By Jared L. Olar
November 2019
The Pomeroy surname is of Norman French origin, deriving from the toponym La Pommeraie, meaning "apple orchard," which was the name of several medieval villages in northeastern France. The surname crossed the English Channel at or soon after the Norman Conquest of A.D. 1066, and in the passage of time families in the English counties of Dorset and Devon who were designated as "de la Pommeraie" (literally meaning, "of the apple orchard") came to be known more simply as "Pommeray" and eventually as "Pomeroy," which has long been the usual spelling of the name. "Pomeroy" was in turn fancifully translated as "royal apple" or "apple king." The vast majority of Pomeroy families in England and America are branches of one single family, whose earliest known ancestor was a certain Roger from the province of La Manche in Normandy. Roger and his son William Capra were benefactors of the Abbey of St. Marie du Val. William's brother Radulph (Ralph) de la Pommeraie is said to have fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Ralph had two sons, Joscelin de Pommeraie and William de Pommeraie, and it is from Joscelin that a great many later Pomeroys in England are descended. (See the outline pedigree in Albert Alonzo Pomeroy's History and Genealogy of the Pomeroy Family (1912), pages 36-42, but beware of the spurious parentage shown on page 42.)
The Pomeroy surname was first brought to America in 1632, when Eltweed Pomeroy (1585-1672) came from Beaminister in County Dorset and settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Probably most Pomeroys in the United States are Eltweed's descendants, but many other Pomeroys have different colonial ancestors. That is the case of our own Pomeroys, who are descendants of a certain George Pomeroy (c.1710-1776) who came from Ireland circa 1730 and settled in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, despite numerous and strenuous efforts to determine how Eltweed and George were descended from the medieval English Pomeroys, at this time nothing is known of George's parentage and ancestry, and all that is known of Eltweed's ancestry is the name of his father, Richard. Most regrettably, even though the conjectural genealogies of Eltweed and George found in older volumes have been definitively debunked, those erroneous genealogical hypotheses continue to be repeated in the online family trees of Pomeroy descendants. In fact, Albert Alonzo Pomeroy's 1914 identification of Eltweed Pomeroy's father Richard as Richard Pomeroy of Simondsbury, County Dorset, was debunked in 1916, just two years after the publication of Albert Alonzo Pomeroy's genealogy, but continues to be accepted by descendants of Eltweed who are unfamiliar with subsequent research on his family. Again, Margaret Falley's 1958 proposal that my wife's ancestor George Pomeroy was George Holmes Pomeroy, of the Holmes Pomeroy family of Pallice, County Cork, Ireland, has also been shown to be erroneous, yet continues to be accepted and repeated by many of George's descendants.
While the ancestral lineages of Eltweed Pomeroy and George Pomeroy remain elusive, the Pomeroy DNA Project has determined that the families of Eltweed and George, as well as several other Pomeroy families, are all branches of the same Pomeroy family, belonging to the great R-M269 genetic family. Other Pomeroys belong to the I-M223 haplogroup or the I-M235 haplogroup. Eltweed's y-DNA haplogroup is R-M269 Mode 06b Beaminster 1617 and George's y-DNA haplogroup is R-M269 Mode 06e PA1745, while a third branch of this same Pomeroy family has the y-DNA haplogroup of R-M269 Mode 06c Brixham 1781/Holne 1623. Analysis of these genetic haplogroups shows that George Pomeroy was related to the Brixham Pomeroys at a closer degree than he was related to the Eltweed Pomeroy family of Beaminster. It is thought that the common male ancestor of the Eltweed, George, and the Brixham/Holne Pomeroys probably lived in the early 1400s. The Beaminster branch formed circa 1425-1550 while the Holne/Brixham Pomeroys and the George Pomeroy branch formed circa 1550-1650.
The results of these DNA tests aligns quite closely with the known genealogy of the various branches of the Pomeroys living in County Devon, England, from the 1400s through the 1600s. The Pomeroys of Sandridge, of Brixham, of Paignton (probably), of Tregony, and of Ingsdon were all descended from Edward Pomeroy (died 1446) and his wife Margaret Beville (died 1461). Edward is a perfect fit chronologically for the common male ancestor who is indicated by DNA testing, from whom Eltweed Pomeroy, our George Pomeroy, and the Pomeroys of Holne and Brixham all must have have derived their descent. We may therefore conclude with reasonable confidence that our George Pomeroy was a male-line descendant of Edward Pomeroy and Margaret Beville. Going further, in light of our George's link to Ireland, there is a good possibility that he was related in some way to Rev. Arthur Pomeroy, Dean of Cork, who was a scion of the Pomeroys of Ingsdon in Devonshire. It is probably significant that "George" appears more than once as a given name in the Ingsdon line. However, our George Pomeroy may have derived his descent from Edward Pomeroy and Margaret Beville in some other, as yet undetermined way.
Unfortunately that is all that can be determined of the ancestry of our Pomeroy family at this time. George's ancestral family certainly migrated from England to Ireland at some point during the 1600s. Since George's line was cousins with the Pomeroys of Holne and Brixham in County Devon, it is probable that maritime trade between Devon and Ireland brought George's family to Ireland (likely the south of Ireland, in or near County Cork). Then, according to tradition, George himself came from Ireland to Liverpool, England, and worked there as a merchant before emigrating to Pennsylvania circa 1730. In Pennsylvania, George's surname was variously spelled "Pumery," "Pummery," "Pomery," "Pumrey," and "Pumroy," but in the 1800s George's descendants reverted to the standard spelling of "Pomeroy."
