History of the Shinn Family

Author: Josiah H. Shinn

Call Number: CS71.S556

This book contains the history and genealogy of the Shinn family of New Jersey.

Bibliographic Information: Shinn, Josiah H. The History of the Shinn Family. The Genealogical and Historical Publishing Company Chicago 1903.

THE HISTORY OF

THE SHINN FAMILY

IN EUROPE AND AMERICA

BY JOSIAH H. SHINN, A. M.

Ex‑State Superintendent of Public Instruction for Arkansas; Member of the St.

Petersburg (Russia) Historical and Geographical Society; Author of

"A History of the American People"; "A History of

Arkansas"; and of "A History of Education

in the South."

PUBLISHERS:

THE GENEALOGICAL AND HISTORICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY.

Page 4

Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1903, by The Genealogical and Historica Publishingl Company, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C.

PRINTED BY

RAND, MONALLY & CO.

CHICASO, ILLINOIS.

Page 5

PREFACE.

To write the history of a family is a task surrounded by many difficulties. That history begins, as a rule, at a period when reading and writing were not the common heritage of mankind; it covers the lives of a line of people who, because they were not conspicuous in the world's affairs, failed to construct pedigrees, as did the greater men of history; it takes in a vast body of plain people, living by the nobler arts of peace and trade, who look with suspicion upon the blazoning of arms, crests, and pedigrees, and pass to the other extreme of keeping no record at all; it sweeps over periods of time engulfed in social, political or religious turmoil, when even the legal records are suspended; it embraces all kinds and conditions of men widely dispersed; for these and other reasons the creation of an accurate family history is difficult, if not impossible. I have tried to write such a history in these pages, and on the eve of giving it to the family at large, am free to admit that it is at best a very imperfect sketch. It represents years of labor, however, and is a creation that has absorbed my attention and affection. It is given to the family for their guidance and criticism. Wherever it is true it will obtain commendation; and wherein it departs from truth it will receive condemnation. It is launched with high hopes of a successful career.

At the outset I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Richard Cadbury, of Philadelphia, who copied for my use every reference in the Minute Books of the Burlington Monthly Meeting of Friends, the Springfield Minutes, the Chesterfield Minutes, the Mt. Holly Minutes, the Evesham and Upper Evesham Minutes. Without these it would have been impossible to write the story.

I am also indebted to Hon. John Clement, of Haddonfield, for a thorough investigation of the Records at Trenton, N. J., and other places; the records of wills, deeds, administration papers, court minutes and marriage license records, so far as they refer to the name Shinn, were all transcribed by him and forwarded to me as a supplement to the church records prepared by Mr. Cadbury. Both these gentlemen have passed away, but their work appears in every line of this history for the period 1678‑1800.

To Mr. Kirk Brown, of Baltimore, I am indebted for transcripts of the Minutes of Friends' Meetings at Goose Creek, Crooked Run, Hopewell, Warrenton and Fairfax.

Judge Thomas B. Jobes sent an abstract of the deed records of Monmouth and Ocean Counties. Mr. Willit Shinn has gone among the living and obtained private records, which I could not obtain.

To a lesser degree I am indebted to Mrs. Mary Graham, of Miranda, N. C.; Mr. James F. Shinn, of Norwood, N. C.; Prof. H. Frank Smith, Mr. J. C. Shinn and Dr. George W. Harkey, of Russellville, Ark.; to Dr. Quillen H. Shinn, of Cambridge, Mass.; to Mrs. Hannah A. Beal, of Agricultural College, Mich.; to Prof. Samuel Grant Oliphant, of Baltimore, Md.; to James Thornton Shinn, of Philadelphia, Pa.; to A. C. Shinn, Ottawa, Kan.; to Benjamin G. Shinn, Hartford City, Ind.; Rev. James Gallaher Shinn, Atlantic City, N. J.; to W. B. Stackhouse, Medford, N. J., and to Mrs. Mary Shinn Bennett, Fruit Hill, Ohio.

Page 6

I am also under obligation to every man and woman that answered my letters, for by these letters the book was largely made.

To William Collyer Shinn, of London, and Mr. W. G. Stockley, Head Master of Mildenhall School, Suffolk, my obligation is great for valuable matter concerning the English line. The latter is not a member of the family, but has taken a greater interest in my work than anyone named Shinn. On his bicycle he has gone over Cambridge, Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, exhuming church registers and sending their contents with fidelity and zeal.

Those who read this volume expecting to find portrayals of great leaders will be disappointed. The lives portrayed are for the most part farmers' lives. As such, they are not imposing, not eventful, and therefore not startling. They are sober, thoughtful, peaceful lives, and therefore the happiest lives. Rugged honesty and rigorous labor, uncursed by the withering touch of ambition, are the marks that adorn the men whose lives are here presented. Stranger to the so‑called "thoughts" of dawdlers and idle paragraphers, they live within their means, pay their honest debts, worship in a simple way, love one wife, and rear a family of sturdy, resolute boys and girls. These boys and girls are strong in exact proportion to their adherence to the homely morality of their parents, and deteriorate only as they exchange it for the so‑called "cult" of the ordinary magazine. The premeditated assault which these "literary" periodicals make upon a virtuous life by thousands of lines adulatory of "Captains of Success" is the Nation's plague. The farm lad, fitted for his place, and happy in his environment, is treated to picture and pun upon "hayseed" and "yawp!" is told so many imaginary stories by starving "penny‑a‑liners" about "success" and "how to rise" that he comes to believe farming the only business in which the word "success" is not known, and that a "change" in life is the beginning of the ever‑vaunted "rise."

If "poets" are God‑made, there is equal, if not greater, reason to believe that "farmers" are fashioned for their work in the council chambers of eternity. A glance at any mass of men in the heart of any assembly anywhere will satisfy the thinker that the largest part of the mass was predestined for a farmer's happy and noble life; and that the false philosophy of magazines has cheated it of its birthright. Change is not rising; although the "thrupence" writers vociferously aver it. Farmers' boys and girls, if they are sensible, will not try to rise from the farm, but on the farm. They will not change locations, seeking the will‑o'‑the‑wisp of bettering themselves, but will hammer that betterment from the old, wornout farm on which they were born. J. P. Morgan sought a broken‑down railroad that he might make it a success. There are thousands of broken‑down farms that only need a man of power to make them successful ventures. And God has given thousands of men the very power to do this, which they are vainly trying to use as preachers, lawyers, merchants and literary men. They are "misfits" and failures. The early life of the family of whom these pages are written was a triumphantly happy farm life. The aged ones everywhere started with hundreds of acres of good land, from which they harvested money, health, power and happiness; they lived simple yet noble lives. They left their children good farms, out of which, had a real philosophy been taught by the magazines and public opinion, they, too, might have harvested a greater wealth, a perfect health, more power and an equal happiness. But these descendants thought there was a better way; the fear of being a "mossback" led them away from the farm; the vicious examples of so‑called "rising in the world" exercised an evil influence on their minds; their hands lost their cunning, and their souls worshiped disastrously at the altar of strange gods. To every farmer's son and daughter who reads these words, I would say: "Unless God has visibly marked you for some other vocation, remain on the farm, and rise with it and by it." Make it by your own exertions more abounding, more habitable, more and more the royal abode of a thinking man. Greatness comes to the man who, in his own environment, does great things; and there is nothing more transcendently great than the power to turn a five‑dollar soil into the richness

Page 7

of a Babylonish garden. Use your power in an environment that ennobles you, and let the poverty‑stricken mockers deride you at will. Better be a "hayseed" and create something than a "scribbler" who makes nothing but a destructive note.

With a view of stimulating every son and daughter of the family, whatever his vocation, to loftier endeavor, to nobler aspiration, and to better and truer work, this book is sent into the world. It is a birds‑eye view of the movements of a family, of which you are a part. What some have done, all may do; and what may be done, ought to be done, if we are true to ourselves.

With this in view, family pride becomes an entity of value, enlarging by bettering the world's great work.

To my son, Joseph R. L. Shinn, who for years has been my constant helper, and to Mildred Carlton Shinn, my wife, I owe whatever good this work may contain. Always faithful, always ready, always true, they have sustained me when despondent and guided me to the end.

JOSIAH H. SHINN.

CHICAGO, ILL., April, 1903.

Page 8

PART FIRST:

THE FAMILY OF SHINN IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER I.

THE MEN WHO ENTERED ENOLAND WITH THE SAXONS.

The man to whom the English speaking race is most indebted for its knowledge of the men who entered England with the Saxons is John Mitchell Kemble. In two memorable works, "Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxoniei" (6 volumes), and "The Saxons in England" (2 volumes), he has given us as he aptly says, "The history of our childhood, the explanation of our manhood."

These researches furnish conclusive evidence of the fact that very many of the names of places in England, as disclosed by the forms in which these names appear in ancient charters, consist of a personal name in a patronymie form.

These names take two endings:

1. A nominative plural in ingas, as Ardingas, the sons or descendants of Ard;

2. A genitive plural in inga, with ton, ham, ete., annexed, as in Billingaton, the town of Billings, i. e., the sons or descendants of Billa.

The basis upon which all Teutonic society rested was the "Mark." This "Mark" was introduced by them into every province which they founded upon the ruins of Roman power.

The word has been flippantly defined as "a boundary." This is its mere external form. Among the older Teutonic races it was the name of the smallest division of land held by freemen in common. It was the first general division above the alods, or private estates of the Markmen. As such it was, as the word implies, something marked out or defined, with boundaries standing as a sign to others, and distinguishing it from all others.

As Kemble says: "It is the plot of land on which a greater or lesser number of freemen have settled for purposes of cultivation, and for the sake of mutual profit and protection. And it comprises a portion both of arable land and pasture, in proportion to the numbers that enjoy its produce."

This organization of freemen into marks extends backwards into the remotest records of our Teutonic ancestry, and was carried by them into England, when they turned their conquering footsteps into Kent, Sussex and other parts of that ses girt isle.

The territorial meaning of the word comprehended not only the whole arable and pasture land of the independent community, or tribe, but also, and more especially, the forests enclosing the arable lands, and which separated the possessions of one tribe from those of another. The mark or boundary pasture land, and the arable land enclosed by it, are inseparable.

In it resides a community of persons, headed by a chief, independent of every other mark or community in the territory.

In this way and by degrees was England settled. Bold chiefs with their followers found foothold on English shores, and planted the organization of the

Page 9

mark along the entire Eastern, and almost across the entire Southern border of England. For centuries these marks existed as independent governments, having each its own laws and ruled by the original or migrating chief, or some other at the will of its freemen. Centralization came centuries afterwards:

1. By a union of marks into the ga or shire;

2. By a union of the gas into kingdoms;

3. By a union of these into a monarchy.

Or more succinctly the hundreds of petty marks or kingdoms developed naturally into the heptarchy, and thence into the monarchy.

The boundaries of the ancient marks have disappeared and are apparently lost. But it is believed by Kemble, that it is possible to reconstruct the ancient marks of England, as surely and successfully as comparative anatomy reconstructs an extinct species of animal.

But whether this be true or not it is none the less a fact, that the names of the Marks, and therefore the names of the chiefs who led their followers into these marks are not lost, but remain to the English speaking people as a genealogical tie through which they may trace an immense number of their families back into an hoary antiquity.

And into this ancient age as a historian of the "House of Shinn" I shall plunge to ascertain if possible whether that name came in with the Saxons, and to what extent it contributed to the growth of Anglo‑Saxon, English and American worth.

CHAPTER II.

VALUE OF THE FORMS IN INGAS, INGA AND INGEN.

In the Anglo‑Saxon, ing is a patronymic, as in Aesing, son of Aesc. But it may represent a more geographical idea, as Leaming, people of the Leam. Between such words and genuine patronymics the line must be carefully drawn, and the best security is the genitive plural. If the word is clearly derived from a genitive plural it is a patronymic; if it is generated from a genitive singular, it is a mere local name, and does not import the idea of a family and its descendants.

But a careful study of Kemble's lists of Anglo‑Saxon patronymics, together with the German list of Foerstemann, and a consequent comparison of these with the ancient poem of Beowulf, warrants the conclusion that ing is and has been a patronymic of the Teutons from time immemorial.

With the language of Sir J. Picton in his "Ethnology of Wiltshire" we concur: "When the Saxons first invaded England, they came in tribes and families headed by their patriarchal leaders. Each tribe was called by its leader's name, with the termination ing, signifying family, and where they settled they gave their patriarchal name to the mark or central point around which they clustered."

This view is fortified by the researches of Foerstemann with regard to German names, and is adopted by Ferguson. The name contained in the forms, ingas, ings, and ingen, is simply that of a leader under whose guidance the settlements were made, and is generally that of the patriarch or head of the family.

Kemble, as Master of the Rolls, had access to the long line of charters developed by Saxon life in England, and compiled an exhaustive list of these patronymics.

Foerstemann afterwards compiled a list of the patronymics of modern Germany. Taylor followed with a set of tables for the purpose of comparing the Anglo‑Saxon Settlements with those of Germany. Ferguson followed with a table still more exhaustive in which he used first, the Anglo‑Saxon names from

Page 10

Kemble's lists; then corresponding Old German from the lists of Foerstemann, with the district in which it is found, and, wherever identified, the existing name of the place; then names corresponding from the Liber Vitae, or elsewhere, to show continued Anglo‑Saxon use, with, also, Frisian names; and finally the existing English surnames to which he compared them.

As the patronymic, "Sinningas," is in Kemble's list, and also in that of Foerstemann, it may be taken as proved that the Shinns came in with the Saxons and have lived in England for more than twelve hundred years. Their prior history is wrapped up in the oblivion which surrounds the Teutonic tribes in their centuries of life North of the Rhine.

I subjoin a page of Ferguson's tables to prove the position and place of the Sinningas in Kemble's Foerstemann's and Ferguson's lists.

EARLY SAXON SETTLEMENTS COMPARED WITH THOSE OF GERMANY.

Kemble Foerstemann Locality in (L.V.) Liber Vitae English

Anglo‑Saxon. German Germany (F) Frisian Surnames

Sealfingas. Selvingen Self, Selvey.

Stubingas. Staubingen. Staubing in Stuf (A.S.) Stubbe

Bavaria. Stubbing

Secgingas. Siggingahem Belgium Sigga (L. V.) Siggs.

Specingas Speichingas. Spaichengen in Spech (Domesday) Speck

Westphalia.

Sceaflingas. Schuffelinga. Schiflingen in Shovel

Luxemburg.

Staeningas. Steen (F.) Stean Stone

(L.V.) Stenning

Sinningas. Siningas. Sinne (F.) Siney. Shinn.

Stellingas. Stell.

Taedingas. Tattingas. Dettingen in Tade (F.) Tadd

Bavaria.

Taelingas. Telingen. Bavaria. Teile (F.) Tella (L. Tall. Telling

V.)

Kemble, in his lists, gives "Sinnington," in York, as the word from which he generated "Sinningas." Foerstemann, however, found the "Sinningas" in the charters and documents of Germany. Ferguson finds its Frisian counterpart to be Sinne. The English counterparts are Siney and Shinn.

Kemble also gives "Shinfold" as one of the patronymics of Sussex. Shinfield of Berks is not so well identified. Sinningas, then, means descendants of Sinn or Sinna. The intrusion of h is explained on the same principle as that of Washington from Wassengatun. In fact, our ancestors have always had trouble with h, intruding it where it needs not be, and eliding it where it should properly appear. The intrusion of a letter may be for euphony, or to give sense to the word.

The intrusion of h in Sinn, generating the family name Shinn, may have been for euphony. If not, I take it that it was introduced not so much to give meaning to the word as to destroy the meaning which the phonetic form gave to Sinn. Whatever theologians may conclude as to the possibility of destroying evil, it is almost certain that the descendants of the original Sinn destroyed its phonetic

Page 11

power, at least, by simply intruding an h. At all events, the best Anglo‑Saxon scholars give Shinn as the modern surname corresponding to the ancient patronymic "Sinningas."

CHAPTER III.

THE SHINNS ON THE CONTINENT OF EUROPE.

The exact date of the landing of the Shinns in England may never be determined. We have outlined a deduction by which the name is proved to be Anglo‑Saxon, and therefore not Celtic, in either of its forms Cymric, Pictish or Gaelic.

This conclusion is fortified by the fact that the name "Schyn," or "Shyn," has been found in Frisia, Batavia, Holland and Bohemia. One of the earliest historians of the Moravians was Herman "Schyn," "Shyn" or "Schynn." He was a resident of Holland, and brought out his work about 1728. The various spellings of names need not give us much trouble, inasmuch as each record is but an effort of a different man to reproduce in type or in letters the sounds which come to his car. In an early English record of births, deaths and marriages, taken from the Church at Mildenhall, Suffolk, England, the name Shinn is spelled in three ways between 1636 and 1670. And when we remember that "Scrobsbyryg" is the ancient setting for "Shrewsbury" we must conclude that names develop into higher and more beautiful forms as do the things they represent.

And at an earlier day than that which knew Herman Shinn the "Schynns" are found among the knights of Bohemia, engaged upon both sides of the struggle known as the "Hussite Wars."

Bohemia was, in the days of Julius C‘sar, in possession of the Suevi, two of whose tribes were the Semnones and the Boii. The Cenni were the leading subtribe of the Semnones, and their descendants may still be traced in the "Sens" and "Senns," shepherds in the Alps. Thus the Saxon root word "Sinn" finds its counterpart in the Suevian "Senn," this representing the high, while that represents the low German form. This induction at least gives the name "Shinn" a high antiquity, and places it with more certainty among Teutonic words. The change from "Senn" to "Schin" is happily illustrated in the present village "Schinanach," in the Canton Aargan, Switzerland, one of the old seating places of the Cenni. One of the noble families of Switzerland is still known by the name Schein.

There are members of the family that trace the word "Shinn" to either G??elic or Pictish Celtic. Their chief reasoning is based upon the place name "Loch Shin," in Sutherlandshire, Scotland. In answer to this it may be said that the most careful examination fails to show the name "Shinn" as a surname at any time in the history of Sutherland. And the following matter will conclusively show that the place name "Loch Shin" is not a derivative of any ancient patronymic:

LOCH SHIN.

Etymologies‑‑

1. LOCH SINS (Gaelic), pronounced Sheenu, means Loch of the Stormwail (a not uncommon cry thereaway in Winter).

2. LOCH SI(TH)??IN (Gaelic), pronounced Sheein (th being silent), means Loch of the

Fairy‑Knoll, possibly from great number of cairns and tumuli (sepulchral) in that neighborhood, and which used to be ascribed to the Daoine‑sith, the Peace‑folk or Fairies. Of these the Cairns are perhaps memorials of battle. The more earthly tumuli, sometimes containing Ci??s, are certainly the burial‑mounds of the Picts, whose hut circles lie among them.

Page 12

History‑‑

"Tandem Comes Magbragdus, e Scotia, cum magno exercitu, Liotum in Paludibus

Scidensibus‑‑adortus est."

(Ozcades auctore Thormodo Torff‘o Historiographo Regio; Hauni‘e, 1697.‑‑Lib. I, Cap. IX.)

NOTE‑‑Liot, Earl of Orkney, third son of Thorfinn Hansakliuf (Skull Cleaner), was succeeded by his brother, Hlodver, 980.

"A Scotorum Comite Finnleico, ‘stivo tempore, ad certamen in Scidense Palude ad constitutam diem, provocatus."‑‑Ib., Lib. I, Cap. X.

NOTE‑‑This refers to Earl Sigurd Hlodverson, who fell at Clontarff, near Dublin, 1014.

The editor of the Origines Parochiales Scoti?? says (volume ii, pt. 2d, p. 700) that both battles were fought in the neighborhood of Loch Shin.

In 1548 John, Earl of Sutherland, granted to Helen Stewart, the widow of the Earl of Errol, the life rent of certain lands, including the Two Largis, Shenanes (the promontory of Schena). (Reg. Mag. Sig., Lib. XXX, No. 206; Reg. Sec. Sig., Vol. XXIV, Fol. 15.)

Schennynes included in new grant of lands to Earl John in 1566. (Sutherland Charters.)

Shin or Shinn not known as a surname in Sutherland.

I am indebted for the above matter to a scholarly gentleman of Sutherland, Scotland.

Note.‑‑Lower, in his "Family Names," refers Shinn to Loch Shin. It was easier to refer than to make a proper investigation, and Lower took the easy path. Had Bowditch analyzed the word he would doubtless have taken an easier path and derived it from the human anatomy.

CHAPTER IV.

INTO GREATER ANTIQUITY. (Reflections.)

It would be highly interesting to trace the Shinns back through those remoter ages when the Teutons were a part of the original stock which peopled the Asiatic highlands. To do this would unfold many of the mysteries surrounding the original habitat, the breaking of the original family into great tidal waves of migrating nations, and the hidden life of these nations as they wandered to their present historic seating places. And, after all, it may be said justly that the history of words is a sure guide to the history of nations.

In a secluded valley on the upper Indus there is a state called Gilgit. Its people are reckoned among the Dards, although two languages, entirely and radically different, are spoken amongst them. These languages are the Khajuna and the Shina. The Shina is clearly Aryan. Among these people are two middle castes‑‑the Shin and Yashkun. "The pure Shin looks more like a European than any high caste Brahmin of India," says the famous English traveler, Colonel Yule. How long the Dards have occupied Gilgat is not known. In the map of Ptolemy, made in the first century, the Dard‘ are located with surprising accuracy. Upon many of the Pauranic lists of people the Dardas and Chinas frequently appear. It is more than possible that the latter are the Shin branch of the Dards. Fahian, a Chinese traveler, visited Darad‘ in the year 400, and Hwen‑Thsang in 631. The latter says: "Perilous were the roads and dark the gorges. Sometimes the pilgrim had to pass by loose cords, sometimes by light stretched iron chains. Here there were ledges hanging in mid‑air; there flying bridges across abysses; elsewhere paths cut with a chisel, or footings to climb by. Yet, even in these inaccessible regions were found great convents and miraculous images of Buddha."

Every Shin of the upper Indus claims to be of the same race as the Moghuls

Page 13

of India. And the law, whatever it was, that bound them together as "Shins" in ancient India would bind together such migrating parts of the original caste as the vicissitudes of time tore from their ancient homes. The caste would, in a new environment, become a tribal name, which, under other vicissitudes, would become a proper name.

This is a mere hypothesis, and is not advanced as a settled theory. The connection of the Sinning as of England with the Cenni of Switzerland is an hypothesis hard to establish; but great as is this difficulty, it is far less onerous than the perilous attempt to connect the early Aryan Shins of the upper Indus with any European tribe or people. Yet, great as is the difficulty, it must have in it some element of truth. The people of Europe are branches torn from the Asiatic trunk, and their relationship is traced through a series of similar words. May it not be that the Shin of Gilgit, the Senn of the Alps and the Sinn of England are all words marking the lives of the same related people?

Upon no other hypothesis can the widely recurring names "Shin," in China; "Shinn," in Japan; "Shin," in India; "Shenn," in Russia; "Schyn," in Bohemia; "Schin," in Switzerland, and "Shin," "Shyn," "Schyn" and "Shinn" in the same known families in England be accounted for. At all events, it is an ancient family in England, one dating back to the incoming Angles. And whether it be part of the Suevian branch, separated from the Angle in remoter ages, its English antiquity is of the highest rank, and covers a period of fifteen centuries.

CHAPTER V.

THE DOMESDAY BOOKS.

Mr. J. J. Murket, editor of the Eastern Counties Magazine, a periodical devoted to the discussion of genealogical and antiquarian problems in Eastern England, in a letter to the author, makes this remark: "The derivation of surnames is for the most part conjecture, and nothing more." The peculiar force of this sentence will become obvious as the reader proceeds with the purely linguistic argument concerning the derivation of the word Shinn.

And to the writer it has a most peculiar force, for when one sits down before the four great volumes of the venerable Domesday books and seeks to identify a word of the twentieth century with all its accretions of growth as being one and the same with a word recorded in that monumental census of England, taken in the eleventh century, he is apt to exclaim, with the writer of old, "Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!" And this is especially true when the student admits, as does the writer, a lack of critical Anglo‑Saxon scholarship. Accidental resemblances of form which, to the scholar, are not misleading, become to a novice a fruitful source of confusion and consequent error.

But the writer may consult scholarship, and in this case an honest effort has been made to gather the ripe fruits of its studies, and to compress them into a product containing the essence of its work. These scholars have classified many of these ancient root words, as has been shown in the Anglo‑Saxon patronymic Sinninga and in the place word Shinfold. An accidental reference has also been made to the possibly different derivation of Shenley and Shenfield, and causes us to remark that the Anglo‑Saxon words "scine" and "scene" have been classified as roots for that class of surnames whose variations are Shyne, Shynne, Shien, Shene, Sheen.

As to whether this philologic differentiation is borne out historically, we shall have more to say in another place. Enough has been said, however, to lead the reader to see that in the matter of Domesday identification we are to distinguish between men enrolled at that time under designations legitimately traceable to

Page 14

the root word "Sinn," and to differentiate or divorce them from other men enrolled at the same time under designations traceable to the root words "Scine" and "Scene."

The reader must remember that the Domesday books were really census enrollments of the people of England, taken at four different periods of time immediately after the Conquest, and that what appears to be a simple problem when two root words are considered by themselves, comes to be an almost impossible task when rolls and lists containing thousands of root words in a semi‑barbarous language are brought into juxtaposition from which a selection is to be made.

But as the writer will, in another place, attempt to show that, historically, there has been no divorce of the derived surnames from the different root words "Sinn" and "Scine" or "Scene," the task of differentiating these words from each other in Domesday has been abandoned, and references to either or both of them grouped herein as authority for the surname "Shinn" or "Sheen" in the Domesday time.

In "Libri Vocati Exon Domesday," under "Nomenarum Personarum," we have two references‑‑"Chenias" and "Chinias" (364, 365, 369.) These, however, have been referred to the "Cheney" and "Chinn" classification. A very interesting historical argument might show this to be erroneous. In "Index Nominum Eliesis" we have "Nicholas Chenetu" (497). This has also been labeled "Cheney." In "Winton Domesday" we have many references: "Chinal" (561) and "Sinn" (536). The first is etymologically "Chinn" or "Cheney," and the second "Shin" or "Shinn." In the same book, in Herefordshire County, there were three men, named respectively, "Senlai," "Scenlai" and "Scenlei" (139 b, 135 b and 136 b). The modern word "Shenley" is admitted by all to be a derivative from "Senlai." The other two words project for the first time the A. S. roots "Scine" or "Scene" into historic view, and may be taken as roots for the modern surnames "Sheen," "Shene," "Shine," etc. In Buckinghamshire we have Semlai and Senlai. In Leicestershire, Sceneford and Sceneton. Literally, the ford of Sheen and the town of Sheen. In York, in Eurvie??shire, we have Schinestorp and Sinitun. The first is claimed by the classifiers for the list of Sheen words, while the second is unquestionably the village of Sinn or Shinn. In Shropshire there was a place named Schentune, which implies a man named Schen, Shen or Sheen. In Lincolnshire the list discloses a Schinende. The etymologists claim this for Sheen upon grounds hard to understand. It may as well be classified "Schin" or "Shinn." In Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk we have "Scenefelda," which has been universally rendered "Shenfield," or field of Sheen.

So that whatever may be the truth about the derivation of the word "Shinn," whether it rightly roots back into the ancient Anglo‑Saxon "Sinninga," or whether it is a modern variable of the derivative "Sheen," from "Scina," its ancient respectability as a surname is established by that high foundation of English authority, the great landmark of genealogical and antiquarian lore, the venerable Domesday Book of England.

