Elizabeth Scudder, wife of Samuel Lathrop:
Early Life of Elizabeth (Scudder) Lathrop, Ancestress of the Scudder (E) Line
by Margery Boyden, Scudder Association Foundation Historian
©Scudder Association Foundation, All rights reserved.
Elizabeth2 Scudder (E)’s Birthplace
The truth that Elizabeth2 Scudder (E) was born in 1625 at Strood—across the Medway River from Rochester, Kent—has been in print for over thirty years to correct at least one hundred years of errors in some inaccurate histories about where the Scudders were from in England.[2] Therefore, Elizabeth2 (E)’s biography begins by highlighting her accurate birthplace, her correct parents and grandparents and where they originated. Correct data for Elizabeth2 (E)’s origins was first published in Scudder Searches, 1989–1993[3] and in Jane Fletcher Fiske’s important article, “A New England Kinship Network,” in The American Genealogist (TAG) in 1997.[4]
The Lothrops too have had misinformation circulating. In 1906, a fraudulent genealogist produced a fabricated Lothrop family lineage[5] that polluted more accurate information that was available previously in print from 1884 in E. B. Huntington’s A Genealogical Memoir of the Lo-Lathrop Family in this country….[6] Several unsuspecting Lothrop histories have repeated these errors about Samuel2 Lathrop and his family, sometimes giving him inaccurate parents and grandparents. In 1995, correct data for Rev. John1 Lothrop’s family was published in The Great Migration, as was an update by Clifford L. Stott about the correct name of Rev. Lothrop’s mother printed in (TAG) the same year.[7] Accurate data is reflected in this diagram.
Although the truth has been known for almost thirty years, her unaware but well intentioned progeny still perpetuate that Elizabeth2 (E) is from Groton, Suffolk, England. This is not true for her or for any of her family members! Groton was the birthplace of Gov. John2 Winthrop, Jr. of Connecticut, not of the Scudders who were from Kent. Elizabeth (E) did have a much later connection to Groton, Connecticut. After John2 Winthrop, Jr. established New London, Connecticut (then named Pequot) in 1646, Elizabeth2 (E) and Samuel2 Lathrop moved there in 1648. Named for Winthrop’s birthplace, Groton, Connecticut is on the east side of the Thames River at New London. Did the old error about Scudders’ birthplace in England begin because someone misinterpreted that event that occurred twenty-three years after Elizabeth2 (E)’s birth? Groton, Suffolk, England and Groton, Connecticut are both irrelevant as a place of origin in England for any Scudders in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1993, Scudder Searches informed that they had found christenings at Strood, Kent for immigrants Elizabeth2 (E) and brother John2 Scudder (J) and had other corroborating evidence they were from Strood. These conclusions were republished in the Scudder Family Historical & Biographical Journal [SFHBJ] 2020 article, “The Trail of Clues to John Scudder.”
The Strood, Kent parish register entries of their christenings, and the identifying detail included in their mother’s 2nd marriage record on the same parish register, were the final pieces of evidence to prove how Elizabeth2 (E) and John2 (J) were related to their uncles Rev. Henry1 Scudder, minister of of Collingbourne Ducis, Wiltshire, and Thomas1 (T), the immigrant to Salem. In 1992, Scudder Searches had already published the wills of Elizabeth’s grandfather HenryA of Horton Kirby, Kent and of her uncle Rev. Henry1 Scudder that names his brother Thomas1 (T) and Elizabeth2 (E) and John2 (J) as relatives, all then residing in New England. Fiske repeated this data in TAG in July/October 1997.[8] These wills were republished in the Scudder Family Historical & Biographical Journal in June 2019.
Knowing the correct birthplace is important because historical primary source records are found by locality. No one could ever produce any record documentation for the false claims being made because they were looking in the wrong county of England where there were no Scudders so early.[9] The Strood, Kent Parish Register shows Elizabeth2 (E)’s christening on the left page on the third line from the bottom and names her father John1 Scudder. Two years later the register names her mother’s father to prove her lineage.
Elizabeth2 Scudder (E)’s christening record
Birth Family and Step Family of Elizabeth (Scudder) Lathrop
Elizabeth2 Scudder (E), the immigrant ancestor of the American Scudder (E) line, had a notable heritage of her own. She was the daughter of John1 Scudder (son of HenryA Scudder, yeoman of Horton Kirby, Kent, England) and niece of the Puritan immigrant Thomas1 Scudder (T) and of Rev. Henry1 Scudder, minister and famous Christian author.[11] Scudder’s book, The Christian’s Daily Walk in Holy Security and Peace,[12] was a household staple in England and America for two hundred years and is still read and sold today.
Elizabeth2 (E)’s mother was Mrs. Elizabeth1 (Stoughton) (Scudder) Chamberlain, daughter of Puritan minister Rev. ThomasA Stoughton, vicar of Naughton, Suffolk and Great Bursted and Coggeshall, Essex. He died at Sandwich, Kent in 1622 where he had been born. In Puritan Pedigrees, Robert Charles Anderson describes Rev. Stoughton and his two sons and stepson James Cudworth with possessing the characteristics of “strong-mindedness to the point of stubbornness, a willingness to resist and confront authority and a propensity to translate…[these] features into the written, and often printed word.”[13] These men were sticklers to defend what they believed to be truth and to insist on the right to adhere to that truth as they understood it from scripture.
