WRIGHT-L Archives

From: Kathryn Bond <>
Subject: Maryland Ancestors of Rachel Wells
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1996 17:50:40 -0700

Richard M. Kelly, wrote the following in his article entitled, "The
Maryland Ancestors of Rachel Wells" which appeared in the Spring-Autumn
1994, 35-63, THE SOUTHERN FRIEND, Journal of the North Carolina Friends
Historical Society (P.O. Box 8502, Greensboro, NC 27419-0502), copied
here without permission:

RACHEL (Wells) WRIGHT (1721-1771), was a frontier Quaker woman of some
note prior to the American Revolution. What we know of her life and the
background of her family illustrates a Quaker experience and history
which differs somewhat from the image many have of these early Friends
who settled the back country of the southern colonies. She was not a
descendant of the seventeenth century Quaker immigrants to the Delaware
Valley who formed the backbone of the great Quaker migration down the
Shenandoah Valley into Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Rather she
was born in the tidewater of Maryland. Her parents were not Quakers,
but
they became so several years after she did. They came from radical
Puritan stock as well as that of Catholic refugees seeking religious
freedom in the tolerant colony of Maryland under Lord Baltimore.
Several
of her ancestors were members of armorial families of England while the
origins of the others are largely unknown. Her ancestors were a lively
group of settlers along the Chesapeake Bay who lead lusty and
contentious
lives. Her married Aunt Susannah and unmarried Uncle George lived
together for several years before their marriage. Her grandmother,
Elizabeth Plummer, was called into court for sending a servant to steal
onions, bacon, and cabbages from Rachel's grandfather, Thomas Wells.
Thomas himself was twice in trouble with the law for drinking and
fighting. The court docket of Prince George County is filled with
records of their law suits over debts and disputes. The dates of
Rachel's birth and her parents marriage raise similiar doubts about the
traditional view of colonial morality.

Yet they were religious people and civic leaders. The same Thomas Wells
charged with assault was at the next court session appointed constable
and served as a member of the church vestry. Susannah Swanson
eventually
married George Wells, though the record doesn't say what happened to her
husband, James Ward. Some of Rachel's ancestors were members of the
established church while others had ties to the Puritans, persecuted
Catholic supporters of King Charles, Quakers, or no religion at all.
All
of her American ancestors were land owners and tobacco farmers. Most
owned slaves.

Rachel was born while her father, Joseph Wells, was farming land in Anne
Arundel County belonging to his brother's stepson. The Wells's must
have
returned to the family plantation in Prince George County in the valley
of the Monocacy River in what is now Frederick County, Maryland. The
Monocacy River flows south through the rolling farm land of now
Frederick
County, Maryland. Their land, a 40-acre tract known as Boyling Spring,
was on the Tuscarora Creek which flows directly into the Potomac.

Among the early settlers of the Monocacy were Quakers from East
Nottingham township in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Though not Friends
themselves the Wells family became identified with this Quaker
community,
and all three of their children married Quakers. Rachel married about
1737 to John Wright, the son of James and Mary Wright, by whom she had
sixteen children. Rachel joined the Society of Friends at the time of
her marriage and subsequently became a Quaker ministers. Rachel and her
husband, along with other members of the Wells family, followed the
Quaker migration into the south leaving the Monocacy Valley about 1750
for Orange County, North Carolina, where she was the focus of
controversy
in 1764 involving the Regulator movement. The Wrights removed to South
Carolina where her death in 1771 is noted in minutes of the Bush River
Monthly Meeting.

The following records of her ancestors were presented in the numbering
format suggested by the New England Historic Genealogical Society. In
the case of a female ancestors an asterisk (*) is used to designate her,
and reference is made to where further information about her descendants
is found.

The Family of Thomas and Frances Wells (First Generation: Thomas Wells)
[skipped]
Second Generation
2. JOSEPH Wells was born in Prince George's County, 30 September 1697.
(23) He was alive in 1758 and died probably in Orange County, North
Carolina. He married (1) at All Hallow's Church, Davidsonville, Anne
Arundel County, Maryland, 11 April 1721, MARGARET SWANSON, daughter of
FRANCIS SWANSON, Jr. and SUSANNAH PLUMMER. (24) She died before 1758
and
may have died as early as 1752. He married (2) in North Carolina in
1758
to widow MARY COOK. He had at least three children by his first wife:

1. RACHEL (Joseph, Thomas) WELLS was born, probably 7 May 1721 (see
note
#24 for a discussion of her age and mother) and was baptized at All
Hallow's Church, Davidsonville, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, 12 July
1721. She died in South Carolina, 23 December 1771. (25) She married
about 1737, JOHN WRIGHT, son of JAMES and MARY WRIGHT, born in Chester
County, Pennsylvania, 4 November 1716. They had thirteen children. (26)
RACHEL WRIGHT became a minister of the Society of Friends and was focus
of a major controversary in the life of Quakers prior to the American
Revolution.(27) RACHEL and her family removed to Orange County, North
Carolina, where she and her husband were founding members of the Cane
Creek Meeting. In 1764 they removed to South Carolina. (Further
discussion of RACHEL WELLS and her husband JOHN WRIGHT is to be found in
the section on the FAMILY of JAMES and MARY WRIGHT.)

ii. JOSEPH (Joseph, Thomas) WELLS was born 20 July 1729 (28). He died
in North Carolina, 30 September 1803.(29) On 25 April 1748, he was
received in membership at Monocacy Monthly Meeting.(30) He married in
Frederick County(31), Maryland, 28 May 1750, CHARITY CARRINGTON, the
wedding being delayed a month until they could get permission from her
father "who lived far away." (32) On 25 June 1750, they received a
certificate to remove to Carver's Creek Monthly Meeting in North
Carolina. In 1752 he received a gift of land in Orange County, North
Carolina, from his father. He received a grant from Lord Granville, 1
November 1755. CHARITY WELLS died in North Carolina, 26 February 1818.
They had ten children.(33)

iii. CHARITY (Joseph, Thomas) WELLS died 7 February 1761. She married
JOSEPH WRIGHT, son of JAMES and MARY WRIGHT.

