plot to overthrow Charles II. A warrant was issued for his arrest, but he departed for America before it was carried out. He had been given a grant of 3,000 acres in South Carolina in 1680 by one of the Lord Proprietors, along with the title of Landgrave. He brought along with him about 500 settlers of “puritanical tendencies.”

 

The relationship between Daniel Axtell, son of Henry, and Daniel Axtell, the Landgrave, is attested to by the 1720 will of Lady Axtell, which says, “I give unto my kinsman Daniel Axtell of New England 300 acres of land and to his son Daniel 200 acres.”

 

Several of Lady Axtell’s daughters survived. One of them, Elizabeth, married Joseph Blake, the great English Admiral and naval warrior of Cromwell’s time. He later became Royal Governor of South Carolina. Rebecca married John Moore, who later moved to Philadelphia and became Attorney General and King’s collector of Pennsylvania. She died in Moore’s Hall, Philadelphia, December 21, 1749.

 

Daniel Axtell had ten children, of which six were male. My ancestor is Henry, his sixth child, born in 1715, when he had returned to Massachusetts. Daniel died in 1735, so Henry was 20 on his passing. He became a blacksmith, and in 1737 married Jemima Leonard of Taunton. In about 1740, his father-in-law decided to migrate to the Wild West – New Jersey. Henry and his family accompanied him, settling in Morris County. Nine years later, the township of Mendham was established there, and became the base of my ancestral line for several generations. Henry is recorded in the “History of Morris County” as “Henry, the blacksmith” and was well known. He died in 1754, at 34 years of age, and left a widow and six children, three of whom were male. His widow remarried to a Mr. Lumm and passed away at 90.

 

The male children of Henry Axtell were Henry (born 1738), Calvin (born 1750) and Luther (born 1753). All three produced numerous children – all leading to important lines of Axtells in America. Henry was my direct ancestor. He spent his life in Morris County, New Jersey, as a farmer. He married Mary Beach in 1760, and had three children by her. She died in 1766, leaving him with young children. Not far from him lived a young widow, Phebe Condit Day, who came from a very prominent family in the area. He asked her to marry him.

 

She confessed that she had tender regard for him, but she had serious doubts about becoming responsible for those three young children. When Henry heard this he rose to depart, saying: “Now I know what I will do; I will go right home and kill those children!” When Phebe heard this, she consented to be his wife. They were married in 1767 in Morristown. They had six more children, three girls and three boys. One of the boys died quite young. Silas, born in 1769, was my ancestor.

 

Henry was a man of prominence and influence in the area. When the Revolutionary War broke out, he took a decided stand for independence. He held the rank of Major in the Morris County “Minute Men” and was always called the “Old Major.” As an officer, Henry was probably acquainted with George Washington, as Morristown was an important headquarters for Washington during much of the Revolutionary War.

 

NOTES on other related Axtells –

 

Besides the daughter already mentioned, the Colonel had a young son and possibly other children. The son was probably the William Axtell of Jamaica, who is mentioned in 1683. The next in this line is a Daniel Axtell, (supposed to be a son of the above mentioned William) who acquired a large fortune in trade in Jamaica; and, visiting New Jersey, purchased a great tract of land in Somerset County. The following quotation from the History of Washington County, Pennsylvania, seems to coincide in part at least: “Maj. Daniel Axtell was the original purchaser of land acquired by ‘East and West Jersey’ in 1682. About the year 1740, he purchased 2,000 acres in what is now Bedminster Township, Somerset County, New Jersey. He died within the next ten years and his son William came into possession; he sold a part in 1750 and a part in 1760. This William Axtell was born in Jamaica, West Indies, about 1720. He came to New Jersey about 1746 to dispose of some of his holdings and he soon found a place in high society in New York City. Winning the affections of a daughter of Abraham DePeyster, he ran away with and married her. He was known as “William the Gay.” He lived in a fine mansion on Broadway as well as maintaining a country seat in Flatbush, Long Island. From the time of his marriage, he was both politically and socially prominent in city life.

 

As the Revolution approached, he was at first favorable to the colonial party; but when the struggle finally opened, he took sides with the mother country. He was a member of the council in 1776, and, when examined by the Whig committee in that year, he stated the bulk of his property was in England and the West Indies. In reporting his case to the Provincial Congress, the committee remarked that they believed him to be a gentleman of high honor and integrity. He became a Tory, and was commissioned Colonel of a corps of loyalists by Sir William Howe. In 1793, his furniture was confiscated and sold at auction in New York. He went to England and was indemnified for his losses by the British Government. He died at Beaumont Cottage, Surrey, in 1795, aged 75. He left no issue, but while in New York adopted a daughter, Miss Shipton, a relative, who married Maj. Giles of the Continental Army. (See Sabines American Loyalists.)”

 

William Axtell of Dunstable, England, wrote in 1878, “There is no doubt that Thomas Axtell, progenitor of the Axtell family in America, and Daniel Axtell, the regicide, were brothers to my progenitor, Samuel, as appears to have the same father, viz. William.” Descendants of this William of Dunstable, England, are at present living in the vicinity of Boston, Massachusetts.

 

 

This presentation was very well received and provoked several questions and comments.

 

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