Strood, from Rochester Castle[14]
1625. Elizabeth2 Scudder (E) was christened at Strood on 31 July 1625, recorded as daughter of John Scudder.
1627. When Elizabeth2 (E) was less than two years old, her father John1 Scudder (HenryA) had died. No death or probate record has been found to supply details but Elizabeth2 (E)’s christening record in 1625 gives no indication that her father was deceased at that time. A recent review of the burial register from Strood from 1624–1627 found no burial for John1. Little is known about John1 Scudder beyond mention of him in his father and uncle William’s wills and in his marriage record, and christenings and burials of his children that are documented on the register at Strood. Scudder died sometime between Elizabeth2 (E)’s christening on 31 July 1625 and her mother’s remarriage on 30 April 1627. If Scudder’s occupation was known, that might furnish a clue about the possible whereabouts of his demise. Most in the Strood area were engaged in either agricultural or maritime pursuits for Strood is by the Medway River and near the Thames River and the English Channel.
The register says Rev. Chamberlayne’s first wife Joanna was buried 20 February 1626,[15] which in old style dating means it was only three months before he remarried and only three and a half months before Joanna’s youngest documented child, Matthew, died. In their era, with critical divisions of labor for the family’s survival, it was not unusual for those widowed to remarry soon after their loss. In Chamberlayne’s handwriting he gives this vital detail in the register to document Elizabeth2 (E)’s grandfather:
Robt Chamberlyne, pastor of Strood, to Elizabeth Scudder, widow, ‘dau of Mr. Thomas Stoughton, 30 Apr 1627.[16]
In the Puritan-minded religious climate that agitated for reform during her young life, her new stepfather must have reinforced Elizabeth2 (E)’s Puritan roots. Chamberlain was the Strood parish minister, a parish known for its Puritan attitudes.
Strood Old Church, Kent
Elizabeth2 (E)’s grandfather Stoughton and also Elizabeth2 (E)’s uncle Rev. Henry1 Scudder are well known for being activist Puritans, inclined towards Presbyterian views.[19] Chamberlain’s brother-in-law from his first marriage, Rev. John Wing and Wing’s father-in-law Rev. Stephen Bachilor were strong Puritans.[20]
On 13 January 1612 at Banbury, Oxfordshire, Rev. Chamberlain had married 1) Joanna Wing, whose brother Rev. John Wing had been a minister in Holland during the time he was out of England due to religious persecution against nonconformists. In the article about Elizabeth2 (E)’s brother, “John Scudder of Barnstable, Early Life and Times of John Scudder (J), b. 1618, Strood, Kent, England,” Catharina Clement is quoted:
John Winge, a Puritan, was incumbent of Strood from 1608–1615 and possibly the curate from 1605.
He was married to the daughter of the Puritan minister Stephen Bachiler, who was ousted from his living in 1605 for his religious views. Winge was afterwards employed by the Society of Merchant Adventurers as a minister in Hamburg, Flushing and later The Hague. Works on the early English Church in the Netherlands place him as a Presbyterian.[21]
Ms. Clement claims: “[Winge’s] brother-in-law Robert Chamberlayne, succeeded him as minister at Strood in 1615 serving the parish till his death in 1639.”[22] The article “John Scudder of Barnstable…” continues:
It seems the Wing connection is very relevant to Rev. Chamberlayne’s own history at Strood, as well as to describing the religious mood at the parish of Strood. Ms. Clement’s work documents that Strood parish of the Church of England was in the hands of Puritan ministers for thirty-five years. She also reveals that Rev. Chamberlayne had been recommended by “his former employer Sir Richard Chetwood of Warksworth,” revealing where Rev. Robert Chamberlayne had been serving prior to Strood. Not surprisingly, Warksworth is only three miles east of Banbury where Rev. Chamberlayne married Joanna Wing in 1612. Robert’s new brother-in-law, Rev. John Wing, recruited Rev. Chamberlayne to minister at the parish of Strood when Wing left.[23]
John Blythe Dobson’s “Chamberlaynes in the Ancestry of the Betts Family of Newtown, Long Island” presents the case for Rev. Robert Chamberlayne being the son of Thomas Chamberlain, vicar of Oakley, Bedfordshire and reveals another important fact. Prior to removing to Strood, Kent, Rev. Robert Chamberlayne served as a minister at Wardington, Oxfordshire from 1606 to 1615.[24] Wardington is five miles northeast of Banbury where Joanna Wing was born and raised and where she and Chamberlayne married in 1612.[25] Banbury is of particular interest to Scudders for Rev. William Whately was the vicar of Banbury at the time of the marriage of Elizabeth2 (E) Scudder’s stepfather Chamberlayne to his first wife Joanna Wing (Matthew).