The following account of our Pomeroy genealogy is chiefly based on the 1879 Pomeroy Genealogy of Major John M. Pomeroy and the 1958 Pomeroy Genealogy of Edwin Moore Pomeroy, augmented and corrected by recent research and findings of Pomeroy genealogists, as well as primary sources obtained through my own research.
1. GEORGE POMEROY, parentage and ancestry unknown (but very probably descended in the male line from Sir Edward Pomeroy, died 1446), born circa 1710 in Ireland, died Nov. 1776 at or near Roxbury, Chester County (now Franklin County), Pennsylvania. Family traditions handed down by George's descendants and collected in the mid-1800s state that their immigrant ancestor was born in Ireland of a Pomeroy family that had formerly come from England and ultimately come from France, and the same traditions state that he was a merchant in Liverpool who ended up coming to America after escaping from a British Royal Navy "press gang" that had kidnapped him in order to force him into service as a British sailor. After his arrival in America, George settled in Pennsylvania, where circa 1730 he married a woman named MARGARET (NN), born perhaps circa 1712, died probably late in 1777 or early in 1778 in Letterkenny Township, Chester County (now Franklin County), Pennsylvania. Margaret's maiden name and parentage are unknown, though some online family trees erroneously claim that her maiden name was Galloway (a confusion of George's wife Margaret with the first wife of George's son George Jr., who was named Margaret Galloway), while others say her maiden name was Hall (a confusion of George's wife Margaret with the wife of George Vincent Pomeroy (1807-1884), who was named Margaret Hall). George and Margaret had four sons and five daughters.
The history and traditions of this Pomeroy family were first published in 1879 by Major John Means Pomeroy (1823-1887), in his book History of the Pomeroy family from 1572 to 1880. Major Pomeroy supplemented his family's delightful and rather romantic traditions with the fruit of his preliminary genealogical inquiries. Here is his account of the origins and early history of his family, from the first two chapters of his book (emphasis added):
The Pomeroy family are of French origin. The name signifies “Royal Apple.” Through successive generations the stock has become so impregnated with the Scotch-Irish, that the original blood has nearly disappeared, and there is little of the Huguenot left to us except the name. Descended as we are from these two races of people, we have a right to be proud of the ancestry from which we spring. . . .
The most remote ancestor to whom our branch of the family trace their origin, was a classical teacher who was employed as a tutor in the family of a French nobleman in Paris, at the time of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, in August, 1572. His education and position must have made him a man of some importance at the gay capital of France among the Protestants, as he was a marked man by the Roman Catholics. A daughter of the nobleman in whose family he was teaching, and who may have been a Roman Catholic, conveyed to Pomeroy, for whom she had formed a strong attachment, intelligence of his dangerous position, and succeeded in getting him to the sea shore, where he went on board a fishing vessel bound for Ireland, where he landed in safety. The lady who had thus been instrumental in saving his life, joined him in time in Ireland, and they were married. They were entirely without means, and they supported themselves by teaching. Some of the descendants of this couple located in Liverpool, England, where they became merchants and dealers of different grades. A connected list of the descendants of the French teacher has not been preserved, or at least cannot now be found, and hence we cannot trace his genealogy perfectly to the present generations. But we know something of the history of Thomas Pomeroy, the first, who was his descendant according to his own testimony, in Europe, and know more about the latter part of his life in America. He was a merchant of moderate business and means in Liverpool. The circumstances of his leaving England for this country, as detailed by himself, were these: After closing his store one evening he was out on the street at a very late hour with some of his companions, who were all in a hilarious mood from the effects of a little too much liquor, when he was seized by a “press gang” who were forcibly drumming up recruits for the British Navy. England was at war at the time and was aspiring to be master of the ocean, as indeed she was, and for the great number of ships of war she had afloat, she had no adequate supply of seamen, and to obviate this difficulty she inaugurated a system of impressment into the Navy, which always caused uneasiness and terror throughout the kingdom. She enforced this cruel and arbitrary system for a century or longer, and even claimed the right to search the vessels of other nations for seamen whom she alleged had deserted from her Navy. . . .
Thomas Pomeroy doubtless shocked by finding himself, much against his will, and contrary to all his business arrangements, an enlisted man in the British Navy, appears to have become suddenly sobered by the surprise and capture, and asked his captors to accompany him to his store, where he determined to play the agreeable to them, and try if possible to make his escape from his embarrassing and uncomfortable position. When, at length, he succeeded in getting them to imbibe sufficiently to put them soundly asleep, and got the last man put away under the counter, he provided himself with Seventy Pounds Sterling in cash, and with this went on board of a merchant vessel lying in the harbor, and bound for America, on which he had previously shipped some goods to this Country. He had a letter conveyed to his partner advising him of his adventure, and in a few hours the ship left the port of Liverpool, and he was moderately safe from a life he appears to have dreaded. From the fact that he was shipping goods, and had been trading somewhat with this Country, it is possible that he contemplated an early removal hither, and the event was only hastened by his misfortune on the night in question. The means he employed for his escape, and the presence of mind he displayed in the emergency, show that he was a shrewd man, and capable of surmounting serious difficulties when thrown in his pathway.
Arriving in America, which was then and for half a century thereafter, a colony of Great Britain, visions of the British Navy, and his possible arrest as a constructive deserter, appear to have disturbed his mind, and it is said he determined to locate where neither officers of the army or navy would be likely to encounter him. He apprehended that his name would be returned to the government as one who had been regularly impressed into the service, and had made his escape before being formally placed on duty, and knowing how relentlessly the impressment system was enforced against delinquents, he determined, if possible, to find a place of security. Hence he located in what must then have been a wilderness, near the North Mountain, and near where the village of Roxbury was subsequently built. He changed his business and became a farmer, instead of a merchant as he was in Liverpool. It is quite probable that he changed the orthography of the name to Pumroy, in which way it was spelled until 1856. It was spelled Pomeroy by the family in Europe, and by all the branches of the family in America, and never was spelled in any other way by any portion of the family, except ours. He may have wished to disguise his name in his secluded retreat. There is no evidence of this, and it is only conjectured. It may be as well to state just here, that all the members of the family agreed in 1856 to restore the original mode of spelling. The branches of the family in Kentucky, Illinois and Western Pennsylvania had corrected the orthography prior to that date.