CHAPTER VI.

SHINN, SHEEN OR SHEAHAN?

The first of these words roots back into the Saxon, and imports a tribal origin. The third roots back into the Celtic, and denotes a distinct tribal origin. It must be divorced philologically from the first two, and is not derived from them, nor they from it. They are absolutely distinct, and the families bearing them as proper names are equally distinct. Historically, however, the Celtic, Sheahan, has merged into Shinn, but I have not found a case where Shinn has merged into Sheahan.

Page 15

In Anderson, Indiana, there is a family. that now spells its name Shinn. The father came direct from Ireland, and has no kin in the United States. His father was a Sheahan. There are thus two families wearing the same surname in that State whose ancestry are of distinct lines; lines absolutely divorced. Will the mutations of the future merge all of the name of Sheahan1 into that of Shinn, as is evidently the case with the Sheens?

Sheen was a good old English surname. Ferguson has somewhat prematurely written its epitaph in these words: "Some of our words contain words lost in English, but retained in German. As from Scene (Saxon), beautiful, we have the name Sheen, only lost as a word within the last two centuries."‑‑"English Surnames."

This is not exactly true, for there are still a few families who retain the surname Sheen. But a comparison of these with the very large number who used that form three hundred years ago would sustain Ferguson in placing it among the lost surnames. In vast regions where once the Sheens were numerous now only Shinns abound. Why? It will be admitted that Sheen, which denotes splendor and beauty, is a far more beautiful word than Shinn. And yet the more hideous form triumphs, and seems destined to absorb not only the Saxon, Sheen, but the Celtic, Sheahan. The Saxon is not older than the Celtic, nor is the patronymic Sinninga older than the Saxon, Scene, although it is doubtless older than the surname Sheen. Ultimate and continued domination rests upon superior power, whether we have the ability to analyze that power or not. The word Shinn contains a strength that enables it to dominate its weaker, though more euphonious, foe, the older name Sheen. And that strength seems to me to be that Sheen is not a derived surname from the Saxon Scene?? but a variation of the Saxon surname Sinn. Sheen was one of the forms into which the word Sinn, in its march from its original form to its present orthography, accidentally assumed.

Lower derives Sheen from the Anglo‑Saxon Scinian (to shine), and gives its variations‑‑Shene, Sheene, Sheen. He also gives it as the original name of Richmond Palace, not seeming to know that the Manor of Sheen, or Shene, antedated the palace, and pointed to an ancient proprietor of that name, more than to the beauty of either palace, Sheen, or Richmond. Shinn as a surname rests upon an induction that proves great age. Shinn also finds a foothold in Domesday. Sheen as a surname came in after the Conquest, although derived from a word that is as old as the Saxon Itself. The common noun sheen was certainly derived from the Saxon scene, but it may be doubted whether the surname "Sheen" came from the same source. Eminent English authorities claim that these words, Shinn

1Sh??ahan, Sh??en, Shane, Syan. These Celtic forms are common. Castle Shane

Is interchangeable with Castle Shean and Castle Syan. The steps from Shean to

Shinn and Syan to Shinn are obvious. "Castle Shane in parish, barony and County

of Monaghan belongs to the Hon. Edward Lucas," says Burke, "and this gentleman

belongs to a family of which several members migrated from England to Ireland in

the early part of the seventeenth century and acquired by purchase and royal grant

the manor of Castle Shane. Queen Elizabeth made a grant of the lands of Syan to

Ro?? Bane McMahon. He sold the lands of Sheen to Lord Blayney. They passed to

Lucas." Thus Burke in one paragraph uses three forms of the same word. Nicholas

Lucas, another member of the Lucas family in England, was one of the three ass??gnees

of Edward Byilinge, In his conveyance of his interest in the province of West Jersey

for the benefit of his creditors. Descendants of this family removed to New Jersey,

and one of them married Caleb Shinn.

The case of the Irish family at Anderson, Ind., was submitted to Mr. Thomas

Warthmell, of Stockport, England, an antiquarian of note, and an authority upon

surnames. He says: "There is no law forbidding any family changing their name,

nor one that dictates the standard orthography. D'Alton, the greatest authority of

the past in Celtic names, states distinctly that O'Sheehan is the descendant of

Sheahan, a Celtic Sept of Counties Cork and Limerick in the remote past. The new

form puts them on an Anglo‑Saxon basis, which hides their origin."

Page 16

and Sheen, are as distinct as Shinn and Sheahan. These authorities assert with vehemence the tribal origin of the word Shinn, while demanding with earnestness the derivation of Sheen from Scene. I think they confound the common with the proper noun. Sheen as a common noun has force today, while Sheen as a surname is almost obsolete. In the chapters which follow, my reasons for this belief will be given in the form of historic facts, gathered from English history. For the present, I conclude this chapter with a series of variations, originating in the old Saxon word Sinn, and passing through successive mutations of pronunciation and orthography, and culminating by its own inherent power into the final form Shinn. This series is: Sinn, Senn, Sinna, Senna, Shin, Shyn, Shine, Shyne, Schin, Schyn, Schen, Shene, Schene, Schyne, Scheen, Sheen, Scheene, Sheene, Schynne, Shynne, Shinne, Schynn, Shinn.

CHAPTER VII.

SHINN OR SHEEN‑‑WHICH?

In the nineteenth century the spelling crystallized into Shinn in England and America; for the first twenty years of the eighteenth century it was Sheen or Shene, after which it became Shinn; in the seventeenth centnry it was Sheen or Shene; in the fourteenth and the early part of the fifteenth century it was anything that pleased the fancy of the writer, and appeared as Shyn, Shin, Shine, Shene, Sheen, Sheene, Shynn and Shynne. In the latter part of the eleventh century, as is shown by the Book of Dooms, it was Sinn, Sinne or Sinna.

In Yorkshire today the traveler may visit a modest village which bears the name Sinnington; in the period immediately after the Conquest, when the Domesday Books were written, there was a town in Yorkshire called "Sinnitun." Through eight hundred years the ancient Saxon village has held its place upon the map of the world with less change in its orthographical dress than is presented by the ancient and modern spellings of London (Lundonum). That it was a Saxon village is proven by the ending "tun"; had it been a Danish village its termination would have been "torp" or "thorp," as is attested by the other Danish towns all around it. "Sinnitun" means the town or village of the Sinnings. Sinnings means the descendants of Sinn. So that this village, recorded by the census enumerators in the eleventh century with a Saxon name, was a village before that time. and even before the invasion of the Danes, and dates its beginning deep in the Saxon glory of the fifth or sixth century. And it is the conviction of the writer that the families which appear in every century, although under different surnames, Shyn, Shin, Shen, Schin, Schyn, Shine, Shyne, Shene, Sheen, or Shinn, are the lineal descendants of Sinn, the ancient Saxon chief, who led his followers into Yorkshire in the distant centuries of the past. I have read every English county history that is to be found in the Congressional Library at Washington for the sole purpose of tracing the growth of the word "Shinn" historically. These books have not yielded the fruitage I wished, for the reason that, being written for the most part in the nineteenth century, they carry the spelling of their writers, and not that of the records from which the names were extracted. Enough has been gleaned, however, to warrant the statement heretofore made, and these gleanings will be presented in another chapter. I have had the ancient parish registers of several places exhumed, and will present their content exactly as it was written at the time. I pause to say, however, that church registers were born in the fifteenth century, and that a family that begins with their advent in the world is hoary with age and respectability. I shall also present the briefs of many wills in their fifteenth and sixteenth century dress to support my conclusion.

Page 17

CHAPTER VIII.

ORTHOGRAPHY OF NAMES.

In Nash's "History of Woreestershire," Vol. II, page 318 (IV.), the following language appears:

"Some of the individuals of the Percy family (like most of others formerly) wrote the name with the variations Percy, Peircy, Piercy, Peerciey, and so on through twenty‑three forms. Some inserted a superfluous letter or two, as they saw the same printed in a book, or were seduced by vicious pronunciation. But the variations of the name Percy are trifling when compared with the variations which other names have undergone in the same line of family title deeds, and even in books high in authority at the time."

He then sets out the spelling which eight successive generations of the noble house of Percival used in writing their names.

In temp. Hen. VIII, David Percival; in 1588, George Persyval; in 1620, Richard Percyval; in 1647, Philip Percivalle; in 1665, John Percivall; in 1698, John Percival; in 1770, John Perceval. The town of Lynn, in Domesday, is Lena and Lun; it was chartered by King John under the name Lena. Bloomfield makes the bishop of the ecclesiastical division in which the village lies spell it "Lenn." Stowe, in his "Chronicle," uses "Linne." In 1173 a deed is witnessed by Ralph, Mayor of Lenn. In a history of Berks the family name Feens or Fienes undergoes the following transformations: Fynes, Fenys, Feins, Fennes, Fynnes, Finns, Fienles and Fiennes.

Shenfield has been Sinningfelda, Shynningfelda and Shyningfelda. That it was derived from an ancient owner and not from a Saxon word of beauty is obvious from its various forms. In Foster's "Yorkshire" the following beautiful induction appears: Sherd, Sherde, Sheerd, Shert, Sherte, Shirt and Shirte. One might argue that these were distinct, or that the Sherds form one family and the Shirts another, and that it is a crime to use them together. They are but variations of one family name. Bolton gives a Norfolk family as Scelton, Shelton and Sheltone. Polwhile presents a most interesting series of place and surnames in a halo of changes in the pedigrees of William de Schengham. "In the 10th year of Richard I. Walter de Schengham held lands in Shengham and Wells; Sara, daughter of William Scheiengham claimed these as her inheritance; Henry, son of Walter de Sengham, held a messauge in Shingham."

Blomefield and Parkins analyze "Shingham" somewhat differently from the orthoepists. They say: "Near to the Church is a Spring, and from hence flows a stream or rivulet that separates the hundred of Clacklose from that of South Greenhaw, and empties itself in the river, Wiffy; probably its ancient name was Schin or Shen; Shengay is a town in Cambridgeshire; Shenfield in Essex; Shenley in Hertfordshire." Blomefield was one of the most erudite of local historians, and has left a monument to his learning and judgment in his history of Norfolk. Shing ham is spelled in several other books Shyngham. And, by a strange metamorphosis, Luke Sheen according to one author, Luke Schene according to another and Luke Shyn according to another, was rector of Shingham parish in 1650. In Gage's "Somerset" we have the same surname under three forms‑‑ Theyne, Thynne and Thinn. Shenley Hall is analyzed by Charles Bowles, who uses it as interchangeable with Senley. He says that "ley" is an old English word, meaning pasture, from which the derivation of Shenley is obvious. It was a simple pasture of an old proprietor, Shen or Senn, and not a pasture of brilliant or beautiful proportions.

Sir Henry Chauncey, in his "Hertfordshire," says of Senley1 or Shenley: "These words were

doubtless taken from some ancient owner thereof, and the vill

1In Domesday Book it reads "Abbas Sancti Albani tenuit scenlai pro sex hidis

defendebat." And in the same book Shingham Manor was "Scingham." Both these

Page 18

is about four miles from St. Albans." In the same way the Manor of Sheen or Shine is brought down to the level of common things.

Manning and Bray, in their history of Surrey, were called upon to give a reason for the dual name of the palace, Richmond and Maner of Shene. They say that Edward III built a palace there, and on account of its splendor named it "Maner of Shene." But historians agree that Edward built no palace there, and that Richmond was built by a later king. Other historians say that when Richmond was built that on account of the splendor of its location it was named by the king "Maner of Shene." All this labored effort resulted from the mistaken hypothesis of these gentlemen that Sheen, as a proper name, was derived from scena (beautiful).

The truth is that the Maner of Shene existed before Edward III was born, as appears from these same authors: "In the days of Edward II, 1313, Philip Burnet held Tuberville manor in capite as of the Manor of Shene by the service of 18œ per annum and suit of court to Shene." Edward III acquired this manor and died there (1377). Richmond palace was built upon it by Richard, his son. Stow says that when James IV died his body was conveyed to "Shien," a monastery in Surrey. And Rev. Mr. Lamb says:

"King James' body was embalmed sweet like a king, and then was sent to Shene in Surrey, where entombed, some say there is a monument."

Edward III issued several proclamations from this palace, spelling it "Sheen." Other authors spell the name of the priory near the palace, and which gained its name from the ancient manor, Sheen, Shene, Shine and Schene. And Blomefield spells the name of the Charter House of Shene as Schene, giving as his authority a book kept in the church chest of Brisingham rectory.

I might multiply these citations indefinitely, but I forbear. They establish two things: First, the same surname has, in different ages, been spelled differently, and the trend of these variations points to a single ancient root, a patronymic denoting a proprietor or leader. Second, the word "Sheen" is not a word created by royal order to meet the demands of a splendid environment created by him; nor given for any natural glory by which the place may have been surrounded; but simply and alone because some ancient Saxon, named Shine, Shene or Sheen, held it as a home in centuries before the Normans began their conquering march.

CHAPTER IX.

HISTORIC REFERENCES TO THE NAME SHENE, SHEEN OR SHINN.

In "History of Norfolk," Vol. V (Blomefield and Parkins), page 532, Robert Shene, Gent., of Eye, Suffolk, presented a living in Ickburgh Parish to John Sherwin, A. M.

Brisingham Parish, Norfolk, has a very ancient religious ceremony‑‑"The Pardon of the Beads"‑‑at the Charter House of Schene. Saxlingham Manor House belonged, in 1656, to Thomas Jermyn, Knight, who was father‑in‑law to one Shene, who married his daughter, Dorothy, and had one son, Jermyn Shene. In Wright's "Essex," Vol. I, page 484, another variation occurs in the Manors of Pelham and Sparrow Hall, owned by a family named Shaen of Witham. Manning and Bray, in their history of Surrey, give Shene, a chapel in Kingston Hundred.

But by far the most convincing piece of evidence is found in Chauncey's "Antiquities of

Hertfordshire," Vol. I, page 135. It reads as follows: "Hundred of Odsey. Coldridg. Hertfordshire; or Cotered, or Codred. This vill stands towering upon a high hill about a mile N. E. from Ardeley, which the Saxons places are in Hertford, near which the Shinns have been seated as a family from time immemorial, and from whose county gaol as a prisoner for conscience sake, John Sheen went to America to become the head of the "House of Shinn."

Page 19

called, Coldridge. The Manor was divided under two lordships by 41 Edward III (1368). One moiety of this manor came to one, Sheine, from whom it had the adjunct 'Manor of Sheine,' to distinguish it from the other part thereof; for it bore this name when a court was held there Anno 13 R. II. (1390) (Rot. Custulorum Maneris 13 R. II). Sometime after this it was in the possession of Sir William Cheiny, Kt., who to perpetuate the memory of his name to posterity (as many did in that age) changed the adjunct of Sheine to Cheynyes, when the courts were held here (for this part) Anno 3 H V (1417) (Rot. Cus. Manorii 3 H. V.)"

This affords food for many reflections.

First. "Are we so soon forgotten?" Chauncey was not only an eminent. sergeant at law, but an antiquarian of eminence. His references to these ancient manor rolls show a love for research and accuracy rarely found in county histories. These old manor houses and parish churches, as described by him, and by that other eminent antiquarian of Norfolk, Blomefield, seem to be absolutely forgotten.

Blomefield exhumed ancient brasses and set out their content upon his historic page. Inquiry at present, although directed to learned men, brings a vacant stare, and the dismal ejaculation, "I never heard of it!" Into the old tomes at Washington I send a mattock of thought which unfolds a lead of ore; I pick up these priceless nuggets and send them over the ocean to learned men who live and move in the halls wherein these nuggets had place, and find that other soils have arisen to hide the rifts from whence these nuggets came. Mankind lives in the present and pauses not to note the wailing cries of the solitary man who tries to be a man of yesterday as well as a machine of today. He who stands with one foot in the cemeteries and the other in the m‘lstrom of life needs hope for little consideration. That which was is lost, and irredeemably forgotten; that which is will in turn be lost, despite the efforts of the eleverest antiquarians; a few bold facts, pyramidlike, will outlast centuries; but the myriad details‑‑the flesh and blood of existence‑‑will pass into oblivion, leaving but a skeleton to grin defiance at researeh and culture. The one giant fact of life is that "we shall be forgotten when we are gone."

Second. ??If, in 1368, one Sheine owned the "Manor of Sheine," and in 1417 it had passed to Sir William Cheiny, who changed its name, the history of the Manor of Sheine must be sought in a period antedating 1368.

Third: It is not unlawful to think, and one cannot be held to an indictment for a criminal offense, if he surmise that the knight who changed the adjunct, "of Sheine" to "Cheynyes" to perpetuate the memory of his name, changed also his surname, Sheine to Cheiny, for the same reason. The plebeian name, Smith, has been wrought upon by various proprietors, who desired to perpetuate their names to posterity, till the product took the finished form, "Smythe." In the same way "Bird" has come to be "Byrud," "Jonathan" "Jo Nathan" and "Dobbins" "D'Aubigne." The gamut of change from Sheine to Cheiny is not a diffieult one, and a man who desired a change, as did Sir William, would naturally take this path. But while one changed his name,, the remainder of the family held on to the pottage handed them by their ancestors. Certain it is that in this same Hertfordshire, three hundred years later (1662) John Sheen was sent to jail for not paying his parish fees; that John Sheen appeared in New Jersey, wearing the name Sheen (1678), sixteen years later; and that John Sheen died as John Shinn, in 1711.

In Sir R. C. Hoare's History of Wiltshire, we find that in 1412, during the mayoralty of John Becket of Salisbury, an account was rendered of the rents and tenements within the city held under the mayor and commonalty. The writer says: "A shop near the entrance of the Cemetery of St. Thomas, with a. bed chamber over the steps, which John Shinn holds at 20 shillings, among the highest rates paid."

Page 20

Sir R. C. Hoare spells the name John Shinn. A glance at the other names on the roll suggests the suspicion that he spelled all names according to their modern rendering. If not, the word Shinn was in use in the 13th Century; if so, then the English concensus of opinion in Sir R. C. Hoare's day, was that Sheen, or Shene, should be rendered Shinn. In the pedigree of Lord Nelson, as given by Blomefield, we are told that William Nelson of Dunham Parva, married Mary, daughter of Thomas Sheen, the great grandmother of the Admiral. In other pedigrees of Nelson, the word Sheen is sometimes spelled Shene; and at other times Shinn. In Vol. 2 of Nash's Worcester it is said that John Shyen was rector, Feb. 14, 1387, of Edvin Loche, or Yedfen Loche, in the deanery of Burford, his patron being the king. (Gilbert Register f. 73.)

In A. D. 1300, John De Chyn was agent for Lord de Badlesmere in Wilts. (See Castle Combe, Vol. 1, Scrope 53.)

In 1610 Edward Sheen, by assignment of R. Beckham, father and son, came to be rector of Fransham Parva; and in 1652 William Sheen was rector of the same parish. (Blomefields Norfolk, Vol. V, page 1006.)

Blomefield states that, in the chancel of Castleacre, Priory Manor, Norfolk, is a Mural Monument: "In memory of Mary, daughter of Sir Thomas Gawfell, Kt. wife of John Shene, Clerk, who died in1653." The Gawfell pedigree, which begins in 1500, contains this marriage.

As an instance of mutability I make this exeursion. I have a very learned friend in Mildenhall, Suffolk, to whom I sent the above quotation, asking him to go over to Castle Acre. This gentleman is a model investigator. He takes his bicycle and rides forty or fifty miles a day, taking in indicated parishes. At first he had considerable difficulty in reading the old registers; but he has so far advanced in knowledge as to read the records, in many cases, more easily than the vicars, who have them in charge. Here is what he wrote concerning his trip to Castle Acre:

"Last Friday I left Mildenhall for the places you mentioned in Norfolk. Finding it necessary to stay the night in Swaffham, I looked in the registers there, and found Margaret and John Shinn, children of John and Margaret Shinn, baptized 1612, but no other entry. Next morn I went on to Castle Acre. The registers did not begin soon enough. There is no trace of a monument in the church, but there is a Shinn family, poor, still living in the village. I met a young man in the church whose uncle has worked up the history of the place, but he does not mention any tablet to a Shene; so if there was one it must have disappeared at some restoration in considerable time back. I wrote to this uncle, J. W. Bloom, Rector, White Church, Stratford on Avon, and this is a copy of his post card: 'I have not heard of the tablet you name. How about Shene in Surrey as an origin? Cheyne or Cheyney, so far as I know, never spelt Shene. The Shene equal splendor is grand.' This man is quite an authority upon names." This long extract from a very interesting gentleman is a model of correspondence and indicates the difficulties that surround historical problems. It also enforces the idea of the author that Shene of Surrey is a surname, and that in some way it connects itself with the House of Shinn. In my letter to England it was set out as an hypothesis that Sheen might equal Splendor. This was in turn transmitted to Mr. Bloom, who treats it as indicated in the extract.

In Vol. V Blomefield, p. 787, it appears that in the 2nd of King John William de Chaen was Lord of North Greenhaw Hundred and Wighton; and that in 1383 Ad. Schene was Rector of Waxham Parva, instituted by Sir Miles Stapleton.

Suckling in his History of Suffolk gives a list of subscribers to a church repair fund in 1750 at Kirkly, among which the name of "Widow Shin" appears. In Carter's, Cambridge, p. 269, Francis Shinn and Henry Shinn (so spelled) are put down as freeholders at Soham in 1722; also Thomas Shinn?? freeholder, at Sutton

Page 21

in same year; also, John Shinn voted for a Member of Parliament at Witcham, 16 miles north of Cambridge at the same time. (Sheahan's Cambridge.) These spellings come from a habitat where the parish registers show Sheens, and indicate that the spelling, Shinn, began to be quite common in the early part of the 18th century.

In Suckling's Norfolk, Vol. II, p. 242, the author says: "Gardner gives a letter in his possession, with the autograph signature of Henry VI. It closed with the words: 'Given under our signet at our manner of Sheene the XXI day of Nov. (1422).'"

In Antiquities of Berkshire by Ashmole, p. 161, it is set out that the contents of a brass plate on a gravestone near the high altar of Shinfield Church were "Ellis of Sheynefyeld." If Sheynefyeld became Shinfield, then it is certain that one of the ancient forms of Shin or Shinn was Sheyne.

In Man's History of Reading, p. 274,, this same, Shinfield is rendered Shyningfield, which suggests the Saxon Sinninga; as Sinning(a); Shinning, Shynning.

Two seats or manor houses in Hertford, Shingey Hall, and Shenley, had those names at the Conquest, 1066, and hold them to‑day. Sir Henry Chauncey, Knight and Sergeant at Law, thinks they took these names from "some ancient owner, Shen, or Shin."

These historic readings show that the ancient seating places of the family were in South Eastern England. To enforce this statement I add that my course of reading embraced every County history of England found in the Congressional Library at Washington. Few books are quoted for the reason that the great body of the ancient histories do not contain the name. The most fruitful places were Hertford, Surrey, Norfolk and Suffolk.

CHAPTER X.

THE PARISH REGISTERS OF ENGLAND AS TO SHINN.

Thanks to modern research and enterprise, hundreds of parish registers have been copied and printed. The Congressional Library at Washington, and the Newbury Library at Chicago are rich in these productions. But owing to the great number of parishes, it is fair to say that the number printed forms a very small part of the number in existence. Guided, however, by the experience gained in the County histories the principal investigation was made in parishes of South Eastern England. Every printed registry book on file in these libraries was looked at, however, and led to the conclusion that the proper habitat of the family was where the historic induction placed it. After exhausting the printed parishes, original research was made into the registers of other parishes. The contents of some of the printed books will be presented first.

Parish of Ellough, Suffolk.

2/26/1733 Jeffrey Ely and Dorcas Sheen of Beccles Parish, married.

The following entries show that Shine, Shiene and Sheene were interchangeable in the sixteenth century.

Parish of Birchington, Kent.

10/2/1578 Henricus Shiene married Johanna Staple.

8/25/1579 Joseph Shine, filius Henrici, bap.; ob. 12/30/1579.

9/10/1581 Agnes Shine, filia Henrici, bap.; ob. 11/20/1591.

8/9/1584 John Shiene, filius Henrici, bap.

3/27/1586 Johanna Shine, filia Henrici, bap.

3/29/1591 Eliz., filia Henrici Shine, bap.

1/1/1597 Henricus Shiene, pat. fam. ob.

1/12/1605 Lawrence Whatema married Anna Sheene.

This is a compact history of the married life of Henry Shinn, of Birchington, Kent. Of all that he did while living, this is the meager all that is left to history. But it is enough. It shows that he was a dutiful Christian citizen, living in a peaceful, happy home, and dying under the benedictions of the Church.

Page 22

Parish of Carlton, Suffolk. (Sheen, Shean, Shine.)

4/30/1702 Davenish Sheane and Elizabeth Bradden married.

2/8/1703 Davenish Sheane, son of Davenish and Elizabeth, bap.

1/14/1714 John Symonds and Mary Sheen, of Kelsale, Stourton, Wilts, married.

11/26/1738 Mary, daughter of Joseph and Ann Shean, of Mere, bap.

2/22/1740 Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph and Ann Shean, of Mere, bap.

6/27/1743 James Shean and Sarah Ricks, of Mere, married.

4/21/1761 William Shine, of South Brewham, and Ann Odbar married.

These show that many of the name lived at Carlton.

Parish of Ipswich.

12/18/1686 Robt. Curtis married Elizabeth Sheen.

Parish of Lowestaft, Suffolk. (Sheen, Sheene.)

11/18/1739 Mary, daughter of Henry and Mary Sheen, christened.

5/7/1742 Owen, son of Henry and May Sheene, christened.

8/28/1743 John, son of Henry and May Sheene, christened.

9/18/1745 Henry, son of Henry and May Sheen, christened.

8/4/1747 Robert, son of Henry and May Sheene, buried.

9/25/1748 Rebecca Sheene born. Died same year.

9/29/1749 Kinberry Sheene born. Died same year.

Parish of St. James, Clerkenwell, London.

4/27/1629 Mary Shinn (Sic) buried from John Hand's House.

Parish of St. Dunstan's, Stepney, London.

3/6/1697 Samuel Needles married Elizabeth Sheen.

11/18/1718 John V. Francis married Mary Shin.

2/26/1628 George Shinn (Sic), of Wapping, mariner, married Thomassine Grosse,

Parish of Ledbury, Herefordshire.

1575 Joan Shynne a godmother at a christening.

3/16/1557 Margaret Shynne was buried. On same page the same name is written "Marg. Shyn."

3/5/1565 William Shynne buried. On same page written Shyne.

Parish of St. Peters, Cornhill, London.

1/29/1586 Wedding of Jeames Shene, bachelor, waterman, sonne of William Shene and Eliz.

Brigges, maiden, daughter of Harry Brigges.

Parish of St. Martin in the Fields, London.

7/6/1619 William Shene to Jane Wallis.

Parish of Christ's Church, Newgate, London.

1/29/1694 George Sheen buried.

Parish of St. Helens, Worcester.

1628, Isabel, wife of Thomas Shine, buried.

In advertisements of London papers seeking claimants to fortunes, George and Henry Sheen are requested to make their whereabouts known; a little lower down the same request is made of George and Henry Shinn. Similar calls are made for John, William, Susannah, Samuel, and Thomas Sheen or Shinn.

Westminster Abbey Register.

5/19/1565 James, son of Christopher Sheene, one of the bell ringers of the abbey, buried in the Cloisters.

The father, Christopher, is mentioned in the Chapter Book 12/11/1660.

