Dr. Thomas Walker (Rob's Hampton Family)

Dr. Thomas Walker (January 25, 1715–November 9, 1794) was a physician and explorer from Virginia; in the mid-18th century, he led an expedition to what is now the region beyond the Allegheny Mountains and the settled area of British North America. He was responsible for naming what is now known as the Cumberland Plateau and by extension the Cumberland River for the hero of the time, the Duke of Cumberland. His party were some of the first Englishmen to see this area; previous European explorers were largely of Spanish and French origins. Walker explored Kentucky in 1750, 19 years before the arrival of Daniel Boone.

     Walker served as guardian for Thomas Jefferson, who was eleven years old when his second parent, his father Peter Jefferson, died in 1757. Two of Walker's own sons, John and Francis Walker, became US Congressmen. Rob is descended from Thomas's son Thomas Walker Jr.

     Thomas Walker was born at "Rye Field", Walkerton, King and Queen County, Virginia. He was raised as an Englishman in the Tidewater region of Virginia.  Walker's first profession was that of a physician; he had attended the College of William and Mary.  Walker became a man of status in the county when he married Mildred Thornton (Rob's ancestor) (widow of Nicholas Meriwether) in 1741, and acquired a large portion of land from her late husband’s estate. The new couple built a home known as Castle Hill there and had 12 children. They in turn became prominent Albemarle County citizens in their own rights.

     In April 1744, Walker was elected as vestryman at his church, a position he held for more than forty years, until 1785. He served Virginia as a delegate to the House of Burgesses from Albemarle County, and was a trustee of the newly formed town of Charlottesville.

     On July 12, 1749, the Loyal Land Company was founded with Walker as a leading member. After receiving a royal grant of 800,000 acres (3,200 km²) in what is now southeastern Kentucky (which was occupied by Native Americans), the company appointed Walker to lead an expedition to explore and survey the region in 1750. Walker was named head of the Loyal Land Company in 1752.

    

Replica of the first house built in Kentucky

     During the expedition, Walker gave names to many topographical features, including the Cumberland Gap. His party built the first non-Indian house (a cabin) in Kentucky. Walker kept a daily journal of the trip.

     At the age of 64, Walker traveled to the western areas of Kentucky and Tennessee again; he had been commissioned to survey the border between Virginia and North Carolina, and extend it westward. (At that time each state claimed the land to the west of their boundaries for ultimate settlement by the right of "discovery.") Because the border was mapped and surveyed, rather than created along the natural boundary of a river, it was considered controversial. It was called the "Walker Line," and still constitutes the border between western Kentucky and Tennessee.

     He is credited as the first American to discover and use coal found in Kentucky.

     Due to his broad knowledge of the areas and their resources, Walker served as an adviser to Thomas Jefferson from 1780-1783 on what became his book, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785).

      Thomas Walker died on November 9, 1794 at his home of Castle Hill. At the time of his death, Walker was noted as the fourth wealthiest citizen of Albemarle County.

Barbourville, Kentucky

Sir Thomas Wentworth (Rob's Hampton Family)

Sir Thomas Wentworth, 1st Baron Wentworth (1501 – 3 March 1551) was an English peer and courtier during the Tudor dynasty.

     The Wentworths were originally from Yorkshire but had settled in Nettlestead, Suffolk in the mid-fifteenth century, where Wentworth was born. He was the eldest son of Sir Richard Wentworth, de jure 5th Baron le Despencer of the 1387 creation, and was a nephew of Margery Wentworth, the mother of Jane Seymour, the third wife of King Henry VIII. His mother was Anne, the daughter of Sir James Tyrrell, the supposed murderer of the Princes in the Tower.

     Circa 1520. Wentworth married Margaret Fortescue (also Rob's ancestor), the eldest daughter of Sir Adrian Fortescue. They had a large family of eight sons and nine daughters, including Thomas, later 2nd Baron Wentworth and Mary, who married Sir William Drury, a prominent English statesman and soldier.

     In 1523, Wentworth took part in Suffolk's failed invasion of France and was knighted by him. In 1529, he was also created Baron Wentworth in the Peerage of England. In 1536 he was present at the trials of Anne Boleyn, condemned wife of King Henry VIII and her brother, Lord Rochford and at those of Lord Montagu and the Marquess of Exeter in 1538.