Thomas Pomeroy, the first, settled among the earliest white settlers of Lurgan township, about the year 1730. I have searched the records of the Land Office at Harrisburg to ascertain the date at which he first acquired title to his real estate, but found no record whatever there. He may either have held it by possession and location [i.e., squatting], or he may have purchased the right of another party. It is certain, from evidence I have found elsewhere, that at a very early date he owned a large body of land on what is now the road to Newburg, about two miles below Roxbury. At the time of his location there he could as easily have had lands in the limestone part of Cumberland Valley, which is now much more valuable than the farms North of the Conedogwinet creek, but the early settlers in the valley believe the slate land was superior to the limestone part of it, besides being much better watered. Hence the first settlements are said to have been made along the North mountain. There appears to have been no marked event in the history of the first Thomas Pomeroy after his landing in America, or at least history and tradition have given us none. He appears to have pursued the even tenor of his way, quietly cultivating his farm, living at peace with his neighbors and fulfilling all the duties of a good citizen. He raised a large family, eight children, four of whom were sons, and four daughters, survived him. He died about 1770. I hoped to get the date of his death more accurately from the records of Cumberland County, which at that date embraced Lurgan township, but learned with regret that the Recorder’s office at Carlisle was destroyed by fire in 1776, together with its contents. I found there the account of Thomas Pomeroy who was the administrator of his mother, widow of the first Thomas, from which it appeared that she died in 1777. Her name was Margaret.
His sons were named Thomas, John, George, and Samuel. His daughters’ names I have not been able to get, but one was married to a Mr. Doyle and another to Mr. Duncan, both of whom lived and died in Pennsylvania. Thomas Pomeroy, his oldest son, remained on the old homestead, but the other sons went westward at an early date. John first located in Westmoreland county, Penn’a, where he became a very prominent citizen. He was Colonel of a regiment in one of the Indian Wars, and so distinguished himself that he was afterwards familiarly known as “the Indian Killer.” . . . George A. K. (Apple King as he was called), removed to Jefferson County, Kentucky, where he died. His descendants are scattered over Kentucky and the West, and so are the descendants of Mrs. Doyle and Mrs. Duncan. Of the others I have no specific information, except of our immediate ancestor Thomas. . . .
. . . That what we have is authentic, as far as it goes, there is no question, as the circumstances attending the removal of the first Thomas Pomeroy to America were stated by him to his children and grandchildren, and by them to their children, quite a number of whom are yet living. . . The history of our remote ancestor, the Hugenot (sic) and teacher, was derived from Thomas Pomeroy the first, and is no doubt authentic.
Like many other Protestant American families, our Pomeroy family came to believe that they were of French Huguenot origin -- but in almost every case, these traditions of Huguenot descent are false, and such is the case here. In fact the Pomeroy surname is of French derivation, and the Pomeroy family (or families) in England were of Norman descent. That is the basis for the tradition that the Pomeroys were of French extraction. The Pomeroys, however, were never French Calvinists, but long before the rise of Protestantism in Europe they had been established in England and probably Ireland. Where the old traditions of our Pomeroy family were primarily in error, however, was in the Christian name of the immigrant ancestor -- his grandchildren and great-grandchildren misremembered his name as "Thomas," whereas in fact it was "George." That mistake, of course, explains why Major J. M. Pomeroy had so much trouble finding documented evidence of "Thomas" Pomeroy the immigrant. There is no record of a "Thomas" Pomeroy in the early records of those parts of Pennsylvania, but plenty of land records of a "George" Pomeroy (Pumroy, Pumery) as well as George's will, dated 5 Oct. 1773. This sort of garbling is common in family traditions. Most likely this family remembered that the immigrant had a son who was named after the father, but they forgot which son it was -- it was the third son, George, not the eldest son, Thomas, who was named after the immigrant.
These old Pomeroy traditions next appeared in print on pages 248-256 of Biographical Annals of Franklin County (1905), compiled by George Overcash Seilhamer. The Pomeroy genealogy published in that volume correctly traces the lineage for fourteen generations from George Pomeroy down to John Means Pomeroy's son Albert Nevin Pomeroy (born 1859), father of William McLellan Pomeroy and John Nevin Pomeroy. Albert Nevin Pomeroy was no doubt the person who provided his genealogy to Seilhamer for inclusion in his volume. The Albert Nevin Pomeroy genealogy provides the following account of George Pomeroy's life and family:
(I) GEORGE POMEROY (born probably in Ireland -- died in Letterkenny township in 1776) was the first of the name to settle in the Cumberland Valley, and was the ancestor of the Pomeroy family of Franklin county. He was a taxable in old Lurgan in 1751, but lived in what is now Letterkenny township. The Pomeroy tradition is that their emigrant ancestor was Thomas Pomeroy, a merchant of Liverpool, who was seized in the street by a "Press gang" for service in the Royal Navy, but succeeded in putting his captors to sleep by plying them with liquor, and making his escape to a merchant vessel in the harbor bound for America. There is no record evidence relating to Thomas, but the will of George Pomeroy, of Letterkenny, dated Oct. 5, 1773, and probated at Carlisle Nov. 6, 1776, proves he [i.e. George] was the progenitor of the family. His name in his will is spelled Pumroy. The name in Europe is always Pomeroy. The late Maj. John M. Pomeroy conjectured that Thomas Pomeroy changed the spelling of his name as a disguise in case of pursuit; the inference is still stronger that he dropped the name Thomas and called himself George Pumroy. This spelling was retained by some members of the family until 1856, when the return to the old form was made uniform. Mr. Pomeroy married Margaret (surname unknown), who died on the Letterkenny homestead, in 1777. They had issue:
1. THOMAS (II).
2. JOHN (III).
3. GEORGE remained on the homestead. He served with Capt. John McConnell's marching company of Col. Abraham Smith's battalion, in the campaign of 1778.
