American Families

of

Historic Lineage

Long Island Edition

Issued under the Editorial Supervision of

William S. Pelletreau, N.M.

Member of the New York Historical Society

and

John Howard Brown

Vol. 2

National Americana Society

New York

(UNDATED)

Carman

"You had not your name for nothing."

Shakespeare.

"In the lists of names of persons entered into Domesday-Book, "holding lands in the time of King Edward the Confessor" (A.D. 1041-1064), we find a John Seaman and a John Karman (also as Carman), living in the county of Surrey, in adjoining hundreds, and where the respective families were "possessed of domains, manors, and others of the forms of properties of that time" (viz., 1042), and with this year the authentic records and tracings of these families begin. There is no mention of either name in the Domesday records of any of the other counties embraced therein.

Both names, however, appear in much earlier periods in the annals of Britain. Carman is in the genealogies of the Bishops of Mercia, 670-796; and is mentioned by Bede, the first historian of England. It is also found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and charters and in the time of Alfred the Great, 871-901. Seman (Seaman) also appears in these early records, and according to the Chartae Anglo-Saxonica, "Chartae Anglo-Saxonica-Code Diplomatica Avi Saxonicim," etc., etc., by I.K. Kemble; 6 vols., 1839-48, there was an Anglo-Saxon or Norse sea chief of great power and wide fame of this name, and in a letter from Mr. Owen Seaman, the present brilliant editor of London Puck, he says "the tradition is that the Seaman's are of Norse origin."

These data bring both names very near to the beginnings of Saxon rule in England in the fifth century, and also indicate that both families must have been of the leading and influential families for some time prior to 1042, as also in 1085-86, the years in which the Domesday Book census was taken, by order of William the Conqueror.

Domesday Book is the chief source of knowledge we posses of the state of England in the time of the Norman conqueror. This precious historical document, or census, is still preserved in the British Museum. According to its showing the population of the kingdom of the time of this conquest was probably about two millions. Of this total, about twenty-five thousand are recorded as serfs or slaves, who had no legal rights. About two hundred thousand more are recorded in three divisions, designated as villeins, bordarii, and cordarii, or cotters. These distinctions, however, disappear in the course of the centuries following.

As yet the population in towns or Burroughs was quite small. The towns were about eighty in number, and mostly were villages in size. The important towns were very few. According to careful estimates made of Domesday Book, the number of burgesses or freemen (of Burroughs) was about 25,000, representing with their families about 150,000 persons. These were virtually the owners of all the lands (lordships) - the lords of the land - outside of the domains held by (or of) the king.

That both of the families were of consequence is also shown by the Domesday entries, "John" Carman and "John" Seaman - both having a first Christian name in the time of the Confessor (1042), and which was something very unusual at this period. "It is impossible", says Arthur ("Christian and Family Names, Their Origins and Meanings"), "to state at what precise period names became stationary, or began to descend hereditarily, in baptismal form." According to Camden, Sur (or Sir) names with a first or Christian name prefix began to be taken up in France just before A.D. 1000, and in England just before the beginning of the reign of the Confessor, A.D. 1042.

In the Domesday records of 1085-86 both are entered as "holding lordships in Surrey in 1042,’ and this seems to imply that the John Seaman and John Carman of 1085-86 were the same individuals of record in 1042.

Mr. James Turner, in his "History of the Anglo-Saxons," dwells interestingly on the origin of names from some root or simple form, and which by some suffix or addition of a word becomes a compound, but leaves the sense exactly where it was before.

Names compounded with Man, says Forsterman, a foremost authority on the origin and meaning of personal and surnames, are of vast antiquity. We trace them, says another eminent authority, Ferguson ("Science of Surnames"), "to our Aryan ancestors" - to the cradle of the human race, from which begin the awe-inspiring onward and ever onward march which after its descent into the valley of the Tigris spread it branches over India, Europe, Britain, and, cross the broad Atlantic, founded and reared the mightiest republic in the history of the world. In Dr. Joseph P. Widney’s monumental volumes, "The Race-Life of the Aryan Peoples", says the New York Sun, he author "has transversed a field of historical inquiry never, so far as we know, traversed before in systematic order. Beginning in the Asiatic period in the life of the Aryan races, he outlines in chronological order the various immigrations into India, southern and western Europe, and finally into America, from all of which has resulted what we know as ancient and modern civilization." And, says, the Rev. Dr. Taylor, in "Words and Places", the roads they took and the empires they founded may be traced by the names and the places they once inhabited; from the names of the hills they once fortified; of the rivers by which they dwelt; of the distant mountains upon which they gazed, and by the names of the terminals which still exist, and the tenacity with which the names they gave adhered to them, throwing light upon history when our records are in doubt.