Rev. William Whately was a brother-in-law to Elizabeth2 (E)’s uncle, Rev. Henry1 Scudder, they having married sisters, the daughters of Rev. George Hunt. In 1612 Rev. Henry1 Scudder was the minister at the parish of Drayton, Oxfordshire, only 2 miles northwest of Banbury. Scudder/Whately/Hunt connections are detailed in From Conscience to Liberty: Diverse Long Island Families in a Crucible that Gave Rise to Religious Freedom that features the Scudder family in 16th and 17th century England and America.[26]
Wardington, Warkworth, Banbury and Drayton, Oxfordshire by Google Maps
With Chamberlayne serving at Wardington on the northeast of Banbury, only 7 miles from Drayton where Rev. Henry1 Scudder was minister, and with Whately in between, these three men of the cloth would have been well known to one another. Did this prior relationship have anything to do with Chamberlayne’s later marriage to the widow of Rev. Henry1 Scudder’s brother John1 at Strood? For certain, Mrs. Scudder was his Strood parishioner. Chamberlayne named Mr. Henry Scudder as one of the overseers of his last will and testament. Other overseers were Dr. [John1] Stoughton, brother to his widow Elizabeth1 (Stoughton) (Scudder) Chamberlayne, and Robert’s own brothers Mr. Nathaniell Chamberlain and Mr. Thomas Chamberlaine and a Mr. Martin Ceasar.[28] Mr. Dobson found no documented relationship between Ceaser and Chamberlayne, although he wondered if Ceasar was a brother-in-law or a neighbor. Dobson notes that a Martin Ceasar married an Alice Feildinge at Strood on 13 March 1626. Was he the Martin Ceaser christened at Strood on 16 June 1605 or was he a different man with the same name? Smetham’s History of Strood discusses an older Martin Caesar who served as a churchwarden in the parish in 1608 and states the register highlights his family:
This old Strood family* was one of importance, one member of it having been apothecary to Queen Elizabeth. The first reference to them is in 1606, when ‘Michael Seasar (is) buried the xxvi day of September.’ Martin Ceasar was Churchwarden in 1608….Almost every entry touching this family has an indicating hand sketched opposite.[29]
*fn reads: See Monuments in Old Church. [The symbol of an indicating hand sketch is a pointing finger in the margin.]
1627. With the marriage of Elizabeth2 (E)’s mother to Rev. Chamberlayne, Elizabeth2 (E)’s family would become a blended family, adding stepsiblings to Elizabeth2 (E)’s young life. Her full brother John2 Scudder was then about nine years old and her full brother Thomas2, christened in 1620, may still have been alive, although when he died was not found. Already two older siblings had died young before Elizabeth2 (E)’s birth in 1625, another Elizabeth2 and another Thomas2. Elizabeth2 (E)’s new stepsiblings at the time of her mother’s remarriage in 1627 were Thomas Chamberlain, aged about 13 and Matthew, 5. Matthew died only 18 days after his father married the widow Scudder. Death had been a frequent visitor to both families. In addition to the death of John1 Scudder within a year or two before, Chamberlayne’s wife had died three months prior to his second marriage and his first daughter named Sarah had previously died in 1621.[30]
Elizabeth (E)’s stepsibling Thomas Chamberlain has been given little notice in the family’s history, but he would have grown up with her for five years. With this blending of the families of Rev. Robert Chamberlayne and the widow Elizabeth (Stoughton) (Scudder), and considering his occupation, the family likely resided near the church of St. Nicholas of Strood, less than a mile from the Rochester Castle across the Medway River.
Rochester in Pickwickian Days, showing the old bridge and “Wrights,”[31] view from Strood
1628. Elizabeth2 Scudder (E)’s half-brother Samuel2 Chamberlain was born. He was christened on 6 June 1628. The blended family then had at least four children, or five if Thomas2 Scudder, b. 1620 was still living:
1. Stepbrother Thomas Chamberlayne, age about fifteen or sixteen if he was son of Rev. Chamberlayne and his wife Joanna Wing who married in January 1612/13. There is no record of Rev. Chamberlayne having a prior wife although we knowThomas2 Chamberlayne was referred to as a schoolmaster by 1630.
2. Full brother John2 Scudder (J), then aged ten.
3. Full brother Thomas2 Scudder, age about eight, (born 1620), if he was still living. Death date not found.
4. Elizabeth2 Scudder (E), age about three.
5. Half-brother Samuel Chamberlayne, 0.
1629. Rev. Chamberlayne made his last entry on the parish register and a new clerk or scribe began to keep the record although Chamberlayne served for another ten years as the minister.
1630. It was an eventful year when Elizabeth2 (E) was five years old that brought both tragedy and joy into the family. Stepbrother Thomas Chamberlain’s burial is recorded on the Strood Parish register and in Smetham’s The History of Strood. The event is described with these terse and mysterious words:
Thomas Chamberlain, Schoolmaster, Sonne of Mr. Robert Chamberlain, Pastor, and Repentance Sweeting, a stranger who was by Gode providence deprived of his life at Rochester Bridge, both buried together the 9th October 1630 [or 1631].[32]
Due to this strange entry, this image of the original record from 1630 is provided for the reader’s convenience.
Excerpt from Strood Parish Burials
Though buried in the same grave, there is no record of a relationship or marriage between the two deceased.
Elizabeth2 (E)’s half-sister Joanna2 Chamberlain was christened on 31 October 1630, twenty-two days after Thomas’s death. Elizabeth2 (E) now had a sister in the family with whom she could enjoy girlhood interests. No diaries survive to chronicle the influence of a likely close relationship between these sister half-siblings born five years apart. In 1669, Elizabeth2 (E)’s cousin John2 Scudder’s son John3 married Joanna’s daughter.[34]
The impressive view from their home from across the Medway River from northeast to southeast would have looked something like this to Elizabeth2 (E) and her half-sister Joanna2 Chamberlain.
