Lost Lancashire Lads

Marilyn from Missouri wanted us to find the English origins of her Virginian ancestors who arrived in America in the early to mid 17th century.

Two young lads were rumoured to have been taken from England against their will and deposited in America. They became early pioneers and headed a chain of successful families.

In 1810, a descendant of one of the two lads, anti-slavery campaigner and Baptist Minister Rev. David Barrow wrote to cousin James Barrow of Georgia:

“So far as my information extends, I have learned that our forefathers were early immigrants from Britain to America. I was never informed of the date… Grandfather said that there were two lads by the name of Barrow kidnapped (I have never learned from what part of England) and brought over and sold to pay their passage, in the Northern Neck of Virginia. Upon their getting free, one of them went southwardly, … the other married and settled somewhere in the Northern part of Virginia, but Thomas Barrow, my Great Grandfather.. moved to Southampton County on the Waters of the Nottoway River, at the first settling of that part of Virginia, where he lived with his family and died between 90 and 100 years of age. The names of his sons … were Simon, John and Thomas. Thomas, who I think was the youngest, was your father.”

The Reverend gave several valuable clues but left his descendants and ourselves with a whole country to search, and for names that were surprisingly common. So we became involved in a mystery which had lasted over 350 years, one which took us to the deeper regions of excellent online genealogical databases through to document depositories which can only be visited in person; and to the places in which the ancestors lived. Their story and the extreme difficulties in trying to solve their mystery became an inspiration for our 17th century database connecting Britain and America.

What part of England were they from? How did they leave England? Why? What did they do in America?

With no distinguishing details other than their names, and a period spanning about 40 years in which they were born, we had to determine which Thomas and John Barrows were which? It was no wonder that our client had been told by many genealogists that this was an impossible endeavour.

We examined several pairs of candidate brothers of the correct name in England so we had to locate as many manuscripts about the potential prospects as possible. This meant narrowing down their presence to various parts of the country and relying on our knowledge of each county whilst taking account of their possible reasons for early emigration to America. We therefore made enquiries and visits to document repositories and perused many records and manuscripts, relying on our ability to read these ancient documents.

Eventually, we narrowed the prospects down to Cartmel, a peninsula in what was then part of Lancashire but is now part of Cumbria. It is a breathtakingly beautiful spot and at the gateway to the Lake District national park.

We found information relating to friends of the Barrow family, connections to America and even to the mariners who could have taken them to sea. We located court documents concerning property disputes between friends and acquaintances of the Barrows in England and some of the Barrows themselves. Critically, these people referred to their property, family and acquaintances either side of the Atlantic so their place of origin could be narrowed down further. These events took place in the early 1700s, some 60-70 years after the lads were reputed to have arrived in America and so we had to work back from there.

Many documents later, we found mentions of the Barrows in Virginia who were connected to those we found in the court papers. Crucially they were connected to the Barrows of Virginia with mentions of individuals we knew came from Cartmel. The will of a shipwright who regularly traversed the Atlantic was written by someone who lived next door to a Barrows relation in Cartmel. He wrote:-

“Item. My will & mind is that for what goods that I have on board the shipp…I order that Thomas Barrow shall dispose on them in Virginia and returne the money which they earn’d to my Ant (sic) Mrs Jane Burkett.”

This will was signed “Thomas Barrow Jnr” implicitly supporting the known fact that old Thomas Barrow had a son of the same name who had married an Elizabeth Atkinson. The Atkinsons were dear Quaker friends of the Barrows of Cartmel. This was a finding of great significance.: two facts connecting Virginia back to England are precious in pursuit of the genealogical prey.

This then led to a network of individuals at the heart of the Quaker movement: Atkinsons, Barrows, Fells, Newtons, Simpsons, Newbys, Brittons, Braithwaites and the leader of the religion, George Fox. One of the Barrows was Robert, known as the Quaker Apostle and a close friend of William Penn. His story is one of sacrifice, courage and determination and a bare-foot march of hundreds of miles to civilisation from his shipwreck in Florida. He had been a victim of persecution in England against which he and his friends had rebelled and he had performed missionary work all over Europe and America.

