THE PHELPS FAMILY

Eleanor "did question the government ever since she came."

~ Cassandra Southwick, Colonial Quaker

arrival

Much of the information we have about Eleanor Phelps Trusler (10GGM) and the Phelps family comes from The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne by Margaret Moore. Nathaniel Hawthorne (6C5x), the renowned American author, is a distant relative of ours. He descends from Eleanor's son, Henry Phelps, Jr. (10U).

Eleanor and her three sons, Henry, Jr. (10U), Nicholas (10U) and Edward (9GGF), came to America sometime in the 1630's. Only Henry, Jr.'s record of arrival in the New World remains. He came on the ship Hercules in 1634. We have no way of knowing when the other three arrived, either together or singly.

Most probably, the boys' father Henry, Sr. (10GGF) died in England and Eleanor made the journey with her second husband Thomas Trusler. The first record we have of Eleanor in New England is when she and her husband were admitted to the First Church in Salem in 1639. This was evidently before her "outspoken" period.

the outspoken Eleanor

Perhaps Eleanor managed to keep her opinions to herself for her first five years in Massachusetts but, by 1644, her mouth got her into trouble. Clearly unhappy with the church, she criticized the reverend of the Salem congregation proclaiming that "our teacher Mr. [Edward] Norris taught the people lies" and also that he was "unfaithful." Eleanor went on to say 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.” Heresy!

It seems that Governor Winthrop was advised to send her to the Boston court as an example "lest that heresiee doth spread which at length might prove dangerous." It was during this 1644 trial that Cassandra Southwick testified that Eleanor "did question the government ever since she came." No meek Puritan, our Eleanor. Yet she evidently had money and money carried clout. Somehow Grandma Eleanor managed a mere fine at a time when common punishments for those same comments might be time spent in the stocks, in the pillory, at the whipping post or even banishment from the colony.

legacies of land

Ironically, Eleanor and Thomas Trusler bought a parcel of land in North Salem from the very same Rev. Edward Norris she had denounced. They called their homestead "The Woods" and this property was to play a part in the compelling Phelps family Quaker saga.

Thomas died in early 1654 and Eleanor followed him to the grave only months later. In her will, she left The Woods jointly to her sons Henry (10U) and Nicholas (10U). To her son Edward (9GGF), she left her "house and ground in the towne (Salem)."

our tame Edward

As it turns out, our grandfather Edward Phelps (9GGF) was by far the tamest member of the Phelps clan. His mother Eleanor had been accused of being a Gortonist.

Samuel Gorton's belief, also embraced by the Quakers, was that the Holy Spirit inhabited every human being. He considered each person a divinity and saw no distinction between a saint and a sinner, which was in direct opposition to Puritan belief. Gortonists were taught to follow the dictates of this inner divinity, even against human authority. The Gortonist viewpoint was emphatically not acceptable to the authority-driven Puritans.

Edward's brothers had adopted the even more reviled Quaker faith. The Quakers were harshly persecuted until 1660 when the newly crowned Charles II took a more benevolent stance towards that faith. More on that in our next post.

What Edward did with his inheritance, his mother's house in Salem, isn't known. We do know, however, that he never lived there. Edward seemingly distanced himself from his quirky relatives, choosing instead to settle in the town of Newbury, 20 miles north of Salem.

Sunlight and Shadow: The Newbury Marshes by Martin Johnson Heade

Edward's tame life

The scant information we have on Edward's tame life may be due to the fact that, for many years, the Newbury record books were "neglected and shamefully defaced." We have no record of Edward's move to Newbury nor his marriage to our grandmother Elizabeth Adams (9GGM). We learn the fact of their marriage only from the will of Elizabeth's father, Robert Adams (10GGF).

We know that Edward moved to Andover sometime before 1678. Town records show that he pledged an oath of allegiance to the king of England there. Andover is 17 miles southwest of Newbury.

Only one of Edward and Elizabeth's six children show up in Newbury birth records yet, from Edward's will, we know the names of his six living children at the time of his death.

Note: Where there's a will, there's a way...to get information. Wills have turned out to be gold mines for genealogical information. Dates of death, names of spouses and children, information on land ownership and even records of household items are just a few of the nuggets available in wills. When town records have been shown to be incomplete and inconclusive, wills are often the only official documents left behind to tell the stories of our ancestors.

Two of Edward's children moved to Andover as well. One was his daughter, our grandmother Elizabeth Phelps Ballard (8GGM). She and her husband, Joseph Ballard (9GGF), were to play a part in the Andover Witch Trials of 1692. More on that black mark in American history later. Three of his children scattered to parts distant and one of his sons was killed (at 20) in King Philip's War, also a subject for a future post.

Note: While Salem has always been the focal point of the infamous witch trials, Andover surely ranks second as a hotbed of accusation.

Edward's wife Elizabeth Adams Phelps (9GGM) said that Edward "died lately and so suddenly after his sickness seized him that he had no time to set his house in order." In spite of his sudden death, luckily for posterity, Edward left a will with much valuable family information. He was 69 years of age at his death in 1689. Elizabeth lived for many years afterwards, dying at 91 in 1718. It is unknown whether she married again.