View of Rochester Bridge from an Old Print[35]
Also in 1630, members of her mother’s Stoughton family began their exodus to New England. According to The Winthrop Fleet alphabetical list of passengers, compiled by Charles Edward. Banks, in 1630 Elizabeth2 (E)’s uncles Thomas1 Stoughton and Israel1 Stoughton and their sister Judith1 (Stoughton) [Denman] Smead arrived in America with Winthrop in the fall.[36] While Thomas is documented at Dorchester by 28 September 1630, when he was made a constable, there is conflicting data about the timing of the immigration of the others. The Great Migration Begins reminds that by 1625 Thomas1 Stoughton, (Jr.) moved his family from Great Coggeshall, Essex to Aller, Somersetshire, 200-miles west from Strood, where his brother Rev. John1 Stoughton then lived. In 1624, Rev. John1 Stoughton had succeeded Rev. RalphA Cudworth, Sr., minister at Aller, after Cudworth’s death. Rev. John1 then married Cudworth’s widow, Mary Machell. By this marriage, Rev. John1 Stoughton became stepfather of James1 Cudworth who immigrated to Scituate, Plymouth Colony in 1634.[37] In 1630, the year that Thomas1 Stoughton sailed for America with the Winthrop fleet, Rev. John1 Stoughton returned to London where he was appointed the curate of St Mary Aldermanbury, 30 miles west from Strood. It is not known if young Elizabeth2 (E) ever met her uncle Thomas1 Stoughton while in England since he was living in Somerset. Her uncle Israel1 Stoughton married Elizabeth Knight at Rotherhite, Surrey, only about 28 miles from Strood potentially making interaction within reach.
1632. The biographical sketch in The Great Migration Begins for Israel2 does not agree with Banks’s data, placing Israel1 Stoughton’s immigration in 1632. He settled his family at Dorchester, Massachusetts. GMB does not correctly identify Israel1’s sister “Mrs. Chamberlain.” This sketch of Israel1’s life preceded Fiske’s TAG article that gave wider circulation to Scudder Association data about Elizabeth (Stoughton) (Scudder) Chamberlayne and her Scudder and Stoughton family connections. Israel1 returned on business to Lincoln, England where he died in 1644. His widow died at Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1681.[38]
1632. In 1632 Elizabeth2 Scudder (E), John2 Scudder (J) and Samuel2 and Joanna2 Chamberlayne welcomed a baby sister into the family, a second Sarah2, christened at Strood on 16 January 1632.[39]
1634. Elizabeth2 (E)’s husband-to-be immigrated with his father to New England. In 1624, Rev. Lothrop had become the minister to the Separatist Independent congregation at Southwark, London. After his church officially broke with the Church of England, he was hunted down and incarcerated in 1632. Released, possibly on bail but sources differ about how, he was banished and left for America as soon as possible. According to Gov. John1 Winthrop’s journal, under the date of 18 September 1634, Rev. John1 Lothrop arrived at Boston, Massachusetts on that date on the ship Griffin.[40] With Rev. Lothrop were some from his London congregation and likely six of his children, Thomas2, Jane2, Barbara2, Samuel2, Joseph2 and Benjamin2. A place was already prepared for Lothrops to settle at nearby Scituate, Plymouth Colony where he went 27 September 1624. Lothrop recorded in his journal the names of those “pioneers” who had helped him, including James Cudworth. Others were mainly from London and Kent. Lothrop’s Scituate church records mention meetings at Cudworth’s house, including one on 29 January 1635 “for humiliation and prayer. In that private dwelling, by the votes of the brethren assembled, Mr. Lothropp was formally chosen the minister of the place, and by the laying on of their hands he was, as he fully believed, in true Apostolic manner once more inducted into the pastor office.”[41] James Cudworth followed Lothrop to Barnstable in 1639, later returning to Scituate. Cudworth’s relationship to Elizabeth2 (E) Scudder was a step-cousin for he was the stepson of her uncle Rev. John1 Stoughton.
Seemingly more than coincidence, Rev. RalphA Cudworth, Sr. was the minister who replaced Elizabeth2 (E)’s grandfather, Rev. ThomasA Stoughton, at the Anglican pulpit of Coggeshall, Essex when Rev. Stoughton was removed in 1606 for his nonconformity. Rev. Ralph Cudworth, Sr. left in 1609 to assume the position at Aller where he served until his death. Many of these reform-minded ministers were in a tight social network.
St. Andrews Church, Aller, Somerset
1635. Death again visited for there is a burial record for little sister Sarah2 Chamberlayne at Strood on 27 April 1635. In June of 1635, brother John2 Scudder (J), age 17, left Strood with Thomas1 and Sarah2 (Learned) Ewer from Strood and sailed for Boston, arriving the last week of September in 1635. They settled at Charlestown.[43]
1636. There are differing opinions about the timing of their aunt Judith1 (Stoughton) (Denman) Smead’s immigration but it was between the death of her husband William Smead in England in 1636 and her own death at Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1639.[44] Elizabeth2 (E), her mother and half-siblings did not arrive in time to overlap with Judith1 in America. According to the inventory payment made from the estate of Judith Smead, taken 18th day of the 3 month 1639 at Dorchester, Aunt Judith left a payment of £10 to her nephew John2 Scudder (J). Judith likely chose Dorchester to be by her brother Israel1 Stoughton and his family.