4. ELIZABETH married Charles Boyle.
5. MARY married Robert Reed.
6. HANNAH married John Wallace.
7. MARGARET married David Duncan.
8. ISABEL married John Carmichael.
Shown here is the top half of the first page of George Pomeroy's will, dated 5 Oct. 1773. The discovery of George's will greatly increased the amount of information available on this Pomeroy family, and, in particular, it showed that George's Christian name had been misremembered by his descendants as "Thomas." Toward the bottom of this image, one may see the name of our ancestress Elizabeth, George's eldest child, and Elizabeth's husband Charles Boyle.
The next published work on the George Pomeroy family was Edwin Moore Pomeroy's History and Genealogy of the Pomeroy Family and Collateral Lines (1958), which was published by Albert Nevin Pomeroy's sons William McLellan Pomeroy and John Nevin Pomeroy. The aim of the 1958 Pomeroy Genealogy was not only to bring the Pomeroy line up to date, but also to attempt to identify George Pomeroy's ancestry in Ireland and England. However, as will be explained further on, the updated 1958 genealogy most regrettably misidentifies our George Pomeroy and thus attaches an impressive but entirely erroneous genealogy to him. In fact, even apart from the erroneous misidentification of our George Pomeroy, it is now known that the research of Edwin Moore Pomeroy's professional genealogist Margaret R. Falley includes some deliberate misrepresentations of key evidence on Falley's part. Even so, the 1958 Pomeroy Genealogy briefly restates the abovequoted family traditions several times. First, in the Preface on page XXI:
Tradition regarding George Pomeroy who came to Pennsylvania circa 1729-1830 (sic - 1730), gives him an Irish origin, descended from a French ancestor, who being a Protestant, escaped from France during the religious revolution at the time of the Masacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572, and landed in Ireland where he settled and married. Thus tradition had it that this earlier ancestor was a French Huguenot.
Nothing is known of this man's descendants until the advent of George Pomeroy, who was said to have arrived in Pennsylvania from Liverpool, where he had been a "small merchant", at the time he was captured by a British Navy impressing gang, from which he escaped to a vessel about to sail for America, taking with him £70.
A member of the present generation . . . stated that, "It is believed George Pomeroy came to Pennsylvania unmarried, and as he settled in a Scotch-Irsh community, it is presumed he and his wife came from the same area in Northern Ireland." Some weight was given to this conjecture by the fact that a town named Pomeroy is located in County Tyrone, in Northern Ireland. This town however, was re-named circa 1750, for the Pomeroy family of Lord Harberton.
The Pomeroy tradition was first recorded in writing in a brief family history, published in 1879, by J. M. Pomeroy. In this the story of the earliest known ancestor was told in some detail, regarding his circumstances and means of escape to Ireland, as was the tale of George Pomeroy's escape from his captors in Liverpool to an American bound vessel. Nothing however was said in this publication, which located the family in any particular part of Ireland, nor was it known just why or how George Pomeroy happened to be in Liverpool.
Again, on page 66, the Pomeroy Genealogy says:
Tradition in the American Pomeroy family, descendants of George Pomeroy who settled in Pennsylvania, states that George Pomeroy, descended from an earlier Pomeroy who settled in Ireland, settled in Pennsylvania, circa 1730, after being a partner in a business of merchandising in Liverpool, England, when he was captured by a British Navy impressing gang, from which he managed to escape to a vessel about to sail for America.
Finally, on page 77 the Pomeroy Genealogy says George "was captured by a British Navy impressing gang, from which he escaped to a vessel about to sail for America, to which place he had priviously (sic) sent goods."
It should be noted that in reiterating these early traditions (which have been found to include a large kernel of truth), the 1958 Pomeroy Genealogy always refers to this family's immigrant ancestor as "George" Pomeroy, even though his name in the family tradition was erroneously handed down as "Thomas." Falley never once mentions the tradition's garbling of George's Christian name, which probably (contra the above quoted speculation that Thomas changed his name to George to evade recapture by the Royal Navy) was simply a misremembering of which son of the immigrant ancestor had been named after his father -- as noted above, it was the third son, George, not the eldest son, Thomas, who was named after his father. As explained in the above quoted 1905 Pomeroy genealogy, this error was not detected until the 1773 will of George Pumrey had been found. Falley then silently replaced the erroneous "Thomas" of the tradition with the correct "George" of history. Her reason for this elision -- this misrepresentation -- of the Pomeroy family tradition was no doubt to strengthen her conjectural identification (now known to be false) of our George Pomeroy as a certain "George Holmes Pomeroy" who was born circa 1709 in Pallas, County Cork, Ireland (for if George's descendants had correctly remembered his name, it would increase the veracity of their other traditions about him and their ancestry). However, George Holmes Pomeroy died young and without any issue after 7 March 1726 (when George Holmes Pomeroy is named in the entail of his father's estate) and prior to 28 March 1741 (when George Holmes Pomeroy is named along with two of his sisters as "dead" in the will of his father Thomas Holmes Pomeroy).