Joseph WELLS is mentioned in his father's will. There is conflicting
information which some have suggested means JOSEPH WELLS was married to
RACHEL prior to MARGARET SWANSON. The wedding of JOSEPH WELLS and
MARGARET SWANSON is recorded at All Hallow's, 11 April 1721. The
baptismal record of his daughter at All Hallow's reads: "RACHEL,
daughter of JOSEPH WELLS and his wife (author's underlining) RACHEL was
baptized July 12, 1721." The records of the Cane Creek Monthly Meeting
of the Society of Friends in Alamance County, North Carolina, give
"RACHEL (Wells) WRIGHT, dt. JOSEPH & MARGARET WELLS, b. 3-2-1720, Prince
George Co., MD" (34) Some researchers have interpreted this to mean
that
RACHEL WELLS was born over a year before her baptism at All Hallow's,
and
that her mother "RACHEL" (as it appears in the baptimsal record) must
have died shortly after the birth and her father married a second time
to
MARGARET SWANSON.(35) To explain the Cane Creek record which clearly
states that her mother was "MARGARET" Ms. Montgomery suggests that
RACHEL
WRIGHT is simply mentioning MARGARET as her father's spouse. It seems
more reasonable to this writer that RACHEL WRIGHT would be in error as
to
her age by one year (the Cane Creek record having been made as late as
1758) than as to her mother's name. The unreliability of these later
recollections is seen again in ehr death notice reported in the Bush
River Monthly Meeting which says she died in 1771 at the age about 52,
giving her a supposed birth date of 1719! But as MARGARET SWANSON was
likely dead by 1752 when the Cane Creek meeting was founded there was
even less reason for RACHEL, to mistate her mother's name. Published
abstracts of the All Hallow's records only show "RACHEL, the daughter of
JOSEPH WELLS and RACHEL." The complete text includes the phrase "his
wife." The All Hallow's records are difficult to read, often confusing,
and out of order. However, in this instance it is clear that there is
no
mistake in reading the text as presented here. Further the information
regarding both the baptism and the marriage are in the same hand,
thought
to be that of the minister, and are recorded in proper order with
similiar contemporaneous records.

The most likely explanation is that JOSEPH, who was at that time living
in Anne Arundel County, married his childhood neighbor, MARGARET
SWANSON,
sometime after she became pregnant, and that the recorder of the baptism
was simply in error giving her name as RACHEL, having repeated the
daughter's name. Furthermore, RACHEL's Cane Creek record of her birth
would probably be in the Quaker old style calendar in which 3-27-1720
would actually be May 27, 1720, not March as some researchers, including
the IGI (International Genealogical Register of the LDS Church) state.

Joseph WELLS was living in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, 8 December
1726 (36). In 1733 he paid taxes in the Mattapony Hundred of Prince
George's County, Maryland. He was in the Monocacy Valley of western
Prince George's County, now Frederick County, Maryland, by 1742 when his
name appears on a list of petitioners seeking creation of All Saints
Parish through the division of Prince George Parish. Others appearing
on
the list include his wife's cousins, "SAM PLUMMER" and "CHRIST PLUMMER".
(37) He settled on a forty-acre tract, "Boyling Springs," surveyed
12 June 1743.(38) That same year the November Court made him constable
of the Monocacy Hundred. (39) "1746:2:29 Joseph Wells rec in mbrp (his
wife Margaret having been recd by Women's Mtg 29:11:1745) both had been
'under care for some time past'."(40) The Wells family removed to North
Carolina about 1750 when JOSEPH and MARGARET sold "Boyling Spring, on
Tuscorrah Creek that falls into the Potomac near the mouth of the
Monquescy." On 13 June 1752, JOSEPH WELLS conveyed 269 acres of land in
Orange County, North Carolina, to JOSEPH WELLS, Jr., JOSEPH PYKE,
witness. On 13 September 1752 JOSEPH WELLS sold 137-1/2 acres of land
to
JOHN MARSHALL.(41) Cane Creek Monthly Meeting in Alamance County, North
Carolina, lists JOHN and RACHEL WRIGHT among its charter members.
JOSEPH
WELLS is also listed but not MARGARET, so she may have died prior to
that
date. On 27 May 1758, the New Garden Monthly Meeting records that
JOSEPH
WELLS of Cane Creek married second MARY COOK, widow of THOMAS COOK who
died in York County, Pennsylvania in 1752. MARY was the duaghter of
ALEXANDER and Jane (Harry) UNDERWOOD.(42) MARY (Cooke, nee Underwood)
WELLS and her children, ISAAC, MARY & THOMAS, transferred their
membership to Cane Creek Monthly Meeting 1 July 1758. The deaths of
JOSEPH WELLS and his second wife are not recorded.

The Family of Francis and Isabel Swanston
[skipped]

The Family of Thomas Plummer and Elizabeth Stockett
[skipped]

The Family of Thomas Stocket and Mary Wells
[skipped]

The Family of Dr. Richard Wells and Frances White
[skipped]

Annual dues is only $15 and well worth it!

Katie Bond
http://www.hevanet.com/bondk/roots/wright.html

This thread:

• Maryland Ancestors of Rachel Wells by Kathryn Bond <>