1639. Rev. Robert Chamberlayne died at Strood, leaving Elizabeth1 (Stougton) (Scudder) Chamberlayne a widow for the second time and with three fatherless children: Elizabeth Scudder (E), age 14, Samuel Chamberlayne, age 11 and Joanna Chamberlayne, age 9. The Strood Parish Register shows Chamberlayne’s burial on 1 June 1639.
Rev. Robert Chamberlayne, burial record
Also in 1639, Elizabeth2 (E)’s uncle Rev. John1 Stoughton died. Though he was considered mostly orthodox, Archbishop William Laud had prosecuted him for his Puritan activism.[46] By 1639, Elizabeth2 (E)’s brother John2 Scudder (J) had been in America for four years at Charlestown. There was plenty of reason for Elizabeth2 (E)’s mother to choose to immigrate. After Ewer’s death, his widow, Sarah2 (Learned) Ewer, daughter of William1 Learned, married at Boston to Thomas2 Lothrop, Rev. Lothrop’s eldest living son. They removed to Barnstable,[47] presumably taking John2 Scudder with them but he being perhaps too young to be noticed on the town records until later.
1644. Five years after Rev. Chamberlayne’s death, the next records found for Elizabeth2 Scudder (E), or members of her family, are in Massachusetts. No immigration record survives so the exact timing of the arrival at Boston of Elizabeth2 (E) and her mother and two half-siblings is not known. The first record for Elizabeth2 Scudder (E) in America found was on 28th Day of the 5th Moneth 1644 [July] when “Elizabeth Skuddar our brother Gamaliell Waytes maid” was admitted to the First Church of Boston.[48]
The Waytes arrived at Boston about a decade before Elizabeth2 Scudder (E). The sketch for Gamaliell Wayte in The Great Migration Begins, states he was from Rigsby, Lincolnshire and immigrated to Boston in 1633. Wayte’s occupation was a fisherman. With his wife Grace (—), he had 7 children, at least 5 of whom were born before nineteen-year-old Elizabeth2 (E) was serving as their family’s maid in 1644. If Elizabeth2 (E) had childcare duties in her employment with the Wayte family, the Wayte children then ranged from in age from about 6 months to age 7, giving Elizabeth2 (E) experience for raising her own nine children.
Gamaliell Wayte was one of the men disarmed in 1637 for being a follower of Anne Hutchinson[49] as were Thomas1 Ewer and his father-in-law William2 Larnet [Learned]. Ewer and Learned later had their names removed from a remonstrance in favor of Hutchinson’s brother-in-law, Rev. John1 Wheelwright.[50] Ewer had died by 4 December 1638 when “[blank] Ewar was allowed executrix of her husband, Thom[as] Ewar, deceased.” Sara Ewer “late wife of Tho[mas] Ewer of Charltowne deceased” is recorded as having considerable property, some of which she sold to Francis Willoughby in 1639. On 11 December 1639, Rev. Lothrop records that “My son Tho[mas] and Brother Larnett’s daughter, widow Ewer” were married “in the Bay.”[51] John Scudder (J) is thought to have followed newlyweds Thomas2 and Sarah (Learned) (Ewer) Lothrop to Barnstable, probably by 1640, but his name does not appear on Rev. John Lothrop’s church records at Barnstable until May 10, 1646[52] and this author has found none earlier so far.
On his church records of Barnstable on October 6, 1644, Rev. John1 Lothrop recorded the name of Elizabeth2 (E)’s mother, as “Mestres Chamberlin joyned,”[53] it being the first record found to prove she was in America.
A month later, on the 10th Day of the 9th Moneth [November] 1644, “Our sister Elizabeth Skuddar with the Consent of the Church by their silence was granted to have letters of Recommendation to the Church at Barstable”[54] [Barnstable]. Elizabeth2 (E) Scudder was soon at Barnstable for Rev. Lothrop records on 28 November 1644, “My sonn Samuell, and Elizabeth Scudder marryed att my house by Mr. Freeman.”[55] Regrettably, the story of their courtship is not recorded. While there are reasons enough for the couple to get together due to various family connections, E. B. Huntington supposes Samuel2 “had made the acquaintance of Miss Scudder in Boston, where he commenced his business life as a house builder.”[56]
This portion of the biography about the early life of Elizabeth2 Scudder (E) has focused on her heritage. Her interaction with devoted, reform-minded ministers in her family was ideal preparation to marry the son of Rev. John1 Lothrop. The remainder of her story as Mrs. Elizabeth2 (Scudder) Lathrop will be continued later.
To learn more about notable persons who descended from Elizabeth2 (E), see brief sketches at “Elizabeth Scudder, born 1625, Strood, Kent, Wife of Samuel Lathrop (Lothrop): Her Genteel Hand Rocked a Cradle that Produced These Remarkable Descendants”.
[1] John Thomas Serres, “Rochester,” Yale Center for British Art, Undated, Public Domain,
http://collections.britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3656877. Strood is sometimes referred to as Strood near Rochester.