Man, with our Aryan forefathers, meant something far beyond the mere man as we now apply it. With them it implied elevation of mind, noble qualities, superior wisdom, and manly heroic traits, and, as a compound in names, gives a clue to their sources, significations, and vast antiquity. Solomon the all-wise flourished 1000 B.C.; Roman or Romaus, German, Norman, Semanus, Khap or Kapman (Chapman), Aleman, Angleman (English or Engleman), Bodman, Wakeman, are more or less ancient forms of compounds. Chapman implies a chief; Bod (Bode) man, an illustrious envoy or representative of high rank.

"Carman", says Lower, in "Patronymica Britannica", a dictionary of family names of the United Kingdom, and "Seaman" are very ancient personal names. Carman", he says, "is not the derived from the occupation." Seaman, however, has its origin from the Aryan Sae, and compounded with man meant a sea chief or sea hero, and both Carman and Seaman as personal names are found as early as the fifth century before Christ, and therefore have a record of twenty-five hundred years (see authorities on names).

Car, or Kar, signifies a castle, stronghold, or fortified place. The so-called Scotch name Car or KarMichael (Carmichael) means the castle or stronghold of Michael. The name Carman is found in the account of Alexander the Great of his expedition to India (B.C. 331), in which he speaks of King Carman, ruler of an extensive province in Asia along the northern side of the Persian Gulf. Strabo (vol. xv, pp. 726, etc.), Pliny (vol. vi, pp. 23, etc.), and Ptolomey (vol. vi) and others of the ancient historians (Nearchus’ "Voyages", also "History of the Wars of Antioch and Ptolomey") have interesting details of this king and his domains, then known as Carmania, which appears to have comprehended the coast line of the modern Laristan, Karman, or Kerman, and Moghostan. The inhabitants of Carmania were called Carmanii, or Karmanii and appear to have been warlike, high-spirited, and independent race, and, according to Strabo, well advanced in the arts and sciences (see also Smith’s "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography").

In the chapter on surnames in the above work, it is shown that John Carman and John Seaman are recorded in the Domesday records of the county of Surrey (1085-86) as having held lordships in the same county in the first year of the reign of King Edward the Confessor, A.D. 1042. This seems to indicate that the John Carman and John Seaman of 1085-86 were the same as those of the record of 1042. Neither of the names appear in the Domesday records of any of the other countries. In 1096 we find a John Seaman and a John Carman in the list of "Sir Knyghtes Crusaders" of "The First Holie War", and as neither name is found in the records of any other county but Surrey, we are justified in assuming these as descendants of the Carman and Seaman holding lordships 1085-86 and 1042.

This brings us to the beginning of the twelfth century, and by the middle of which we find both family names in the records of the adjoining counties, Kent and Sussex. Both are in Battle Abbey charters, as the quotations elsewhere given show, and in other contemporary rolls and records. Then we find in both the Cinque Ports records (and again illustrations of the remarkable chain of coincidences in the histories of the Carman's and the Seaman's) - and in which we find John and a Henry Carman, and several John Seamans in the list of the historic Cinque Ports sea captains.

At Seafort, County of Sussex, as has been shown, a family of Seaman resided for three and a half centuries and many of them of the daring mariners who laid the foundations of England’s pre-eminence as "Rulers of the Seas".

In the thirteenth century the Carmans are found in the Hertfordshire records. They are not in Kent, nor Sussex, nor Surry. In Sussex they, however, reappear in the fifteenth century. This line became extinct a century later. In the thirteen century we find the main or parent line of the Carmans in the second historic census of England in the time of Edward the First - the Rotuli Hundredorum, or hundred rolls, A.D. 1273, and recorded as owners of desmesnes (domains), manors, and properties at Hemel Hempstead. Henry Carman is the recorded owner of these properties, and according to the same records his wife was Matilda.

In the next following centuries the Carmans are of the record as holding the same domains and manors in Hemel Hempstead. In the adjoining hundred of Hitchin a branch of the historic Kingsley family acquired land about the middle of the fourteenth century, and one of the descendants, William, in the early part of the fifteenth century married Elizabeth Carman of Hemel Hempstead.

