James Clayton III, son of James and Mary Bedwell Clayton, married a daughter of John Newell of Kent County; her given name is not known. The only issue of this marriage of which we know was James Clayton IV.
The origin of John Newell has not been discovered. It is known that his mother-in-law was named Mary Warren. However there is reason to believe that the Newells and Warrens of Middlewich, who intermarried, were of the same families as the Newells and Warrens of Kent Co., Del. Warrens had also intermarried with Claytons in Cheshire Co.
James Newell, a Quaker, was in New Castle in 1678, four years before the voyage of the Submission.
On 17 Oct 1682 responding to petitions, the Court of St. Jones Co. (later Kent Co.) awarded grants to a number of settlers, among them John Newell, a grant of 400 acres A John Newell was partner of Nicholas Bartlett in 1685 when they acquired a grant in Motherkill Hundred. John Newell may have been the grandson or son-in-law of Thomas Grove; in 1690 he became executor of Grove's will.
James Newell acquired a number of grants in Kent County and other land by deed, 1680-85.
In 1725 John Newell was a subscriber to a petition for a minister to be sent by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, together with John Clayton, William Newell, and others. We may safely assume that these people were Anglicans. However the Society of Friends was also represented in the Newell family because in 1729 Mary Newell's marriage with John Bowers is recorded at the Duck Creek Monthly Meeting. (John Bowers and James Clayton may thus have married sisters.)
In 1733 and 1734 John Newell conveyed property adjacent to his home to John Thompson and John Hall. One may speculate that these may have been sons-in-law.
In 1740 John Newell made his will.
One of the legatees was grandson, James Clayton (smith). Others were
his three sons: William, John, and Thomas.
witnesses were James Clayton (his son-in-law or grandson?), John
Hall and Rebecca Welsh.
William Newell made his will in 1748, witnessed by James Clayton and Sylvester Tomson. (Note that William Clayton was born ca 1750.) Thomas Newell had died some time earlier. In 1756 James Clayton, blacksmith, conveyed his interest in the Newell property to his uncle, John Newell. In 1759 James Clayton, blacksmith, was conveyed land in Hyde County by his father, James Clayton.
From Benj Warren's 1762 will it would appear that he was father-in-law of John Newell, Jr. (This suggests that John Newell, father and son, each married a Warren.)
During the revolution a Newell appeared in Bute, then Warren County, North Carolina, but it has not been determined whether he may have been a part of the Kent County Delaware family. There is one occurence of the name connected with James Clayton in Craven County in 1771: Robert Newall was surveyor for a grant of 500 acres to James Clayton on the southwest side of the Lower Broad Creek. One of the chain bearers was James Clayton, Jr (James V).
For corrections, comment, or inquiry e-mail Larry Clayton
© 2001