A Mystery Kidnapping to be solved

From the Hart Family Collection submitted by Carolyn Hart Wood
Looking for any information Mary E Lennon Wilson, her sister (unknown) m. John/James Nolan, Parents Timothy Lennon and wife Jane 

 

Bessie Wilson Hart born 1869 in Cambridge, MA, daughter of Matthew and Mary (Lennon) Wilson. She married George Albert Hart February 6, 1895 in Ipswich, MA The family lived in Essex where the children were born. George inherited the Hart Homestead in approx 1917 in Lynnfield and went there on weekends. Bessie moved to the Hart Farm House at Lynnfield, MA when George died in 1938, Bessie was the last Hart to live in the house. In 1947, it was sold outside the family after 10 generations. Bessie died Feb. 22, 1951. Childen of Bessie Wilson & George A. Hart: Robert M. 1895-1896, Grace Manning 18897-1969, Dorothy Endicott 1900-1993, Mary Lois 1908-1978

Below is part of a letter written in 1960 by Mary Lois Hart Pletsch---the sister Grace Hart Marlowe (who was married to George A Hart).. is writing about their Grandmother (Bessie Wilson Hart's mother)

Excerpt from a letter written 1960-

In talking about her Grandmother Mary E Lennon Wilson (b. 1838-d 1884) Parents Timothy and Jane Lennon

Mary Lennon was kidnapped. Her father was a landowner, it sounded very feudal as mother (Bessie W. Hart) told it. She came from Wales. Her older sister had somehow met up and married a man who was a Professional Gambler and plied his trade on boats which crossed the Atlantic. Perhaps he thought he had a good thing when he married the daughter of a wealthy landowner, but the father (our great grandfather) disowned the daughter (I never heard her name or if I did I have forgotten it). At any rate they came to this country (USA). The gambler’s name, as I remember it was Jim Nolan. At any rate mother’s sister was sad and lonely-disowned etc. in a strange land – the wife of a man who apparently spent his life seeking his fortune and was never at home. So- on one of his many trips Jim Nolan made it a point to waylay her younger sister (Mary). She was on her pony either going to or coming home from school. He met her and thus asked her if she wanted to see her sister. Of course she did-so he told her to come on board a certain ship with him and she would see her sister.-Then the boat sailed-it took weeks. There was an old man on board who teased Mary Lennon and told her a big fish would leap out of the ocean sometime and snatch her out of the boat. This old man had a long white beard, and really frightened Mary. But she was determined to get even with him. So one day when he was asleep on the deck of the ship she quietly cut off his beard. Oh Mary Lannen! For some time she lived with her sister. What happened I don’t remember. Probably Jim Nolan tired of a homesick wife-or perhaps he was killed in a game of cards- or perhaps Mary had to get work to support herself, and that is how she came to work at the employment agency. I don’t think she ever owned it. For a while she tried working as a domestic-but it was a miserable life for her-and the lady who ran the agency took her in as an assistant. That is where Matthew Wilson found her.

Hart Family Line:

Elizabeth Hart Marlowe Wood and Henry Wood Jr.
Grace M Hart Marlowe 1897-1969 and William J Marlowe
George Albert Hart 1864-1938 and Bessie M Wilson
Henry Jackson Hart 1833-1891 and Lois Augusta Shute
Joseph Hart Jr.1799-1882 and Harriet Davis Clark
Joseph Hart 1774-1830 and Elizabeth Tapley
John Hart 1733-1811and Lydia Curtis
John Hart 1703-1777 and Mehitable Endicott
Samuel Hart 1656-1730 and Sarah Endicott
Isaac Hart 1614-1699 and Elizabeth Hutchinson 1622-1700
Thomas Hart 1592-1662 and Alice Waters

John Wheelwright - Sidney Sussex, Cambridge - helped found Exeter, NH and Wells, Maine

A Great Share from John Tepper Martin writer, publisher, economic consultant and teacher about how govt economic policies and global business trends interact at the U.S. and local level. He is also Principal of CityEconomist and Publisher of Boissevain Books LLC. Melissa Berry included some links and pictures.