Falley's arguments and evidence that she brought forward in support of her fanciful identification of our George Pomeroy as a member of the Holmes Pomeroy family are presented on pages 74-81 of the 1958 Pomeroy Genealogy. The flaws and misrepresentation in Falley's research are discussed and explained at the Pomeroy Connections website and in the Wikitree profiles of George Holmes Pomeroy and George Pumery/Pomeroy. Thomas Holmes Pomeroy of Pallas, County Cork, Ireland, and his wife Andriah (Audriah) called their sons "Holmes Pomeroy" to indicate that they were the heirs and representatives of Lieut. Samuel Pomeroy. But there is no evidence that our George Pumery/Pomeroy of Pensylvania ever used the second surname of "Holmes." Indeed, the early family tradition of George Pumery of Pennsylvania at no point includes mention of the Holmes family.
Most conclusively, the male-line descendants of George Pumery/Pomeroy have been shown by DNA testing to have a Y chromosome (Pomeroy DNA Project Haplogroup R-M269 Mode 06e PA1745) that is relatively close to the Y chromosome of the Eltweed Pomeroy family (Pomeroy DNA Project Haplogroup R-M269 Mode 06b Beaminster 1617: (Eltwid)). Thus, George Pumeroy had a direct male-line ancestor in common with Eltweed Pomeroy -- their male-line ancestries must join up at some unknown point in the Middle Ages, say, circa 1400. But if George Pumery were the same as George Holmes Pomeroy, then his descendants would have had a Holmes Y chromosome rather than a Pomeroy Y chromosome. Thus, it is absolutely certain that our Pomeroy family was not descended from Thomas Holmes Pomeroy and his maternal grandfather Samuel Pomeroy (though Samuel was very probably a distant cousin of our family in the male line.)
Although Falley's conjectural ancestry of George Pomeroy has been found to be erroneous, her analysis of the veracity of our Pomeroy family's traditions is plausible and tantalising (1958 Pomeroy Genealogy, pages XXI-XXII, XXIII-XXIV, XXV):
A genealogist is in a difficult position when dealing with tradition which has been passed by word of mouth for 300 years (1572-1879). Almost certainly such tradition has altered through faulty memory, conjecture and interpretation, in the course of nine or ten generations and thus must be stripped of all but the simplest primary facts of nationality, place of residence and religion. At the same time curiosity tempts the genealogist to test the details of tradition, to prove or disprove them.
In weighing the evidence, it can be concluded that the primary fact regarding George Pomeroy; the knowledge in the family that he was of Irish origin, may be accepted, as only a little over a quarter of a century elapsed between the death of George Pomeroy and the birth of J.M. Pomeroy who wrote the family history in 1879, at an advanced age, and the elders of the present generation had the tradition of Irish origin firmly impressed upon them.
But the story of the sailing from Liverpool was confusing to the present generation, whereas it was the one element in the case which was no problem to the compiler, for to her certain knowledge, Liverpool was a common port of embarkation for people from all parts of Ireland, who went there in small vessels, to set sail in larger ships for the long trip to America. . . .
The tradition that George Pomeroy was a "small merchant" in Liverpool, means to the compiler the simple fact that he had found employment in Liverpool while awaiting space on an American bound vessel. His having been captured by a British Navy impressing gang and having escaped to an American bound vessel would indicate that he was well aware of conditions at the dock and perhaps was intending to sail on the very vessel to which he escaped.
But what of the tradition that the first Pomeroy, of French origin, escaped from France to Ireland at the time of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572, the implication being that as a Protestnt he was a Huguenot, and what of the later "assumption" that he must have settled in the north of Ireland? This was a challenge. Would a French Protestant escape to Ireland in 1572? Definitely that was one of the last countries he would choose, for in 1572, Ireland was almost solidly Catholic. The English who under pressure by Queen Elizabeth had been sent or encouraged to go to Ireland for purposes of settlement in order to take the country for the Protestant English government, were in 1572 afraid of their lives and were concentrated with few exceptions, largely in a small area around Dublin called the "Pale" which gave rise to the present expression "outside the Pale", the territory referred to being all of Ireland, continuously at war against Protestant aggression. The north of Ireland was not opened to Protestants until most of Ulster was confiscated from the Catholic earls and James I planted it after 1600 with Scotich and English. The Huguenot records in Ireland show that they did not begin to settle in Ireland until the middle of the 17th century, after the Revolution of 1641-1656, a bloody war of the Irish Catholics against English Protestant aggression. The detailed Huguenot records give lists of the early members of the first settlements with considerable genealogical material included. No Pomeroy was among them.
The next step was to locate any and all Pomeroy families in Ireland which were there previous to 1700 and there to a time including the possible lifetime of George Pomeroy's father. An examination by the compiler of the indexes of all classes of published records of Ireland from the time of Henry VIII to 1750, commissioned searches of the records of the principal repositories, followed by the compiler's personal search of these repositories in Ireland, for the same period, revealed the fact that no Pomeroy was settled in Ireland before 1641. . . .
The rarity of the Pomeroy name in Ireland greatly aided the search. Every Pomeroy record in every repository was examined. Only two Pomeroy families were settled in Ireland after 1700 and both were in County Cork. One was the family of the Very Rev. Arthur Pomeroy who came to Cork in 1673 and whose descendant became Lord Harberton. In this family, fully traced, there was no George Pomeroy until a generation later than the one being sought.
Upon examining the records in the Registry of Deeds, one deed dated 1726/7, was that of a Thomas Holmes Pomeroy, of Pallice, County Cork, who entailed his estate, in trust for his eldest son; naming his three younger sons, the fourth son being George Pomeroy (sic -- George Holmes Pomeroy) who was to receive none of the estate unless he survived his three older brothers and their males heirs. . . .