     In 1550, Lord Wentworth was appointed Lord Chamberlain to King Edward VI and died the following year. His funeral was held at Westminster Abbey and he was buried in the Abbey's Chapel of St. John the Baptist. His title passed to his eldest son, Thomas.

Janet Stewart, Lady Fleming (Rob's Clark Family)

Janet Stewart, Lady Fleming (17 July 1502 – 20 February 1562), called la Belle écossaise ("The Beautiful Scotswoman"), was an illegitimate daughter of James IV of Scotland and served as governess to her niece, Mary, Queen of Scots. Janet was briefly a mistress to Henry II of France, by whom she had an illegitimate son, Henri d'Angouleme. Her daughter, Mary Fleming, was one of the Queen's "Four Marys."
     Janet Stewart (called "Jane Stuart" or "Jenny Fleming" in some sources) was the eighth known bastard child of James IV of Scotland, by the fourth mistress with whom he had children. Lady Janet was half-sister to, among others, James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray,
 Alexander Stewart, Lord Chancellor of Scotland, as well as King James V of Scotland, her father's only legitimate child to reach adulthood.  Her mother was Isabel Stewart of Buchan, daughter of James Stewart, 1st Earl of Buchan, known as "Hearty James." 
     Lady Janet married Malcolm Fleming, 3rd Lord Fleming (1494-1547) and they had eight children, including Rob's ancestor Bridget Fleming (born in 1530).  Lord Fleming was killed at the Battle of Pinkie in 1547. The next year, probably due to her membership in the royal House of Stewart, the widowed Lady Fleming became a governess to the infant Mary, Queen of Scots. As Queen Mary was the daughter of Lady Fleming's half-brother, Lady Fleming could be considered a "half-aunt" to the Queen. Her own daughter, Mary Fleming, also joined the Queen's court as a lady-in-waiting.

     They accompanied the young queen to France in 1548. The Bishop of Orkney, Robert Reid, was worried that Lady Fleming might not be able to explain any symptoms of illness seen in Mary to French doctors, as she was fluent only in the Scots language. Soon, Lady Janet attracted the attentions of King Henry II of France and became his lover. She became pregnant by the king and bore him an illegitimate son. Either before or after the child's birth, she was sent back to Scotland. Her son, Henri d'Valois-Angouleme (1551–June, 1586), was "the chief and most highly favored natural son of the King". He was legitimated and became the "Grand Prior of France, Governor of Provence, and Admiral of the Levantine Sea."

     A letter from Mary of Guise written to her brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine in October 1552 described Janet's situation in Scotland. There had been some talk that Janet would marry Henri Cleutin, Guise's military advisor. Although one of Janet's daughters had told Mary of Guise that her mother did not wish to leave Scotland, Mary of Guise knew that Janet had discussed leaving Scotland with the Governor, Regent Arran, and wanted to see Henry II that winter. Guise told the Cardinal to reassure the Queen of France, Catherine de Medici that Janet would not leave Scotland.

     After the death of Mary of Guise, Janet applied to the Privy Council for permission to leave Scotland with her son "Lord Hary de Valoys" on 22 August 1560. Henry took part in the St. Bartholemew's Day massacre  and was killed in a duel in 1586.  Janet died on February 20, 1562.

John Gresham (Tonya's Barnett Family)