We examined accounts of Quaker sufferings in Britain and found many references to Robert and other Barrows in there. They all pointed back to Cartmel and the neighbouring county of Westmoreland. Database. These people were persecuted for their religious beliefs. Petty crimes could lead to severe penalties. They would have their goods taken and sold at a fraction of their value for minor digressions such as the refusal to swear the oath; for wearing their Quaker hats; for meeting; or missing church. In 1678, a generation after the lads were supposed to have left England, at Lonsdale Wapentake John Barrow “poor man that labours hard to maintain his wife and children” was fined 5 shillings and 1 penny and Thomas Barrow £1, 18 shillings and 6 pence for refusal to swear the oath. Widow Elizabeth Barrow and William Barrow 18s forfeited goods for 18 shillings; and so on. George Fox was summoned to the Lancaster Assizes on a number of occasions, often with his Barrow Friends. In September 1664 he refused to take the oath and was imprisoned, describing his incarceration: “Then I was put into a tower where the smoke of the other prisoners came up so thick that I could scarcely see the candle that it burned… Besides it rained in upon my bed… in this manner did I lie all that long cold winter till the next assizes; in which time I was so starved with cold and rain, and my body so greatly swelled and my limbs benumbed.”

The Quakers were regularly imprisoned. Some were transported to America and some even executed.

It had become almost certain that the two lads were from this small area of Lancashire but how could we reconcile this to the Rev. David’s assertion that two lads by the names of Thomas and John Barrow had been kidnapped?

Children at that time were regularly kidnapped by ‘spirits,’ particularly in London and Bristol where they could end up in the legal system from all parts of the country. These spirits would prowl around streets and docks kidnapping children to sell to shipping agents for the New World. We consulted various legal and court documents to see if there was a direct mention of the boys but there was nothing.

Nearer to home, we discovered that, in February 1660/61 “at Swarthmore, forty three persons were taken, some out of their houses, others from the market, and some from their labour and employments, by a party of horsemen, and without any warrant, Mittimus, or examination before a magistrate, committed to Lancaster Castle.” It would not have been unheard of for the authorities at that time to arrest children as well as adults, to send a message. This would have been around the right time but the evidence was only circumstantial as no names were mentioned. Rumours of the boy’s fate might have made their way back to his family. If their son was kidnapped in the 1660s or taken from them as punishment for repeated transgressions, what could they do?

There is an interesting case of a John Barrow baptised on the 12th day of the 8th month (then October) of 1655 by his parents of Ayside, Cartmel, a small hamlet of several houses. There was also a John Barrow baptised on the 12th day of the 8th month (then October) of 1665 by the same parents of Ayside. The extensive Quaker records of that time show no future mention of either of these two boys or to a marriage or burial for them. A family tuition bond provided for other children of that family but not John. Was a five-year old John kidnapped at Cartmel, never to be seen again by his parents? Could this second baptism have been for the same person on his tenth birthday in recognition of their loss and for John’s new life in the New World?

We found evidence showing that the two boys could also have been taken over the Atlantic as part of the headright system. 1654 was a critical year in which the Bristol City Council passed an ordinance requiring that a register of servants destined for the colonies be kept, the purpose being to prevent the practice of condemning innocent youths into servitude overseas against their will. In 1654, there were two documents found showing that a John Barrow and Thomas Barrow were transported to America and paid for their passage by becoming servants. They would have been young teenagers. We also found numerous records relating to them and their lives in America, the 100s of acres of land they bought and the property they left. Again, on the database.

The John who went ‘southwardly’ ended up in North Carolina where we also found connections with people from Cartmel.

Other Barrows made their way instead to Philadelphia, including a George from Newton Cartmel, leaving his domestic clue on an old Philadelphia manuscript as “Newton in Cartmail” and helpfully mentioning his son Thomas Barrow, blacksmith. George had made his way to Philadelphia where Robert the Quaker Apostle ended his days and to where his daughter Rebecca had migrated. Rebecca was married to a John Shaw, the same name as Thomas Barrow a possible fellow passenger on a ship to Virginia in the 1660s.

Having discovered a great deal of information supporting origins of Lancashire, it was clear that the lads’ origins were a small hamlet in Cartmel surrounded by a patchwork of other small settlements around that area. The research circle was complete when we went to visit the old Barrow homes, land, churches and burial grounds.

Most of the facts of this case in terms of sufferings, punishment, migration and land grants are contained in the database.

The search for the final conclusive piece of evidence continued…