These exhaust my printed references and show not only the varied spellings, but point to Suffolk and Kent as the home of the family. Through the kindness of a friend, Mr. W. G. Stockley, Head Master of Mildenhall School, Suffolk, England, I am enabled to supplement these printed registers by numerous others, which he has gathered from various parishes in Herts, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk.

Page 23

Parish of Mildenhall, Suffolk.

This register is very old; one of the oldest extant. It was copied from an older one in 1662 and the following note appended:

"Although this register will be found very imperfect by reason of the great division and confusion of these times until the year 1662, yet I thought it more than expedient to set down what names........(not without great difficulty) ........ and do now proceed in order. May 20, 1662, J. O. Watson, Vicar."

The dotted lines in the certificate are illegible, says Mr. Stockley. Extracts from this Register. (Shene, Sheene, Sheen, Shine, Shyn, Shyne, Shin.)

MARRIAGES.

June 1578 Thomas Shene and J........ Bonet.

June 1588 John Sheene and Anne Che........

July 1589 Thomas Sheene and Maria Corkett.

May 1611 Thomas Wing and L........ Shene.

Jan. 1632 John Sheene and Ann Rolfe.

Sept. 9, 1639, John Avis and Elizabeth Shyn.

These complete the list of Mildenhall marriages from 1578 to 1671, a period of ninety‑three years. They give us the marriage date of John Sheene and Ann Rolf. This Ann was a descendant of an ancient family of Ralfs or Rolfs in Norfolk. Mildenhall was so??ed on Sir John Fitz Ralf in 1402. Another descendant of the same family formed an alliance in Virginia with the famous Indian princess, Pocahontas.

BIRTHS AND BAPTISMS.

July 1588 John Sheene, son of John Sheene, baptized.

Sept. 1589 Thomas Sheene, son of John Sheene, baptized.

April 1590 Anne, daughter of Thomas Sheen, baptized.

Nov. 1592 Nicholas, son of John Sheene, baptized.

Oct. 1595 Richard, son of John Sheene, baptized.

Oct. 1598 William, son of John Sheene, baptized.

Feb. 1604 Francts, son of John Sheene, baptized.

Sept. 1633 Rachel, daughter of John Sheene, baptized.

Oct, 1637 Richard, son of Richard Sheene, baptized.

March 1637 John, son of William Sheene, baptized.

March 1638 John, son of John Shyn, baptized.

Aug. 1640 James, son of William Sheen, baptized.

Nov. 1640 John, son of John Sheen, baptized.

Sept, 1640 William, son of Richard Sheen, baptized.

Oct?? 18/1646 Catherine, daughter of John Shin. baptized.

Feb, 2/1663 Elizabeth, daughter of John Shin, baptized.

July 22/1666 John, son of John Shin, baptized.

March 9/1669 Hannah, daughter of John Shin, baptized.

Feb. 4/1671 Hannah, daughter of John Shin, baptized.

??CRIALS.

May 1636 Francis Shyne buried.

May 1590 Anne, daughter of Thomas Sheen, buried.

Oct. 1607 John Shene, son of John Sheene, buried.

Jan. 1610 Thomas Sheene buried.

Feb. 1617 Widow Shine burled.

Feb. 28, 1638, Richard Shyn buried.

March 30, 1639, John, son of John Shyne?? buried.

July 24, 1644, William, son of John Shin, buried.

Aug. 10, 1662. Rachel, daughter of John Shin, buried.

Jan. 11, 1664, John Shin buried.

July ??, 1664, John, son of John Shin, buried.

Jan. 20, 1669, John, son of John Shin deceased. buried.

Aug. 27, 1679, Hannah, daughter of John Shin, buried.

Sept. 9, 167?? Amy Shin, widow, buried.

Parish of Little Fransham. (Shene.)

1610 Ed. Shene, rector.

1617 Elizabeth, daughter of Ed. Shene, baptized.

1623 L??cas, son of Ed. Shene, baptized.

Page 24

1624 Henry, son of Henry Shene, baptized.

1627 Anne, daughter of Henry Shene, baptized.

1629 Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Shene, baptized.

1632 Edward, son of Henry Shene, baptized.

1641 Mary, daughter of John and Margaret Shene, baptized.

1647 John, son of John Shene, baptized.

1660 Anne, daughter of Ed. Shene, baptized.

1665 Marie, daughter of Ed. Shene, baptized.

Parish of Freckenham. (Sheene.)

1551 (???), daughter of Francis Sheene, baptized.

1564 Mary, daughter of Francis Sheene, baptized.

1593 Clement, son of John Sheene, baptized, Nov. 24.

1608 Anne, daughter of John Sheene, baptized.

1610 Margaret, daughter of John Sheene, baptized.

1614 John and Nicholas, sons of John Sheene, baptized.

1614 John, son of John Sheene, buried.

1615 Frances, daughter of John Sheene, baptized.

1615 Nicholas, son of John Sheene, buried.

1616 Elizabeth, daughter of Francis Sheene, baptized.

1617 Anne, wife of John Sheene, buried.

1618 Francis, son of Francis Sheene, baptized.

1619 Marie married John Sheene.

1619 (???), son of John Sheene, baptized.

1620 Marie, wife of John Sheene, buried.

1621 John, wid., married Marie Spatkes.

1621 Anne, of John Sheene, baptized.

1623 John, son of Francis Sheene, baptized.

1627 Thomas, son of Francis Sheene, baptized.

1628 Marie, wife of John Sheene, buried.

1630 Thomas, son of John Sheene, baptized.

1630 Thomas, son of John Sheene, buried.

1631 Joane, wife of Francis Sheene, buried.

1631 John, son of Francis Sheene, buried.

1642 Anne, daughter of William Sheene, baptized.

1645 Mary, daughter of William Sheene, baptized.

1633 John, son of Francis Sheene, buried.

Parish Swaffham.

1612 Margaret and John, children of John and Margaret Shinn, baptized.

Town of Barton Mills.

Thomas Shinn, post‑boy at Bull Inn in the days of travel by means of coaches.

Parish of Worlington.

1805 William Langham married Elizabeth Shin. (See Langham Pedigree.)

Parish of Albury, Herts.

1661 Walter Shenn buried.

The following matter was received after the preparation of this manuscript was completed, the same having been typewritten and delivered to the printer, too late to change the entire manuscript, but not too late to be inserted as an addendum. It does not change the conjectural Freckenham pedigree to any great extent; in fact, it enforces the views therein advanced. It was argued there that Clement Sheene, b. 1593. son of John, who was son of Francis, must have married. The following extracts from the register of Soham Parish show not only that he married, but also his wife and children. It also shows another Clement with a wife and children contemporaneous with Clement of 1593 and about the same age. Clement of 1593 married a woman named Grace (???); the register shows that he had a daughter born in 1624, and other children in 1627, 1630, 1634, 1637, 1640, in which year he died. The other Clement married a woman named Sarah (???) and had a son named Edward born in 1626. Now John Shinn of New Jersey was probably a son of the Clement who married Grace, and if so was born in 1632, between

Page 25

the births of Thomas and Francis as they appear upon the register. This I think is the true line, and would make the Clement Sheen who appeared with him in New Jersey in 1680, having wife Eliza, his brother and not his father, as the conjectural pedigree asserts; this brother being younger, born in 1637 and dying O. S. P. so far as the records of New Jersey show. Of course John of 1678 in New Jersey could have been a son of the other Clement who married a Sarah. In that case I think the relationship would take this form. Clement of 1593, who married Grace (???), is known to be a son of John Sheene and grandson of Francis of 1520. The Clement who married Sarah (???) was also a grandson of Francis, in all probability, but not a son of John. The name of his father is not disclosed. It will be noticed that the spelling in this register is very peculiar. Beginning in 1571 with a plain Shinn, followed in 1580 by Shene, then by many spellings, Shin, and using Shyn only once. I think there is little room for doubt but that the Freckenham pedigree modified by the Soham register indicates the exact neighborhood in which John Shinn was born. Freckenham, Mildenhall, and Soham are parishes not far distant from each other. Soham in the 16th Century being quite a noted town. I subjoin an exact copy of the Soham register.

Parish of Soham. (Shinn, Shene, Shin, Shyn.)

1571 Marie Shinn buried.

1580 John Shene buried.

1624 Margaret, d. of Clement and Grace Shin, baptized.

1626 Edward, son of Clement and Sarah Shin, baptized.

1626 Margaret, daughter of Clement and Grace Shin, died.

1627 Henry. son of Clement and Grace Shin, baptized.

1630 Thomas, son of Clement and Grace Shin, baptized.

1634 Francis, son of Clement and Grace Shin, baptized.

1637 Clement, son of Clement and Grace Shin. baptized.

1640 Grace, daughter of Clement and Grace Shin, baptized.

1640 Clement Shin buried.

1657 Elizabeth Shyn. daughter of Henry and Elizabeth Shyn. baptized.

1663 Francis Shin and Alice Curtis married.

1663 John Howlett married Grace Shin.

1664 John, son of Francis and Alice Shin, baptized.

1665 Mary, daughter of Francis and Alice Shin. baptized.

1668 Francis, son of Francis and Alice Shin. baptized.

1668 Henry Shin born.

1673 Alice, daughter of Francis and Alice Shin, baptized.

1674 Henry Shin died.

1681 Francis Shin. yeoman, died.

CHAPTER XI.

WILLS OF ENGLAND BELATING TO SHENE, SHEEN, SHINN AND SHINNE.

Through the courtesy of Mr. Stockley, who not only put question marks to parish registers. but wrote to leading antiquarians and literary men of the Eastern Counties of England, I can present my readers with a very interesting letter from Mr. J. J. Murkett, Editor of the Eastern Counties Magazine, and some valuable extracts from wille, concerning the Manorial Families of Suffolk.

"II Talbot R'd., 8th. Tottenham, Apr. 3/01.

"Dear sir:‑‑I have much pleasure in sending you the Shinn, Shene, Sheene, etc., notes in my Suffolk Collection. They are none of them so early as 1560. but some, I trust, will prove of use to you. The real value of many of them is that they are taken from documents relating to families of other surnames, showing in some cases unexpected relationships, I shall be glad to hear that they are not‑‑at any rate‑all disappointing to you.

"You will notice that the name of the same person is occasionally spelled Sheene and Shinn. I am much interested to know that your researches show them to have

Page 26

been at Mildenhall as far back as 1560. I find that Sheenes are mentioned in Suffolk Manorial Families in connection with the Corynobles, an old Essex Family of good standing. They are also connected with the Bolton family. These Boltons were the ancestors of the present Lord Nelson, whose real name, as you know, is Bolton.

"I am, dear sir,

"Yours truly, J. J. MURKETT."

This letter corroborates many of the ideas advanced in these chapters, and shows an unexpected relationship with the present Lord Nelson. The pedigree of Admiral Lord Nelson, Baron of Trafalgar, shows a relationship to the old Nelson family in Norfolk.

Extracts from J. J. Murkett's Collection Concerning the Manorial Families of

Suffolk.

"Family of Shene, Shine, Shinn, etc.‑‑Gleanings.

"Will of Robt. Blosse of Roydon, Suffolk, P. C. C. 70, Leicester 1589. 'To John Shinne, sonne of John Shyne, my house called, Haggerel, after the decease of Amiable, my wife.'

"Will of Edward Sheene of Wymondham, Norfolk, Gent., proved 1658. Had son, Jermyn Shene. Lands in Suffolk, P. C. C. Wooten, 349.

"Will of Thomas Shene of Stowmarket, Worsted Weaver, proved 1711. P. C. C. Young 91.

"Will of Alice Blackbye of Multon, Suffolk, 1565, 24th of April P. C. C. 21 Morrison & Grimes. She did give to Jane Mynt of Freckenham her daughter; to Agnes Shynne her daughter; and her residence to Thomas Blackbie, her son and executor. Probate 6/24/1565 to Thos. Blackbie, the son.

"Will of Edward Sheene of Wymondham in Norfolk, Gent. P. C. C. 2/11/1657. To be buried in the church. To Dorothy, my wife, houses and lands in Norfolk, and also at Hoxene in Suffolk for life. Our three children; Jermyn Sheene my only sonne; Annie Sheene, eldest d.; Sarah Sheene, youngest d. Wife, executrix. Probate 5/27/1658.

This Edward was son of the Edward Sheen who was rector at Little Fransham in 1610; married Dorothy, daughter of Sir Thomas Jermyn, as the next will shows.

"Will of Thos. Jermyn, Esq., of West Tofts in Norfolk 11/5/1656 P. C. C. 172 Wooten. My sonne John Jermyn, etc.; my grandchild Jermyn Shene when 18; Mrs. Dorothy Shene mother of said Jermyn Shene, etc.

"Will P. C. C. 39 Wood, of Willie Haywards of Roydon, Suffolk 1611. To my grandchildren Thos. Bridge, John Bridge, Anna Browne, the wife of Willie Brown, and Ann Shinne. the wife of George Shinn, my daughter Marian Knopper of Newton, etc.

"Will P. C. C. 298 Nabbs, of Geo. Shen, of Woolington, Suffolk, Gent., 29 May 1660. To Geo. Shen, my son lands & etc. in Freckenham and Mildenhall purchased of Thomas Gee, Esq., for life; then to John Shen, my grandchild, youngest son of said, George; to Anna Alice and John Addes, when 21; to Edward Shen my grandchild, and Lydia Shen his sister when 21, or on the day of her marriage; son Geo. Shinn executor. Codicil: To my daughter, Margaret Fuller œ3.12.0 yearly for life; to Margaret Fuller, my grandchild, when 21. Probate 11/22/1660 by oath of Geo. Shen, the son. "Will of Geo. Corynoble of Mocha Stanbridge, Essex, 1570; to Benjamin Shene, my sister Stamen's child.

"Will of Katherine Warren of Woolington, Suffolk, widow, P. C. C. 85 Plymouth Aug. 1725, Alice Sheen my d. To be buried in Woolington Chancel‑‑diamonds, emerald ring, silver etc. Sankey, Godfrey, Beecroft, Eade, Costell etc named. Son of Dr. Robert Warren.

"Will of Elizabeth Eade of Woolington, Spinster, P. C. C. Buckingham, proved 1721; my sister, Catherine Warren, widow; sister Mary Chinnery Beecroft Shinne; Millicent etc.

"Will P. C. C. 405 Alchin 7 March 1653. Sarah Sheene of Alderston, Suffolk, widow; my brother Josle Bolton; my nephew Wm. Bolton; my sister Chittock, sister to my late husband, Sheene œ50; husband's nephew, Augustine Sheene œ20; to Josias Bolton my brother, my house in Alderstone, and to his heirs forever; brothers William Cary of Woodbridge and Thomas Filby of Niddenham to be executors. Good sums of money bequeathed. Probate 7/6/1653 to Thomas Filby."

The will of Nicholas Sheene, son of John of Mildenhall, Suffolk, is filed in the Prerogation Court, Somerset House, London.

Page 27

Mr. Stockley wrote, 5/12/1901: "There was recently a family of Shinns at Soham, but I could not get any valuable information concerning them. Yesterday I was playing cricket at Eriswell. One of my opponents was a Peter Shinn. There were three generations of John Shinn before him, and the widow Shinn of Barton's Mill is a connection." This letter, taken in connection with the gradual changing in the registers and in the wills from Shene and Sheene, to Shyn, Shin, and Shinne, indicates that the same people to‑day in the old habitat of the family spell the name Shinn. The identity of all the variations named with the modern surname Shinn is, I think, clearly established.

Page 28

CHAPTER XII.

WHO WAS JOHN SI?? OF BRIDLINGTON. NEW JERSEY (1678)?

In 1885 while employed as Chief Clerk in the Office of the Secretary of State at Little Rock?? Arkansas. I asked myself the question which heads this chapter. I then and there began the work of answering it satisfactorily, and have given all my spare time since to its elncidation. The first ten years of my labor were thrown away on account of stickling for orthography. My name was Shinn, and I wanted Shinn. and nothing else. Smith in his history of New Jersey said that John Shinn came with others to Nova C‘sarea. It was a full decade after my original determination before I crossed an entry in New Jersey Archives at Trenton. which informed me that John Shcen, and not John Shinn, entered New Jersey. The next original entry found was a signature of my ancestor to a document to Friend's in London. and there he was John Shin. and not John Shinn. Could I have had the knowledge I now possess concerning the vicissitudes of Surnames in their orthographieal dress. at the time I worked most laboriously upon the problem the results would have been far more satisfactory. In 1886 I was asked by Mr. Keltie, Editor of the Statesman's Mannal. London, to prepare a statistical article for that publication. This led to a friendly eorrespondence concerning my name, and a reference to William Collyer Shinn of London. whose portrait adorns these pages. I then wrote to Mr. Shinn. and led him astray, as I had myself wandored from the goal. He began a search for the Quaker. John Shinn, and as a matter of course never found him. Had I given the variations. Shin. Shene and She??ne. these pages would have been richer in gleanings from the old Quaker files. As it is I can present but his confession of failure. as a guide to others who may hereafter make a similar research.

On April 22, 1890. he wr??te from London, England:

"I beg therefore to say, that I have visited Somerset House: Her Majesty's Printing Office (where all Acts of Parliament are printed and published); the Public Record Office, and the Friend's Meeting House in Bishopsgate Street. The result of my inquiries is that on the passing of the General Registration Act. about fifty years ago, various records showing births and deaths of Quakers. extending over a considerable perlod, were lodged at Somerset House: but as they were not indexed, nor in any way digested, they are of little use for purposes of reference. It appears, however, that the Society of Friends, before parting with the documents, made a very careful digest and general index. It is, however, confined to births, deaths, etc., and is by no means a record of the personal position, movoments or proceedings of the Quakers. This index is kept at the Meeting House, 12 Bishopsgate Street. Without; and on my visits there the Secretary was kind enough to search. but no member of the name Shinn is to be found amongst the births or deaths in the London or Herefordshire books. I am afraid this information will be a disappointment to you, but trust that you will give us credit for having taken some little trouble to assist you in your difficult but most interesting pursult.

"Sincerely yours.

"WILLIAM COLLYER SHINN."

Four years later ??vi??ited London, and was the guest of this gentleman. Had all my correspondents of ??ulture and leisure been equally courteous my labor would have redounded more to their credit, as well as to that of the family. I found Mr. Shinn to be a High ??hurchman, and a worshiper at Westminster Abbey. His pedigree, which is presented elsewhere, began in 1757 in London. branching off into Herefordshire. It dealt with the word Shinn. as mine had, and led to an investigation of London and Herefordshire records. His father spent his whole life as cashier in an Army Agent Office: he, himself, spent fifty years in a large firm in London, as confidential clerk and cashier, retiring in 1883 on a small competency; his son. whose portrait is also found herein, was cashier. until his death, in

Page 29

Her Majesty's Printing Office. Can there be a greater testimonial of the integrity of these three generations than is contained in the words, "three whole lives in confidential relationship with their fellows, and no stain upon the escutcheon?"

Beyond this simple narrative of life‑long service William Collyer Shinn would not go, saying: "For anything else you must try and read it in the photograph which I have much pleasure in sending you." Since then I have grasped his hand, and formed a part of his family life. He was a man to be honored, and for anything else I say, "You must read it in the engraving made from the photograph he sent to me." I subjoin another part of his letter to show the lack of courtesy that prevails in "officialdom."

"Your interpretation of the Saxon word 'Sinninga' interests us very much, as well as the general subject on which you are bestowing so much time and attention, and which we hope, in spite of all difficulties, will be attended with satisfactory results. When we think of the great energy you have displayed our little effort appears so insignificant as hardly to deserve attention. All public officers in London are anything but communicative, and only disposed to answer specific questions. They will not enter into a general subject, nor take any trouble to elucidate; and it is consequently very difficult to get information."

He died in January, 1903, being 88 years of age. A gentleman in London in March, 1903, wrote these words announcing his death. "He was a thorough representative of the Shinn family, with all the characteristics; one of the best and cleverest of men; a man devoted to his family, and whose first thought was for their interests; his next thought was for the good of others; his demise is deplored by many relatives and friends:

Page 30

PEDIGREE OF WILLIAM COLLYER SHINN.

John Shinn (1).‑‑In 1757 was in business in Grosvenor Row, Chelsea, London.

Had a son, John (2), who in 1857 was in business in Lindsay Row, Chelsea.

Also another Benjamin (1) who was living in Hereford in 1810.

John Shinn (2).‑‑Succeeded to his father's business in Grosvenor Row. Had

three sons, John (3), Benjamin (4) and William (5).

John Shinn (3).‑‑In business for many years at Battersea, Surrey: Died in 1825.

Had one son, John (6).

John Shinn (6).‑‑In business at Smith St., Chelsea. Died in 1858. Had a family,

about whom little is known except that his only son, John (7), left

England probably for America.

Benj. Shinn (4).‑‑Died at Kensington in 1862. Had one son. Thomas (8), who

died in 1840.

Wm. Shinn (5).‑‑Died at Chelsea in 1859. Had two sons, William Collyer (9)

and Charles Gould (10), died in 1882. Had no sons.

Wm. C. Shinn (9).‑‑Died at New Wandsworth, London. 1903. aged 88. Has two

sons, Thomas (11) and William (12).

Thos. Shinn (11).‑‑Born in 1842. Chief Cashier at Her Majesty's Printers; died

1891; one daughter.

Wm. Shinn (12).‑‑Unmarried; resides in India.

William C. Shinn had two sisters who married and reared families. Besides the two sons named. he was the father of two daughters; one daughter married Charles Thomas; the other married a Whitehouse, who deceased. The son, William, is not married, and is the only one of this line bearing the name.

My next work in London was with Mr. George W. Shinn, Organist at Brighton Church. London, and a musical composer of great merit. In March, 1890, he wrote:

"My family have been settled in London about sixty years. My grandfather was born in Mildenhall. Suffolk. I have reason to believe that the family of Shinn came originally from Mildenhall. for several persons of the name. whom I have met in London, have referred to Mildenhall, or its neighborhood. as the homes of their ancestors. The name is not uncommon in Mildenhall, and I have met with it in the adjoining Counties of Cambridge and Essex. There are few, however, of the name in London. So far as my memory goes, none of the name have ever been distinguished. They have been mostly people of the middle class, and have led respectable and uneventful lives. I have a book of poems written by a Mildenhall man, and amongst the names of the subscribers is that of 'Captain George Shinn of the United States Navy.' This was in 1850. Probably he was on a visit to England.

"Yours truly, GEO. W. SHINN."

This letter turned my thoughts in a new direction, but did not lead to direct results. It was after I learned that John Shinn's name was originally spelled Sheen that I realized its full force. The trifling circumstance of a Mildenhall man writing a poem, which a naval captain named Shinn, subscribed for, fixed my attention. however, upon Mildenhall and its neighborhood.

This George W. Shinn of Brighton Church has made a name for himself in music. He has composed: "The March of the Israclites," a "Benedictus" and a "Nune Dimittis." Rev. Geo. Wolff Shinn, Rector of Newton Parish, Newton, Mass., is of the opinion that each of these productions is a work of very great merit. Musicians inform me that these productions give Mr. Geo. W. Shinn of Brighton the right to a distinguished place in the musical world.

Having been referred to John Shinn, Ledbury, Herefordshire, I addressed him a communication, which brought this reply:

"Ledbury, Jan. 15, 1890.

"I have no idea where the seat of the Shinn family formerly was. The most that I know is that my grandfather, John Shinn, Cooper, lived here. He died in 1846. My father's name was Richard Shinn. also a Cooper; he died in 1883. I had an uncle,

Page 31

John Shinn, a Wesleyan preacher, who went to America about forty‑five years ago, and died at St. Louis in 1884. I can not go back further than my grandfather.

"Yours respectfully, JOHN SHINN."

The family referred to at St. Louis is a most respectable one. One son of the deceased preacher held a responsible position on the Globe Democrat for many years; other children are in good business relations there, and in Oregon. The grandchildren are intelligent and energetic people. This and two other families to be mentioned hereafter are the only ones I have found in the United States who do not form part of the army of John Shinn's descendants. The rector at Ledbury, England, wrote me in 1896 that the Shinns of that County were an eminently respectable family.

Turning to the history of Herefordshire, I came to the conclusion after reading it that the Shinns were not an old family in that County. The Chinns seem to have been there from the beginning, but the Shinns are first named about the beginning of the eighteenth century. But an examination of the Parish Register shows that the family there is as old as in Suffolk. The registers say:

3/16/1557 Margaret Shynne was buried.

3/5/1565 William Shynne buried.

1575 Joan Shynne a god mother at a christening.

An examination of Wm. C. Shinn's pedigree will show that John Shinn (1) had a son Benjamin, whose descendants are not traced.

For the last four years I have given my attention to the Eastern Counties, and will in the next chapter identify John Sheen, so far as the evidence in hand will warrant an opinion.

CHAPTER XIII.

JOHN SHINN, OF ALBURY.

Besse's Suffering of Friends is a mass of facts, but being without an index, its reader is compelled to read everything within its compass to obtain the most trifling fact. I read the first volume and found nothing that would connect John Shinn with the hardships of the 17th century. The second volume was taken up and seemed to be as unpromising as the first. But is was not so. On page 205 of Vol. II, under the County Hertfordshire, I found this entry:

"At the Quarter Sessions on the 12th of the 11th Month, 1662, John Shinn of Albury and Jeremiah Deane of Hartford were committed to prison on a process against them for absence from their Parish Church and for not paying the Court fees."

In the same county I found this entry: "1663 Robert Dimsdale excommunicated for practicing chirurgery without the Bishop's license, was committed to Hartford Gaol and remained there some years." This is the only reference in Besse's Suffering to John Shinn, or to any one bearing that surname. The 12th of the 11th month, 1662, O. S., would be Jan. 12th, 1663. On that day at the shire town, Hertford, John Shinn was sent to jail for not attending the parish church; he was described as of Albury; in 1678‑1679 or 1680 a Quaker, John Shinn, master of a family, appears at the infant settlement at Burlington, N. J., and enrolls himself with Friends at that place, and died a member of that society thirty years later. That John Shinn of Albury, Hertfordshire, was a member in good standing in the Established Church of England is proved by the action of the Court of Quarter Sessions. Refusal to attend the Parish Church and to pay Court fees point to the conclusion that he had imbibed the principles of Fox, and was firm in claiming his right to worship where he pleased. In fifteen years we find John Shinn with a large family and considerable substance in the wilds of New Jersey, on Birch Creek, in a log house, which he called "Springfield Lodge." The first reference to the man in American history is in 1680, when the Court Minutes

Page 32

of Burlington show "John Sheen" and "Clement Sheen," freeholders; the second reference is in the

same year, when John Sheen is noted as a "Grand Juror" for this settlement in the woods; the third reference is an attestation of the Clerk of Burlington Court that John Sheen had reported for record as required by law for hogs, cattle and horses the following device: ?? Clement Sheen appears in 1680 as a frecholder, but is never mentioned again in any church or court record. Salter in his history of Monmouth County states that Clement Shinn and Eliza, his wife, had a claim for land at Shrewsbury, and that George Shinn had a like claim. The most diligent search fails to show that either Clement or George Shinn were ever at Shrewsbury. Their names do not appear in the minutes of either Court or Church. These men bought rights to locate land at Shrewsbury, but never had the right surveyed. They remained in England in all probability until John Shinn emigrated, when they embarked with him, and Clement Sheen became a freeholder at the same time that John did. For thirty years thereafter John Shinn's name appears with remarkable frequency upon both civil and religious records. George appears at times, but as a son of John. Clement is never mentioned again, and was probably an old man, and the father or grandfather of John Shinn. And this man Robert Dimsdale who, as we have seen. was likewise incarcerated in Hertford gaol, appears several years afterwards in Burlington County, N. J., buys a large body of land on Dimsdale's Run, and returns to England. Before leaving, however. he selected John Shinn, of Birch Creek, to act as his agent for the sale of the land. This seems to warrant the conclusion that Robert Dimsdale and John Shinn were friends, and that their friendship began in Essex or Hertfordshire in England. In the parish of Essex, in which Dimsdale was reared, there was a "Springfield Lodge," and John Shinn named his wildwood home under that ancient title. The records show that he was a "Wheelwright," a "Millwright," and a "husbandman"; that he came as a "master of a Family," and not as a "Redemptioner"; that he becomes at once a "Freeholder," and is at once made a "Grand juror"; that Dimsdale entrusts him with the fiduciary relation, "Agent"; that he became a "Proprietor"; that for years he was "Overseer," at Springfield Mecting of Friends; that his children married sons and daughters of "Proprietors," "Assemblymen," and the "Elite," of New Jersey; that he died in a good old age, surrounded by children and grandchildren, having an abundance of means, and blessed with the friendship of the wisest and the best of early New Jersey days. If there is any certainty in historic relations, it would seem that John Shinn of Albury (1663), a prisoner for Conscience sake, was John Shinn of Burlington, N. J. (1678‑1711).

