The New England Pierponts

Introduction

The Pierpont Family Association has been meeting for nearly 100 years – our first meeting was held in 1924. Our official genealogies say that we have a “Focus on the New England Pier(re)ponts of America”. So, why is it that our meetings are, with only a few exceptions, held in Connecticut instead of the Boston area where the New England Pierponts first came to America? And why does it seem that we all have the Rev. James Pierpont of New Haven in our ancestral tree when he was only one of several children of brothers John and Robert Pierpont who came to America? The purpose of this paper is to answer those questions.

For our answers, let’s do a detailed analysis of the records from our genealogy (link above).

First, a few remarks on how this analysis works. We need to do this analysis one generation at a time using the following methodology:

·       We start each generation with all the families with the name Pierpont/Pierrepont. For each of those family we see how many children they had. These numbers tend to be much larger back in the 1600s-1700s than they are now.

·       We then subtract all those who died young (these numbers similarly were much greater back in colonial American than they are now). These are marked in the genealogies as “dy”.

·       We then subtract all those who never married (marked as “unm” for un-married) and those who married but who had no children (marked as “dwi” for died without issue)

·       Finally, we need to discount those (not very many as we have pretty good records) for whom we do not know what happened to them.

·       The remainder are those children who had families

·       However, we then need to eliminate all those who are females as they would not be able to pass along the Pierpont/Pierrepont family name. While in more recent times this is no longer always true, in colonial America and in families of English origin, women were expected to take on the surname of their husband.

·       The final result of the above will be the number of families carrying forward the Pierpont name into the next generation.

·       We will repeat the above analysis one generation at a time for several generations (a bit time-consuming, but that’s the only way to do it correctly.

Okay, with a reasonable methodology established, let’s work one generation at a time to see what happens to the Pierpont family in New England.

 

Family Lines – less Rev. James Pierpont

[Chart of results – less Rev. James]

 

(Note – for those who are interested, I have included the relevant lines from the Pierpont Genealogies at the end of this blog – with every line coded in the same colors/fonts as the above chart.)

Generation 1 – At the beginning of the analysis, we have two families – those of John and Robert – who settled in Roxbury, MA, about 1640. Between them they have 24(!) children – huge families. Of those 24, I’m going to remove the Rev. James who went to New Haven – we’ll look separately at him a bit later.

Of the remaining 23 children, 13 die young (I told you it was a significant problem!) Those who do not marry or who marry but have no children amount to another 4. There are only 6 with families, but 3 (the expected half) are females. Thus, there are three remaining families to carry on the family name to the next generation. Not a huge number, but more than the two we started with.

Generation 2 – The three families have 17 children among them, the average family size dropping since the initial huge problem of children dying young has gone away. But half of these (9) do not marry or have no children. Two move to Canada – we’ll keep them in the analysis for now, but as we’ll see below they shortly disappear. Of the remaining 8 children, only 2 are females, so we have six families going into the next generation – doubling the prior generation.

Generation 3 – The six families have 23 children among them, the average family size continuing to drop. We still have a few dying young, and about the same percentage not marrying or not having children. But we have now lost track of several of the next generation of those who went to Canada. Of the remaining nine families, five are represented by female Pierponts and will no longer carry the Pierpont family name. So, we are down to just four families.

Generation 4 – Numbers are similar to generation 3, but of the 10 children who have families, 9 of them only have females. This phenomenon is called “daughtering out” and as a result there is only a single family with the Pierpont family name carrying forward into the next generation!

Generation 5 – The sole remaining family only has one child, but that child too is a daughter. The Pierpont family name has disappeared in New England (with the exception of the family of James who we’ll find again below).

Analysis – At this point it appears to be a sad story. Two members of a prominent English family come to New England as part of the Great Migration and, despite the issues of wide-spread death of young children in this harsh environment, are continuing to thrive. Then, within just two generations, the family name “daughters out” and the name Pierpont is in danger of disappearing – at least in New England!

By the year 1800, there are no Pierpont males with families who are carrying on the family name! While the PFA is not restricted to those who still carry the family name (witness that the co-historians of the PFA have the last name of Kraft and Russell). But by the time the PFA is established 125 years later, there is little interest among those who have not had that name in the family tree for several generations.

 

Family Lines – Rev. James Pierpont

[Chart of results – only Rev. James Pierpont]

 

Generation 1 – We’ll start with the same two men, John and Robert, but this time we’ll exclude everyone except the Rev. James who went to New Haven as the new pastor of the Congregational Church there.

Generation 2 – as we all know, James married three times as his first two wives died quite young. He had a total of nine children. A few of these died young, did not marry, or had no children. Of the six who had families, three were females, leaving only three to carry on the family name. Not a huge number, but still an increase.

Generation 3 – Numbers still modest, but unlike the family members up in the Boston area, there are only a few who do not have families, and, perhaps most importantly, of the 16 who have families, only 4 of them have only females. So, rather than beginning the “daughtering out” process where the numbers of male-led families is starting a downward trend in Boston, James has a dozen male grand-children to carry on the family name.

Generation 4 – Again, unlike his Boston area relatives, the family size in James’ descendants is not trending down. James has 88 great-grandchildren (although he has passed away by this time). The number dying young or not having children may seem high, but some of that is simply because there are so many great-grandchildren. Even after all the exclusions, there are 63 families and 29 of them are headed by Pierpont/Pierrepont men.

Generation 5 – Upward trend is continuing. Unlike the rest of the Pierpont family elsewhere in New England, by the end of this generation there are a full 50 families with the Pierpont/Pierrepont family name.