The Hemel Hempstead domains and manor of 1273 descended from Henry and "Matilda, his wife", from generation to generation, from sire to son, and then in the fourteenth generation from Henry and Matilda, and 333 years from the census record of 1273, in the year 1606, and event occurred of pre-eminent interest in the annals of the Carman family of this century. In this year 1606, as the official records show, there was born in Hemel Hempstead John Carman, the Puritan father who came in the ship "Lyon" in 1631, the Puritan ancestor of the American family of the name. A year prior among those who came in the "Winthrop fleet" was a John Seaman, the Captain John Seaman of historic fame, as set forth in the history of the Seaman family, and with this John Seaman of 1630 and John Carman of 1631 begins another series of remarkable coincidences - the American series, so to speak.

The county histories and various reference authorities named at the close of this chapter contain the more or less extended details of the Carman lineage from Henry Carman of 1273 and on. He was ancestor to Thomas Carman, born 1517, in Hemel Hempstead, and of the tenth generation from Henry Carman, and eighteenth from John Carman of Domesday Book (1085-86) and time of Edward the confessor (1042).

William, brother of Thomas (born 1517), was also born in Hemel Hempstead, and both brothers later on are of the foremost of the leaders of the Puritan cause - among the earliest of the "godly martyrs" who, regardless of the cruel and fiendish threats, stood forth bravely, eloquently and unflinchingly as champions of human rights, and in consequence were burned at the stake. William Carman was the first of the two brothers subjected to such a revolting death, in 1557; "with God in his heart and a song of praise to God on High, this saintly man met his end," says and old chronicle of the time (see Bloomfield’s "History of Norfolk" and other authorities elsewhere named). A year later, the same old chronicle, "on the 19th of May, 1558, were these three godly martyrs burned at one fire at Norwich, namely: William Seaman of Mendlesham in Soffolk, Thomas Carman of Herts, and Thomas Hudson of Aylesham."

William Carman, the martyr of 1557, had two sons and two daughters. Both sons died young and the line became extinct, surviving in the female line, and one of the daughters married a Seaman of Norwich (of the line of Sir Peter Seaman, who at the close of the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth centuries was of much prominence and wide influence, and successively alderman, lord mayor, and member of Parliament for Norwich, and a descendant of the William Seaman, the "godly martyr" of 1558).

Thomas Carman, the martyr of 1558 (born 1517), had: Thomas, born 1539, died 1548; John, born 1541; Henry, born 1547; and several daughters.

Of these, Henry, born 1547, had Henry, 1571, and he had Henry, born 1597, who in 1620 was a passenger on the ship "Duty", bound for Virginia. He is of record in the "Muster of the Living in Virginia 1623-4, At James Cittye and the Plantations Thereof," and is in this record as twenty-three years when he came in the "Duty", 1620, thus showing 1597 as the year of his birth. Of him we speak more fully on another page.

John, the second son of Thomas (of 1517), born 1541, had among others: John, born 1563, who had John, 1584, who by wife Abigail _______(?) Had John, born 1606, in Hemel Hempstead, county Herts, England.

John, born 1606, married, 1629-30, Florence, daughter of Rev. Robert Fordham, prominent as a Puritan divine, and who had in consequence suffered imprisonment and fines and deprived of his right to preach - "silenced." John Carman (born 1606) also suffered persecutions and fines, and in 1630, he, his father-in-law, Rev. Fordham, Rev. John Eliot, later of fame as an Indian missionary, and other Puritan neighbors, friends, and relatives chartered the ship "Lyon" and in 1631 sailed from Plymouth, England, and in the same year arrived at New Plymouth, New England, the colony of Plymouth, in Massachusetts Bay.

The compiler had search made of the records of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire (England), for data as to the birth of John, first child born to John Carman by wife Florence, but nothing was found. They had a son John who in colonial records is John "again", born in Lynn (Massachusetts Colony), in 1632, and other brief mentions, indicate a John prior to "John again". This probably is that the first John was born during the voyage, 1631, and either died ere arrival or soon after. We therefore begin the issue of John and Florence (Fordham) Carman with the -

John "again", born in Lynn, July 8, 1632; Abigail, born in Lynn, 1634-5; Caleb, born in Wallingford, Connecticut, August 6, 1638-9, died 1640-41; Caleb "again" born January 9, 1644-5, in Hempstead, Long Island, the first child of white parents born in Hempstead and was blind at birth; Thomas, born in Hempstead, 1646; Joshua, born in Hempstead, 1648-9.