CHAPTER XIV.

FURTHER IDENTIFICATION OF JOHN SHINN AS TO HIS IMMEDIATE ANOESTORS.

Albury is a name of two parishes in Hertfordshire, and the adjunct "of Albury," used in the Court records of 1663 in the trial of John Shinn for contumacy, do not distinguish between them. This necessitated the examination of both registers; one of them did not go back far enough to be of any use. The other was examined by Mr. Stockley from 1620 to 1680, but contained no reference to John Shinn, or any one of that surname, save "Walter Sheen buried 1661." This bore out my assumption that Albury was not the ancient seating place of the Shinns, although in a near neighborhood. The business relations of John Shinn called him into that parish, where he possibly resided a few years, and where he was arrested and sent to jail. Walter may have been a son; and the fact that the church registers contain a notice of his burial at a time so near to the day when proceedings were instituted at Hertford against John, and do not contain the name of Shinn in any other place, shows that the residence at Albury was temporary,

Page 35

and that Walter was a member of the family. Could all the events of those days of religious fanaticism be known it might appear that John Shinn had been driven by persecution from some other place and was merely a denizen of Hertford seeking rest. But whether there as citizen in business, or refugee for conscience sake, he failed to find peace. The gates of a prison closed upon him, and Hertfordshire has left no other monument to his name. But rest came to him on the waters of the Assincunk, where a record of good deeds make a shaft more enduring than marble, and more honorable than an armory and crest.

I shall now present a conjectural pedigree of John Shinn (1678‑1711) as to his ancestry in England. The quotations from the many registers of Eastern England show that as early as the beginning of the16th Century the family was widely dispersed over many Counties. The recurrence of the word John burdens the investigation with difficulties almost insurmountable. But there were certain ear‑marks of the family in its early New Jersey history, that seem to indicate where our investigation should be made.

1. John Shinn of New Jersey was accompanied at his landing by Clement

Shinn. No register in England that has been examined yields a Clement

save those of Freckenham and Soham Parishes. This name stands there

alone, clear cut, and beacon like, as it stands alone in New Jersey history.

It seems to say: "Go to Freckenham or Soham for the ancestor of John."

2. John Shinn of New Jersey named his sons John, Francis, George, Thomas

and James. And one of his grandsons, son of John, was given the name

Clement, and another Francis. And in the pages which follow, showing

the American descendants, it will be seen that Francis and Clement recur

with remarkable frequency.

The Mildenhall register deals with John, Thomas, Richard and William. Francis and Clement do not appear. The Freckenham register not only presents the single case of Clement, but shows that he was the son of John. who was the son of Francis, born as carly as 1520. It also shows that John and Francis were favorite names. I present the Mildenhall pedigree of John Sheene, born 1550, as made up from the Mildenhall register to show that no one of that family bearing the name John could have gone to New Jersey in 1678. It is as follows:

THE MILDENHALL PEDIGREE OF JOHN SHEENE OF 1550.

John Sheene (b. 1550) married at Mildenhall (???) and had:

1. Thomas Shene (b. 1551; ob. 1610) married (1) at Mildenhall June, 1578,

J(???) Bonet; married (2) at same place, July, 1589, Maria Corkett;

she died 1617. The first marriage entry spells his name Shene; the

second Sheene. There is but one child recorded:

1. Anne, daughter of Thomas Sheen, b. April 1590; ob. May 1590.

2. John Sheene (b. 1553; ob. 1607), married June, 1587, Anne Che(???) and had:

1. John Sheene, b. July 1588; ob. 7/5/1664; married Jan. 1632 Ann Rolf

and had:

1. Rachel Sheene, b. Sept. 1633; ob, 8/19/1662.

2. John Shyn, b, March 1638; ob. 3/30/1639.

3. John Sheen, b. Nov. 1640; ob. 1/20/1669; married Amy (???)

1662 and had:

1. Elizabeth Shin, b. 2/2/1663.

2. John Shin, b. 7/22/1666.

3. Hannah Shin, b. 3/9/1669.

4. Catherine Shin, b. Oct. 1646.

2. Thomas Sheene, b. Sept. 1589; married and had:

1. Augustine Sheene. (See will, Chapter XI.)

3. Nicholas Sheene, b. Nov. 1592; married Sarah Bolton of the family of

the present Lord Nelson, whose father, upon the death of Lord

Nelson, Baron of Trafalgar, renounced his patronymic, Bolton, and

Page 36

look the name of his uncle, Nelson, and the title, Lord Nelson. Nicholas

Sheene died before 1653, leaving a will (see Chapter XI); his wife

left a will dated 3/7/1653, naming her late husband, Sheene, his sister,

and his nephew, Augustine Sheene. No children.

4. Richard Sheene, b. Oct. 1595; ob. 2/20/1638.

5. William Sheene, b. Oct. 1598; ob. 7/24/1644.

6. ((???) Sheene), married (???) Chittock (see Sarah Bolton's will).

7. Francis Sheene, b. Feb. 1604; ob. May 1639.

8. Elizabeth Shyn (b. 1606), married 9/9/1639, John Avis.

Note.‑‑The words in parenthesis as to dates are conjectural.

I now set out the Freckenham pedigree of Francis Sheene, born 1520‑1525, as made up from the register. To my mind this is the line from which John Shinn of New Jersey sprang. There is always room for error in conjectural pedigrees, but in this case the conjecture is reduced to a minimum, viz., the marriage of Clement Shinn, who is recorded on the register as born 11/12/1593; the register says nothing of his marriage nor of his death. He evidently removed from the parish, married elsewhere, and had children; this view is strengthened by the fact that John Shinn, the emigrant to New Jersey, who was accompanied by a Clement Sheen, lived at Albury in Hertfordshire. Clement may have lived in Essex or Hertfordshire. The Soham register shows his marriage and death.

THE FRECKENHAM PEDIGREE OF FRANCIS SHINN (1520‑1525).

Francis Sheene (b. 1525); lived in Freckenham Parish. The register shows these births:

1. (???) (???), daughter of Francis Sheene; baptized 1551.

2. Mary Sheene; baptized 1564.

3. John Sheene; married (1) Anne (???), who died in 1617; (2) Marie (???),

who died 1620; (3) Marie Spatkes, who died 1628; (4) (???) (???), and

had by first marriage:

1. Edward Sheene, b. 1588; rector of Little Fransham 1610; had children:

1. Elizabeth Shene, b. 1617.

2. Lucas Shene, b. 1623.

3. Edward Shene, b. 1625; married Dorothy Jermyn, daughter of Sir

Thomas Jermyn (see will, Chapter XI); children:

1. Jermyn Shene. 2. Annie Sheene. 3. Sarah Shene.

2. Clement Sheene, son of John. Sheene, baptized 11/24/1593; m. at Soham.

Grace, and had children:

1. Margaret Shin, b. 1624; ob. 1626.

2. Henry Shin, b. 1627; ob. 1674.

3. Thomas Shin, b. 1630.

4. John Shin, b. 1632; m. Jane.

5. Francis Shin, b. 1634; m. Alice Carter, 1663, and had Mary, Francis and

Alice.

6. Clement Shin, b. 1637.

7. Grace Shin, b. 1640; m. John Howlett, 1663.

This is a transcript of the Soham register, and shows the removal of Clement from Freckenham, and accounts for the fact that no mention of his marriage or burial occurs on that register. These items appear on the Soham record.

3. Francis Sheene, b. 1595; married Joan (???); she ob. 1631; had children:

1. Elizabeth Sheene, b. 1616.

2. Francis Sheene, b. 1618.

3. John Sheene, b. 1623; ob. 1631.

4. Thomas Sheene, b. 1627.

All noted on the register as children of Francis.

4. William Sheene, b. 1604; married (???) and had children:

1. Anna, b. 1642.

2. Mary, b. 1645.

5. Anna Sheene, b. 1608.

6. Margaret Sheene, b. 1610.

7. John Sheene, b. 1614; ob. 1614.

Page 37

8. Nicholas Sheene, b. 1614; ob. 1615.

By the second marriage:

9. John Sheene, b. 1619.

By the third marriage:

10. Anne Sheene b. 1621.

By the fourth marriage:

11. Thomas Sheene, b. 1630; ob. 1631.

4 Francis Sheene, m. and had children:

1. Clement, b. 1592, who m. Sarah (???) at Soham and had:

1. John Sheen, of New Jersey, who m. Jane.

In every case where a child is placed in the above pedigree (save where enclosed in a parenthesis) the register shows that he or she was a son or daughter of the name under which the name is placed. A reference to chapter X, where the registers are printed verbatim, will make this evident.

CHAPTER XV.

THE ARMS AND ORESTS OF THE FAMILY.

In the Royal Book of Crests for Great Britain and Ireland, edited by Jos. McLaren, published by Knight & Butler, London, the family crest of the Sheen family in England is given as follows:

"Out of a mural coronet, a staff, raguly, vert."

The coronet is "obsidional."

The Crest for the family of Sheen in England and Ireland is given as follows:

"A sword crect, blade enfiled with a rebel's head, all ppr."

These crests are also given in Fairbairn's Crests and in Burke. The arms are:

"Or. three piles issuant from the chief gu. within a bordure, engr. erm."

Heraldry is a relic of the feudal ages, where it was employed to display the exploits of chivalry. Armorial bearings was the symbolic language of Europe. Exhibited on the shields and vestments of warriors, they adorned the most splendid apparel of peace, and were often transferred to more durable materials to perpetuate the memory of those who bore them. The volume of "Royal Crests" above referred to has this language:

Page 38

"A crest is the uppermost part of an armory. The crest is deemed a greater mark of nobility than the armory, as it was worn at tournaments, to which none were admitted until they had given strong proofs of their magnanimity. Hence the word crest is, figuratively, used for spirit or courage. The original purpose of a crest was to make a commander known to his men in battle."

The crest was worn by the knight on his helmet and was sometimes adopted as the sole armorial bearing. "Vert, or green, signifies hope, joy, or loyalty in love." (Wade's Symbolisms of Heraldry.) Ragulee, raguly, or raguled, means jagged or notched irregularly, and signifies "difficulties which have been overcome." (Wade and Fairbairn.)

A mural coronet is one embattlemented on the edge of the circle. Embattled signifies fire. Nisbet and all ancient writers state that it denotes the walls of a fortress; the mural crown was applicable to the defenders of a fortress, or as a token of civic honor, following the Roman custom of giving a mural crown to him who first mounted the breach. When a head or any charge is placed on the blade of a sword it is enfiled with whatever is borne upon it. The human head stands for honor. The head of a rebel refers to deeds of prowess in the Civil Wars.

The Shanns of Tadcaster, York, whose pedigree begins 1726, have arms: Vair on a pile, or three escutcheons azure; each charged with an annulet of the second. Crest.‑‑In front of an annulet, gold, a hand erect holding a dagger, all proper. Motto, Fideliter.

The similarity of the crest would seem to indicate a family tie of some kind. The rebel's head enfiled upon a sword seems to set a value to a tradition of Germany that the "Scheins" were the fiercest knights in the Hussite Wars. It is said that they literally "skinned" their victims alive. I am not familiar with heraldry, and confess that I have not taken any great pleasure in writing this chapter. The prowess of our ancestry is worthy of remembrance, but a student of history cannot but feel aggrieved that many who in times past presented the most gorgeous armory had an ancestry whose prowess was not remarkable. Vanity on the part of the descendants enabled them to adopt any armory they chose, and in after years when the right to use a crest and armory was brought under some kind of regulation, the blandishments of these descendents were strong enough to overcome the scruples of the herald. In this way crests and armories came to be the exclusive furniture of a caste that had little else to recommend it to a thinking world. There is an element of nobility in heraldry which should be recognized. That element, however, seems to have been supplanted by vain glory and exclusive presumption. I leave this part of my work with no regret, and pass into the life of the Shinn family in America, where crests and armories have little place.

Before passing, however, I add a few lines of explanation. A manor was a landed property held by a lord or a great personage, who lived on a part of the land and sublet the remainder by what was called a copyhold, or lease. The Conqueror granted all Suffolk to a few of his great lords. They in turn created many copyhold estates. The extravagance of their descendants led them, or forced them to convert many of these copyholds into freehold, or fee simple estates. The Shinns acquired wealth by peaceful pursuits, and thus became freeholders in Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire and Devonshire.

EXPLANATIONS.

1. The Genealogical Numbers.‑‑These are the consecutive numbers from 1 on indefinitely, and are found on the left side of each page. They simply number the descendants of John and Jane Shinn, the emigrants to New Jersey, 1678.

2. The first five generations are treated so as to show the descendants, so far as found, of every descendant of John and Jane Shinn. The Generation numbers will be placed after every name in small type, and all these names will appear at the head of each separate article; the full name of every person whose history is being

Page 39

studied, preceded by his genealogical number, and followed by the given name of his ancestors in a parenthesis, with their generation numbers. For example:

847. JOSLAH HAZEN SHINN (5).‑‑BRNJAMIN (4), SAMUEL (3), THOMAS (2),

JOHN (1).

This means that Josiah Hazen Shinn is the 847th name reached in the mechanical making of the book; that his father was Benjamin, of the fourth generation from John; his grandfather Samuel in the third, etc. If further knowledge concerning Benjamin is desired, one has but to turn back in the book until the genealogical number 847 is reached. He will find there Josiah H. Shinn under this head:

476. BENJAMIN SHINN (4).‑‑SAMUEL (3), THOMAS (2), JOHN (1).

By successive changes the history of Samuel may be reached; then Thomas, then John.

3. When the sixth generation is reached the plan changes. Under each name in the sixth generation are given all the descendants, so far as found, of each one in that generation. The generation number is then placed after the name, for example:

1024. John Shinn (6)‑‑James (5), John (4), George (3), Vincent (2),

John (1).

His children were:

1857. (1) Mary Shinn (7), married Lewis Brown and had:

1858. (1) Thomas Brown (8).

1859. (2) John Shinn (7), married Ellen Kirk and had:

1860. (1) Mary Shinn (8), married Jay Cook and had

1861. (1) Louisa Cook (9).

1862. (2) John Cook (9).

1863. (2) John Shinn (8), o. s. p.

1864. (3) Lewis Shinn (7).

A little attention will make this clear. It means that Mary Shinn's number is 1857, that she is the first child of John (6) and therefore in the seventh generation. Number 1858 is the first child of Mary Shinn (7), and the grandchild of John (6), and therefore in the eighth generation. Each new set of children is set further to the right. The family numbers are in parentheses and immediately under each other. Thus, in the case above, the children of John (6) are (1) Mary (7), (2) John (7), (3) Lewis (7). The grandchildren are Thomas Brown (8) and John Shinn (8.) The great grandchildren are Louisa Cook (9) and John Cook (9). All 7s under a given 6 are brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters; all 8s under a given 6 are brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters, if they fall under the same 7; if they fall under different 7s, they are first cousins; all 9s under a given 6 are brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters, if they fall under the same 8; if under different 8s, but the same 7?? they are first cousins; if under 8s and different 7s, they are third cousins; each 9 under a given 8 is second cousin to every other 8 under the same 6, except the 8s under its own 7; one 8 there is father or mother, the others his uncles and aunts.

5. There are a few technical words and abbreviations which may need some explanation: o. s. p. means died without issue; d., daughter or died; ob. infans, died in infancy; b., born; cum testamentum, with a will; B. M. M. R., Burlington Monthly Meeting Records; liber means book; circa, about; pat. fam., father of the family; ob. idem anno, died the same year; ob. vita patris, in the life of the father; W. J., West Jersey; ob., died; Mt. H. M. M. R., Mt. Holly Monthly Meeting Records; N. J. W., New Jersey Wills; M. L. R., marriage license recorded; intestate, without a will.

Page 40

PART SECOND‑‑THE FAMILY OF SHINN IN THE UNITED STATES.

1. JOHN SHINN AND EARLY NEW JERSEY.

In the spring of 1677 two hundred and thirty Quakers left London on the ship Kent for West Jersey. Half of these were from London and the other half from Yorkshire. Smith, in his "History of Nova C‘sarea; or, New Jersey," gives a partial list of these emigrants, but the name of John Shinn does not appear therein. He also says that these chose as a landing place the spot where Burlington now stands, and there began a settlement, which they named New Beverley; this was afterwards changed to Bridlington, after a town in Yorkshire, from whence many of the settlers came, and subsequently to Burlington. Smith also gives partial lists of emigrants who followed these in the year 1678, and in a general way names others who came between 1678 and 1680. In this general list will be found the name of John Shinn. In the old records of Burlington now in the office of the Secretary of State at Trenton, showing the freeholders for the year 1680, the names of "John Sheen" and "Clement Sheen" appear. The same records show that in the same year John Sheen was a grand juror.

From the record of the Men's Monthly Meeting of Friends at Burlington it appears that on the 7th day of the 12th month (February), 1680, the Friends addressed a letter to the London yearly meeting, which Bowden transcribes in his history,1 with the remark that this was the earliest communication received by the London yearly meeting from any meeting in America.

As a matter of religious interest, the letter, as it appears upon the Burlington M. M. Records, now deposited in the fireproof safe of the Friends at Philadelphia, Pa., is given in full:

"Dear Friends and Brethren whom God hath honored with his heavenly Presence and crowned with Life and Dominion as some of us have been Eye witnesses (and in our measures partakers with you) in these solemn Annual Assemblies in ye Remembrance of which our hearts and souls are consolated and do bow before ye Lord with Reverent acknowledgments to him to whom it belongs forever.

"And dear friends being fully satisfied of your Love, care and zeall for ye Lord and his Truth and your Travill and desire for ye promotion of it: hath given us encouragement to address ourselves to you and Request your assistance in these following particulars being sensible of ye need of itt and believing yt itt will conduce to ye hounour of God and benefit of his people for ye Lord having by an overruling Providence cast our lots in this remote pt of ye world, our care and desire is yt he may be hounoured in us and through us, and his Dear truth which we profess may be had in good Repute and Esteem by those yt are yet Strangers to itt.

"Dear ffriends our first Request to you is yt in your severall countyes & meetings out of which any may transport themselves into this place, yt you will be pleased to take care yt we may have Certifycates concerning them for here are severall honest Innocent People yt brought no Certifycates with them from ye Respective Monthly Meetings not foreseeing ye Service of ym and so never Desired any which for ye future of such defect do Entreat you yt are sensiable of ye need of Certifycates to put ym in mind of ym for in some Caces where Certifycates are Required & yt have none itt ocations a great and tedious delay before they can be had from England besides ye Hazzard of Letters Miscarying which is not Necessary to ye Parties immediately & no wayes gratefull to Us yet in some cases necessity urgeth it or we must Act very Unsafely and pticularly in cases of Marriage in which we are often Concerned so if ye parties yt come are single and

¹History of Friends in America.

Page 41

Marriageable att their Coming away we Desire to be Certifyed of their clearness or unclearness from other pties & what else you think meet for us to Know, and if they have parents whether they will commit ym to the Care of Friends in Generall in ye matter or appoint ant pticular whome they can trust & if any do incline to come that pfess truth & yet walk disorderly & so become dishounourable to Truth and ye pfession they have made of it we do desire to be Certyfied of ym & it by some other hand (as there is frequent opportunities from London of doing itt) for we are sensiable yt here are severall yt left no good Savour in yr native Land from whence they came & it may be probable yt more of yt Kind may come thinking to be Absconded in ys obscure place. But blessed be ye Lord he hath a pple here whom he hath provoked to a Zealous affection for ye Glory of his name & are desirous yt ye hidden things of Easau may be brought to Light & in it be condemned for wch cause we thus Request your assistance as an advantage & Furtherance to yt Work for though some have not thought it necessary either to bring Certificates themselves or Require any Concearning others we are not of yt mind and do leave itt to ye wise in heart to Judge whence it doth proceed for though we Desire this as an additional help to us, yet not as some have surmised yt we wholly build upon it without exercising our own immediate sence as God shall Guide us some we know yt have been other wise deserving but have Unadvisedly denied this Impartial right of a certificate & very hardly could obtain it, merely through ye dislike of some to ye undertakings in their coming hether which we believe to be an injury & though we would not any should reject any sound advice or council in ye matter yet we do believe yt all ye faithful oughtto be Left to God's Direction in ye matter most certainly knowing by ye Shurest Evedence yt God hath a hand in ye Removall of some into this Place wch we desire yt all yt are inclined to come heither who know God may be carefull to know before they attempt itt at least their Tryals become unsuportable unto them but if this they know they need not fear for ye Lord is known by Sea & Land ye Shield & Strength of ym ht fear him.

"And Dear Friends one thing more we think needfull to Intimate to you to warn and advise all yt come pfessing truth yt they be carefull & Circumspect in their passage for itt is well known to some of you yt such as are imployed in sea affairs are commonly men of ye Vilest sort & many of ym use Great Diligence to betray ye Simple ones which if they can do they triumph in itt & spread it from nation to nation to defame truth theirfore Let all be warned of it especially Young Women that they behave themselves modestly & chastly yt they may not be corrupted in mind & so drawn to gratify ye wanton Luxurious inclination of any for many temptations may be met with some Times through short or Straight allowance for ye Enlargement of wch some have complyed wth that w??h hath Dishounoured God & grieved his people & though we Know yt true friends are never enabled ym to submit to any unrighteousness to gratify so mean an End yet all ye Professors of Truth are not of yt Growth & for their sakes it is intended yt all may be preserved & grow in truths Dominion.

"So Dear Friends this wth what further you may apprehend may tend to truths pmotion in this Place we desire your assistance which will be very kindly and gladly Received by us who are Desirous of an Amicable Correspondency with you and do claim a part wth you in yt holy Body & Eternall Union which ye bond of Life is ye Strength of in wch God preserve you & us who are your ffds & Brethren.

Thomas Budd,

Willm Peachee,

Wm Brightwen,

Tho. Gardiner,

Robt Stacy,

John Hollingshead,

Robt Powell,

Jno Burton,

Saml Jennings,

Jno. Woolston,

Daniel Leeds,

John Butcher,

Henry Grubb,

Wm. Butcher,

Seth Smith,

Walter Pumphrey,

Tho. Ellis,

James Saterthwate.

Page 42

"Several friends not being present at ye sd meeting have since as a testimony of yr Unity with ye thing subscribed their names.

Mahlon Stacy,

Thos. Lambert,

Jno. Kinsey,

Samll. Cleft,

Willm. Cooper,

Jno. Shin,

Willm. Biles,

Thos. Harding,

Willm. Hulings,

Richard Arnold,

Jno. Woolman,

Jno. Stacy,

Abra. Hulings,

Peter Fretwell,

Thos. Eves,

Jon. Payne,

Jon. Crippe.

"From our mens monthly meeting in Burlington in West Jersey ye 7th of ye 12th Month 1680.

"To our dear Friends and Bretheren of ye Yearly Meeting of London."¹

In this transcription, and upon the books of the Burlington meeting, among other names may be found that of John Shin. From these authentic facts it is certain that John Shinn was in New Jersey in 1680, and probably in 1678; it is also certain that he was a freeholder and a member of the Society of Friends. It is also certain, as will appear hereafter, that he was the head of the family, and brought that family with him to America.

In order to a clearer understanding of much that will be adduced hereafter, to show the general character of John Shinn and the esteem accorded to him and his children by the earliest settlers of New Jersey, it will be necessary to give a sketch of the reasons leading up to the settlement and a brief synopsis of the laws governing it.

In 1664 Charles II granted to his brother, James, Duke of York, by royal charter, a part of the territory wrested from the Dutch. On June 23d of the same year the Duke conveyed a portion of this territory to John Lord Berkeley, Baron of Stratton, and Sir George Carteret of Satrum, in the County of Devon. This instrument was the first one to define the boundaries of New Jersey, and gave it the name "Nova Cesarea, or New Jersey."

These two proprietors at once drew up a constitution for the colony, which gave equal privileges and liberty of conscience to all. This instrument was called "The Concessions and Agreements of the Lords, Proprietors of the Province of New C‘sarea, or New Jersey, to and with All and Every of the New Adventurers, and All Such as Settle or Plant There," and continued in force until the division of the province, in 1676. It appointed Philip Carteret Governor, and authorized the freemen of the province to choose representatives annually from among themselves, who, in conjunction with the Governor and Council, were to form the General Assembly for the enactment of laws. To hasten the growth of the province, lands were given under certain easy conditions to all who should transport themselves thither. In 1674 Lord Berkeley, being well advanced in years, gave notice that he would sell his share of the propriety.

¹A careful perusal of the communication will satisfy any one familiar with a great

mass of modern caurch correspondence and records, that this body of Christians in

the wilds of New Jersey was fully equal to their modern brethren in bad orthography,

grammar, and prolixity of utterance, and superior to them in matter and zeal. In an

age when immigration was eagerly desired it is pleasant to contemplate a society

trying to keep its membership pure. The settlers of Burlington were men to whom

the creation of a sound society might safely be committed. And they discharged their

trust with honor to themselves and glory to the cause of purity, honesty, and truth.

This letter was quoted by Smith in his History of New Jersey, and referred to by

Proud in his History of Pennsylvania. The manuscript copy was owned by Smith

and was perused by Proud; it is now in the possession of the N. J. Historical Society.

It was undervalued by both Smith and Proud. In a letter of Col. Morris concerning

the state of religion in the Jerseys in 1700, the character of these signers is referred

to in the following language: "In West Jersey in the year 1699 there were 832 freeholders,

of which there were 266 Quakers. The Quakers in that Province are the men

of the best rank and estates. The rest of the province (generally speaking) are a

hotch potch of all religions." Col. Morris was a firm Church of England man.