[2] One possible originator of the error about Scudders being from Groton England is Mary Bunker Powell, Long Island Genealogies, (1895), in which her page about Scudders has many perplexing errors. Besides stating the wrong place of their origins in England, saying Groton [Suffolk] instead of Horton Kirby, Kent), she mixes up relationships such as making Rev. Henry1 Scudder the father instead of the brother of Thomas1 Scudder (T) and having Thomas1’s son John2 marrying his daughter-in-law. Powell’s page is very incomplete and does not document anything or use primary sources. She leaves no statement of where she obtained her information or her interpretations but unfortunately some subsequent books repeated these errors. Bunker is a readily available compiled source but as this author delved deeper to resolve all the discrepancies she found Bunker is frequently overruled by primary sources for other families in her book besides the Scudders.
[3] David B. Scudder, ed., Scudder Searches, Scudder Association, volumes I-V, 1989–1993.
[4] Scudder Searches, volume V, no. 1, (Winter 1993): 3–4 and volume V, no. 2, (Summer 1993): 3–6; Jane Fletcher Fiske, “New England Immigrant Kinship Network: Notes on the English Origins of the Scudders of Salem and Barnstable, Massachusetts, Bridget (—) (Verry) Giles of Salem, and Joanna (Chamberlain) Betts of Long Island,” The American Genealogist, v. 72, (July/October 1997): 285–300, https://www.americanancestors.org/databases/american-genealogist-the/image?volumeId=13132&pageName=295&rId=24764091. See pages 295–297;
Strood, Kent, parish registers, unpaginated are available on microfilm British film #992, 462, Family History Library (FHL), Salt Lake City. See also fn 14.
[5] Errors came from Gustave Anjou, “Lothrop Family Records in England, Ms. notes,” (Pittsburgh: W. V. Dermitt & Co., (1906).
[6] Elijah B. Huntington, A Genealogical Memoir of the Lo-Lathrop Family in this country…(1884), 17–19, 23, 37–42. Hereafter referred to as the Lo-Lathrop Memoir
[7] A peer-reviewed biographical sketch of Rev. John Lothrop is available in Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration, v. 4, I–L, 345–351. Children are listed on pp. 348–349. Two articles in The American Genealogist are also important. In Clifford L. Stott, TAG, volume 70, (October 1995): 252, Stott corrects Rev. Lothrop’s mother’s name from Mary unknown to Maud unknown and discusses the Gustave Anjou fraud that polluted Lothrop genealogy as well as more than a hundred others.
See also Fiske, “New England Immigrant Kinship Network,” 72(TAG): 297.
See also Huntington, Lo-Lathrop Memoir, 17–19, 23, 37–42. The Stott article corrects the name of Rev. John Lothrop’s mother from Mary unknown to Maud unknown. Published in 1884, Huntington’s Lo-Lathrop Memoir clearly shows the difference between Rev. Lothrop’s birth family from Cherry Burton and Etton, Yorkshire, England, pp. 17–19, and a different Thomas Lathrop family from Bramshall and Leigh, Staffordshire with his wife Mary Salte from Yoxall, Staffordshire, on pages 9–10. Not only were these two families from different counties in England, they were also a generation different in age and of no known relationship. Anjou’s errors, printed after the Lo-Lathrop Memoir had shown the differences, mixed elements of these two different families that were unfortunately picked up in other histories of the family and in unsuspecting genealogies that copied his false data.
[8] Fiske, “A New England Immigrant Kinship Network,” 295–297.
[9] J. B. Dorrinton, “Scudder Family Records,” MS, “English Scudder Research,” File 16c, Box SA 36, Scudder Archives Collection, Scudder Association. Correct wills and family data were found in Kent and no evidence of Scudders was found in Suffolk County, England.
[10] Elizabeth Scudder christening record, Strood, Kent Parish Register, page 50, Brit. Film #004989818, Image 288 of 700, Family History Library, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RG4-SMRM?i=287&cc=1952887.
[11] Scudder Family Historical & Biographical Journal, [SFHBJ] volume 1, no. 1, (April 2019), “Our Story Begins with Henry Skudder (Scudder), Yeoman, of Horton Kirby, Kent” and “The 400-year-old Will of Henry Skudder, Yeoman of Horton Kirby, Kent,” Scudder Association Foundation.
Scudder Family Historical & Biographical Journal, volume 1, no. 2, (June 2019), “The Three Sons of Henry Scudder, Yeoman of Horton Kirby, Kent: A Season of Political Upheaval with Effects on Life Circumstances of Each Son,” “Will of Rev. Henry Scudder of Collingbourne Ducis 1651,” and “Wills of William & Margerie Scudder (Scooder) of Darenth, Kent.”
Scudder Family Historical & Biographical Journal, volume 1, no. 3, (December 2019),
“Samuel Lathrop and Elizabeth (Scudder) Lathrop of Barnstable, New London and Norwich, some character traits of five generations to their great-great grandson Charles5 Lathrop,” The American Lathrop Story Begins” and
“Who Was Joanna (Leffingwell) Lathrop, ‘Missionary Mother’ of the Other ‘Scudder’ Missionary Family to Ceylon? Who Was Deacon Charles Lathrop?” These articles expanded on “Harriet Wadsworth (Lathrop) Winslow: the Third ‘Scudder’ Cousin on the Indus,” in SFHBJ, volume 1, no. 2, (June 2019).