John(1) Carman, father of these, died in Hempstead, 1653. A chair brought by him on the ship "Lyon" in 1631 is now in the possession of Dr. Albro Carman, of New York City.

John(2), John(1) married a daughter of Captain John Seaman. Caleb(2), John(1) also married a daughter of Captain John Seaman. Abigail married Benjamin Coe; he was born in Ipswich (England), 1629, and was brought by his parents, 1634, to New England, and who later on were Hempstead and Newtown (Long Island) and where Benjamin and wife Abigail (Carman) were of the early settlers.

In the above list of children John(1) and Florence (Fordham) Carman the son Thomas is an addition thus far not mentioned in any of the published accounts as a son of the first John. He is mentioned in various accounts and is in official records, but there is no effort to identify him, and somehow, beyond bare mention, he has been ignored.

In 1673, in the official muster roll of Captain Hicks company of colonial militia of Queens county, we find a Caleb and a Thomas Carman. Caleb is identified as the second son of John(2) Carman (son of John(1), who came in 1631). Thomas is recorded as twenty-seven years old, and born in Hempstead, therefore born in 1646. He certainly not a son of John(2)(son of john(1)) who was born in Lynn, 1632-3. Thomas could not have been the son of Captain Henry Carman, who was lost at sea, 1645, a year before Thomas was born.

We omit further details of the search. Suffice it to say that the facts as presented supported by many others gathered here and there, leave no doubt as to Thomas as son of john(1).

In the "Calendar of Land Records of New York" we find an entry as follows: "1684 June 25, Caleb and John Carman and others of Jamaica, on Long Island," petition for "a patent of a certain tract of land lying within the Jurisdiction of the Town of Flushing, Long Island," etc., etc. The Caleb and John of this petition are traced as sons of John(2)(John(1) and therefore of the third generation. Both were born in Hempstead - John(3) about 1656, and Caleb(3) about 1658. John(3), born 1656, married about 1677, Mary Cooper, and among others had a son, William(4), born in Jamaica, 1680, who married a Denton, about 1700-02.

In 1718 (October 8) Richard Combs, constable of Jamaica, presents Hezekiah and Robert Denton, John Stillwell, William Lent, William Carman, and others of Jamaica, "for resistance to the collection of the minister’s rate," "they saying they could do their own preaching much better and free of cost, and also because the tax was imposed without consent of the voters," etc.. On December 12, 1718, the grand jury of Queens county, in an inquisition, presents the Dentons, John Stillwell, William Lent, William Carman, etc., for "unlawful assemblages, riotess behavior and too full use of their tongues," etc., and this indictment seems to have speedy result, for on the day following, December 13, 1718, William Carman and his associate insurgents present themselves before the grand jury and confess themselves guilty of misconduct, and on promise of future good behavior and that they bear in mind to hold their tongues in curb, are forgiven.

This William(4) by wife ______ Denton, whom he married, 1700-02 had: William(5), born about 1703; Elijah(5), born about 1704-5; and others, and daughters: Providence(5), Amy(5), born August 14, 1727 (who in 1749 is of Wallkill, Orange county).

William(5) married Elizabeth Wright and had son William(6), born 1728-9, and in 1760 is in Captain Wright’s company, of Queens county, and in the same company is William McCord. William(6) Carman is recorded in the muster roll of Captain Wright’s company "born in Jamaica" and 27 years old, eyes brown, hair black, height 5 ft. 8 inches, son of Elijah."

William McCord was the son of John McCord, the associate of Charles Clinton in the Orange county settlement, 1729-31, at Little Britain and New Windsor. Charles Clinton was the father of George Clinton, the first governor of New York as a state, and the grandfather of DeWitt Clinton. William McCord married Hannah, a daughter of Elijah Carman. He was born in 1721, and Hannah (Carman), his wife, about 1724. They later on removed to Pennsylvania.

William(6) Carman, who is in the muster roll of Captain Wright’s company, 1760, was the father of William Wright Carman. Among the data of the Carman family collected by the lamented Mr. William Stillwell Carman, we find the following: "William Wright Carman says his great-grandfather’s name was William Carman and at one time, lived in Jamaica, Long Island, and that his grandfather Elijah went with his father to the Mohawk Valley during the French and Indian War (1758), and were captured by the Indians. At the first opportunity they turned on the Indians, took their guns and shot them, and then returned to Albany. One of the guns Elijah Carman gave to his son William, and he to his son William Wright Carman, and he to his son Charles B. Carman."