Page 43

The persecution of Quakers marked the reign of Charles II, and many of their evangelists had been driven to America. Two of these preachers‑‑William Edmunson and George Fox‑‑had passed through New Jersey, whose soil was said to be good, and, taken altogether, "A most brave country." It would be a useless repetition of well‑known facts to narrate the suffering of the Quakers during this period. Church and State united to make them miserable, indeed. But there appear to have been causes for suffering other than those of polities or religion. Miss Amelia Mott Gummere1 says: "If we consider the destruction of life occasioned by the terrible plague of 1665, when 1,177 persons, out of London meeting alone, were buried in Bunhill Fields;2 the destruction of property belonging to the survivors by the fire which swept over the city in the following year, together with the persecution so rigorously pursued during the troublous periods of the protectorship and restoration, we cannot wonder at the desire of Friends to escape and seek liberty of conscience in a free land." It was not long after Lord Berkeley's announcement of his determination to sell that a sale was made of his half of the province to two Quakers‑‑John Fenwick and Edward Byllinge. In 1675 Fenwick, with a number of settlers, established the town of Salem. Fenwick and Byllinge divided their half of the province, which came to be called West Jersey, into 100 parts, of which Fenwick received ten,3 and Byllinge the remainder. Fenwick's settlement was upon his tenth. Byllinge met with a ??crics of reverses and assigned his property to William Penn, Gawen Lawrie and Nicholas Lucas, all Quakers, for the benefit of his creditors. These trustees sold a number of shares of the undivided half of New Jersey to different purchasers, who thereby became proprietors in common with them. These proprictors, on the 3d day of March, 1676, agreed upon a form of government comprising many of the provisions of the instrument formed by Berkeley and Carteret, and called it "The Concessions and Agreements of the Proprietors, Frecholders and Inhabitants of the Province of West Jersey, in America."4 This instrument created, among other things, a set of commissioners, ten in number, to be elected from their own number by ballot annually on the 25th of March, whose duty it was to "govern and order the affairs of the province for the good and welfare of the said people," according to the concessions, and until a general free assembly should be elected. By this agreement each tenth of the original one hundred proprietors was entitled to one commissioner, and the inhabitants of each tenth were the electors upon whom was cast the election of these commissioners.

These Concessions and Agreements were signed by one hundred and fifty‑one persons, many of whom moved to New Jersey and became prominent in the affairs of the infant settlement. Although the name of John Shinn does not appear in the list, yet, as he became one of the proprietaries in a very few years, and lived among these men until his death, we extract the names of such as had to do with the habitat in which John Shinn was afterwards found.

EXTRACT FROM LIST OF SIONERS TO CONCESSIONS AND AGREEMENTS.

Wm. Penn,

Wm. Emley,

Josh. Wright,

Tho. Hooten,

Henry Stacy,

John Lambert,

George Deacon,

John Thompson,

Tho. Smith,

And. Thompson,

John Pancoast,

Rich. Fennimore,

Tho. Scholey,

Tho. Wright,

John Newbold,

¹Friends in Burlington, 1884, page 6.

²"Bunhill" is a corruption of Bonehill. A. J. C. Hare's Walks in London.

³These 100 parts came to be called "proprieties." These by a subsequent agreement

were divided into ten parts, designated as "Tenths." Fenwick's share was called

"Fenwick's Tenth."

⁴Gordon's History N. J., Smith's History N. J., N. J. A., Barber and Howe's Historical

Collections, New Jersey.

Page 44

Richard Smith,

Dan. Wills,

Thomas Olive,

John Butcher,

Mahlon Stacy,

Eleazer Fenton,

Dan. Smith,

Sam. Lovett,

Thomas Stokes,

Robert Stacy,

Tho. Eves,

Sam. Jennings,

John Gosling,

Tho. Revell,

Wm. Biddle,

Thos. Gardner,

Tho. Budd,

Dan. Leeds.

On the 1st day of July, 1676, a division of the province was made by a deed between George Carteret, one of the parties, and the trustees of Byllinge, the other. Carteret took all east of a line from the east side of Little Egg Harbor, straight north, through the country, to the utmost branch of the Delaware River, and called it "East New Jersey." The rest of it, along the Delaware, fell to Penn and his associates, under the title "West New Jersey," and was to be divided into one hundred parts. Fenwick had already located his tenth in the southern part of West New Jersey. Purchasers were numerous, and in a short time two companies‑‑the first made up of some Friends in Yorkshire and the other of some Friends in London‑‑contracted for shares and received their patents. In 1677 the proprietors sent commissioners to purchase the land from the Indians, to inspect the titles of claimants and to lay off the lands. The commissioners¹ representing the Yorkshire proprietors were Robert Stacy, Joseph Helmsley and William Emley. Representing the London proprietors were Thomas Olive, Daniel Wills, John Penford, Benjamin Scott, John Kinsley, Richard Guy and Thomas Foulke. These commissioners, with the exception of Richard Guy, who was already in New Jersey, formed a part of the passenger list on the ship Kent, which sailed for New Jersey in 1677, as has been stated. After their landing at what was afterwards called Burlington, the commissioners negotiated three purchases from the Indians, viz., (1) from Timber Lake to Rankokas Creek, (2) from Oldman's Creek to Timber Creek, (3) from Rankokas Creek to Assunpink. From this territory so purchased the Yorkshire commissioners chose from the Falls of the Delaware down, which was called the First Tenth. The London commissioners chose at Arwaunus (in and near Gloucester), and called it the Second Tenth. Both sets of men, however, united in settling Burlington, a surveyed street being made the dividing line. With this explanatory matter concerning the general history of New Jersey, we pass to the particular history of John Shinn, Senior, the head of the family in America.

Burlington Records, on file at Trenton, N. J., show "John Sheen and Clement Sheen" in a list of freeholders for Burlington in the year 1680. They also show "John Sheen" as grand juror in the same year.

JOHN SHINN,2 SENIOR.

On September 18th, 1680, John Shinn, Senior, bought of William Emley, one of the commissioners, 1‑15 of one of the one hundred shares of West Jersey. This is evidenced (1) by a deed, dated July 17, 1697, wherein John Shinn, of Springfield Township, Burlington County, wheelwright, conveys to his son, James

¹Gordon's History of New Jersey, page 39.

Smith's History of New Jersey, page 92.

²Salter in his History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties says that Clement Shinn

and Eliza, his wife, had warrant for 160 acres of land in Shrewsbury in 1676, and

that George Shinn in the same year had a warrant for 60 acres. There is no record

of its survey, and the next reference to Clement Shinn is that of the text. After this

the name Clement disappears from all records, whether of church or state, until the

third generation, when it reappears in the line of John, Senior. The name "Eliza

Shinn" appears in no place save in the text of Salter. From what has already been

written concerning the English branch, it is probable that this "Clement Sheen" was

Page 45

Shinn, 120 acres,1 being part of the 1‑15 of the propriety bought of William Emley, September 18,1680; Liber AAA, f. 368, N. J. Deeds; (2) by a deed, dated July 15th, 1711, from John Shinn, of same township, to John Shinn, Junior, of the same place, conveying the remainder of the 1‑15 of a share, bought as aforesaid; Liber AAA, f. 368 ??f.

At a meeting of proprietors and freeholders in the First Tenth on the 24th of June, 1684, assessors were chosen to value and list lands. These assessors were directed not only to receive the assessment, but "for ye giving in each persons quantity of land in ye said Tente(h), both of undivided and certain tracts." From the list prepared by said assessors, and headed "The Names of ye Proprietors and Freeholders, and ye Number of Acres They Possess," we gather that John Shinn had that year in the First Tenth "Undivided 300 acres. Located 100 acres."

The list shows eighty‑nine freeholders. Samuel Barker is the only one that shows 1,000 acres; twelve others show from 450 to 650; eight own 400 acres; the remainder had from 50 to 350.2 John Shinn at that early day stood among the well‑to‑do men of Burlington County.

On September 36, 1680, a survey was made for John Shinn of 200 acres on Assincunk Creek, adjoining Eleazer Fenton. (Revel's "Book of Surveys," p. 7.) Again, on February 1, 1681, another survey was made for him of 100 acres on the Brook of Assincunk, adjoining his own land and that of Thomas Budd. Daniel Leeds was the surveyor. (Revel's "Book of Surveys," p. 18.) On September 22, 1682, another survey was made for him of 120 acres between John Butcher, Eleazer Fenton and the West Branch of Assincunk Creek. (Revel's Surveys, p. 34.) On September 6, 1686, Eleazor Fenton sold John Shinn 1‑16 of a share of the original 100 shares of West New Jersey, a wharf lot in the town of Burlington and a house lot on Romb Street, in the same town. (Liber B, Part I, p. 247, Deeds of W. J.) Counting a share at 32,000 acres, as is done by Hon. John Clement, for thirty years a Judge of the Court of Error and Appeal of New Jersey3 this transaction gave John Shinn the right to locate 2,000 acres of land.

Judge Clement contributed an article to the Pennsylvania Magazine of Biography and History,4 from which the following document is extracted:

"On 'th of ye twelfth month 16(8)7.

"The Deputy Governor and Commissioners being then met at ye house of (Henry) Grubb in

Burlington, proposed to Governor Coxe's Agent to join ye

the brother of "John Sheen," and that "George Shinn" was either his brother or son.

We have seen that the Frecken ham Registers record the birth of "Clement Sheen, son

of John Sheen, baptized Nov. 24th, 1593." The age of Clement in 1680 would be

eighty‑seven, which makes it probable that he was the grandfather of John, and the

father of the Clement of the text. When it is remembered that his name appears

nowhere else in Burlington records; that it appears then as a freeholder merely; that

John was then a father of a large family of children, several of whom were of marriageable

age, the deduction is logical that this Clement was about his age; that he

bought lands in England in 1676, but did not go to them; that he actually came to

America when John and his family emigrated; and that he died at Burlington in the

year 1680, or shortly afterwards. This makes the pedigree of John Shinn of Burlington,

N. J., root back to Francis Sheene of Freckenham Parish, England, born 1520.

The spelling of the name "Sheen" connects the family with the English. In England

and New Jersey the spelling crystallized into its present form about 1700. Since

that time it has been uniformly spelled "Shinn" in England and America.

¹The land conveyed was bounded W. by John Day; E. by John Butcher; S. by a

branch of Birch Creek; N. by John Shinn. N. J. A., Vol. XXI, p. 506. A survey of

land on Oct. 23, 1680, on Assincunk Creek at Mattacopenny describes the land as

adjoining John Shinn. Revel's Book of Assincunk describes it as adjoining Samuel

Jennings and John Shinn, Ibid. Also N. J. A., Vol. XXI. p. 347. This enhances the

probability of John Shinn being in New Jersey prior to the year 1680.

²Penn. Mag. B??og. and History, Vol. 15, p. 346.

³Surveyors' Association. West New Jersey, p. 123 (1880).

⁴P. M. B. and H., Vol. 7, p. 335.

Page 46

proprietors (and) Commissioners in making as large a purchase from ye Indian natives (as can be) had on behalf of ye governor and proprietors of this province."

It was also proposed by the Governor's Agent "that a general warrant be granted to ye Deputy Governor and Commissioners for ye surveying of ye (said) lands belonging to ye first settlements for twelve proprieties." Warrant was issued calling all the proprietors together in order that "their minds may be further known" concerning the legality of the measure and their agreement thereto.

On the 13th of ye 12th month, 1687, the proprietors concluded and agreed as follows:

"That the proprietors find the proposals of the Governor contrary to ye former rules and methods for taking up land." Yet, being desirous to accommodate the Governor and the families from England who had given information of an intention to remove to this province, and the expectation of a great advantage accrning to the province by reason of "peopling the same,"1 agreed that the Governor "may take up ye shares belonging to him for ye (first) divident of twelve priprieties" and authorize the court to issue a warrant to the General Surveyor to survey and lay out the same.

"Ye agreement aforesaid subscribed by ye proprietors underwritten."

Andrew Robinson,

Thomas Gardner,

John Dayes,

William Royden,

William Cooper,

Thomas Farnsworth,

William Bates,

John Reading,

Joshua Humphries,

John Hugg,

Bernard Devonish,

John Pancoast,

Elias Ffar,

James Atkinson,

Percival Toole,

John Kay,

William Albertson,

Nathaniel Cripps,

Thomas Barton,

John Shinn,

Isaac Marriot,

Thomas Sharp,

Freedom Lippencott,

William Beard,

Thomas Thackara,

Thomas Matthews,

Anthony Elton.

On December 14, 1687, John Shinn, of Springfield Lodge, deeded John Crosby, of the same place, millwright, husband of Mary, daughter of said Shinn, one‑half of a three‑hundred‑acre lot on Birch Creek. (W. J. R., Liber B, Pt. 1, pp. 167‑443.) This deed fixes the name of one daughter.

On April 10, 1693, John Shinn deeded to his son‑in‑law, Thomas Atkinson, and his daughter, Sarah, one hundred and ninety‑five acres of land. (W. J. Rec., Liber B, Pt. 2, p. 582.)

On May 25, 1687, John Shinn, Sr., and twenty‑three others, proprietors of several undivided shares of land in West Jersey, conveyed to Thomas Budd 15,000 acres, to be bought from the Indians; grantee to pay the debts of the province according to act of General Assembly for 1687. (W. J. R., Liber B, ff. 150‑231.)

On August 8th, 1686, John Skein, of Peachfield, N. J., sold John Shinn, Sr., 100 acres in the First or Yorkshire Tenth to be located. (W. J. R., Liber B, f. 196.)

On February 12, 1688‑9, John Shinn and other proprietors consent to the agreement made by Dr. Daniel Coxe with East Jersey concerning the partition line. (W. J. R., Liber B. f. 233.)

¹The proprietors had issued a long advertisement for distribution in England and

Europe, which "after dwelling on the salubrity of the climate, the good temper of the

Indians, and the manner and costs of setting out from England, closed with the

following advice to the prospective immigrants: 'All persons inclining unto these

parts must know that in their settlement there they will find their exercises. They

must labor before they reap; and, until their plantations be cleared, they must expect

the mosquitoes, flies, gnats and such like, may in hot and fair weather give them some

disturbance, where people provide not against them.' The mosquitoes seem to have

been early recognized as among the most active of the inhabitants of the new country."

The above extract ??s taken from "The Story of an Old Farm," by Andrew D.

Mellick, Jr., a charming book from the writer's standpoint, and full of interesting matter

concerning the first century of New Jersey's existence.

Page 47

On July 17, 1697, John Shinn, wheelwright, deeded to his son, James Shinn, 120 acres on Birch Creek. (W. J. R., Liber B, f. 619.) In 1707 John Shinn, with divers others of the proprietors and purchasers of West Jersey, sent a remonstrance to Edward Viscount Cornbury, Captain‑General and Governor‑in‑Chief of New York and New Jersey, and asked for the removal of certain prohibitions, in words as follows:

PETITION FROM PROPRIETORS AND PURCHASERS OF WEST JERSEY TO LORD CORNBURY.

(From original in Alexander West Jersey Papers, p. 149.)

To Edward Viscount Cornbury Captain Generale and Governour in Chief in and

Over the Province of New Jersey, New York and All the Territories and

Tracts of Land Depending Thereon in America and Vice Admirall of the

Same, &c.:

THE HUMBLE PETITION of divers of the proprietors and purchasers of the western division of New Jersey in all humility sheweth.‑‑

That whereas we are fully Informed that the Councill of Proprietors for the western division have received a Prohibition from the Lord Cornbury in Councill held at Amboy the fourteenth day of November Anno Dom: 1706 for granting any warrants for laying out lands &c by reason whereof no warrants can be obtained for that end, to the great prejudice of such as have (as they Conceive) a good and lawful right to take up their Just proportions of land In the division aforesaid haveing as good an undevided right as ony else can pretend to and have also bought the same of the Indians for a very valuable consideration.

WHEREFORE we humbly pray that such prohibition and Impediments may be removed and we evidencing our rights to such person or persons as the Proprietors have appointed to Inspect the same may be admitted thereto and we shall as in duty bound forever pray.

Thomas Brian,

Willm. Stevenson,

Daniel Wills,

John Gosling,

John Sharpe,

Richard Haines,

William Heulings,

Henry Ballinger,

Henry Burr,

Samuel Lippincott, Junr.

Richard Fenimore.

Will Petty, Jr.

Edward Elkton,

Joshua Humphries,

Thomas Eves,

Thomas Stoker,

John Haines,

Williams Evens,

Benjamin Moore,

Steven Wilson,

John Horten,

Thomas Wilkins,

William Horton.

John Jones (his mark),

John Stokes,

John Woolman,

John Clarke,

Joseph Kirkbride,

Wm. Biles,

John Swift,

Roger Parke,

Samll. Ferris,

Nath. Pope,

John Day (his mark),

John Abbat,

Matthew Watson,

John Shinn,

Thomas Peacher,

Nathan Allen,

Edward Rockhill,

John Bacon.

(N. J. Archives, Vol. III, p. 164.)

On July 15, 1711, John Shinn, of Springfield, wheelwright, deeds John Shinn, Jr., one‑seventh of a share of a propriety. (W. J. R., Liber AAA, f. 368.) In the will of John Shinn, Sr., hereafter to be noted, this John, Jr., is identified as a son of John, Sr. On February 2, 1699‑1700, Robert Dimsdale,1 of Bishops

¹This man and John Shinn were from the same county in England and by a

singular coincidence were confined together in the same jail at Hertfordshire. After

John Shinn had located in New Jersey Dimsdale removed thither and purchased a

large tract of land on what was afterwards called Dimsdale Run, a small stream that

flows into the Rancocas at Lumbertown. He was twice married, once in England, and

again in New Jersey to Sarah, the daughter of Francis and Mary Collins. He died in

England in 1718 and was buried in the church at Theydon Garnon, in Essex. Through

his descendants by the first wife the name became illustrious. His great‑grandson

was created Baron of the Russian Empire in 1769.

Page 48

Starford, County of Hertford, England, gave a power of attorney to Francis Davenport, John Shinn and John Scott as land agents. (W. J. R., Liber B, Pt. 2, f. 669.) These records disclose the fact that John Shinn, Sr., between the years 1680, when he first appeared, and 1712, when he died, had been the owner of several thousand acres of land, the largest part of which he gave his children‑‑Mary, Sarah, Thomas, James and John, Jr. The greatest quantity conveyed at any one time was that of July 15, 1711, to John, Jr., of one‑seventh of a share, and raises the probability that John, Jr., was the oldest son. There were other children, as we shall see, who, so far as the records show, received no land from their father. The modern ideas of equity in the division of estates did not find favor with fathers of that time. Primogeniture was in high repute with all land owners, and the oldest son, without superior merit, enjoyed the greater estate, while the younger children, especially the females, were considerd lucky if they were remembered at all. John Shinn may have given his other children‑‑George, Francis, Martha and Esther‑‑land, or money wherewith to purchase it, for the boys Francis and George had estates and died before their father. And while the will of John Shinn, Sr., made John, Jr., and James his general residuary legatees, share and share alike, it is still true that John Shinn, Jr., received the greatest quantity of land, and, so far as the records show, the other children were satisfied with the parental distribution.

Burlington County at this period (1680‑1712) embraced not only its present area, but a large part of Hunterdon County and Nottingham Township, in Mercer County. It is a difficult matter to trace the boundaries of the townships of the county as they existed then, but it is certain that they were larger than they are at present. Springfield Township, in which the greater part of John Shinn's possessions were located, was settled before 1680, and within three years of the settlement at Burlington. The land along the Assincunk was very fertile, and abounded from the very first in superior meadows.¹ The region abounds in marl and the farms of the township to this day are large, well adapted to the culture of grain and grass, and show substantial dwellings and barns. The immediate neighbors of John Shinn were men of wealth and of great political and religious influence. Some of these were Samuel Jennings, Eleazer Fenton, Thomas Budd, Robert Stacy and John Butcher. Having traced his land transactions historically, with their accompanying evidences of prosperity, good judgment and thrift, let us turn our attention to his standing and connection with the church.2 John Shinn was a member of Burlington Monthly Meeting of Friends. As we have already seen, John Shinn signed a memorial addressed to the London Yearly Meeting on the 7th day of the 12th month (Feb. 7, 1681), 1680. This establishes his connection with the Friends and raises a strong probability that he was a Friend in England, and brought his certificate of clearness with him.

The minutes of the Burlington Meeting, aside from the signature adduced, do not show any great activity on the part of our subject until 1684, when his name appears with frequency for a period of more than twenty‑five years. In 1683 it was resolved by the meeting to build a meeting house, and to that end it borrowed money of some of the wealthier members and began the work.

On the 5th of the 11th month, 1684,3 the minutes show that the meeting engaged to "pay the under money lent out of the first money received to buy boards for the meeting house." John Shinn subscribed and paid 5 shillings.

¹Barber and Howe's Historical Collection of New Jersey, p. 120.

²In Vol. XX?? N. J. A., as a note to Thomas Shinn is appended a long and well

written article concerning the land transactions of John Shinn. It was written after

the one presented in this chapter and by a different hand.

³Wherever dates are adduced they refer to Minutes of Burlington M. M. Meeting

unless otherwise explained.

Page 51

The accompanying cut shows the old structure after it was finished, and which continued in use until 1787.

On the 5th of the 2d month, 1686 (April 6), John Shinn, Jr., and Ellen Stacy proposed, in open meeting, their intention to marry. On the 5th of the 3d month they appeared the second time, when they were left at liberty to proceed1 On the 4th of the 8th month, 1686, and again on the 8th of the 9th month, John Crosby and Mary Shinn, daughter of John Shinn, appeared before the meeting and announced their intention to marry. On the 2d of the 11th month, 1687, John Shinn, Sr., and nine others were appointed on a committee "to visit a meeting in Pennsylvania, exhibit a complaint against a member of that meeting, and endeavor to bring about a reconciliation."

On the 6th of the 12th month, 1687, and again on the 5th of the 1st month, 1687‑8, "Thomas Shinn, son of John Shinn, and Sarah Shawthorne proposed their intentions of marriage." On the 6th of the 12th month, 1687, John Shinn and John Day were appointed to notify Daniel Leeds to bring in his paper to the Burlington Meeting before sending it to Philadelphia. Daniel Leeds had issued an almanac, which was the first publication ever made in New Jersey or Pennsylvania. Its title page ran thus: "An Almanac for the year of the Christian Account, 1687, particularly respecting the meridian and latitude of Burlington, but may indifferently serve for all places adjacent. By Daniel Leeds, Student in Agriculture. Printed and sold by William Bradford near Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, Pro Anno, 1687." This publication gave offense to the Friends on account of some of its "superfluities," and he was forced to make amends. The following paper shows the hold which the church had gained over the intellect of the man:

¹ The rules of the Friends required the young people who proposed marriage to

appear publicly in meeting and make the announcement. The meeting then appointed

a committee to see whether the contracting parties were free from all engagements,

and that the parents consented. After one month the parties reappeared and made

a second announcement, when, if the committee reported them "clear," they were

permitted to consummate their intentions. This was generally done within a few

days at the house of the father of the bride, and with a ceremony which will be more

fally set out hereafter. To be married by a minister or by a civil officer was cause

for "disownment," or excommunication.

Page 52

"To ye Men's Monthly Meeting at Burlington.

Dear Friends: Wheras, I do understand yt something in my Almanac hath given offonse to ffriends of truth‑‑Therefore I did look uppon myself as bound for satisfaction and vindication of ye blessed to condemn them as wrong and proceeding from a ground yt was out of truth. I being at a loss as to my incondition at ye time of writing thereof, during which loss I have been apt to let in hard thoughts and to pass a forward judgement of some proceedings of ye men's meetings, which I also do condemn, warning all others to have a care of letting in anything against ye good practices of ye Church of Christ in Men and Women's Meeting. Read in ye 5th of ye 12th, month 1687.‑‑Daniel Leeds."

When any of the modern Shinns finds himself wishing for "the good old times," let him read this inquisition of 1687. Daniel Leeds may have printed the signs of the zodiac; he may have called the planets after the fashion of the learned by names which commemorate heathen gods: he may have advertised patent medicines, for proprietary remedies were even at that day a source of revenue for money‑making quacks; he may have criticised the slow‑going pace of the Men's Meeting at Burlington‑‑all sins of enormous degree‑‑but he was at the head of a new enterprise; was forcing thought into the sphere of routine, and did not deserve the censure he received. Thomas I. Wharton, of Philadelphia, has called him "The first author in Pennsylvania or New Jersey in order of time," and all first authors have to stem tides of great opposition. The Quaker opposition in 1687 seemed to appall him, and to bring him closer to the peculiar style of the society. But continued opposition drove both Leeds and Bradford to New York, where Leeds issued a virulent manifesto against Quakerism.

As to the position of John Shinn in the matter, there is no recorded testimony. He executed the duty put upon him by the Society of Friends, and doubtless looked upon Leeds as a refractory member. The families of John Shinn and Daniel Leeds were intimate, and John Shinn, Jr., and Leeds married sisters, the daughters of Robert Stacy. This unfortunate occurrence drove a good man out of the church and a budding printing enterprise out of the colony.

On the 5th of the 9th month, 1688, John Shinn was sent as a delegate to the Quarterly Meeting; also placed on a committee to inquire into the clearness of a couple proposing marriage, and also to investigate an instrument of writing by which a part of a widow's estate was conferred upon her children. At the next meeting he was appointed to investigate a scandal, upon which he made report at the next meeting that he "found nothing of validity." On the 4th of the 12th month, 1688, he was again sent to Quarterly Meeting, and on the 2d of the 10th month, 1689, was appointed, with another Friend, to speak to a member "concerning his marriage contrary to the mind of Friends, both to the respect of the untimeliness of it, and also, to the order and manner of it." In December, 1690, the meeting considered the loss of James Silver by fire, and resolved to relieve him by subscriptions from several Preparative Meetings of the neighborhood. John Shinn, of Birch Creek, was requested "to promote the said subscriptions at their monthly meeting and to the respective meetings thereto belonging." Although Burlington Monthly Meeting was the earliest, it was not the only meeting of Friends in Burlington County. For convenience preparative meetings were held in many parts of the county.¹ One of these meetings was held at John Shinn's house, Springfield Lodge, Springfield Township, for many years, and resulted in the building of a meeting house in that township in 1698‑9.

On the 2d of the 12th month, 1690, the following minute was made: "This day there was moved in our meeting the case of the Widow Beard, and Friends ordered John Shinn to view 'Ye Plantation and Concessions,' and give an account

¹"One or more meetings for worship constitute a Preparative Meeting. One or

more Preparative Meetings constitute a Monthly Meeting. Several Monthly Meetings

constitute a Quarterly Meeting. Several Quarterly Meetings constitute a Yearly

Meeting."‑‑Edwin Salter.

Page 53

of it to her husband's brother in England." When one at the present day reads the Concessions and Agreements he is somewhat bewildered with its scope and method of treatment. The strength and vigor of John Shinn's mind may be inferred logically from his appointment upon this committee; and these minutes, kept in the woods of New Jersey by the Friends, show a plan of government and a system of execution of governmental affairs that would do credit to any modern community.

On the 5th of the 4th month, 1691, and again on the 6th of the 5th month, George Shinn and Mary Thompson announced their intentions of marriage. At the November meeting, 1691, the books printed by William Bradford, the pioneer printer of New York and New Jersey, upon the order of the yearly meeting, were received, and six of them delivered to John Shinn, with instructions to bring their value to the next meeting. In February, 1691, he and three others were appointed to settle a controversy between two Friends; also appointed to attend the Quarterly Meeting, and, with three others, to inspect the new meeting house to see "whether it be built according to contract." Thus was John Shinn connected with the first meeting house of the Friends in the city of Burlington; (1) A lender of the under money; (2) A contributor to its payment; (3) A committee to receive and inspect it at its completion. Many books and articles have been written in honor of his friends and neighbors, commemorating their political and religious deeds, with scant reference to the Boanerges of private life, who seemed to be ubiquitous when a man of judgment was needed, and invisible when the flim‑flam of trumpets was sounded and glory awarded.

In 1692 he was continued on a committee to settle for the building, and also on another committee to investigate charges against a Friend.