I have been hard at work looking for and seeking to aggregate the contributions of Oxford and Cambridge alumni to the pre-Revolutionary (colonial) era in the United States.

So far I have much information on Oxonians from the states between Florida and New York, and little on the Cambridge contingent. But the Cambridge alums, thin on the ground, mostly settled in the New England area, which helps fill in the lack of data on the contributions of Oxonians on the New England colonies..

John Harvard, of course, gave his library to help start the college after which he is named. My general observation is that the Cambridge colonists tended to be more disputatious, and had a difficult time of it. They say that Cambridge tended to grow martyrs and Oxford did them in. Certainly Rev. John Wheelwright was an outspoken person of the kind (Socrates, Jesus, the Apostles) whose lives are ended by the people in charge. I say that in admiration.

(Oxford men, and before the American Revolution they were of course all men, tend to live and die -- whether or not they visit their properties in North America -- comfortably. The Oxonians who played a part in the formation of the United States tended to be concentrated in the eight colonies between New York and Florida, and in many cases they started by owning the whole colony or a big piece of it.)

John Wheelwright (c.1592–1679) was an alumnus of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He helped found Exeter, NH and Wells, Maine, thereby covering two more colonies/states. He was also a figure of note in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.  Genealogy on Wheelwright & family

As a controversial Puritan clergyman, Wheelwright helped establish religious liberty in all the colonies by bravely asserting his dissent from conventional doctrines of the day. He was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony over the issue of faith vs. good works, during the era that includes the "Antinomian Controversy".   See Diary of Anne Hutchinson

The minority view, espoused by John Wheelwright and his brother-in-law's wife Anne Hutchinson, following Reverend John Cotton, was that one can be saved only by grace (not solely by one's own effort but through the grace of God). They believed that the "covenant of grace" means that common rules of morality are not binding. In simplest terms -- someone with faith will not go to hell for something he/she does or fails to do. Faith prevails over good works. The contrary view is that deeds matter, that faith is not enough and that one must earn one's place in heaven by good works.

On April 3, 1638, Rev. John Wheelwright signed a deed with the Squamscott tribesmen, effectively creating the Town of Exeter, New Hampshire.From Exeter Historical Society 

Wheelwright's bravery helped make the colonies a place where dissent was permitted.

Born in Lincolnshire, England, to a well-off family, Wheelwright earned the B.A. (and after some years, the M.A.) degree at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge where he excelled in sports. Oliver Cromwell was a college contemporary, something that proved useful for a few years many years later when Wheelwright returned to England for a visit.

After being ordained in 1619, Wheelwright became vicar of the parish in Bilsby, Lincolnshire until 1629, when he was removed for the sin of “simony” (after Simon Magus, who was accused of this during the time of the Apostles), i.e., selling sacred things such as church positions.

So in 1636, the same year another Cambridge man was helping to start up Harvard College, Wheelwright left New England for friendlier faces in Boston, where his brother-in-law's wife, Anne Hutchinson, was getting noticed. He joined Hutchinson as a follower of Rev. John Cotton and his "covenant of grace" theology, by which one is saved by grace alone. Under attack by other Puritans, they charged that the colony's clergy and government officials were guilty of espousing a "covenant of works", i.e., a belief that people can be saved by good works alone, without faith.

From Marker #32 Revolutionary Capital 

Since Hutchinson and Wheelwright were in a minority, it will be no surprise that they were banished from the Massachusetts Bay colony by the religious and civil authorities they attacked. Anne Hutchinson went to Rhode Island, where she founded the town of Portsmouth, where I went to school in 1955-1958. Wheelwright and some followers voyaged north with their possessions during the winter of 1637–1638. In April 1638 they established the town of Exeter in what was then the Province of New Hampshire. However, Massachusetts authorities kept hounding him, and activated a claim on the lands where his group had established their community. Wheelwright had to move on to Wells, Maine.

Wheelwright's order of banishment was eventually retracted. He moved his community to Hampton, then part of Massachusetts and later part of New Hampshire. In 1654 his followers helped him get the complete vindication from the Massachusetts Court.

Headstone Maine Memory