Elijah(5) Carman, son of William(4), son of John(3), son of John(2), son of John(1) and Florence (Fordham)(Carman), born at Jamaica, Long Island, 1704-5, in 1727 married Elizabeth Bloodgood, born Jamaica, 1708. One account says Elijah(5) by wife Elizabeth (Bloodgood) had eleven children. Another account says they had thirteen, and still another fourteen. In another account it is stated that by Elizabeth (Bloodgood) he had either eleven or twelve children, and my a second wife, Marcy or Mercy Allen (born 1753), he had thirteen or fourteen more, and of these children by the second wife the last child but one was John, born August 22, 1796 and then a Francis, born after this John of 1796: The last named (Francis) lived but two years. We assume 1798 as the year of birth of this Francis, and this would make Elijah(5) ninety-one or ninety-two years of age when John was born in 1796, and ninety-four or ninety-five when Francis was born. Certain it is, however, that Elijah(5) never made such claims, and the decisive proof is that he died in 1769, and his wife Elizabeth the year after (1770). By her he had an Elijah(6), born about 1730. A daughter Elizabeth(6), was born either before or next after this Elijah(6). The other children were William, Joshua, Jonathon, Daniel, Nathaniel, Jeheil, Thomas, Caleb, and three daughters, the Elizabeth(6) above mentioned, and Catherine and Sarah. In Mr. William Stillwell Carman’s record he has an Elisha, but this is unquestionably an error and should be Elijah. Of these, Caleb died young. Joshua went to Dutchess county and was ancestor of the first line of Carmans in that county, and six of his sons at different periods of the war of the Revolution served in the patriot army.

Elijah(6), born in Jamaica, Long Island, 1749, removed to Monmouth county, New Jersey, where he married Mercy (not Marcy as given in some records) Allen; she was born in 1753 at Middletown Point, New Jersey (now called Mattawan) and died December 25, 1831.

Elijah(6) served in the famous fighting battalion, the First Battalion of the First Regiment of the Continental Line of New Jersey, and of which John Stillwell was quartermaster, both of them credited to the quota of Monmouth county. In the same battalion and same company also were three of Elijah’s brothers - Nathaniel, Daniel, and Thomas. In the "U.S. Census of Pensioners of the War of the Revolution, Living in 1840," Thomas is in the New Jersey list, "living at Pompton, Passaic county, N.J., with Thomas Carman, and ninety years old." He dies the year following, age ninety-one years two months. His son, with whom he past his last days, was born in 1780, and died at Pompton, in his nineteenth year. The four brothers all were present at the battle of Monmouth, Trenton, and Princeton, and in nearly all the minor engagements which were of constant occurrence in Monmouth county. Hardly a month passed without two or three conflicts between the patriotic minutemen of Monmouth and the foraging and marauding expeditions of the British soldiers, or else with companies of sneaking Tories, and the First Battalion or fighting battalion of Monmouth bore the brunt. Many interesting details of these local battles are interestingly described is Salter and Beekman’s "History of Old Monmouth County, New Jersey," and in Mrs. Mary Murray Hyde’s brilliant and fascinating "Historic Families of New Jersey" the heroic and daring deeds of the Monmouth county patriots are eloquently and vividly portrayed. Joseph Murray, the martyr of Monmouth county, was in this historic battalion, and a direct revolutionary ancestor of Mrs. Hyde, at the present time secretary of the New York Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Another brother of Elijah(6) was in Colonel Van Schaick’s regiment, the famous First Regiment of the New York Continental Line; he was killed at the battle of Long Island. Another brother, Joshua(6), who, as above mentioned, removed to Dutchess county, was in Captain Barnum’s Dutchess county company of minute-men and in the same company was Joseph McCord, brother of William who married Hannah Carman, of Jamaica. One of Elijah’s(6) brothers was in Colonel Van Schaick’s First Regiment of the New York Continental Line, and was captured at the battle of Long Island, and held prisoner in the prison-ship lying at the Wallabout. He was shot and killed while attempting to escape, and buried nearby on the shore. Later on his body, with those of the other martyrs, was taken up and all buried in a vault in the Brooklyn navy yard, and after a time again taken up and buried at Fort Green, Brooklyn, and over their final resting place a magnificent monument testifies to the gratitude of their countrymen.