In the 6th of the 1st month, 1692‑3 (March 6, 1693), and on the 7th of the 6th month, 1693, Thomas Shinn and Mary Stockton announced their intentions of marriage. Mary Stockton was the daughter of Richard Stockton,1 the founder of the Stockton house in New Jersey, and one of the wealthy men of the province. He was a slaveholder, as was Thomas Shinn.

During the same year John Shinn was sent three times to Quarterly Meeting. In 1695 it was determined to build another meeting house at Upper Springfield, in Springfield Township, and John Shinn and another were appointed to take subscriptions therefor. He and another Friend were also "appointed to take care that the order of the Yearly Meeting be looked after." Mr. Richard Cadbury, of Philadelphia, informs me that this was an appointment as "Overseer of Springfield Meeting." This was held at "Springfield Lodge," the house of John Shinn, as these minutes will hereafter disclose. On the 8th of the 12th month, 1695, he was sent again to Quarterly Meeting. In September, 1696, he and another were appointed to inquire about the distress of a Friend who had addressed the meeting by letter; œ5 having been raised in the meantime, its disposition was left to John Shinn and another. On the 3d of the 1st month, 1696‑7, Joshua Owen and Martha Shinn, daughter of John Shinn, proposed their intentions of marriage, and were "set at liberty to proceed." On the same day a committee was appointed "to give Restore Lippincott and his wife and John Shinn and his wife a visit and speak to them and their son and daughter concerning their marriage, there being an account given to this meeting of their intending to publish their intentions and not take notice of this meeting."

At the next meeting the committee reported "that the young people were willing to come to the meeting, provided they might have the consent of their parents." After consideration "their parents agreed to it." Then James Shinn and Abigail Lippincott declared their intentions the first time, and on May 3, 1697, the second time, and were "left at liberty to

¹A more extended notice of the Stockton family will be given in connection with

the sketch of Thomas Shinn, the founder of the Southern line.

Page 54

proceed." On the same day John Shinn was sent to Quarterly Meeting, and two months later was placed on a committee to raise money for the meeting. One month later a report was given to the meeting that George Deacon disbursed fifteen shillings, John Shinn seven and sixpence, and John Wills seven and sixpence for a book to be used by the meeting. The next month John Shinn was placed upon a committee to raise money to relieve a Friend who had suffered loss by fire. On the 4th of the 2d month, 1698, John Shinn and others were appointed to collect money to buy posts and rails to fence the meeting house ground, and seven months later he was made one of the trustees to hold the title for the new meeting house at Springfield. At the September meeting, 1698, he and eighteen others sign a long paper testifying against a Friend, and declaring him out of fellowship. The following minute was written on October 3d, 1698: "Whereas John Woolston, Sr., being taken out of the body, who was appointed to look after the keeping of the good order advised in the yearly meeting paper; Therefore this meeting hath appointed John Day to be assistant to John Shinn, Senior, in that place." A short time after this John Shinn and John Day were "appointed to visit the Widow Parker and her sons for their not coming to meeting." They were also directed to demand the return of œ5 loaned to a Friend by the meeting. On the 2d of the 11th month, 1698, the committee made report that it had performed its duty, and John Shinn, Sr., then brought in his account against Springfield Meeting House, showing a balance due him of œ7, 4 sh., 5 pence. The contractor for the building of the Springfield Meeting House was made to realize the value of promptness by the following order, passed by the meeting on the 8th of the 3d month, 1699: "John Shinn and John Day were appointed to see that the builder finish Springfield Meeting House by the next three weeks' meeting, or else get some other workman." This order had its effect, for on the 5th of the 4th month,1699, John Shinn and John Day reported "Springfield Meeting House is done."¹ The minutes then say: "The removing of the Springfield Meeting from John Shinn's to the New Meeting House was on the 24th of the 3d month (May 24), 1699." For years the modest house of John Shinn had been the home of the church, and at this place had gathered such men as Thomas Jennings, the Quaker Governor of the province; Richard Ridgway, Thomas Olive, Daniel Wills, James Newbold and others of the infant colony to worship the Lord. Here had been solemnized many of the early marriages, prominent among which was that of Matthew Champion, in 1693. It was this house of John Shinn that was described in deeds of that period as "Springfield Lodge," in memory of the old lodges in England so recently abandoned and so well loved. The records of that day show John Shinn as a witness to scores of marriages, and his venerable presence at such affairs was a sure guaranty of its correctness.

In the probate records from 1686 to 1710 John Shinn's name stands prominent either as executor or administrator. It may be taken as a sure test of high integrity when an individual, through a long course of years, is repeatedly chosen to act in these fiduciary relations. And, judged by this test, John Shinn was above all reproach. Not only was he the executor or bondsman for the executor of his sons George and Thomas and of his son‑in‑law, John Crosby, who died possessed of fair estates, but he was successively chosen to manage the estates of those not of kin, and was repeatedly bondsman for others chosen in the same capacity. The largest estate of the period seems to have been that of Thomas Olive, of Willingboro, and upon the executor's bond, in clear relief, stands the name of John Shinn.

For twelve years after the removal into the new meeting house in Springfield Township, up to the day of his death, in 1711, John Shinn was retained as overseer, and at every meeting was appointed upon some committee connected with the affairs of the church. His wife, Jane, seems to have been a godly woman,

¹Located near Mattacopany Bridge. Now called Copanny.

Page 55

specially fitted for the work of the church. Wherever her husband appeared, there was she, and her influence for truth and righteousness was as widely extended as that of her husband.

On the 7th of the 2d month (April), 1712, John Day, the co‑worker with John Shinn for twenty years, arose in Springfield Meeting and announced the death of John Shinn, and asked that another Friend be chosen to act as overseer.

The will of John Shinn was dated "14th of the 11th month, 1711 (Jan., 1712), and was probated 30th of 12th month, 1711 (Feb., 1712). (Wills of New Jersey, Liber 1, p. 337.)

The exact date of his death is not recorded, but it must have occurred between the dates aforesaid. The following is a copy of his will and of the inventory of his personal estate:

LAST WILL OF JOHN SHINN.

"The fourteenth day of the Eleventh Month Called January Anno Domini one thousand seven hundred and eleven, I John Shinn Senior of ye Township of Springfield and county of Burlington In the province of West New Jersey (being sick and weak of body) but of sound disposing minde and memory praised be God doe make and ordain this my last Will and Testament in Writting in manner and forme following(???)first and principally of all I Give and Recommend my Soul and Spirit into the hands of Almighty God that gave and my body to the Earth to be buried In a Christian like & decent manner att the discretion of my Executors hereafter named And as touching the disposition of all such temporal Estate as it hath pleased Almighty God to bestow up mee I give and dispose thereof as followeth first I will that my Just Debts and funerall shall be paid and Discharged(???)Item I give to my son Thomas Atkeson and Sarah his wife and their Heirs for Ever one hundred pounds of good silver Money att nine Sbillings and two pense pr ounce upon these Conditions as followeth that is to say that the Sayed Thomas Atkeson Shall give good lawfull and Sufficient Security unto Richard Fenimore and Mary his Wife and there Heirs &c. forever of and from all manner of Charges burthens or Incombers whatsoever In Relation toward the Caire and Mentainance both for victals and Clothes and al other necessaryes for my grand child Mary Crosby being an Idiott and not capeble to take care of herself so long as she shall live which sd sort of an Agreement I made with my daughter Mary before she was Married for me to take the sayed Care of sayed Idiott Child in order thereunto I had my Daughter Mary's plantation Conveyed to mee for Sixty five pounds and Twenty five pounds more I Received in Money and bills for goods sould a?? a Vandue of my Daughter which made up the Sum of ninty pounds and ten pound more I gave out of my one Estate for to make up the sum of one hundred pounds as afore sayed. All the Rest of my Estate both Reale and personall I give to Jane my Dear and well beloved Wife duering her natural life and no longer and after her decease I give and bequeath as followeth Item I give to my Son John Shinn twenty pounds which he hath in his hand already upon bond to pay interest Item I give to my son James Shinn twenty pounds in Moneys which he hath in his hands already upon bond Item I give to my Son in law Joshua Owein and Martha his Wife twenty pound Item I give to my Son in law Thomas Atkeson and Sarah his Wife twenty pounds as al the littel House that I have built upon his land as also one bedd and al the furniture belonging to itt that is to bee under Shed as aforesayed after the decease of My Wife I give to my Son in law Richard Fenimore and Mary his Wife two shillings in moneys my sayed Daughter Mary being before this time advanced by mee Item I give to my grandson Thomas Shinn my boulting Mills and fifty pounds in Moneys and all the Rest and Remainder of my Estate both Reale and Personall that In left after the decease of my Wife She haveing a good Comfortable liveing out of the Same Wil??est She liveth and al our debt and funerall Charges is defrayed I give unto my two Sons John Shinn and James Shinn Equally to be divided between them and also to nominate and appoint my two sons John and James Shinn as aforeanyed to be my onely and Sole Executors of this my last Will and Testament Ratifying this and onely this to be my last Will and Testament. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal ye day and year above sayed.

"JOHN SHINN L. S."

INVENTORY OF JOHN SHINN'S ESTATE.

A True Inventory of the goods Chattels and Personall Estate of John Shinn of ye

Township of Springfield and County of Burlington and Province of West New

Jersey yeoman viewed taken and apraised this thirteenth day of the twelfth month

Page 56

called february Anno domi one thousand and a Eleven‑Twelve by us whose names are hereunto subscribed.

Vis(???) lb. s. d.

Imp to his purse and Apparrel 16 10 0

to Moneys upon bonds 132 00 0

to Lonings 003 0 0

to one bed & furniture 14 0 0

to another bed and beding with bedstead 10 0 0

to pewtor 00 10 0

to one Iron Cettol a brass Cettol with a Scillit 02 10 0

to one fryin pan with Sum other Iron 00 16 0

to one Shovell and tongs and Tramels and grid Iron and other od things

05 0 0

to one Chest and Desk 00 6 0

to one Chest 00 18 0

to Sum ould tubs 00 06 0

to one box Iron and money Skails 00 6 0

to one glass and Hone 00 18 0

to one Chear 00 06 0

to four ould Chairs 00 06 0

to Trencher and dishiss 00 05 0

to one brass Cettel with ould Iron 00 15 0

to one ould Char and three Iron wedges 00 12 0

to one ould Cart 1 6 0

More money upon bond 105 0 0

Richard Ridgway

Matthew Champion.

Burlington the 20th feb 1711

I John Shinn doe sollemnly declare in the presence of Almighty God the witness of the truth of what I say that the within writing Containes the full and Just inventory of all and singuler the Goods Chattles and Credits of John Shinn deceased soe far as came to my view possession or knowledge or to the view possession or knowledge of any other person for my use.

JOHN SHINN

Burlington 20th feb 1711

Every writer of early Jersey affairs credits the erection of the first bolting mill in Burlington County to Thomas Olive.¹ However that may be, it is certain, from the provisions of the foregoing will, that John Shinn was the owner of a bolting mill at the date of his death, 1711, and that he bequeathed it to his grandson, Thomas Shinn. When this mill was erected it is not known, but it was in existence in1711, and was probably erected about the beginning of the century. John Shinn is frequently described in legal documents as a wheelwright, his sonin‑law, John Crosby, as a millwright, and his son‑in‑law, Thomas Atkeson, was at that time an owner of a part of the mill at Bridgton, while his grandson, Thomas Atkeson, owned five‑eighths of the same mill (Judge John Clement, in "The Atkinsons in New Jersey").

From all these facts, it is probable that the bolting mill described in the will, and which passed by devise to Thomas Shinn, was the same mill in which Thomas

1Thomas Olive established a water mill on Rancocas Creek in 1680. Mahlon

Stacy about the same time built one at Trenton. (Friend's in Burlington, p. 12.) The

following from the Penn. Gazette, No. 1418, A. D. 1756, very probably refers to the

identical bolting mill which John Shinn devised in his will: "To be sold‑‑seven

eighths of a good grist mill with two pair stones, two boulting mills for country

work, by Thomas Atkinson, Miller in Mt. Holly. Also, the whole of a good large

convenient merchant's boulting house with two good boulting mills which go by

water. Likewise a quarter of a saw mill with two saws, both situated in Mt. Holly

aforesaid, on a very constant and plentiful stream of water and attended with a very

good business." This Thomas Atkinson was a grandson of John Shinn, Sr., and the

increase in plant indicates thrift and good management on the part of the children

and grandchildren. But these qualities rarely remain in a family more than three

generations, and therefore the mills, as well as the lands of John Shinn, his children

and grandchildren, with a few exceptions, have passed into other hands, leaving but

a memory, which at times seems but the filmy fabric of a passing dream.

Page 57

Atkinson, father and son, afterwards held an interest. Hon. Thomas B. Jobes, of New Egypt, N. J., before his death, wrote these words: "I think it certain that John Shinn, Sr., with others, erected the dam on the North Branch of the Rancocas at Bridgton, N. J. (Mt. Holly). A sawmill for lumber was necessary as soon as sawed lumber was used instead of logs. The 'boulting flour' mill at Bridgton receives water through a flume which again discharges itself into the main tideway of the stream. My opinion is that John Shinn, Sr., took the flour and manufacturing privileges as his share of of the water power. I also remember another old mill, the Brandywine, which was either owned or operated by the Shinns. That many of the Shinns of early times were millers is beyond all question. The Evesham Shinns were noted millers." (Private letter, 1892.) Hon. John Clement, in the book already referred to, has this to say about the mill at Bridgton: "In 1701 Samuel Jennings, as attorney for John Ridges, sold the land fronting on Rancocas Creek to Joshua Southwick and Edward Gaskill, who built a dam across the creek and erected a grist or corn mill there. He (Edward Gaskill) sold two‑eighths to Ebenezer Laige in 1737, who added a bolting mill, the first, excepting Thomas Olive's mill, at Burlington, in this part of the country."

The latter part of this statement is an error, for John Shinn devised a bolting mill in esse in 1711, and certainly earlier. Judge Jobe's hypothesis seems to be the better one, viz.: "As the burden of making a flume and of erecting mills, saw and bolting, was too great at that time for one man to assume, several men united their capital to accomplish the end. In the division John Shinn took the boulting mill as his share."

We may never be able to arrive at the exact truth, but it still remains that John Shinn, Sr., owned a bolting mill in 1711, and the probability is that it was located at Bridgton.

Thus the patriarch of the Shinns in America connects himself with the earliest manufacturing interest of New Jersey, by which we are enabled to see him as many‑sided in the constituent elements, industry, thought and enterprise.

Such was the life of John Shinn, the progenitor of nearly every Shinn in the United States. An Englishman born; reared within the fold of the Established Church; a follower of George Fox from choice; persecuted and imprisoned in Hertfordshire; an emigrant with a large family from the home of his birth; one of the first settlers of Nova C‘sarea in America; a freeholder and a proprietor; a man of affairs, chiefly within the Society of Friends; a man of thrift; a man of probity and honor, a man trusted and esteemed by all who knew him, a prince of peacemakers. There is no reason for a pride in ancestry unless that ancestry be worthy of all commendation, and the descendants have the virtues of the ancestry. John Shinn exemplified to the highest degree the remark of Rev. Sydney Smith:

"Quakers, it must be allowed, are a very charitable and humane people. They are always ready with their money, and, what is of far more importance, with their time and attention for every variety of human misfortune."

John Shinn did his part. He left the family name untarnished and gave his family place among the best of his time. He died a worker, with his armor girded about him. Have his descendants improved the talent he left them? Have they equaled him in character and vigorous life? If so, there is reason for the pride of birth, and genealogy ceases to be a vain chimera. If not, the voice of the dead speake from the tomb and charges us to imitate and surpass before we claim the glory of the line.

1. Francis Sheene of Freckenham Parish, England, 1520‑1525.

2. Clement Sheene. b. 1593; m. Grace (???).

3. John Shinn. b. 1632; m. Jane (???).

Descendants of John and Jane Shinn.

2. (1) John Shinn, Jr., b. in England; married (1) Ellen Stacy 3/3/1686. B. M.

M. R.; married (2) Mary (???) 7/1/1707. B. M. M. R.

Page 58

3. (2) George Shinn, b. in England; married Mary Thompson 5/6/1691. B. M.

M. R.

4. (3) Mary Shinn, b. in England; married (1) John Crosby 9/8/1686. B. M. M. R.;

married (2) Richard Fennimore 1691. B. M. M. R.

5. (4) James Shinn, b. in England; married Abigail Lippincott 3/3/1697. B. M. M. R.

6. (5) Thomas Shinn, b. in England; married (1) Sarah Shawthorne 5/1/1687.

B. M. M. R.; married (2) Mary Stockton 1/6/1692‑3. B. M. M. R.

7. (6) Sarah Shinn, b. in England in 1669; married Thomas Atkinson.

8. (7) Esther Shinn, b. in England; never married. B. M. M. R. A. A witness to

William Atkinson's marriage in 1686.

9. (8) Francis Shinn, b. in England; never married. W. J. Wills.

10. (9) Martha Shinn, b. in England; married (1) Joshua Owen 1/3/1696‑7. B. M.

M. R.; married (2) Restore Lippincott 1729. B. M. M. R.

SECOND GENERATION.

2. JOHN SHINN, JR. (2).‑‑JOHN (1).

John. Born in England. Designated in records John, Jr. He appears upon the Records of West Jersey for the first time on the 6th day of the 10th month (December 6), 1683, when he and his father, John Shinn, Senior, signed the marriage record of John Woolston and Letitia Newbold as witnesses. Said ceremony was performed by Elias Pharo Justice. (Burlington Records, 1683.) Then, on May 13th,1685, John Renshawe, of Burlington, deeded John Shinn, Jr., of Birch Creek, Burlington County, for œ17, silver, two hundred acres of land, in the First or Yorkshire Tenth. John Shinn, Jr., is designated in this deed as "husbandman," and lived near the line between the First and Second Tenths. (W. J. R., Liber B, Pt. 1, p. 87.) Then came the momentous period of his marriage. Following the custom of Friends, of which society he was in all probability a member, he published his intention to marry Ellen Stacy before the Monthly Meeting of Friends at Burlington on the 5th day of the 2d month (April 5), 1686. Further following the requirements of the society, he and Ellen published their intentions of marriage by a second appearance before the meeting on the 3d day of the 3d month (May 3, 1686), 1686. Upon their first appearance a committee was appointed to inquire into the character of John and Ellen, and to see whether any hindrance or impediment existed which could lawfully and religiously bar the marriage. This committee reported at the second meeting that no impediment existed, and the meeting left them at liberty to consummate the weighty affair in the fear of God. These inquiries of the church into the clearness of candidates for matrimony deserve the commendation of prudent men. They not only prevented to a large degree the marriage of such as were within the canonical degrees, but also improvident and hasty marriages. For two young people to appear twice in open meeting at different times and publicly announce their intention to marry not only requires courage, but is conducive of proper thought with reference to this solemn contract. "To marry out of meeting," that is, to ignore the requirements of the society and be married by a "priest" or by an "officer of the law," although recognized by Friends as a lawful marriage, was a sufficient cause for excommunication from their membership, and resulted in "disownment."

John Shinn, Jr., and Ellen Stacy had "passed meeting" properly, and there remained nothing save the marriage ceremonial to be performed. Its simplicity will be seen from the following record, taken from the First Record Book of Marriages, Births and Deaths of Burlington Monthly Meeting of Friends:

"Whereas there hath been an intention of marriage dewly published at two several Monthly Meetings of the People called Quakers in Burlington (upon the river Dallaware in the province if West New Jersey in America) between John

Page 59

Shinn, Jr., of Birch Creek, Husbandman, and Elin Stacy, daughter of Robert Stacy of Burlington, both inhabiting the Province aforesaid, Inquiry having been made for removing obstructions, and also ye consent of parents being had, ye meeting permitted their joyning together in marriage.

"Now this may certify ye truth unto all whom it doth or may concern on ye day of ye date hereof in our sight and hearing and in an Assembly of the Lord's People ye said John Shinn did take and declare ye said Elin Stacy to be his wife, and ye said Elin Staey did take and declare ye said John Shinn to be her husband according to ye example of ye Holy Men of God recorded in the Scriptures of Truth. Each of them consenting or proposing to be loving, faithful and true in ye capacity as husband and wife during the term of their natural lives together. In witness whereof the parties themselves have first of all subscribed their names, and we also as witnesses this third day of ye fourth month, 1686." Signed John Shinn, Ellin Stacy, John Shinn, Sr., Robert Stacy, Jane Shinn, Thomas Shinn, George Shinn, John Stacy, Elizabeth Stacy, Mary Shinn, and twelve others.

This young lady, Ellen Stacy, was the daughter of Robert Stacy, one of the principal men of the colony. The family in England was a most respectable one, and had borne with honor and distinction many important positions in the country. Robert Stacy was one of the original proprietors of New Jersey, and his signature appears on "The Concessions and Agreements;" he was also one of the First Commissioners sent over to the young colony by the proprietors. In New York Colonial Documents, Vol. XXI, page 635, he is set down as one of the first magistrates of West New Jersey, his commission being dated August, 1677. In the Pennsylvania Colonial Records, Vol. I, page 75, he appears as a mediator between the Province of Pennsylvania and East Jersey. The New York Colonial Documents, Vol. XII, page 614, show that on November 14, 1678, he leased Matiniconck Island from Sir Edmund Andros, Governor of New York. Soon after this he took up lands along Assincunk Creek, and in 1680 was the owner of one‑sixth of a propriety. In point of wealth and grasp of affairs, few men stood higher than he, and no one in West Jersey had a greater influence. He removed to Philadelphia in 1690, where he and his son, John, began the manufacture of leather. His will, dated 2/2/1699, was admitted to probate October 18, 1701. (Phila. Wills, page 147.) There is no record of the children of this marriage, and we are left to the recitals of wills and deeds to ascertain their names, but are without any material whatever to predicate an opinion as to the order or dates of their birth. The will of the father‑in‑law. Robert Stacy, gives a legacy to "Ellen and her son," but does not name him.

We shall now take up the land transactions of John Shinn, Jr., not so much to show his position as a landholder as to construct an authoritative line of descent. There is doubtless in some old book in some forgotten heap of rubbish an accurate family record of John and Ellen (Stacy.) Shinn, but as I cannot find it, I am driven to the next best thing to construct one from materials that are as authentic as a record, but not so orderly nor so comprehensive.

As early as 1685 John Shinn, Jr., had begun to acquire land, as is evidenced by the following conveyances, recorded in the records of Burlington County. We have already noted that on May 13, 1685, John Renshawe, of Burlington, conveyed two hundred acres, to be surveyed in the First Tenth, to John Shinn, Jr., of Birch Creek. (Liber BB, f. 87.) On January 6, 1706‑7, John and Mary Crosby conveyed to John Shinn, Jr., brother of said Mary, five hundred and fifty‑five acres, the land that had been given them by John Shinn, Sr. (Liber BBB, f. 215.) On May 17, 1716, Joseph mbler, of Philadelphia, sold John Shinn one hundred acres. (Ibid., f. 298.) On August 27, 1718, John Shinn conveved to John Ogbourne thirty acres. (Ibid., f. 348.) On January 11, 1713‑4, he sold braham Bickley, of Philadelphia, one hundred acres in Springfield Township. (Ibid., f.

Page 60

414.) On June 30, 1722, he sold a meadow in Springfield Township to Thomas Budd, of Northampton. (Liber BB, f. 379.)

Hon. John Clement, of Haddonfield, furnished me with the following note, gleaned from records in the Surveyor General's office at Burlington: "In 1725 John Shinn and his four sons‑‑Clement, Joshua, Jacob and Caleb‑‑located land in Burlington County." (Rec. Sur. Gen. Office, Burlington, N. J.) On June 1, 1726, John Shinn, of Springfield Township, conveyed six hundred and eighteen acres on a branch of Raritan River, in Hunterdon County, to Widow Sarah Dimsdale. (Liber D, f. 189.) On May 11, 1726, John Shinn sold to his sons, William and Clement, several tracts of land. On October 20, 1736, William Shinn, of Springfield, brother and heir‑at‑law of Clement Shinn, late of same place, conveyed to John Shinn, father of William and Clement, the land which John Shinn, the father, conveyed to William and Clement on May 11, 1726. (Liber E, 202.) On October 21, 1736, John Shinn conveyed the same land to David Lewis, of Lebanon, Hunterdon County. The deed contains the recitals set out above. (Liber E, 205.) On the same day John Shinn deeded his son William 426 acres in Lebanon, Hunterdon County. (Liber E, 205.) John Shinn, Sr., died in 1711, and after that period the title senior passed to John, Junior, his son, and the title junior passed to another John, the on of the first John, Jr., as is evidenced by the following will:

WILL OF JOHN SHINN, JR.

I John Shinn Junr. of Springfield In ye County of Burlington & Western Division of ye Province of New Jersey Yeman being very sick and week in Body but of Sound and Perfect mind & memory Thanks be given to Almighty God Therefore calling to mind ye mortallity of my Body & Knowing that it is appointed for all men once to Dy Do make this my Last Will & Testament Utterly Revoaking & Disanulling all other former Wills & Testaments by me heretofore made and as Touching such worldly Estate wherewith it hath Pleased God to Bless me with In this Life I Give Devise and Dispose of ye same In manner following.

Imprimis‑‑I give Devise & Bequeath unto my two Brothers Clement Shinn & William Shinn ye Land & Plantation where I Live Lying in ye Township, County & Division obovesaid adjoining to my fathers Land on one side & Samuel Barker on another side & John Ogbourn on another side & Richard Ayre on ye other side‑‑To be Equally Divided Between my said Brothers Clement Shinn and William Shinn ye one halfe To be holden & Enjoyed unto & by my Brother Clement Shinn & his heirs & Assignes forever & ye other halfe to be holden & Enjoyed unto and by my Brother William Shinn & his heirs & Assignes for ever.

Item‑‑I Give & Bequeath unto my Sister Elizabeth Ruckel ye one halfe of all my Personall Estate In Goods Chattels & Credits to be paid by my Executers after my Just Debts & funeral Charges is paid. Item‑‑I Give & Bequeath Unto my Sister Mary Shinn ye other halfe of all my Personal Estate In Goods Chattels & Credits to be paid by my Executers after my Just Debts and funeral Charges is Paid. Item‑‑I Give & Bequeath unto my Brother Clement Shinn & Robert Ruckel whom I Likewise make, ordaine & Constitute my whole & sole Executers of this my Last Will & Testament all my Personall Estate in Goods, Chattels & Credits to ye Intent & purpose That my said Executors Shall & Do Pay all my Just Debts & Legacies & funeral Charges and I do hereby Rattif??e & Confirm this & no other to be My Last Will & Testament. In Witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this Eighth Day of February Anno ye Dominey one Thousand seven hundred & twenty seven Eight 1727‑8.

Memorandum ye word (& by) & (&by) was his

Enterlined before ye Ensealing & Delivery John Shinn

hereof Published Pronounced & Declared mark

by ye said John Shinn to be his Last Will

& Testament‑‑In the presence of us

John Shinn Abraham Marriott John Budd.

Be it Remembered that on the Seventh day of March Anno dom One thousand seven hundred and twenty seven personally came & appeared before me Samuel Bustill Surrogate and Register of the Western Division of the Province of New Jersey John Shinn Abraham Marriott and John Budd the three Witnesses Subscribed to the within Will. John Budd on his Solemn Oath wch he took on the holy Evangelist

Page 61

of Almighty God and John Shinn and Abraham Marriott being of the People called Quakers on their Solemn affirmation according to Law do dispose and affirm that they were all present and saw the within named John Shinn sign and seal and heard him Publish Pronounce and Declare the within Writing to be his last Will and Testament and at the doing thereof the Testator was of sound mind, memory and understanding to the best of their knowledge and belief and that at the same time they did sign their names as Witnesses to the within Will in the presence of the Testator.