Falley then proceeded to suggest that our Pomeroy family's romantic traditions of religious persecution and flight were garbled memories of 1) Lieut. Samuel Pomeroy of Pallice's arrival in Ireland during the Irish Revolution of 1641-1656, and 2) the role that Samuel's ancestor Sir Thomas Pomeroy of Berry Pomeroy played in the failed Western Rebellion of 1549 in which English Catholics in the west of England tried to defend themselves from the depredations of the Protestants. That, however, stretches the bands of credulity well past the breaking point. There is simply no reason to believe that our Pomeroy family's "French Huguenot" tales had any basis in fact beyond the known Norman French origin of the English Pomeroys. Furthermore, since our ancestor George Pomeroy certainly was not a Holmes Pomeroy, there are no grounds to search the ancestry of the Holmes Pomeroys to find plausible explanations for our Pomeroys' version of the standard American "Huguenot myth."
Since the descendants of Lieut. Samuel Pomeroy of Pallice have been eliminated as possible ancestors of our Pomeroys, the only other known candidates are the family of Rev. Arthur Pomeroy, the Pomeroys of Ingsdon -- and it is likely significant that "George" appears more than once as a given name in that branch of the Devonshire Pomeroys. Although Falley could not find our ancestor George in that family, George may nevertheless have been related to Rev. Arthur Pomeroy in some way that can no longer be substantiated by surviving historical records. On the other hand, even Lieut. Samuel Pomeroy of Pallice could have been accompanied by another member of his Pomeroy family of whom no record survives, or there was some other Pomeroy family in Ireland that is unmentioned in surviving records -- George's ancestry may trace through some such unrecorded family. It could be that George's parentage and ancestry will forever remain a mystery.
Be that as it may, we can turn now to the 1958 Pomeroy Genealogy's account of George Pomeroy, found on pages 147-148 of that volume. This account is completely accurate at every point except for the stated date and place of birth of George. It was George Holmes Pomeroy, not our George, who was born circa 1709 at Pallice. Our George was born circa 1710 somewhere in Ireland, probably in County Cork, but not at Pallice since he was not a Holmes Pomeroy. Here, then, is the 1958 account:
1. GEORGE POMEROY was born about 1709 at Pallice, County Cork, Ireland. (See Irish-English ancestry in Part 1). Arriving in America about 1730 he first settled, for a short time, in Nottingham Twp., Chester County, Pa. which township at that time was in dispute, as to territorial jurisdiction, between Pennsylvania and Maryland. George and other Irish colonists left Nottingham Twp. and established a permanent home in the Cumberland Valley near Roxbury, Pa. which originally was also in Chester County. Later (1729) Lancaster Co. was carved from part of Chester, Cumberland from Lancaster (1750) and Franklin from Cumberland (1784) since which time Roxbury has been located in Franklin Co. of which Chambersburg is the county seat.
George was engaged in farming, first in Nottingham Twp. and later at Roxbury until the time of his death. He married Margaret (_____), by whom he had eight children of record whose names are listed below in the order named in their father's will, except Isabel, listed between Margaret and George, Jr. She married John Carmichael about 1760; their daughter Mary being born June 13, 1762. A fourth son, Samuel, is mentioned in our first Pomeroy Family book (1879) but not in George's will hence, he must have died unmarried before his father. There may have been other children who died young. Thomas, John and George, Jr. all served in the Revolutionary Army. George, Jr. was named in his father's will as co-executor of the estate with his mother -- it may be he was older than some of the other children. He apparently migrated to Kentucky before his father's death as Thomas, whom we definitely understand was the oldest son, handled the estate as administrator after George, Sr. died in November 1776.
The children of George and Margaret Pomeroy were:
2. i. Elizabeth, b. ca. 1730
3. ii. Mary, b. ca. 1731
4. iii. Thomas, b. in 1733.
iv. Hannah, b. ca. 1735; m. John Wallace. They had three sons and six daughters. They went to Kentucky. No further record.
5. v. Isabel, b. ca. 1740.
6. vi. John, b. in 1745.
7. vii. Margaret, b. ca. 1747.
8. viii. George (Geo. A.K.), Jr., b. ca. 1751.
ix. Samuel, d.y., not mentioned in father's will.
George Pomeroy made several land purchases in Pennsylvania over the decades. On 22 Feb. 1742, George requested a re-survey of 150 acres in Nottingham Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, in order to ascertain the property lines, intending to purchase or rent 100 of those acres. On the same date, George received a warrant for 20 acres and 150 acres that were surveyed. Then on 10 April 1750, George obtained a warrant for 100 acres of land in Chester County, Pennsylvania. On 20 May 1768, George applied to purchase 150 acres in Letterkenney Township, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and in the following year, on 3 April 1769 he applied to purchase 300 acres on the Conemaugh River adjoining the property of his son John Pomeroy and his grandson John Duncan -- those 300 acres were in Derry Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Finally, on 21 March 1771 George conveyed 323 3/4 acres in Conemaugh, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, to his son John Pomeroy.