Scudder Family Historical & Biographical Journal, volume 2, no. 1, (Spring 2020), “If You Are an American Scudder,” and “John Scudder of Barnstable, Early Life and Times of John Scudder (J), b. 1618, Strood, Kent, England,” and “The Trail of Clues to John Scudder of Barnstable’s English Identity,. These articles also identify Elizabeth2 (E)’s Strood, Kent birthplace, her ancestry and the documents that prove her roots.
[12] Rev. Henry Scudder, The Christian’s Daily Walk, in holy security and peace. First published in the 1620s, the sixth edition was published in 1635 and the 13th, Chalmers ed. in 1826, the latter being the standard edition still available today from booksellers.
[13] Robert Charles Anderson, “Thomas Stoughton and James Cudworth,” Puritan Pedigrees, The Deep Roots of the Great Migration to New England, (The New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2018), 215–245. Anderson’s coverage of the career of Rev. ThomasA Stoughton is superb but there is one error that appears to be unintentional on p. 224 when Anderson states it was Judith who married Rev. Robert Chamberlayne. He does accurately identify both Judith and Elizabeth with their correct spouses on pages 222–223. He also diagrams Stoughton’s children using the christening date for son Thomas1 Stoughton in 1588 that Anderson earlier wrote in The Great Migration Begins belonged to an elder brother of the same name who had died young. See Anderson, The Great Migration Begins, v. 3, P–W, 1778 for the christening date of 23 January 1592/3 at Naughton, as it appears on the Naughton parish register and his explanation about the elder brother John christened 9 July 1588. These discrepancies both appear in authoritative sources. However, Puritan Pedigrees cites on page 228 fn 50 and 232 fn 59 a different source found more recently, Archdeaconry of Sudbury Transcripts for 1592, Naughton submission in which the latter source states the 1592/3 date is for John1 Stoughton and not Thomas1. In Puritan Pedigrees, Anderson reverts to Thomas1’s christening of 1588. This chapter in Puritan Pedigrees also has informative subsections for RalphA Cudworth, Thomas1 Stoughton, Israel1 Stoughton, John Stoughton, James Cudworth, some detail about Rev. ThomasA Stoughton’s daughters and a list of ministers that left legacies to Rev. ThomasA Stoughton.
Further detail about Rev. Thomas Stoughton and his children is available in the Scudder Family Historical & Biographical Journal companion article, “John Scudder of Barnstable, Early Life and Times of John Scudder (J), b. 1618, Strood, Kent, England,” (Spring 2020).
Also see Ethel McLaughlin Turner, The English Ancestry of Thomas Stoughton, 1588-1661, and…, (Waterloo, Wis.: Artcraft Press, 1958), 66–68 and articles in The Great Migration Begins for Elizabeth’s uncles Thomas1 and Israel1 Stoughton. Thomas1’s christening record from the parish register is cited at FamilySearch, https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N5KS-9XT.
[14] E. J. Beale, “Strood from Rochester Castle,” in Henry Smetham, History of Strood, (1899), 290.
[15] Medway Archives & Local Studies Centre, Strood St Nicholas, image available at p. 113, https://cityark.medway.gov.uk/wwwopacx/wwwopac.ashx?command=getcontent&server=files&value=P150B-01-01(2).pdf. As this author reads the page, it appears to say, “Mrs. Joanna Chamberlayne the wife of Mr. Robert Chamberlaine Pastor of Stroud buried the 20th day” [of February 1626]. Same page shows Joanna’s son Matthew’s burial on 18 May 1627. In old-style dating the new calendar year begins on March 25th so Joanna’s death was only three months before Rev. Chamberlayne remarried.
[16] “The Trail of Clues to John Scudder of Barnstable’s English Identity, Scudder Family Historical & Biographical Journal, [SFHBJ] (Spring 2020), https://scudder.org/the-trail-of-clues-to-john-scudder/. Scudder Searches, volume V, no. 2, (Summer 1993): 6.
[17] Medway Archives & Local Studies Centre, Strood St Nicholas, image available at Marriages, Strood Parish Register, https://cityark.medway.gov.uk/wwwopacx/wwwopac.ashx?command=getcontent&server=files&value=P150B-01-01(2).pdf.
[18] “Strood Old Church, Kent,” in Henry Smetham, History of Strood, (1899), 51. See and hear the brief explanation about the church at “History of Strood,” Kent Past, http://www.kentpast.co.uk/strood.html.
[19] Margery Boyden, From Conscience to Liberty: Diverse Long Island Families in a Crucible that Gave Rise to Religious Freedom, (©2019), v. 1, Part A, 70, 77–79, 94, 361, 363; and Part B, Appendix I, ii, xii–xvii, xiii.
[20] John Blythe Dobson, “A Note on the Reverend Robert Chamberlayne of Strood, Kent, Father-in-law of Capt. Richard Betts of Newtown, Long Island,” The American Genealogist, volume 79 (July 2004): 228–234; “Stephen Bachilor” in Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins, v. 1, A–F, 61–69;
“John Scudder of Barnstable,” SFHBJ, (Spring 2020).
[21] Catharina Clement, Political and Religious Reactions in the Medway Towns of Rochester and Chatham during the English Revolution, 1640–1660, Canterbury Christ Church University, (2013), 170.
[22] Ibid.
[23] “John Scudder of Barnstable,” SFHBJ, (Spring 2020).