 

Conclusion

Over the years there have been a number of presentations on the Rev. James Pierpont – his prominence in the New Haven community, his important role in the founding of the Collegiate School of Connecticut (later named Yale), his connections to other ministers in other towns in Connecticut, etc. But what may have been lost in all the facts is how without him there would simply be no New England Pierponts, no Pierpont Family Association. His blood lines – shown here over just five generations – flow through all of us in the PFA!

 

 

 

 

 

Fate of New England Pierponts

 

            Italics – females, did not carry on the family name

            Red – died young, unmarried, or no children

            Blue – left country or unsure what happened to them

 

20>1 John Pierrepont (1617-1682) Came to Roxbury about 1640

20>11 Thankful (1649-1649) dy

20>12 John (1651-1651) dy

20>13 John (1652-1690) dwi

20>14 Experience (1654-1698) m John Hayward, 6 children all dwi or dy or unm

20>15 Anne (1657-1657) dy

20>16 James (1659-1714) New Haven

20>17 Ebenezer (1660-1696) m Mary Ruggles

            20>171 John (1693-?) m Elizabeth Bailey

                        20>1711 Hannah (1723-?) ??

            20>172 Ebenezer (1694-1755) m Ann Hilton, m Hannah Wiswall, m Sarah Cushing

                        20>1721 Mary P (1723-1724) dy

                        20>1722 Ebenezer (1725-1767) m Hannah Gridley

                                    20>1722h John (?=?) exists?

                                    20>17221 Hannah (1750-1787) m Moses Davis – extensive family

                                    20>17222 Ann

                                    20>17223 Mary m Nathaniel Sparhawk

                                    20>17224 Ebenezer (1761-?) m Rebecca Wait

                                                20>172241 Emily (1785-1865) m Samuel Langley – family

                        20>1723 John (1727-1790) dwi

                        20>1724 Ann (1728-?)  unm?

                        20>1725 Benjamin (1730-1797) m Elizabeth Church

                                    20>17251 Benjamin (1760-?) m Elizabeth Pope, dwi?

                                    20>17252 William (1763-?) unm

                                    20>17253 Elizabeth (?-?) m Joseph Popo, dwi?

                                    20>17254 Sarah (1765-?) m William Taylor, 2 children

                                    20>17255 Mary (1676-?) unm

                        20>1726 Mary (1732-?) unm

                        20>1727 William (1735-1769) m Mary Davis

                                    20>17271 James Harvey (1762-?) unm

                        20>1728 Sarah (1736-1759) unm

                        20>1729 Samuel (?-?) dwi

                        20>1720 Hannah (1750-1787) m Moses Davis, dwi

                        20>172a Nathaniel (1751-?) m Elizabeth Smith, ????

                                    20>172a1 Lucy (1776-?)

                                    20>172a2 Betsy (1779-?)

                                    20>172a3 Sally (1780-?)

                                    20>172a4 John (1783-?) ?

                                    20>172a5 Nathaniel (1785-1785) dy

                                    20>172a6 Charlotte (1787-?)

                                    20>172a7 Hannah (1789-?)

                        20>172b Joseph (1754-) m Clarissa Granger, dwi?

            20>173 Mary (1696-1724) unm

20>18 Jonathan (1663-1663) dy

20>19 Thankful (1663-1664) dy

20>10 Joseph (1666-1686) dwi

20>1a Benjamin (1668-1697) dwi

 

20>2 Robert (1621-1694) m Maria, m Sarah Lynde

20>21 James (1757-1757) dy

20>22 Margaret (1659-1659) dy

20>23 Margaret (1661-1661) dy

20>24 Jonathan (1663-1663) dy

20>25 Jonathan (1665-1709) m Elizabeth Angier

            20>251 Elizabeth (1693-1717) m Tobijah Perkins, dwi?

            20>252 Jonathan (1695-1758) m Margaret Drummer, dwi

            20>253 Sarah (1697-1773) m Enoch Sawyer, large family

            20>254 Thomas (1700-1753) dwi

            20>255 Anna (1793-1731) m Edmund Gale, m ?Ring, dwi

            20>256 Joseph (1706-1794) unm

            20>257 Mary (1707-?) m Jonathan Bancroft, no chidren?

            20>258 Edward (?-?) dwi

20>26 Thomas (1667-1790) dwi in Canada

20>27 Ezra (1669-1669) dy

20>28 Sarah (1671-1671) dy

20>29 Margaret (1673-1713) m Benjamin Swayne, large family

20>20 James (1675-1676) dy

20>2a James (1677-1721) m Sarah Gardner

            20>2a1 Thomas (1711-?) m Mary Hensted

                        20>2a1h Mary (?-1808) m Daniel Holt, ??

            20>2a2 Robert (1712-1786) m Hanna Ruggles, m Susannah Morey

                        20>2a21 Hannah (1740-1742) dy

                        20>2a22 Sarah (1742-1752) dy

                        20>2a23 Elizabeth (17??-?) m Peter Cunningham, family

                        20>2a24 Robert (1764-1788) dwi

            20>2a3 Sarah (1714-1795) m Joshua Davis, family

            20>2a4 Joseph (1716-1772) m Miss Hamilton, moved to Canada

                        20>2a4? Joseph (1737-?)

                        20>2a4? Hannah (1739-?)

            20>2a5 Abigail (1719-?) m Ebenezer Newall, dwi?

            20>2a6 James (1721-?) m Sarah Dorr, moved to Canada

                        20>2a61 Joseph (?-1792) to Maine?

                        20>2a62 James (?-?) ?

                        20>2a63 Sarah (1750-1828) m Gustavus Fellows, ?

20>2b Robert (1678-1679) dy

20>2c Sarah (1680-?) m Gershom Davis, 3 children