George made his will on 5 Oct. 1773, and his will was proved 6 Nov. 1776, showing that he had died either in late October or early November 1776. The text of his will and probate here follows:
I George Pumery Senior, of the Township of Letterkinny in the county of Cumberland, in the province of Pennsylvania Yeoman being far advanced in years, & observing as well the certainty of Death, as the uncertainty of the time and Manner thereof, & being deserious to settle my concerns in this life, while the Almighty is graciously pleased to continue my health & capacity being now through his mircy of perfect sound, & disposing mind & memory, do therefore make, publish, and declare this my last Will & Testament, in manner following - that is to say. First, I will & order all my just debts & funeral expences to be fully paid & discharged. -- next -- I give and bequeath to my beloved Wife Margaret one third part of all my lands whatsoever & wheresoever during her Natural life, and also exclusive thereof I give & bequeath to her my said Wife one third part of all my personal estate. -- I also give & bequeath to my Daughter Elizabeth Wife of Charles Boyle one Shilling Sterling. -- I also give & bequeath to my Daughter Mary Wife of Robert Reed one Shilling Sterling. -- I also give and bequeath to my son Thomas Pummery the sum of five Shills. Pennsylvania currency. -- I also give and bequeath to my Daughter Hannah Wife of John Wallace one Shilling Sterling. -- I also give and bequeath to my [son] John Pummery one Shilling Sterling. -- I also give & bequeath to my Daughter Margaret Wife of David Duncan on Shillg. Sterlg. I also give & bequeath to my Daughter Isabel Wife of John Carmichael One Shilling Sterling. And I give, devise, & bequeath to my Son George Pummery all & singular the right, residue & remainder of my Estate both real & personal whatsoever & wheresoever, excepting my Wife's Bed & Furniture, a dark bay Mare two years old, & her saddle which I farther give & bequeath to her my said Wife. And, lastly, I do hereby Nominate, constitute & appoint her my said Wife & my said Son George Pummery Executors of this my last Will & testament, hereby revoking all former & other Wills by me heretofore made. In Witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand & seal the 5th. Day of October, in the year of our Lord 1773.
George W (his Mark) Pumery [Seal]
Signed, sealed, published, & declared by the above named Geo. Pumery Senr. as & for his last Will & testament, in the presence of us who have hereunto subscribed our names as witnesses in the presence & at the request of the said Testator.
Daniel Duncan, Alexdr. Peeples, Mattw Henderson
Be it remembred that on the Sixth Day of Novr. 1776 Letters testamentary were granted to Margaret the Wife of the Decd. & George Pomery executors named in the last will & testament of the decd. of which the foregoing record is a true copy. Inventory & accompt to be exhibited in time appointed by law.
Witness my Hand Willm Lyon DJ. Regr.
George's widow Margaret survived him by only a year or two, dying at the home of her son Col. John Pomeroy. On 19 March 1778 in Letterkenny Township, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, letters of administration were granted to "Thomas Pumroy" to oversee the estate of his mother "Margaret Pumroy." Thus, Margaret must have died in late 1777 or early 1778. Thomas filed an account of Margaret's estate on 20 May 1779. George and Margaret were buried in Middle Spring Cemetery near Shippensburg, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.
This index entry shows that Thomas "Pumroy" was granted the administration of the estate of his late mother Margaret "Pumroy" on 19 March 1778, showing Margaret had died in 1777 or early 1778.
The children of George and Margaret Pomeroy were:
2. ELIZABETH POMEROY, born circa 1730 in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.
-- MARY POMEROY, born circa 1731 in the Cumberland Valley near Roxbury, Pennsylvania, died circa 1731 in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, married Robert Reed.
-- THOMAS POMEROY, born circa 1733 probably in Nottingham Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, died 1803, married twice.
-- HANNAH POMEROY, born circa 1735 in Chester County, Pennsylvania, married John Wallace.
-- ISABEL POMEROY, born circa 1740 in the Cumberland Valley near Roxbury, Pennsylvania, married John Carmichael.
-- COL. JOHN POMEROY ("the Indian Killer"), born circa 1745 in the Cumberland Valley near Roxbury, Pennsylvania, died 16 Feb. 1809 near Derry, Pennsylvania, married Hannah Graham.
-- MARGARET POMEROY, born circa 1747 near Roxbury, Pennsylvania, married David Duncan.
-- GEORGE POMEROY JR. ("George Apple King"), born circa 1751 in the Cumberland Valley near Roxbury, Pennsylvania, died 1821 in Louisville, Kentucky, married twice.
-- SAMUEL POMEROY, died young.
2. ELIZABETH POMEROY, daughter of George and Margaret Pomeroy, born circa 1730 in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, died perhaps in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. Elizabeth married circa 1748 to a fellow Scots-Irish settler named JOHN KIRKPATRICK, born perhaps circa 1745 in Ireland, died circa 1754 in Pennsylvania. Elizabeth had John had a son and a daughter, but John died untimely, and Elizabeth then remarried circa 1755 or in 1756 at Fort Du Quesne (Pittsburg, Pennsylvania) to CHARLES BOYLE, parentage and ancestry unknown, born circa 1725 in Ireland, died perhaps circa 1825 in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. As a boy, Charles came to America in 1735 with his uncle Henry Boyle and settled in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, which at first encompassed much of western Pennsylvania. Charles and Elizabeth had four daughters and one son, besides the son and daughter that Elizabeth had by her previous husband. A genealogy weblog called The History of Our Dad mentions that Charles "came from West Virginia, and Pennsylvania before the birth of Washington" and that Charles and his wife Elizabeth "were married at Fort Du Quesne, now Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, immediately after its surrender to the English."
