I recently ran across the below article from a newspaper in 1921 (2 years before the founding of the Pierpont Family Association).
[Newspaper article]
This is evidently from a series of newspaper articles
that traced family names. Let’s look at it closely, as there are a number of
errors which we now know based on more recent historical research.
1) “…the
name is said to have been derived in England from Normandy.”
I’m not sure why the author
makes this statement. What does derived in England mean? Is she referring to
the fact that in Normandy it was “de Pierrepont” and in England they dropped
the “de” part?
2) “The
founder was Robert de Pierrepont, a Norman knight…”
While Robert was the
first of the family to come to England (with William the Conqueror), he was not
the “founder” of the family. We now know that there were at least a couple of
generations before him in Normandy.
3) “Others
say that the Pierreponts were not Norman at all, but that they came from
Picardy at the time of the Conquest, having taken the name from a castle in
Picardy.”
I’ve discussed the topic
of the origin of the family name at length before (https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2022/01/origin-of-pierrepont-family.html),
so I’ll not repeat it here. Please read this research if you are interested.
4) “…the
younger son of William Pierrepont, a younger brother of Sir Robert Pierrepont
who was baron Pierrepont and Viscount Newark…”
I’ve also discussed this
topic and charted it out before (https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2019/06/lost-dukedom-of-new-england-pierponts.html).
William was not a younger brother of Sir Robert, rather he was a younger
brother of Sir Henry, and an uncle of Sir Robert. This also means that the
statement in the following sentence about John Pierrepont of Roxbury being a
second cousin to Evelyn (duke) is inaccurate as he would be the second cousin,
once removed.
5) “The
early members of the family in the new world usually spelled the name
Pierepont, but almost all have gone back to the older English speeling,
Pierrepont.”
There are three errors in
the sentence. The first two are inaccuracies in the printing process as it’s
obvious that “Pierepont” should be “Pierpont” and “speeling” should be “spelling.”
The person who did the typesetting had a problem with using the “e” key. The
third problem requires a bit more explanation.
The statement about “almost
all” now using the English spelling of “Pierrepont” is based on where the author
of the article lived. She had been born on Long Island in 1887 and, at the time
of this writing, was living in northern New Jersey. As a result, the branch of
the family she would have been most acquainted with would have been the descendants
of Hezekiah Beers Pierrepont (1768-1838). (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezekiah_Pierrepont).
Hezekiah was the great-grandson of the Rev James Pierpont of New Haven. He had
been born in New Haven, but in 1790 moved to New York City and a decade later
moved to Brooklyn, NY. It was there that he not only became quite rich by
marrying into a family that owned considerable land (500,000 acres) in NY, but
changed his name back to the English spelling – perhaps as a way of sounding
most closely related to his distant titled cousins back in England. As the most
prominent member of the greater Pierpont family at the time, that apparently
was the basis for the author making this statement.
This has been a great exercise in pulling together my
past research and being able to set the record straight on a newspaper article
from over 100 years ago!
