The Pierpont Family Name

Recently I published a blog about my Russell lineage. In it I made a simple note about the family line on my mother’s side, Pierpont, where the name transitioned from de Pierrepont (France) to Pierrepont (England) to Pierpont (America) and there was also a branch in VA/MD where it was spelled Pierpoint. One of my cousins commented,

“I am glad to learn that Pierrepont was corrupted to Pierpoint (sic) before it left England so we don’t have to blame bad spelling of excess imagination on those of us that trace back to John and Robert.”

But it’s not quite that simple, in fact the John/Robert line had even more problems with spelling that one might imagine. Let’s look at some actual historic documents for illustration.

The first one I’d like to look at is the marriage record of the father of John and Robert, James. He was married in England, so one would expect to see his name recorded as Pierrepont. But as you can see here, the actual recording is Pirrepoynt!

[James Pirrepoynt marriage]

Then when John actually gets to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1640, it seems that no one can agree on how to spell his name!

Here is record of his purchasing property in Roxbury where it is spelled Perpoint.

[John Perpoint land]

Then when he gets a letter from England informing him of the death of his mother in 1664 it’s Pierpointe.

[John Pierpointe letter]

When he is buried, his grave stone reads Peirpont.

[John Peirpont grave]

But the Massachusetts vital records have it as Peirpoynt.

[Pierpoynt vital records]

The Pierpont family became members of the First Church of Roxbury, so perhaps there we will find the correct spelling. While John, Robert, and many of their family members are mentioned prominently in the church records, it seems that no one there can get it right either. Here is the index from the book about the church where it is spelled variously as Pierpont, Pierpoynt, Pairpoynt, Pierrepoint, Peirpont, Pierepont, and Peirpoynt.

[Roxbury Church]

When John’s son, the Rev. James, moved to New Haven, things seem to finally settle down to the expected Pierpont, except for a couple of exceptions. First, James’ grandson Hezekiah changed his name back to Pierrepont to reflect his English roots and that name then proliferated in Brooklyn where it can still be found today. And a couple of generations later, James’ great-great-grandson, Austin, was buried under a gravestone in the East Farms cemetery under the last name of Pierpoint in 1848.

[Austin Pierpoint grave]

Spelling was definitely not the strong suit of the family back in the 1600s. Because it was a somewhat unusual name and because most transactions were oral rather than written, it was so often misspelled that the variation of Pierpont to Pierpoint seems almost trivial by comparison!