journal

The Rev. Henry1 Scudder was a highly renowned Puritan voice in his era, known for his widely read how-to-book about the rewards of living a Christian life every day and for his impeccable Christian character. Therefore, it is not surprising that he was among the first group called by Parliament to be in the Westminster Assembly of Divines who were tasked with reconciling differences between the religious factions during the English Civil Wars.

The Puritan movement in England, and its related Puritan migration to Massachusetts Bay Colony, were the impetus that brought Richard4 Scudder’s great-grandparents to Boston Harbor. Richard4’s parents, John3 Scudder and Joanna2 (Betts) Scudder, were the first generation in their families born in America.

THEIR HERITAGE EXTENDS FROM ENGLAND TO MASSACHUSETTS TO NEW NETHERLAND–NEW YORK TO NEW JERSEY
John3 Scudder’s parents and Joanna2 Bett’s mother were teenagers when they immigrated to Massachusetts with their families and 20,000 Puritans who had left the tumult of their homeland. Their family’s story deserves preserving within its historical, family, social and religious contexts.

The 250-year story of the Scudder family, from 1526 to 1776, can represent many colonial American families and progressively document the common peoples’ responses to sovereign oppression against rights of conscience, that, in due time, contributed to the rise of American Independence.

This issue of the Journal focuses on Notable Ancestors and Descendants of Richard4 “Betts” Scudder that Pertain to All Three American Scudder Lines so there is something here for all Scudder descendants to discover. This issue has Puritan history about Richard4’s ancestors and American Revolutionary War history that features three of Richard “Betts” Scudder’s grandchildren, including his grandson-in-law John4 Hart, signer of the Declaration of Independence.

When it comes to discussing Isaiah1 Harrison, Sr. and his alleged father Rev. Thomas Harrison with other Harrisons in New England and Virginia in the 1600s, old myths about relationships between “four brothers” who came to America surface. Charles Keith, The Ancestry of Benjamin Harrison, supposes the alleged “three brothers” for ….

Francis Burton Harrison explored the first two questions in a series of articles and stated:
Nearly every family in the new world which cherishes a memory of its past history, has some more or less shadowy legend of its own, handed down from generation to generation. Such stories cannot be dismissed with complete indifference because they often contain some kernel of truth. …

This abbreviated timeline of events in the life of Isaiah1 Harrison, Sr., while living at Long Island, begins in 1684 in company with the Scudder family of Huntington, interesting given their relationship to Samuel2 Stewart, a future son-in-law of Isaiah1, Sr.

Rather than trying to insert Isaiah1 Harrison, Sr. into some other family’s history without any historical record evidence, we approach Isaiah1’s origins and relationships from the factual basis of Isaiah1’s own Long Island records that begin in 1684, not 1687.