What if your ancestors were not Puritans with ties to the Scottish throne and were radical Quaker lawbreakers instead?

This blog was started to share newly found details about the life of Mary Upton Ferrin, 1810-1881, Peabody's pioneering suffragist.  What motivated her politics to rebel at a time when women were powerless?  Who were the women, who by example, inspired her?  Surely, there would be evidence of other social movements: Abolitionism, Phrenology, Universalism?

I did not expect to find  an alternate ancestry that is patently not-Scottish,  began with a radical Gortonist/Quaker and ancestor of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Ferrin's  great-great-grandmother, Dame Eleanor Upton (1620-1655) 

The Upton Memorial published by James Adams Vinton in 1874 had been my definitive go-to for Upton genealogy, until recently.  Vinton placed  John Upton, the earliest Upton ancestor to come to America,  as a Scott exiled to work in Hammersmith (the Saugus Iron Works) following the victory of Oliver Cromwell.    Tradition reveals Eleanor, John's wife, to be related to the Stuart royal dynasty. 

And then, through the miracle of digitization,  the 1893 publication Upton Family Records: Being Genealogical Collections for an Upton Family History became available.  It is by William Henry Upton, a member of the Royal Society of Antiquarians of Ireland and of the New England Historic Genealogical Society.   He writes:

"John Upton was in New England before the Civil War (Cromwell) began, and his youth indicated that he was probably bound an apprentice during his minority...

"It seems superfluous for me to say I am convinced the emigrant was an Englishman, wrote William Upton.  "I have, after no small search, failed to learn that any Upton family ever lived in Scotland in any age."

Being identified as a "Scotchman" was  derogatory "owing to the many hundred Scotch prisoners sent to this country during and shortly after the civil war, and sold into bondage, our New England ancestors gradually came to use the word "Scotchman" colloquially, as equivalent to 'redemptioner,' or to designate any white man, whether Scotch, Irish or English, who began his colonial life bound to service; just as in our southern states, within our day (1893), the word 'nigger' was practically synonymous with 'slave,' notwithstanding the presence of many free blacks."

"A tradition, never very plausible, has been printed to the effect that John Upton was sold, about 1640, to pay for his passage, and purchased by an English woman who afterwards married him.  

"Another part of the tradition - that his wife was a landed proprietor before their marriage - will not seem incredible if it be ascertained that her name was Eleanor Tresler or Eleanor Phelps.  A tract of land, east of what afterwards became John Upton's Woodhill Estate, and apparently adjoining it - if, indeed, a part of it was not included in that estate as it was in later years - was sold in 1654 by Rev. Edward Norris  to Eleanor Tresler or Trusler, the aged widow of both Henry Phelps and Thomas Trusler, and the mother of another two of three daughters whose names are unknown. "

Eleanor's historical footprint is large in the area of West Peabody at Crystal Lake.  She was an outspoken Gortonist  and her family was later persecuted for hosting the earliest Quaker meetings - both here and when the family settled in Albemarle, North Carolina.

She was taken to court in April 1644, for saying, "our teacher Mr. Norris taught the people lies." At her trial in the Boston Court, Cassandra Southwick testified that Eleanor 'did question the government ever since she came.'  Eleanor was also quoted as declaring that 'there was no love in the church and that they were biters and devourers and that Mr. Norris said that men would change their judgment for a dish of meat."

Trusler died in 1655, and her sons Henry and Nicholas Phelps inherited her farm.  Nicholas was a "weak man, and one whose back was crooked."  He was fined forty shillings for entertaining Quakers and having the meeting at his house.  He was also fined for being a Quaker and for absenting himself from public worship.  Nicholas lost his half of the family farm due to his activism.  His half ownership was taken over by his brother Henry.

Here the story takes on a soap-opera aspect.  Read more about Hannah Baskel and the Phelps brothers here, page 34.  

"There may be within our Government about 100 or 120 negro slaves, and it may be as many Scots brought hither and sold for servants in the time of the war with Scotland, and most now married, and living here, and about half so many Irish brought hither at several times as servants."
- Gov. Simon Bradstreet, May 1680

In the next generation of Uptons, Eleanor's daughter and namesake followed her mother's example:

"I gladly preserve a tradition,  alike creditable to her and consistent with her husband's known opposition to religious persecutions, that during the Witchcraft delusion of 1692, 'Dame Eleanor Upton' denounced one of the Judges to his face."

Works Cited 

Bjorkman, Gwen Boyer, "Hannah (Baskel) Phelps Phelps Hill: A Quaker Woman and Her Offspring." National Genealogical Society Quarterly 75 (1987): 290. Retrieved 28 August 2015 from http://pages.suddenlink.net/phelpsdna/Southern_Phelps_Research/NorthCarolina/HannahBaskelPhelpsbyBjorkman.PDF“Eleanor (Unknown) Tresler.” WikiTree, 28 Dec. 2018, www.wikitree.com/wiki/Unknown-446792.

“Gortonian.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Gortonian.

“Map of Salem in 1700 : from the Researches of Sidney Perley.” Find in a Library with WorldCat, www.worldcat.org/title/map-of-salem-in-1700-from-the-researches-of-sidney-perley/oclc/865622650.

Moore, Margaret B. “The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne.” Google Books, University of Missouri Press, books.google.com/books?id=rK_6EycRyFwC.

Upton Family Records : Being Genealogical Collections for an Upton Family History : Upton, William Henry, b. 1854 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming. 1 Jan. 1893, archive.org/details/uptonfamilyrecor00upto/page/n9/mode/2up.

Vinton, John Adams. “The Upton Memorial: A Genealogical Record of the Descendants of John Upton, of North Reading, Mass. ... Together with Short Genealogies of the Putnam, Stone and Bruce Families.” Google Books, Private Use at the Office of E. Upton & Son, books.google.com/books/about/The_Upton_Memorial.html?id=SoRYAAAAMAAJ.