Sir John Gresham (1495 - 23 October 1556) was an English merchant, courtier and financier who worked for King Henry VIII of England, Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell.  He was Lord Mayor of London and founded Gresham's School. 
     He was born at Holt in Norfolk and was descended from an old Norfolk family.  Gresham was apprenticed as a boy of 15 to John Middleton, a London mercer and in 1519 he and his brother William were both elected to the livery of the Worshipful Company of Mercers.  Later, John was four times Master of the Mercers' Company.  In partnership with his brother Richard, he exported textiles and imported grain from Germany and wine from Bordeaux, as well as trading in silks and spices from the Ottoman Empire and timber and skins from the Baltic.  He would go on to found the Russia Company to trade with Russia as well.  It was at this time that he acted as an agent for Cardinal Wolsey, Cardinal and Lord Chancellor under King Henry VIII.
     Gresham invested greatly in land, buying the manors of Titsey, Tatsfield, Westerham and Lingfield on the borders of Surrey and Kent, as well as other properties in Norfolk and Buckinghamshire.  He lived at a great house called Titsey Place at Oxted, Surrey from 1534 until his death.
     Sir John was Sheriff of London and Middlesex in 1537-8 and was knighted.  He was a member of the Royal household between 1527-1550, first as a "gentlemen pensioner" and later as one of the "esquires of the body" of King Henry VIII.  In 1539, the king granted Gresham the manor of Sanderstead in Surrey (which had previously belonged to the Minster of Winchester since the year 962), following the dissolution of the Catholic monasteries.
    He married Mary Ipswell in 1521 and they would have twelve children together (including our ancestor Sir William Gresham (1522-1578) between 1522 and 1538, when Mary died. 
    In 1541, Gresham was one of the jurors who tried Thomas Culpepper and Francis Dereham for treason, charged as intimacy with Queen Catherine Howard.  Both were beheaded at Tyburn on December 10th, 1541.  Queen Catherine herself was subsequently executed on February 13th, 1542.
     In 1547, Sir John became Lord Mayor of London, and after the end of his term of office continued to serve as an alderman.
     One year before his death, in 1555, he founded Gresham's School in his hometown, Holt in Norfolk.  He endowed the school with land and money and placed these endowments in the care of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers, which has carried out his trust to this day.  Today, the school is an independent, well respected boarding and day school for students aged 3-18.  The school is profusely decorated with grasshoppers, which is the symbol for the Gresham family.  The grasshopper can also be seen as the weathervane on the Royal Exchange in the City of London, founded in 1565 by Gresham's nephew Sir Thomas Gresham, who also founded Gresham College in the City of London.  
     According to family legend, the founder of the family, Roger de Gresham, was a foundling abandoned as a new born baby in long grass in North Norfolk in the 13th century and was found by a woman whose attention was drawn to the child by a grasshopper.  It is perhaps also likely that the grasshopper is a heraldic reference to the name Gresham, with gres being a Middle English form of grass.  In the English system of heraldry, the grasshopper is said to represent wisdom and nobility.  
     Gresham died on October 23rd, 1556 of "a malignant fever" and his tomb is in the City of London church of St. Michael Bassishaw.  
     The family motto is "Fiat voluntas tua" ("Thy will be done").

     The Gresham School's Grasshopper

Sir John Gresham

William Brewster (Tonya's Payne Family)

William Brewster was born at Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, England, probably between 1560 and 1566.   As a young man, he attended Cambridge University but did not graduate.  He then served as an assistant to William Davison, one of Queen Elizabeth I's secretaries of state, accompanying him on a diplomatic mission to Holland.  After Davison fell from favor (due to the execution of Mary Queen of Scots), Brewster returned to Scrooby and served as postmaster.

William Brewster was one of the original members of the religious Separatist congregation at Scrooby that became the nucleus of the Pilgrim church. When the community first attempted to emigrate to Holland in 1607, Brewster and several others were jailed for a short time.  He was released and successfully emigrated in 1608.   After his arrival in Holland, Brewster served as Elder of the Pilgrim Separatist congregation.
To support his family,  Brewster worked in Leiden as a printer.   

When Brewster and other members of the Pilgrim community emigrated to America in 1620 on the Mayflower, their pastor John Robinson remained behind in Leiden.  In the absence of an ordained minister, Brewster was the much-loved and respected religious leader of Plymouth Colony.

Brewster's wife Mary was also a Mayflower passenger.  She died in 1627.   William and Mary Brewster had 6 children : Jonathan, Patience, Fear, Love, an unnamed child who died young, and Wrestling.  Love and Wrestling Brewster arrived in Plymouth with their parents on the Mayflower.  Jonathan, Fear, and Love Brewster also settled in Plymouth but emigrated slightly later.

William Brewster died in 1644.  His inventory of several hundred books in both English and Latin attests to his scholarship, his deep love of learning and his spirituality.