[24] Dobson, “Chamberlaynes in the Ancestry of the Betts Family of Newtown, Long Island,” The American Genealogist, volume 82, no. 3, (July 2007): 227–232. https://www.americanancestors.org/databases/american-genealogist-the/image?volumeId=13266&pageName=230&rId=24795425;
“A History of St. Mary Magdalene, The Parish Church—Its Evolution,” https://wardington.net/st-mary-magdalene/a-history-of-st-mary-magdalene/. After a brief history that includes some later persons named Chamberlain (relationship not investigated), there is a table that shows the years that its vicars served and includes Robert Chamberlain.
[25] Dobson, “A Note on the Reverend Robert Chamberlayne of Strood, Kent, Father-in-law of Capt. Richard Betts of Newtown, Long Island,” TAG 79(July 2004): 231 fn 14.
[26] Boyden, From Conscience to Liberty, 77–79.
[27] Google Maps, Wardington, Banbury and Drayton, Oxfordshire, England.
[28] “Chamberlaynes in the Ancestry of the Betts Family of Newtown, Long Island,” 228.
[29] Smetham, 95.
[30] Medway Archives & Local Studies Centre, Strood St Nicholas, image available at https://cityark.medway.gov.uk/wwwopacx/wwwopac.ashx?command=getcontent&server=files&value=P150B-01-01(2).pdf
[31] Charles G. Harper, The Old Inns of Old England, v. 1, (London: Chapman & Hall, Ltd., 1906), between pages 224–225.
[32] Smetham, 93, https://archive.org/details/historyofstrood00smetiala/page/92/mode/2up.
[33] Burial record, Stood parish, image available at https://cityark.medway.gov.uk/wwwopacx/wwwopac.ashx?command=getcontent&server=files&value=P150B-01-01(2).pdf.
[34] “New York, County Marriages, 1847-1848; 1908-1936,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2CL-8M56 : 18 March 2019), Joanna Betts in entry for John Scudder, 20 Apr 1669, New York, British Colonial America; citing ref. ID , county clerk offices from various counties, New York; FHL microfilm 930,131, https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2CL-8M56.
[35] “View of Rochester Bridge—From an Old Print,” in Smetham, History of Strood, 33.
[36] Charles Edward Banks, The Winthrop Fleet of 1630, Stoughton, (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., first published 1930, several times in the interim and again 1999), Appendix, 92–93.
[37] Anderson, The Great Migration, v. 2, C–F, 249–258.
[38] See Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins, v. 3, P–W, 1773–1779, for Thomas1 and Israel1 Stoughton and a note about their sister Judith1 (Stoughton) (Denman) Smead. In 1995 at its printing, this source did not have the benefit of the 1993 data from Scudder Searches by the Scudder Association or the later Fiske article in TAG in 1997 that documents the identity of Mrs. Chamberlain, sister of Israel Stoughton, as Mrs. Elizabeth1 (Stoughton) (Scudder) Chamberlayne. For James Cudworth, see The Great Migration, v. 2, C–F, 249–258.
[39] Sara Chamberlaine, christening, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NRCN-QVQ?from=lynx1UIV8&treeref=L62J-NK3, “England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975″, database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NRCN-QVQ : 19 September 2020), Sara Chamberlaine, 1632.
[40] Anderson, The Great Migration, v. 4, I–L, 345.
[41] Huntington, 25–27.
[42] Roger Cornfoot, St. Andrews Church, Aller/ CC BY-SA 2.0, (geograph 5188498).jpg, geograph.org.uk, 9 November 2016, Wikimedia Commons.
[43] “John Scudder of Barnstable” and “Trail of Clues to John Scudder,” SFHBJ, (Spring 2020).
[44] William B. Trask, “Abstracts of the Earliest Wills in Suffolk,” The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, volume 30, (January 1876), 79–80.
[45] Medway Archives & Local Studies Centre, Strood St Nicholas, image available at Burialls, Strood, 1639,
https://cityark.medway.gov.uk/wwwopacx/wwwopac.ashx?command=getcontent&server=files&value=P150B-01-01(2).pdf.
[46] Benjamin Brook, The Lives of the Puritans, v. 3, (London: Hughes, Printer, 1813), 527.
[47] “John Scudder of Barnstable,” https://scudder.org/john-scudder-of-barnstable/.
[48] “Admissions to Membership, 1630–1778…” The Records of the First Church in Boston, 1630–1868, v. 1, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/1070#p3.
[49] Anderson, The Great Migration Begins, v. 3, P–W, 1896.
[50] Boyden, From Conscience to Liberty, 174–175.
[51] Anderson, The Great Migration, v. 2, C–F, 481; v. 4, I–L, 348.
[52] Amos Otis, comp., “Scituate and Barnstable Church Records,” The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, volume 9, (July 1855): 283.
[53] “Scituate and Barnstable Church Records,” 280, https://books.google.com/books?id=Szy0gd2TubMC&pg=PA279&lpg=PA279&dq=Otis+%22Scituate+and+Barnstable+Church+Records%22&source=bl&ots=5fZ_2XETQH&sig=ACfU3U1x6xx3zr1aEC07ML8F2tWVm16ZEg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjv6omUnZfhAhUxq4MKHX7ACkMQ6AEwA3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false.
[54] “Admissions to Membership, 1630–1778…” The Records of the First Church in Boston, 1630–1868, v. 1.
[55] “Scituate and Barnstable Church Records,” 286.
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