Affirmed and Sworn Before Me Sam'l Bustill Surr & Regr.

Be it remembered that on the Seventh day of March Anno Dom. One thousand seven hundred and twenty seven psonally came & appeared before me Sam'l Bustill(???)Robert Rockhill surviving Executor1 of the last Will and Testament within written he being one of the People called Quakers on his Solemn affirmation according to Law doth declare and affirm that the within writing contains the last Will and Testament of John Shinn the Testator therein names as far as he knows and believes.

And that he will well and truly pform the same by paying first the Debts of the dec'd and then the Legacys contained in the within Will &c‑‑&c‑‑

Affirmed Before me‑‑ Sam'l Bustill D Surr & Regr.

On January 29, 1736‑7, John Shinn, the father, executed his will, in which he names his wife, Mary; sons, Jacob and Caleb; grandson, John, son of son George, and cousin, Samuel Shinn. His sons Caleb and Jacob and cousin Samuel Shinn are named executors. This will was probated March 19, 1736‑7. (Wills, No. 4, p. 91.)

From these authentic records it is an easy task to construct the following table as the children of John Shinn, Jr., and Ellen (Stacy) Shinn:

George, named as son in will of the father.

John, Jr., named in his own will as brother to Clement and William.

Clement, named as son in several deeds.

William, named as son in several deeds.

Elizabeth, named as sister by John, Jr., in his will.

Mary, named in same will.

The will of John, in 1736‑7, names Mary as wife, and as we have introduced Ellen Stacy as wife, it will be necessary to take up the church records to clarify this seeming anachronism. And inasmuch as we have been designating John, who married Ellen Stacy, as John, Jr., we shall adhere to this fashion to avoid confusion; but it should be remembered that this title left him in 1711, upon the death of his father, and passed to his son, who died in 1727‑8, and then passed to John, son of George, grandson of John, Jr., and great‑grandson of the immigrant.

John Shinn, Jr., was not as consistent in his religious affairs as was his father, but the records disclose some activity in that direction; enough, at least, to enable us to clear away some of the perplexing mists of the family record. And if it shall do no more than this, it will outrank many other religious characters that cumber the church rolls.

Our first view of John Shinn, Jr., was made possible by the elaborate record which the Quakers at Burlington made upon the occasion of his marriage. The great worth of the father seemed to overshadow the son, and for many years we find him in the background of the picture, with his father as a central figure.

In 1697 he was appointed on the ubiquitous committee that adorns every church to raise money. In 1701 he and his father sign a "testimony" against some pretended "Friends."

In 1706 and again in 1707 he had gained sufficient prominence to be sent to Quarterly Meeting. On the first day of the seventh month, 1707, the church appointed two Friends to speak to John Shinn, Jr., to let him know that meeting expects that he should clear truth and Friends from the reproach he had brought upon them by his disorderly doings. He appeared before the meeting, 10th of the 9th month, 1707, and promised to attend to the matter at the next meeting. On the 1st day of the 10th month, 1707, he brought in a paper condemning his action,

¹This shows that Clement Shinn died within a few weeks of his brother, John.

Page 62

which was accepted by the society. His offense was taking a wife who was not a Friend, "and the disorderly way of taking her." The disorder consisted in being married by either a preacher of some other church, or by a heathen, Justice of the Peace. Thus the wiles of the great arch enemy of mankind, "lovely woman," led another good man astray. But for this little church record we should not have known of this second marriage of John, and even with it we are unable to tell the maiden name of his wife. To the Quakers she was Anathema Marenatha, and not for any consideration would they mar their records by giving her name. From it we infer that Ellen was dead, and from the will of John we know that her Christian name was Mary. Mary what? Not until all secrets are given up before the August Monarch of the Universe will this be known. Jacob and Caleb were certainly her sons, for the records show their birth to have been after this second marriage. The will of Robert Stacy furnishes evidence that there was one son at least by the first marriage. This son was, in all probability, George. He married Elizabeth Lippincott, daughter of Restore, in the month of June, 1712, as is shown by the records of the church. Elizabeth Shinn, sister of George, was also a child of the first marriage, for that she herself married Robert Rockhill in November, 1716, as appears from the Burlington records of that date. John Shinn, Jr., of 1727‑8, names Elizabeth, Mary, William and Clement as brothers and sisters, but does not mention George, Joshua, Caleb or Jacob. These were certainly alive at the date of the will, and the omission of all reference to them furnishes ground for the inference that Joshua, Caleb and Jacob were but half‑brothers. But why he should not mention George cannot be explained on this hypothesis. George lived then in Gloucester County, and, being the eldest son, was passed by his brother. It may be safely assumed that the children of John Shinn, Jr., and Ellen Stacy were George, Mary, Elizabeth, William, Clement and John. They (John Shinn and Ellen Stacy) were married in 1686, and she died before 1707, when John married the second time.

The children of the second marriage were certainly Caleb and Jacob, and very probably Joshua. There was one daughter by this marriage, whose Christian name was Jane, and there may have been one more. I have been aided in these deductions by Hon. John Clement, a man familiar with the law and well versed in genealogy. The property which William inherited as heir at law of Clement, deceased, was property bequeathed to William and Clement by will of the brother John, who died in 1727‑8. In any case the full blood brother relationship of William, Clement and John is established. George died in April, 1732, as is shown by his will probated in Gloucester County on April 14th of that year. Wills No. 3, p. 98. Clement died between that date and May 11, 1736, the date of William's deed to his father of the property inherited from Clement.

John Shinn, Jr., died in 1736‑7, a very wealthy man for the day and time. Not as conspicuous as his father in public and religious life, he inherited the bulk of his estate, and managed it frugally and well. Whoever the second wife may have been, it is safe to say that she was of the first families of the period, for the children of John Shinn, Senior, who married, had entry into this circle, and as will be seen hereafter married exceptionally well. Having established the line of descendants of John, Jr., we pass to the other children of John, Sr., whose genealogy will be easier to ascertain.

Children of John Shinn, Junior.

11. (1) George married Elizabeth. Daughter of Restore and Hannah Lippincott 2^nd day 4^th month 1712. (Burlington M. M. Records.)

12. (2.) Elizabeth married Robert, Son of Edward Rockhill Sr. 5th day 9th month 1716. (Bur. M. M. R. Chesterfield M. M. Records.)

13. (3.) Clement; ob, sine proli.

14. (4.) John; ob. sine proli.

Page 63

15. (5.) William, married (1) Martha, daughter of Joshua and Jane (Budd) Shreeve, 2^nd day, 11th month, 1728. (Chesterfield Monthly Meeting Record.) William married (2) Exorcise Corliss; 1739.

16. (6.) Joshua.

17. (7.) Jane, married Jonathan Gaskill 5/4/1732 (B. M. M. R.).

18. (8.) Caleb, married Mehitabel Curtis, 1739.

19. (9.) Jacob, b. 5/13/1715; married Hannah Lippincott (relict of Freedom Lippincott), nee

Rakestraw‑‑12th month, 1745‑6. (Burlington and Haddonfield M. M. Records.)

20. (10.) Sarah, married Thomas Atkinson, son of Thomas and Sarah (Shinn) Atkinson 6/12/1739. (B. M. M. R.)

21. (11.) Mary married Abraham Bunnell in 1731; they removed to Hunterdon Co. upon lands given her by her father in Lebanon. They reared a large family, one son, Abraham Bunnell, becoming Lieutenant‑Colonel of the Battalion raised by Somerset, Essex and Hunterdon, under an Ordinance passed by the Convention of New Jersey, 7/18/1776.

6. THOMAS SHINN (2).‑‑JOHN (1).

Thomas Shinn was born in England in Hertford County, in all probability, but the date of his birth cannot be asserted authoritatively. His first appearance in authentic history was in the little octagonal church of the Friends in Burlington, when, in company with a young woman of that town, he appeared and declared his intention to marry her. This was on the 6th day of the 12th month, 1687, (Feb. 6, 1688). Burlington Monthly Meeting Records contain this further entry; "5th of 1st month,1687‑8 (March 5, 1688), Thomas Shinn and Sarah Shawthorne came before the meeting the second time and declared their intentions of marriage, and the meeting finding all clear and nothing to impede the same, they are left to consummate the weighty affair as they in the fear of God shall see meet." This is all that can be known of Sarah Shawthorne. She must have died soon after her marriage without issue, for no reference is made to children of this marriage by Thomas, who himself died within seven years, leaving a will. Certain it is that Thomas Shinn and Mary Stockton appeared before the Burlington Meeting on the 2nd of the 7th month, 1692, and again on the 6th of the 1st month, 1692‑3, and announced their intention of marriage and were set at liberty to proceed. That this was the same Thomas that married Sarah Shawthorn is evidenced by the will of Thomas, which refers to Mary Stockton as "my now wife." That Sarah had died is inferred from the fact that the church which had given its consent to the first marriage consented to the second. Of Mary Stockton there is much more to be said than of Sarah Shawthorn. She was the daughter of Richard Stockton, who was a descendant of a noted family of that name in Durham on Tees, England. Her father was the first of the family to immigrate to America and settled in Flushing, L. I., where he bought two thousand acres of land March 10, 1692. Soon after this he purchased several thousand acres in Springfield Township, Burlington County, N. J., and removed thereto. He was a prominent man, of great wealth and influence. He died in 1707, leaving children, Richard, John, Job, Abigail, Sarah, Mary, Hannah and Elizabeth. N. J. A., Vol. X, p. 427. From Richard, the brother of Mary, who became very wealthy, was descended six sons, Richard, Samuel, Joseph, Robert, John and Thomas. John inherited the ancestral home "Morven" at Princeton, and became a warm friend of Princeton College. From this John was descended the famous jurist, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, Richard Stockton.

Thomas lived scarcely two years after this marriage. His will is dated November 4th, 1694, and was proven by John Shinn, Sr., on Dec. 15, 1694. The following is a copy of his will. It shows one child, Thomas, already born, and a posthumous child, which, we shall see, was called Samuel. It also shows that he had four brothers, and corroborates our tabulation of the male children of John Shinn, Sr. It also shows him to have been a freeholder and a slaveholder‑‑one of the earliest slaveholders‑‑if not the very earliest in New Jersey.

Page 64

WILL OF THOMAS SHINN, SON OF JOHN SHINN.

IN THE NAME OF GOD AMEN.

I, Thomas Shinn of Springfield in the County of Burlington make this my last Will in Manner and form following, viz‑‑

First I bequeath my soule to God and my body to the clay.

Secondly I bequeath unto my son Thomas Shinn a peece of land Eastward containing about sixty five acres and about fifteen acres of Meadow lying on ye west of ye said land.

Thirdly I give and bequeath unto my Child unborn one equall shaire of land and Meadow that remains of my plantation.

Fourthly the other half of my plantation I give and bequeath unto my now wife Mary Shinn with all my building and orchading and all my movables.

It is also my will that if ye negro should outlive my now wife, then at her decease he shall return unto my son Thomas; also if ye child unborn should be a female then I would have my son Thomas to have ten acres more out of my other meadows to be given at ye west end of my meadow; Also it is my will that if this child unborn should dye before it is of age I would have its share fall unto my son Thomas. If both my children should dye before they be of age I would have that which I have given to them to return to my relations my fower brothers onely; It is also my will that if my wife dye before she marries again that then that shaire of land and meadows return unto my fower brothers, but if my now wife should live to marrie again that then that shaire of land and meadows I giver her to be at her disposing as she pleases forever.

Also I appoint Francis Deavenport, and John Wilston to be my trustees to see this my will to be performed according to my desire: This is my will and pleasure this fourth day of ye Eighth Month commonly called November Anno 1694.

Thomas Shinn (L. S.)

Signed, Sealed in ye presence of us(???):

Isaac Horner,

Matthew Champion,

John Shinn, Sr.

December 15th, 1694.

John Shinn sen'r (one of ye evidences to ye above written Testament under his solemne Attestation) then proved ye above named Testator signing, sealing & declaring ye above written to be his last Will & Testament. That Isaac Horner & Matthew Champion above written were also evidences to ye same, & did with him ye sd John Shinn subscribe their names as evidences thereto;1

In presence of us Edward Hunloke

Thos. Revell John Tabham Justices

Serey & Reg'r. Thos. Revell

On page 612, Liber B. New Jersey Deeds, in office of the Secretary of State at Trenton, we ascertain that on Dec. 28th, 1697, Mary Shinn, widow of Thomas Shinn, had consented to marry Silas Crispin of Pennsylvania, and before doing so arranged for the property which had descended to her from her husband to be held in trust and managed for the use and benefit of her sons, Thomas and Samuel Shinn. The trustees, as recited in the deed, were Richard Stockton, Jr., brother of said Mary, and John Shinn, Jr., brother‑in‑law of said Mary, and the property consisted of all the lands and a negro boy, "Jabby," given her by her late husband by will dated November 4, 1694.

This Silas Crispin to whom Mary Shinn was married in 1697 at Burlington, N. J., was the second son of Rear Admiral William Crispin of the English Navy by his wife Annie, daughter of William Jasper, an English merchant of Amsterdam, and Sister of Margaret, wife of Admiral Sir William Penn, and mother of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania. N. Y. Gen. & Biog. Rec., Vol. 29,p. 137; also p. 201.

By this marriage the following children were descended:

1. Joseph, b. 1698; m. Sarah Barrett.

¹The Inventory of the Personal Estate was œ273‑9‑16.

Page 67

2. Benjamin, b. 1699; m., 6/21/1722, Margaret Owen, daughter of Joshua and Martha (Shinn) Owen.

3. Abigail, b. Jan. 20, 1701; m. John Wright. Sp. Tp.

4. Silas, Jr., b. March 19, 1702; m., Nov. 9, 1724, Mary Wetherell.

5. Mary, b. March 12, 1705; m., Nov. 6, 1727, Thomas Earl Wetherell.

6. John, b. Dec. 11, 1707.

Silas Crispin died May 31, 1711, and Mary then married Richard Ridgway, Jr., by whom there were no children. This last marriage was celebrated in the new Springfield Meeting House in presence of Richard, Abigail and Job Ridgway, Benjamin Crispin, Abigail and Anna Stockton, Thomas and Samuel Shinn, her sons, and thirty‑one other people.

The two children, Thomas and Samuel Shinn, grew to manhood. In the record of births and deaths of the Burlington Monthly Meeting the following entries occur:

Thomas, son of Thomas and Mary Shinn, born 6th day 11 month, 1693.

Samuel, son of Thomas and Mary Shinn, born the 15th day 2nd month, 1695.

Thomas Shinn, Sr., lay down his life the day of the 9th month called November, 1694.

The eldest son, Thomas, married Martha Earl and became the head of a distinguished family in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The younger son, Samuel, married, first, Sarah Schooly; second, Provided Gaskell; third, Abigail Urie. The children by the first two wives became the heads of families in New Jersey, while the father and the third wife removed to North Carolina, and founded the House of Shinn in the Southern States.

Children of Thomas and Mary (Stockton) Shinn.

22. (1) Thomas Shinn, who married Martha Earl.

23. (2) Samuel Shinn, who married (1) Sarah Schooly; (2) Provided Gaskell;

(3) Abigail Ury.

5. JAMES SHINN (2).‑‑JOHN (1).

James was probably the youngest of the children of John Shinn and was born in England. He lived longer than any of his brothers and sisters and died in 1751 without a will. The same difficulty occurs in collating his children as happened in the collation of those of John, Jr.

There are some things certain, however, and from these authentic entities we shall be enabled to construct a solid foundation. On the very day that his sister Martha, accompanied by Joshua Owen, arose in meeting the second time and declared their intentions of marriage (3rd of the 1st month, 1696‑7, March 3, 1697), the membership was informed by some busy body that James Shinn and Abigail Lippincott had declared their intention to marry without coming before meeting. A committee was appointed at once to speak to John Shinn and his good wife, Jane; Restore Lippincott and his good wife. Hannah; and the obstreperous young people, James Shinn, and his fiance, Abigail Lippincott. This incident caused a great amount of talk throughout the community and led the committee to probe the matter to the bottom. On the 5th of the 2nd month, 1697, the Church was doubtless crowded to hear the result. The committee reported that the young people were determined to marry, but not having their parents' consent they could not pass meeting. Old John Shinn and old Restore Lippincott walked out under a stately beech and began a discussion of the question. Their wives soon joined them. and in a short time peace was restored and parental consent accorded. On the same day James and Abigail declared their intention to marry before the assembled

Page 68

multitude and were applauded by the younger element who were in attendance. One month later they appeared the second time and were set at liberty by the Church. The marriage occurred shortly afterwards at the house of Restore Lippincott in the presence of a large assembly of the first people of the community.

Shortly after the wedding John Shinn conveyed to James one hundred and twenty‑one acres of land in what is now Nottingham Township (Liber B, 619) and the young people set up for themselves. During the same year he bought other lands of John Butcher (Liber B, 619), and in 1705 was made the sole legatce of the estate of his brother, Francis. (See Francis Shinn.) In 1709 he purchased lands of John Garwood (Liber R, 431), and in May, 1712, his father‑in‑law, Restore Lippincott, conveyed him two hundred and twenty‑three acres in Nottingham Township (Liber D, 97). He afterwards became seized of large bodies of land in New Hanover Township (Liber S, 147) and in Ocean County.

Abigail Lippincott, the wife of James, was a great attraction whether considered from the standpoint or birth or of wealth. Her father, Restore Lippincott, was the third son of Richard Lippincott, the ancestor of the Lippincotts in America. From John Clement's First Settlers in Newton Township we find that Richard emigrated from Devonshire, England, and that the family was one of the oldest in England. It has been traced authentically back to the Domeday Book, compiled in the days of the Conqueror.

Richard settled first at Boston, where he was made a freeholder in 1640. He afterwards moved to Dorchester and thence to England, where in 1653 his son Restore was born. In 1669 he moved from Plymouth, England, to Shrewsbury, N. J. He was the largest shareholder in the company that colonized on Shrewsbury River, and became an active officer of the colony. Restore Lippincott, his son, married Hannah Shattock of Boston in 1674 and removed to Northampton Township, Burlington County, where he became a wealthy and influential man. In 1703 and 1705 he became a member of the Governor's Council of West Jersey. John Clement says of him: "He was a useful citizen, exemplary in all the relations of life, and much respected by the community on account of his regard for truth and justice."

His children by Hannah Shattock were Samuel, Abigail, Hannah, Hope, Rebecca, James, Elizabeth, Jacob and Rachel.

James Shinn married Abigail, and George Shinn, son of John, Jr., married Elizabeth. The descendants of each of the other children of Restore married descendants of the other children of John Shinn, Sr., so that there are few of the Shinn family in America without some admixture of Lippincott blood. And, strange to say, after Joshua Owen died and Hannah Lippincott died, the widow, Martha (Shinn) Owen and Restore Lippincott formed an alliance and were married in 1729. From this match there were no children.

It now remains for us to gather up the details of evidence concerning the children of James and Abigail (Lippincott) Shinn, and tabulate them as accurately as may be. He left no will, which deprives us of one fruitful source of information. Turning to the church records we find a number of recitals which are invaluable.

1. BURLINGTON MONTHLY MEETING RECORDS.

First of 8th month, 1716, John Atkinson and Hannah, daughter of James Shinn, declared their intentions of marriage.

Second of 11th month, 1726, the overseers of the meeting reported that Joseph Shinn, son of James, had married a wife that was not a Friend. He married Mary Budd.

Fourth month, 23rd day, 1720, at house of James Shinn, Michael Atkinson, son of William, and Hope, daughter of James, were married. Witnesses, James

Page 69

and Abigail, Joseph and Mary Shinn, John, Joseph, Thomas, Hannah, Sarah Atkinson and thirty

others. They passed meeting 4/6/1720.

Thirteenth of 8th month, 1729, Francis Shinn and Elizabeth Atkinson passed meeting. On Feb. 12, 1728, James Shinn of New Hanover deeded Francis Shinn, his son, the land he bought of Restore Lippincott in 1712. (Liber A. R., p. 97.)

Seventeenth of 3rd month, 1739, a certificate was recorded showing that Solomon Shinn, son of James, and Mary Antrim were married on that date. Witnesses, James and Abigail, Clement, Joseph and Mary (Budd) Shinn, James and Hannah Shinn, Elizabeth Shinn and Caleb Shinn.

Eighth of 10th month, 1739, report was made that James Shinn, Jr., and Hannah Shinn, being first cousins, had lately married. The parents disclaimed knowledge, excepting Elizabeth, the mother of Hannah. Elizabeth was the widow of George Shinn.

Ninth of 9th month, 1741, Clement Shinn of New Hanover, son of James, and Elizabeth (Webb) Shinn sent in a paper condemning their disorderly proceeding in marrying out of meeting.

In this list, by a strange fatality, three brothers and sisters of the name Atkinson, John, Michael and Elizabeth, married three brothers and sisters of the name Shinn, Hannah, Hope and Francis, and still another brother of the Atkinson line married Mary Shinn, but not the daughter of James.

From these facts it is hardly questionable that the children of James and Abigail (Lippincott) Shinn were:

24. (1) Hannah, who married John Atkinson, 9/21/1716.

25. (2) Hope, who married Michael Atkinson, 4/23/1720.¹

26. (3) Francis, b. 8/25/1706; m. Elizabeth Atkinson, 8/13/1729.

27. (4) Joseph, who married Mary Budd, 1726.

28. (5) James, who married Hannah Shinn, 1739.

29. (6) Solomon, who married Mary Antrim, 3/17/1739.

30. (7) Clement, who married Elizabeth Webb, 1740.

From evidence not so convincing as that heretofore adduced, but sufficiently clear to warrant the conclusion, I add the following:

31. (8) Abigail, m. Henry Reeve, 1728.

32. (9) Susannah, m. Bartholomew West, 1727. He lived in Monmouth County, where he reared a large family. Three of his sons were in the Rev. Army.

33. (10) Marcy or Mercy, a witness in 1714‑‑ob sine proli.

James died in 1751 in New Hanover Township² in his own house at a ripe old age. In Will Book No. 7, p. 104, an entry was made on Jan. 14, 1751, appointing Joseph Shinn administrator. James Shinn seems to have had very little to do with church affairs3 and still less with polities. His ambition seemed to be

¹Judge F. B. Jobes of New Egypt informa me that he has seen the marriage certificate

of Hope and Michael. That the ceremony was performed at the house of James;

witnessed by Thomas Scattergood, James Shinn, Solomon Shinn, Restore Lippincott,

Marmaduke Coates, Jonas Cattell, William Budd and a long line of others whose

names he could not recall.

²Just when he moved into New Hanover Township is not known, but it is certain

that he had lived there a long time. In Will Book No. 4, p. 316, Burlington County

Wills, James Shinn of New Hanover (Wrightatown) was made Administrator of

William Cutler, on Nov. 4, 1741. And in Deed Book A. R., p. 97, James Shinn of

New Hanover gave his son Francis a tract of land. From all these facts it appears

that he was born in Springfield Township, lived for many years after his marriage in

Northampton Township, and all the later years in New Hanover.

³But that he was a member of the Friends Society in good standing is attested

by a paper drawn up by Burlington Monthly Meeting on 4/11/1704 during Queen

Anne's War, addressed to all captains and other military officers, atating that the

names on the list which followed had appeared at their last monthly meeting and

declared that they were of the Society of Friends and could not conscientiously bear

arms. On this we find:

Page 70

to own land and to enjoy life. He gave large tracts of land to his children, who in turn seem to have inherited his land desires. Many of them became large land owners in New Jersey, and some of them became very rich. It was from the line of Thomas that the first migration Southward started in 1750, but the line of James furnished the next mass of adventurous spirits, and his hardy grandchildren soon entered Virginia, spread into West Virginia and were among the first into Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Nearly every Shinn in the Southern states finds his ancestor in Samuel, the son of Thomas, the son of John. Four‑fifths of the Shinns in the Northern states from the Atlantic to the Pacific find an ancestor in either Clement or Joseph, sons of James, son of John. And many of the descendants of Clement, James and Joseph remained in the ancestral homes, filling honorable positions and living noble lives. Of all these we shall speak hereafter.

2. GEORGE SHINN (2).‑‑JOHN (1).

Where or when George was born we cannot say with greater certainty than that the event occurred in England prior to 1669. In Old Burlington Meeting House he passed meeting the second time on the 5th of the 6th month, 1691, and shortly afterwards was married to Mary Thompson, daughter of John Thompson, at the house of his father, John Shinn:

John Thompson was a frecholder and a man of public affairs. In the troubled administration of Lord Cornbury as Governor of New Jersey, John Thompson was chosen by Burlington County as one of its Assemblymen, and sat in the famous assembly of 1707. He was one of the proprietors and a signer of the "Concessions," N. J. A., Vol. I, p. 268; member of the General Assembly, 1698, N. J. A., Vol. II, p. 148; also member of the Colonial Council, 1701. Ibid, Vol. II., p. 381.

Mary, his daughter, was soon bereft of her husband, for on March 2nd, 1694, a will dated January 27th, 1694, was probated in Burlington County, which bore witness to the fact that George Shinn had died. The following is a copy of the will:

WILL OF GEORGE SHINN, SON OF JOHN SHINN.

I, George Shinn being weak of body but of good and sound memory praised be God do make and ordaine this my last will and testament in manner following.

First I committ my Soul unto Almighty God and my body to be buried at the discretion of Mary my loveing wife whom I make my Executrix of this my last will and Testament.

Secondly I give to Mary my Loveing wife Al my whole estate both real and personall fully and wholly at her own disposal upon condition that she shall discharge all my just debts and funerall charges and bring up my children & doe (as obovesaid) hereby make & ordaine her my sole executrix of this my last will & testament revoaking al other wills heretofore made in witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seall this 27th of the 11th month cal'd Januaru 1694.

Signed and sealed in the presence of us. George Shinn (Seal)

Eleazer Fenton

his

John Day

mark/his

Henry Page

mark

Daniel Leeds.

Thos. Revell

Surr & Regr.

At Burlington in ye Province of West New Jersey the second day of month of March, Anno Regina Gulliel im et Maria Angl. &c. Septimo Annoq Dom 1694. Exhibitted & proved ye above written to be ye last will & testament of George Shinn ye Testator above named according to law before us.

Edward Hunloke

Jeremiah Basse

Thos. Revell.

For Springfield‑‑George Shinn.

For Northampton‑‑James Shinn.

Page 71

Mary Shinn qualified as executrix and gave bond on March 2, 1694, with John Shinn, Sr., and Daniel Leeds as bondsmen. (Unrecorded Wills, Trenton, N. J.)

The inventory of his personal property was œ124.4.3.

The names of his children are not given in the will, but they have been ascertained as follows. From a minute book of marriages solemnized in open court at Burlington, on file in the office of the Secretary of State at Trenton, it appears that Mary Shinn was married to Daniel Wills in 1695.1 That this was the widow of George Shinn is established as follows: In the year 1709 a census by households was taken in Northampton Township, Burlington County, and one of the tabulations is as follows:

Daniel Wills, age 50

Mary Wills 40

Elizabeth Wills 17 daughter by former marriage.

Daniel Wills 17 son by former marriage.

James Wills 15 son by former marriage.

Joseph Wills 11 son of Daniel and Mary.