A detailed account of the family of Charles Boyle and his wife Elizabeth (Pomeroy) Kirkpatrick was presented on pages 149-150 of History and Genealogy of the Pomeroy Family and Collateral Lines (1958), by Edwin Moore Pomeroy, published by William McLellan Pomeroy and John Nevin Pomeroy. That account reads as follows:
2. ELIZABETH 2 POMEROY (George) b. ca. 1730 ; m. (1st ) a Mr. KIRKPATRICK who died while a young man leaving his widow with two children; m. (2nd), ca. 1755 or 1756, CHARLES BOYLE, who was born in Ireland and when a young lad, came to the country in 1735 with an uncle, Henry Boyle, landing at Philadelphia whence he proceeded to settle on the Juniata River, where he worked at his trade of blacksmithing, a necessary and respected one in those early days, before joining a band of young men who were going to the Indian Territory (now state of Oklahoma [sic]) where he stayed for several years. He returned to the Juniata settlement and married Elizabeth who was, apparently, then living in that part of Cumberland County which later became Mifflin County, home of the Kirkpatrick family. However, Charles, Elizabeth and their family moved to the western part of Pennsylvania, first to that part of Bedford County which later became a section of Huntingdon County, and again to the section of Westmoreland County, also formed earlier from what was formerly part of Bedford County. The Pa. Archives, 3d series, Vol. 22, page 346, records that Chas. Sr. and Chas. Jr. both took out Warrants of land in Huntingdon County, June 6th, 1794.
The Pennsylvania Magazine, p.303, names men, women and children - or some of them, who were at Fort Pitt, (Pittsburgh) in 1760 for safety on account of the Indian uprising. Among those named were Charles and Elizabeth Boyle and three of the latter's children, namely, Rebecca Kirkpatrick, Elizabeth and Margaret Boyle. At his youthful age we would assume that Moses Kirkpatrick was also there even tho' he was not specifically listed. Charles Jr. was not born at that time and the same was evidently true of his sisters Mary and Catherine.
Charles, Sr. served (1) as a private in the Revolutionary Army; (2) in the Battalion of Frontier Rangers - Bedford County and (3) in the Militia of Huntingdon County in 1788. Charles, Sr. was once captured by Indians and tied down to be burned later but with the aid of a friendly Indian, who obtained a horse for him, he managed to escape. In getting away he was discovered and a tomahawk thrown at him. It hit him and the injury resulted in his loss of eyesight. However he managed to escape and it is said that he lived to be over 100 years old. We do not have the dates of his and Elizabeth's deaths.
The children of Elizabeth (Pomeroy) Kirkpatrick were:
i. Moses, b. ca. 1750; served in Rev. Army 1777-1779 with Fifth Battl., Cumberland County Militia. He migrated to Kentucky where he was killed by Indians on an unknown date. No record of his being married and having survivors.
ii. Rebekah, b. ca. 1753; m. a Mr. KOONTZ and raised a family near Louisville, Ky. of whom we have no trace.
The children of Charles and Elizabeth (Pomeroy) (Kirkpatrick) Boyle not necessarily in the order of birth were:
9. iii. Elizabeth b. ca. 1755
10. iv. Margaret
11. v. Mary
vi. Catherine m. CHARLES QUIREY. They first settled in Kentucky but moved from there to Missouri.
vii. Charles, Jr. b. Jan. 17, 1766.
A few notes should be made regarding this account of Charles Boyle's life and family. First, in his day "the Indian Territory" did not yet refer specifically to Oklahoma, but rather designated any or all of the lands west of European settlement. Charles and his companions may have gone as far west as Oklahoma, but may rather have spent those years in the areas of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Second, in later family tradition the anecdote of Charles' near fatal encounter with hostile Indians came to be attributed to Charles' son-in-law John Reaugh, but evidently pertains to Charles rather than John. Finally, The History of Our Dad relates a tradition that Charles Boyle's stepson Moses Kirkpatrick went to Kentucky in 1790 and married, but met his death at the hands of Indians (probably Shawnee) in this way: "When Moses Pomeroy [sic - Kirkpatrick] was out hunting, being some thirty miles from his home, he was shot and scalped by the Indians. His dog returned and whined about his mistress until she became alarmed about her husband. Some men then accompanied the dog to the place where his master was murdered, but found no trace of him."
The children of Elizabeth (Pomeroy) Kirkpatrick Boyle were:
-- MOSES KIRKPATRICK, born circa 1750 in Pennsylvania, killed by Indians in Kentucky, married (NN).
-- REBEKAH KIRKPATRICK, born circa 1753 in Pennsylvania, died in Kentucky, married (NN) Koontz.
-- ELIZABETH BOYLE, born circa 1755 in Pennsylvania, married (NN) McDonald.
-- MARGARET BOYLE, born circa 1759 in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
-- MARY BOYLE, born in Pennsylvania, married (NN) Dunn, a Presbyterian minister.
-- CATHERINE BOYLE, born in Pennsylvania, married Charles Queary.
-- COL. CHARLES BOYLE JR., born 17 Jan. 1766 in Pennsylvania, died after 1835, married three times.
Pomeroy Genealogy Resources:
The Pomeroy Family: a few twigs from a large tree, website of Pomeroy researcher Annie J. R. Pomeroy -- begun in 1997, this site reflects the genealogical research into the Baronial Family of la Pomerai. Pomeroy Branches (Twig II) People & Places, additional website of Pomeroy genealogical researcher Annie J. R. Pomeroy. Pomeroy Connections, website of Pomeroy genealogical researcher Alma LaFrance. Samuel Pomeroy of Pallice, County Cork, explaining the flaws and errors in the 1958 Pomeroy Genealogy. Descendants of George Pomeroy, Pennsylvania Pomeroy DNA Project Pomeroy Genetic Family B Mutation History Tree Wikitree: George Pumery Find-A-Grave: George Pomeroy, originally with spurious "Holmes Pomeroy" surname. The History of Our Dad", Chapter 12: Roots: Ireland and the Revolutionary War, including Boyle and Pomeroy genealogical traditions. History and Genealogy of the Pomeroy Family and Collateral Lines (1958), published by William McLellan Pomeroy and John Nevin Pomeroy.