Ann Wills 9 daughter of Daniel and Mary.

Margaret Wills 7 daughter of Daniel and Mary.

Hannah Wills 5 daughter of Daniel and Mary.

John Wills ‑‑ son of Daniel and Mary.

Levi Shinn 16 son of former marriage.

Martha Shinn 14 daughter of former marriage.

Mary Shinn 12 daughter of former marriage.

There are some apparent discrepancies, but they may all be reconciled by assuming 1709 to be an error in transcription. If the year 1707 be assumed every difficulty disappears. However that may be, the fact that Levi, Martha and Mary Shinn are enumerated immediately after the family of Daniel and Mary Wills seems to prove conclusively that the children of George and Mary (Thompson) Shinn were Levi, Martha and Mary. Daniel Wills, the second husband of Mary Thompson Shinn, was the son of Daniel Wills, one of the most prominent men of early Burlington County. The elder Daniel Wills was one of the proprietors, and one of the Commissioners sent from England to divide the lands. He came with a large family and many indentured servants, who afterwards became leading citizens in the Colony. As Commissioner, he with his fellow Commissioners purchased the Indian rights from the Rancocas to Timber Creek, laid it out in parcels suitable for purchasers, and administered the government of the Colony according to the Concessions and Agreements. As a Commissioner of the London Company he with three men located the London Tenth at Arwaumus, where Gloucester now stands. He was afterwards chosen a member of the Governor's Council, which position he dignified and adorned. He himself took up large quantities of land in Northampton Township, which was so named in honor of Northampton, England, from which Daniel Wills had emigrated. In 1681 he was Surveyor General of the Province. In 1698 he went to the Barbados upon business, where he died, leaving a will. The children named therein were James, Daniel, John, Mary, and Ann. Daniel married (1) Margaret Newbold, in 1686, by whom he had three children, Elizabeth, Daniel and James. Married (2) Mary (Thompson) Shinn in 1695, by whom there were five children, Joseph, Ann, Margaret, Hannah and John. Daniel, Jr., continued to reside on the paternal acres until his death. His descendants to the seventh generation still reside upon the original homestead of Daniel Wills, Sr.

The children of George Shinn married as follows:

Levi Shinn, b. 1692; m. Ann, youngest daughter of Daniel Wills, Senior, b. 1677. (Asa Matlacks Memoranda.)

Martha Shinn married Daniel Gaskill, 1735. Bur. M. M. Record.

¹This marriage was solemnized by Edward Hunloke and witnessed by James and

John Wills, John Shinn, Thomas Atkinson and Mary (Stockton) Shinn.

Page 72

Mary Shinn married Samuel, son of Thomas and Mary (Roberts) Eves, 1721. (Asa Matlacks Memoranda. Burlington Monthly Meeting Record.)

Thus happened one of the curious phases of matrimony; the mother, Mary, married Daniel, the son of Daniel, Sr., the son, Levi, married the daughter, Ann, of Daniel, Sr. Levi thus became a brother‑in‑law to his mother; Mary became mother‑in‑law to her sister‑in‑law; Daniel became father‑in‑law to his sister and grandfather to her children. There are many other curious combinations which are left to the ingenuity of the reader to solve during his leisure hours.

CHILDREN OF GEORGE AND MARY SHINN.

34: (1) Levi Shinn, who married Ann Wills, 1720.

35. (2) Martha Shinn, who married Daniel Gaskell, 1735.

36. (3) Mary Shinn, who married Samuel Eves, 9/6/1721.

9. FRANCIS SHINN (2).‑‑JOHN (1).

The following will contains all that is known of Francis Shinn.

WILL OF FRANCIS SHINN, SON OF JOHN SHINN, SR.

March ye 11th 1704.

Whereas Francis Shinn of Springfield in the County of Burlington in the Province of West New Jersey being very ill and weake of Body but in perfick Strength in mind and memory doth make this his last will and Testament that is first I doe Bequeath my Soul into ye Lord my maker to him that gave it.

Secondly my body into the earth from whence it came and theare to be decently buryed next my Will and Pleasure is that all my Just debts and funerall charges be payd and as to the hue performing of the same I doe apoint and authorize my well beloved brother James Shinn to be my whole and sole Exe'ter and as for the disposal of my worldly goods and Temporall estate it is as foloweth that is.

Item‑‑I give unto my brother James Shinn all my land being one hundred and twenty acres of land and meadow with all the building, fensing and improvements on the same It is bounding on John Bouchers line, John Antrom's line, John Dayes line, Eleazar Fentons line and John Shinn line.

Item‑‑I give unto my brother James all my personall estate that is all my cattle and horses all my swine all my emplyments of husbandry and all my wearing apparell and all things whatsoever that is mine and I doe order and apoint my brother James to pay all my just debts to the performing Wheareof I doe order him to sell and dispose o??my estate both reale and personall as he shall see convenient and the remainder to be and remaine to his own proper use.

Sineed and Sealed in the presence of us.

Jasper Moon And in Witness whearof I have hearunto subscribed

John Tonker. my name Sealled with my Seale.

his

Francis Shinn (L. S.)

mark

Burlington ye 24th January 1705‑6

Personaly appeared before me Thomas Reavell Esqr'e Surrogate in & for the province of New Jersey James Shinn & tooke the Legal attestahen as Executor to the within written will.

Attested before me. Thos. Revell Surr.

Burlington the 24th Jan 1705‑6

Personaly appeared before me Thomas Reavell Esqr'e Surrogate Jasper Moore one of the evidences to the within written will who being duly attested according to law did declare that he was present att the signing & delivery of the within will & that at the same time the within named Francis Shinn was of sound & disposing mind and memory according to the best of the deponents knowledge as also that he saw John Tonkin signe the same as evidence thereinto.

Attested before me. Thos. Revell, Surr.

7. SARAH SHINN (2).‑‑JOHN (1).

Sarah was born in England in the year 1669, if the date of the census of Northampton Township be taken at the date of its purport, 1709, for in that enumeration she is recorded is being forty years of age. If, as is probable, the

Page 73

census was taken in 1707, then she was born in 1667. There is no record of her marriage, but in a conveyance of John Shinn, Sr., on the 10th day of April, 1693, he gives his son‑in‑law, Thomas Atkinson, and his wife, Sarah, one hundred and ninety‑five acres of land in Burlington County. (W. J. Deeds. Liber B f, 532.) In the will of John Shinn, Sr. (1711) Thomas Atkinson is again named as son‑in‑law. It may have been that Sarah remained in England a number of years after the emigration of her father and was there married to Thomas Atkinson,¹ or the marriage may have been performed by a Justice of the Peace, the record of which is lost. If the latter hypothesis be true, the Friends would have reprimanded them, and the records of the society would disclose the fact. But no such reprimand is to be found and the inference is that the marriage occurred in England. Their oldest child, Jane, was 14 years of age at the date of the Northampton Census. This would place the marriage in 1693, at about the time John Shinn gave them the land hereinbefore mentioned. The father of Thomas Atkinson is not disclosed by the records, but the Northampton Census places the age of the son at 46, so that he was born between 1661 and 1663. One William Atkinson located lands in 1683 in Burlington County on Birch Creek, in the neighborhood of John Shinn, and in 1686 married Elizabeth Curtis. In all probability this William Atkinson was a brother of Thomas, and were both from Lancashire, England. Hon. John Clement in "The Atkinsons of New Jersey" seems to believe that William Atkinson² came from London or Yorkshire. In Besse's Sufferings of Friends it is recorded that on 11/24/1660, at Swartmore, Lancashire, William Atkinson was put in Lancashire gaol for religious dereliction. And that on 3/23/1660, at Newton Cartmell, Lancashire, Thomas Atkinson was arrested and sent to Lancashire gaol for the same reason. And on the same day at the same place Margaret Atkinson was arrested and sent to prison for reproving a priest. This Margaret Atkinson seems to have been a woman of rare intelligence and dauntless courage, for her arrests and incarcerations, although numerous, did not lessen her ardor nor bring her to silence. She was a Quaker of Quakers, and her stripes were many and severe. The towns named above are not far from Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire, where John Shinn and his ancestors and relations had lived from time immemorial. The Lancaster Atkinsons had been residents of Lancashire for centuries, and men of that name had estates, and positions of honor and trust during all that time. Among the rectors of the established church in Norfolk, Cambridge, Hertford and Lancaster Counties during the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th centuries the name frequently occurs. Thomas and William Atkinson, of Burlington County, were doubtless sons of either Thomas or William Atkinson, who were imprisoned in 1660. The young men were Friends and came to America to escape the persecution which had come to the family in their old home. Certain it is that the young men were in America and that Thomas married Sarah Shinn. Thomas took little interest in public affairs and was not prominent in religious matters. Business engrossed his entire attention and gave him a fortune. His trade was that of a bricklayer and stonemason, and his handiwork created a demand for his services. He was enabled to buy large tracts of land, mills and slaves. He lived in Burlington in 1695, but the latter years of his life were passed at Mt. Holly, or Bridgton, as it was then called. His son, Thomas, lived at the latter place and was a man of affairs. The Friends had a meeting

¹This hypothesis cannot hold, for that Thomas, Sarah and Martha Shinn sign a

certificate for Thomas and Sarah Hood 7/10/1689. B. M. R., Liber I.

²The Atkinsons are a Scotch family, but they have long had a residence in England.

in a parish of Berkshire on a plate in the chancel is the usual "Hic jacet," followed by

the name and title, "William Atkinson, Professor of Divinity in the Chapel of Windsor

Castle." He was not a good man, apparently, for in Latin he commands all passersby

"Orate pro anima Will Atkinson" ("Pray for the soul of William Atkinson").

Page 74

house at this place, of which Judge Clement says:¹ "To this log building the Friends in that section

came for religious worship twice in each week. Here the philanthropist, John Woolman, worshiped regularly, and here his voice was first raised in opposition to slavery‑‑then so general among those of his own belief and practice. In this primitive building often sat Robert Dimsdale, Francis Collins, Benjamin Bryant, Edward Gaskill and Jonathan Southwick. Here also came Thomas Atkinson,² father and son, with their families and others of the name, and sometimes their slaves as coachmen and attendants." Mr. Clement might have enumerated many other prominent men who attended this church, among whom was Thomas Shinn, one of its elders, and afterwards Judge of the Quarterly Sessions and for many years a member of the General Assembly. It is also true that the preaching of Woolman at this church divided families and started anew the migration to other fields. Samuel Shinn, brother of Thomas Shinn, accompanied by many other slaveholders, took their slaves and went to North Carolina. The children of Thomas Shinn, who inherited slaves, were at last driven by the public sentiment of their brethren into slave holding states to the South.

Thomas Atkinson, Sr., died in Northampton Township in 1739, being about seventy‑eight years of age. His wife, Sarah, survived him for many years. The will of Thomas Atkinson3 names all of the following as his children, save Mary and Martha:

37. (1) Jean or Jane, b. 1694, married Benjamin Jones, Jr. 1727.

38. (2) Martha, b. 1695.

39. (3) Francis, b. 1696.

40. (4) John, b. 1698, married Mary Smith. 1717.

41. (5) Thomas, b. 1700, married Hannah.

42. (6) Mary, b. 1702, married Caleb Shreve, Jr. 1718.

43. (7) Sarah, b. 1704, married (???) Harris.

44. (8) Christiana, b. 1706, married (???) Wilson.

4. MARY SHINN (2).‑‑JOHN (1).

It is quite probable that Mary was the eldest of John Shinn's children. On the 8th of the 9th month (November), 1686, she and John Crosby passed meeting the second time and were left by the society to accomplish their marriage in the fear of God.⁴ (Bur. Monthly M. Rec.) Of John Crosby prior to this date little is known. In 1683 he and his brother Francis took up five hundred acres of land on Northampton River, which they sold to James Budd on May 13, 1685. (N. J. Arch., Vol. XX.) That he lived in Burlington on the East side of High Street is proved by various deeds of that date. His occupation was that of a millwright. On Dec. 14, 1687, John Shinn, Sr., of Springfield Lodge, conveyed one‑half of a

¹"The Atkinsons of New Jersey" is brimful of human interest and bears the earmarks

of that indefatigable worker, John Clement.

²Some amusing things occurred at this meeting house. The minutes show that at

one time Thomas Atkinson took off his hat at a religious meeting which he attended,

as a gentleman should; Restore Lippincott accused him of violating usage; Thomas,

like Peter of old, entered a denial. Restore, preflguring modern, hard‑headed Congressmen, demanded an investigation. A committee was appointed and reported that Restore Lippincott had not told a falsehood. Thomas Atkinson kept his hat on after that, as a good Quaker should, and Restore Lippincott grunted his satisfaction.

³The Northampton Census of 1709 gives the family of Thomas and Sarah (Shinn)

Atkinson and their ages as follows:

Thomas Atkinson 46

Sarah Atkinson 40

Jean Atkinson 14

Martha Atkinson 13

Francis Atkinson 11

John Atkinson 10

Thomas Atkinson 8

Mary Atkinson 6

Christiana Atkinson 3

⁴This certificate is recorded. The marriage occurred 10/21/1686. Crosby was

described as a millwright living near Northampton River, and Mary Shinn as daughter

of John Shinn of Burch Creek. The witnesses from the family were John, Sr., and

Jane, his wife, John, Jr., and Ellen, his wife, Thomas and George Shinn.

Page 75

three‑hundred‑acre tract on Birch Creek to John Crosby, millwright, husband of Mary, daughter of the grantor. (W. J. R. Liber B, pt. 1, pp. 164‑443.) That he was a prosperous man is evidenced by the fact that on Jan. 6, 1706, he and Mary conveyed five hundred and fifty‑five acres in a body to John Shinn, Jr. (Liber BBB, p. 215.) And by his will, dated Dec. 22, 1707, he left his wife other lands, after providing for his children. His will was probated in August, 1710, and named two sons, Nathan and John. (New Jersey Wills, No. 1, 278.) The will of John Shinn, Sr., proves that there was certainly a daughter named Mary, and it is probable that there was another daughter named Rebecca. In the year 1711 Mary (Shinn) Crosby was married to Richard Fennimore; prior to that event, Dec. 2, 1710, she conveyed to her father, John Shinn, Sr., the land devised to her by her deceased husband, on the condition that he should maintain her idiot child, Mary, which condition John Shinn, Sr., performed by making it a charge upon his estate at his death. (Liber AAA, p. 266.) Just what the means of education were at that time is not known, but John Crosby certainly appreciated the advantages of culture, since he made his wife, Mary, his executrix, and gave her power to sell his lands for the purpose of educating his children. Richard Fennimore,¹ the second husband of Mary, was a prosperous widower of Willingboro Township, whose father, Richard, was one of the original proprietors and who signed the original "Concessions and Agreements." Richard Fennimore, father and son, were prominent in early Jersey affairs and universally respected for their thrift and honesty and public enterprise. Mary outlived her second husband, who died in November or December, 1713, and so far as the records disclose was never married again.² It is not certain that she had children by this marriage, but it is probable that there was a son, John, and a daughter, Mary. It is not known when she died. Surrounded by her own children and grandchildren, as well as by the children and grandchildren of Richard Fennimore by his first marriage, and well provided for by each husband, she doubtless lived a happy life, and in the evening of life passed to a Christian's grave.

Children of John Crosby and Mary Shinn.

45. (1) Mary Crosby, an idiot.

46. (2) John Crosby, who married Elizabeth Wilson at Burlington in 1737.

47. (3) Nathan Crosby, who married Elizabeth Garwood at Evesham in 1726.

48. (4) Rebecca Crosby, who married Samuel Garwood at Burlington in 1728.

Probable Children of Richard Fennimore and Sarah Crosby.

49. (1) Mary Fennimore, who married Abraham, son of Thomas and Rebecca

(Collins) Bryan in 1728.

50. (2) John Fennimore, who married Sarah, daughter of Thomas and Rebecca

(Collins) Bryan at Burlington.

10. MARTHA SHINN (2).‑‑JOHN (1).

This daughter appears upon Burlington Record of Marriages many times as a witness, and on the fifth of the twelfth month, 1696 (O. S.), she and Joshua Owen appeared before Burlington Meeting and declared their intention to marry. On the 5th of March, 1697, the Society set them at liberty and they were in all probability married that month. Joshua Owen was a respectable landholder of Burlington County and a native of Wales. He and Martha lived in Springfield Township for many years and passed uneventful lives. Joshua died before 1729,

¹Richard Fennimore, Sr., was a grandson of Richard Fennimore, whose remains

are deposited in St. Lawrence, Reading, England. The Mayoralty of Reading was

held by members of this family in the sixteenth century. (Man's History of Reading.)

²Mary Fennimore was married to Abraham Bryan in 1728, but whether this was

Mary (Shinn‑Crosby) Fennimore cannot be known. It may have been. It is more

probable that she was her daughter.

Page 76

for in that year Martha (Shinn) Owen married Restore Lippincott, one of the most prominent men of the period.

The Burlington Record of Births does not give us the children of Joshua and Martha Owen and we are forced to construct a list from the Record of Marriages.

On 4/4/1740 Thomas Evins and Rebecca Owen, daughter of Joshua, were married at Burlington Meeting House in the presence of Joshua, Rowland, Mary and Sarah Owen, Benjamin and Martha Marriott and forty‑one others.

On 7/29/1730 Joshua Owen, son of Joshua, and Mary Butcher, daughter of Samuel, were married at Springfield Meeting House in presence of Mary and Rowland Owen and thirty‑six others.

On 3/17/1738 Rowland Owen, son of Joshua, and Prudence Powell, daughter of John, were married in presence of Joshua, Mary and Sarah Owen and thirty‑six others.

On 6/6/1722 Margaret, daughter of Joshua, and Benjamin, son of Silas and Mary (Shinn‑Stockton) Crispin, were married.

In 1730 Benjamin Marriott married Martha Owen, daughter of Joshua.

From these recitals it is evident that the children of this couple were:

51. (1) Martha Owen, who married Benjamin Merriott. 1730.

52. (2) Joshua Owen, who married (1) Mary Butcher 7/29/1730; (2) Sarah

Branson 1/5/1743.

53. (3) Rowland (Roland) Owen, who married Prudence Powell 3/17/1738.

54. (4) Rebecca Owen, who married Thomas Evins 4/4/1730.

55. (5) Sarah Owen.

56. (6) Mary Owen, who married Henry Burr. 1736

57. (7) Margaret Owen, who married Benjamin Crispin 6/21/1722.

By the second marriage of Martha (Shinn) Owen to Restore Lippincott there was no issue.

THIRD GENERATION.

11. GEORGE SHINN (3).‑‑JOHN, JR. (2), JOHN (1).

George Shinn was born in 1687, being the eldest son of John and Ellen (Stacy) Shinn. John Shinn, Jr., in his will, 1736, names his grandson, John Shinn, as son of son George, late deceased. As George Shinn died in 1732, naming his wife in a will, as Elizabeth, it may be safely concluded that this George Shinn was the one referred to by John as his son. He is first mentioned in Burlington Minutes in 1704, when he is certified as a member of Springfield Meeting. (See note to James Shinn.2) On the 7th of the 2nd month, 1712, he and Elizabeth Lippincott, daughter of Restore, declared their intentions of marriage. One month later the committee appointed to inquire into the matter reported that there was no obstruction to the marriage excepting the "straitness" of Restore Lippincott, the father of the young woman. The young people appeared the second time on the 2nd of June and again declared their intentions of marriage. The society declared that, as "those things which seemed a bar being removed," they were at liberty to proceed. They were married at the house of Restore Lippincott shortly afterwards. Restore gave the young couple a farm and they settled down to married life. Once after this we find George Shinn's name upon the minutes. In 1721 he was appointed to look after a marriage.

Shortly after this, he moved to Gloucester County, New Jersey. In the old musty records of

Woodbury he appears as a plaintiff in 1723; as Overseer of the Poor in 1725; defendant in a law suit in 1726; Overseer of Roads in 1727, and plaintiff in a law suit in 1729. In 1725 he located two hundred acres of land on Timber Creek, Gloucester County (now Camden County), and on April 14, 1732, at Greenwich, Gloucester County, made his will, making his wife, Elizabeth, his

Page 77

executrix. Elizabeth desired to return to her old home in Burlington and renounced the executorship. On May 29th, 1732, Samuel Harrison was appointed in her stead. She with her younger children returned to the old home, leaving the elder children to become the heads of families in Gloucester, Camden, Cumberland and Salem Counties.

Her children are determined as follows: John is named in the will of his grandfather; Amos is named in Burlington Minutes as son of George of Gloucester on the occasion of his marriage, 9/25/1740. Hannah is named as daughter of Elizabeth Shinn, on 3/5/1740, when she married her first cousin. Jairus died in Gloucester County in 1768. Joseph was born in Burlington in 1713, reared in Gloucester County, and settled at Pilesgrove, Salem County. George was named as a son of George at his marriage in 1749. Zilpah and Elizabeth were born in Gloucester and are placed with George's children without further evidence.

Children of George and Elizabeth (Lippincott) Shinn.

58. (1) Joseph Shinn, b. 1713, married Ann Sydonia Shivers 8/19/1758.

59. (2) Amos Shinn, b. ‑‑, married Ann Carter 9/25/1740.

60. (3) John Shinn, married Lydia Carter 12/4/1744.

61. (4) Jairus Shinn ob sine proli.

62. (5) Hannah Shinn, married James Shinn 3/5/1740.

63. (6) Zilpah Shinn ob sine proli.

64. (7) Elizabeth Shinn, b. 1726, married Charles Ford 1768.

65. (8) George Shinn, married Sarah Owen 3/2/1749.

66. (9) Azariah Shinn, married Sarah Haines 1760.

67. (10) Isaiah Shinn ob sine proli 1763.

12. ELIZABETH SHINN (3).‑‑JOHN, JR. (2), JOHN (1).

Very little is known of this daughter of John, Jr. That she married Robert Rockhill is evidenced by Burlington Minutes of the 9th month, 5th day, 1716.¹ The same minute notes that Robert Rockhill was from Chesterfield. He was the son of Edward Rockhill, who came to New Jersey from Yorkshire about the year 1686. He was the father of eleven children, of whom Robert was the sixth in order of birth. He was born 1/25/1692 in Burlington County, where he lived and died.

15. WILLIAM SHINN (3).‑‑JOHN, JR. (2), JOHN (1).

William Shinn appears first upon the church records in 1728, when he asked the Burlington Meeting to grant him a certificate on account of marriage, to Chesterfield Monthly Meeting. On the 5th of December, 1728, as is recorded on Chesterfield minutes, William Shinn, son of John of Springfield, and Martha Shreeve, daughter of Joshua, appeared before meeting the first time. They appeared again on Jan. 2, 1729, and the committee reported on the 6th of February that the marriage "had been orderly." William appears quite frequently in land transactions from 1726 to 1750. On May 11, 1726, John Shinn, father, sold to William and Clement, sons, several tracts of land. Clement died in1736 and William became his heir at law. On Oct. 29th, 1736, William conveved three hundred acres in Hunterdon County to his father; eight days before this the father conveyed to William four hundred and twenty‑six acres in Lebanon, Hunterdon County. Shortly after this he was made agent for the West Jersey Proprietors, and in that capacity had much to do with the affairs of that famous corporation. In 1739 he married Exorcise Corliss. The date of his death is not known.

Children of William and Martha (Shreeve) Shinn.

68. (1) William Shinn, b. 1729, married 6/4/1746. B. M. M. R.

69. (2) Hope Shinn, b. 1731, married Abner Rogers 1/4/1750.

¹Chesterfield has this minute: "6th day 7th month 1716 Robert Rockhill asks for

a certificate on account of marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of John Shinn of Burlington."

Page 78

70. (3) Mary Shinn, b. 1737, married Jonathan Bunn 1776, in Hunterdon Co. He

was a soldier in Captain Henry Phillips' Company, 1st Regiment from

Hunterdon; also in Captain Tucker's Company, same regiment.

Children of William and Exorcise (Corliss) Shinn.

71. 1 (4) Isaiah, b. 1740, married Mary Burr 1770.

72. 2 (5) Exorcise Shinn, b. 1743, ob sine proli.

73. 3 (6) Elizabeth Shinn, b. 1748, married John Alloways 1774.

74. 4 (7) Job Shinn, b. 1749, married Elinor Burns 1776.

16. JOSHUA SHINN (3).‑‑JOHN, JR. (2), JOHN (1).

But for the extract from the Surveyor General's office adduced in the life of John Shinn, Jr., and the traditions of the family, we should know nothing of this son of John. He is not named in the Friends' minutes nor in his father's will. The traditions of the family are that he married a Lippincott,¹ and had at least one child. He had died in all probability before his father in 1736, as did his brothers, John and Clement. That he was a son of the second marriage is inferred from the fact that he does not appear in any of the land transactions of 1726 and 1736 between his father and John, Clement and William. Tradition says that he lived near the Cedar Swamp and that he died there.

Children of Joshua and (???) (Lippincott) Shinn.

75. (1) Uriah, who married Rebecca Ridgeway 1776.

18. CALEB SHINN (3).‑‑JOHN, JR. (2), JOHN (1).

Caleb's birth is not recorded, but he was named in the land transactions of his father, and made one of the joint executors of his will. He was a man of great wealth, and from the few traditions which have come down to posterity, was the most sociable of all the Shinns. He did not hold to the faith of his fathers, but kept companionship with the hilarity of the world. The following article from the Pennsylvania Journal of date Aug. 30, 1750, shows that he was a turfman of some note even at that early date:

"Notice is hereby given that there is to be given gratis, at Mt. Holly, in the County of Burlington, on Wednesday, the 19th day of September, twenty pistoles, to be run for by as many horses, mares or geldings as any person or persons shall think fit to put in. They are to put in twenty shillings for every horse, mare or gelding, and enter them four days before the day of running. They are to run three heats, one mile at a heat, on a straight course, and to carry weight for inches. A horse, mare or gelding to carry 140 pounds weight at 14 hands high; and for the first inch higher to carry 14 pounds, and for every inch above that 7 pounds more. And all horses that are under size to be equivalent to the same. Any one horse, mare or gelding that shall win two heats and save the distance, the third, shall win the prize. And the next day the bets to be run for; every one that saves his distance the first day is entitled to run, the horse that wins the prize excepted. The horses to be entered at John Budds or Caleb Shinns."

That Caleb Shinn appreciated the value of printers' ink is shown by the following advertisement, taken from the Pennsylvania Gazette of Nov. 2, 1749:

"Notice.‑‑Made his escape from the Burlington gaol, one David Dundorse, a Scotchman about 6 feet high, well set, square shouldered, broad faced, short curled brown hair. He had on when he went away, old trousers, ozenbrigs

¹See "Uriah Shinn." It is very probable that it was Joseph and not Joshua who

married (???) Lippincott.

Page 79

shirt, an old light colored coat and an old felt hat. He passed sometimes for a soldier and sometimes for a sailor. He stole from Caleb Shinn a likely gray horse, paces swift, has a very thin mane and foretop. Any person that takes up and secures the man and horse shall have five pounds reward and reasonable charges; and three pounds if taken without the horse??‑‑ John Hollinshead, Sheriff."

Caleb Shinn did not consult the Church when he married, but rode over into Monmouth County and was married by a preacher. This event occurred in 1739 and the woman he married was named Mehitable Curtis, a surname distinguished in early Jersey history. Burlington Meeting did not act on his case until 1750, when he was declared out of unity. He died in 1752 without a will and his large estate was administered on by Thomas Atkinson, his son‑in‑law, and Peter Bard, two of the most successful men of that period.