Elijah(6) Carman died in 1804, at the home of his son William, at New Utrecht, in Flatbush, Kings county, Long Island, New York. By wife Mercy (Allen) he had: Amy, born November 1, 1775; Elijah, born February 17, 1780; Polly: Margaret, born 1785; Perry, born 1785; George, born 1787; Phoebe, born December 26, 1788; Patty; John, born August 22, 1796; Francis, died in his second year.

Of these: John(7), born August 22, 1796, at Mount Pleasant, Mount Pleasant, Middletown Point, Monmouth county, New Jersey, who died at his residence at 86th street and Park (or Fourth) avenue, New York City, was the father of

William Stillwell Carman(8), born March 20, 1820, at 54 Ludlow street, New York City. A nobleman by nature and a charming example of a gentleman of the old school, with all this implies, the untiring and ever liberal friend of those in distress, a founder and for many years the chief prop of the Harlem Dispensary and Relief Association. In life a loyal and beloved friend, a devoted husband and tender father, he died in the city of his birth, in his seventy-fifth year, June 11, 1895. He had among others a son William(9), and one Louis Earle(9) Carman.

His son, Louis Earle Carman, of the ninth generation from John and Florence (Fordham) Carman, and 30th generation from John Carman of Surrey England, A.D. 1042-1086, was born June 24, 1863, at 17 East 129th street, New York City. He married, June 1, 1886, in the same city, Gertrude Adele Lent, daughter of John and Mary (Peacock) Lent, and born November 16, 1864, at Melrose, then a suburb, but now included in greater New York, and descended on both paternal and maternal lines from families historic in our earliest pioneer period, in colonial days. Of Louis Earle Carman we have more to say presently. Mr. and Mrs. Louis Earle Carman have two daughters: Gertrude Adele, born September 29, 1890; Dorothy Walker, born October 7, 1894.

Note. - From Atwater’s "Colony of New Haven" we quote the following:

"New Haven Colony trade: was soon established with Boston, New Amsterdam (as New York was then called), Delaware Bay, Virginia, Barbados, and England. Besides commerce with the places which have been indicated, New Haven made occasional ventures with the Canary Islands, and Winthrop has put on record an attempt to share it. We copy from his journal under date of July 2, 1643: ‘Here arrived one Mr. Carman, master of a ship of 180 tons. He went from New Haven in December last laden with clap boards for the Canaries, being especially commended to the Lord’s protection by the Church.’"

The following is a lineage chart of the old and historic family of England and America, from A.D. 1042 to A.D. 1910, based upon the exhaustive searches of over seven hundred volumes of authorities and a large collection of original documents and family data collected by the lamented William Stillwell Carman, founder of the Carman Association of descendants of John and Florence (Fordham) Carman, who came in the ship "Lyon", in 1631:

Arms: Azure, three castles triple towered, two and one, or. Crest: The helmet of a knight, or. (In the account of Alexander the Great, of his expedition to India, B.C. 331, he mentions a King Carman, ruler of an extensive province, whose standard bore a castle.)

Sir Bernard Burke, LL.D., etc. King-at-Arms, etc., author of "Burke’s Peerage," etc. says: "It is among the historic Landed Gentry that the most ancient authentic lineages are found." Carman is found in the genealogy of the kings of Mercia as early as the seventh century (see Ferguson, Bardsley, and Barber on Family Names).

One of this name, says Lower, in "Patronymica Britannica," held a lordship in Surrey in the time of Edward the Confessor (A.D. 1042-1064), and in the Domesday census of Surrey, A.D. 1085-86, John Carman still holds the same lordship, and with him begins the authentic lineage of the Carmans of Great Britain and the American branches descended thereof, as follows:

(1) John Carman, holding a lordship in Surrey, A.D. 1042, and holding the same A.D. 1085-86, as per records in Domesday Book. (2) John Carman of Surrey, in the list of Sir Knights Crusaders of the English contingent of the First Crusade, A.D. 1096. (3) John, 1125, holds same lands in Surrey. (4) William, 1149, son of preceding holds same lands and manor. (5) William, 1171, son of the preceding, is in the Battle Abbey charters. (6) Thomas, 1199, son of preceding, in same records. (7) John, 1224, in Cinque Port Records, and his son, (8) Henry, 1254, in same records, of Harwich and Herts county. (9) Henry, who is clearly traced as son of preceding, is in the so-called second historic census of England, A.D. 1273, the Rotuli Hundredorum or Hundred Rolls. He holds a manor and desmesnes at Hemel Hempstead, and is also referred to as Henry Carman and "Matilda his wife." (10) William, 1299, who succeeds as heir, who has (11) William, born about 1325, who has (12) John, born about 1354, who by wife Ann Stratford has a son (14) Henry, born 1404, who succeeds to the estate as only surviving heir. His son (15) Thomas, born 1429-30, has (16) Thomas, born 1459, who has (17) John, 1482, who among others has (18) Thomas, born 1517; (18) William, born ?, both Puritan leaders and both burned at the stake at Norwich, William in 1557, and Thomas in 1558. With the latter in the same fire was William Seaman, of Mendlesham in Norfolk. Soon after a daughter of William Carman became the wife of a son of martyr William Seaman (see Bloomfield’s "History of Norfolk"; Neal’s Puritan Martyrs," etc.).

Thomas Carman, the martyr of 1558 (born 1517) had three sons - (19) Thomas, born 1539, died 1548); (19) John, born 1541-2); (19) Henry, born 1547.

Of these, Henry, born 1547, had Henry, who had Henry, born 1597, who in 1620 went to Virginia in the ship "Duty" (see Hotton’s "Original List of Emigrants from 1600 to 1700"). Also see account of him in "Makers of the Nation."

We resume the lineage with (18) Thomas, born 1517, who had (19) John, born 1541, who had (20) John, born 1563, who had (21) John, born 1584, who was the father of

(22) JOHN CARMAN, the Puritan Father Ancestor of Plymouth Colony, who in 1631 came in the ship "Lyon" and was of Lynn, where in 1632 he had by wife Florence (daughter of Rev. Robert Fordham) a son John, and in 1634 a daughter Abigail. Next of Wethersfield, colony of Connecticut, and in 1641 one of the original patentees of Stamford, Connecticut, and in 1643, with his father-in-law, the committee who negotiated a purchase of about 20,000 acres of land on Long Island, extending from Long Island Sound to the Atlantic Ocean, of the Rockaway and Merrick tribes of Indians. In 1644 this purchase was confirmed to himself (John Carman) and six other Englishmen. Of these, one was the noted Captain John Seaman, who in 1641 was co-patentee of Stamford. In 1644 John Carman was one of the five first families that settled on this patent - all but one of the families being of or from Hemel Hempstead, England (county of Hereford), and the settlement was named Hempstead (originally New Hempstead), and the first child born in the infant settlement was Caleb, son of John and Florence Carman. We now resume the lineage with

John Carman, the Puritan ancestor and Pilgrim father, who came in the "Lyon", in 1631, and who is number (I) of the American lineage. His son

John (II), born in Lynn, 1632, married Hannah, daughter of Captain John Seaman. His brother Caleb, the first born in Hempstead, married another daughter of Captain John Seaman. He had

John (III), born in Hempstead, 1656-7, who by wife Mary, daughter of Simon and Mary Cooper, had

William (IV), born in Jamaica, Long Island, in 1680, who among others had

Elijah (V), born in Jamaica, in 1704-5, who by wife Elizabeth Bloodgood, born in Jamaica, 1708, had

Elijah (VI), born in Jamaica, about 1749. Removed to Monmouth county, New Jersey, where he married (Marcy or Mary Allen ?), born 1753. He died 1804, and his wife in 1831. He and his brothers Nathaniel, Daniel and Thomas served in the historic fighting First Battalion of Monmouth county, taking part in three of the great battles (Monmouth, Princeton, and Trenton) and a score of minor ones, and this Elijah (VI) is the Revolutionary ancestor of Mr. Louis E. Carman, now a resident of Nutley, New Jersey.

Elijah Carman (father of Elijah VI), son of William (IV), took part in the colonial war (the French and Indian war), 1758.

We resume the lineage with Elijah (VI), who had among others

John (VII), born in Monmouth county, New Jersey, August 22, 1796. He served in the war of 1812, and died in New York City. He had among others

William Stillwell Carman (VIII), philanthropist, founder of the Carman Society of Descendants, one of the early captains of industry in New York City, etc., born March 20, 1820, in New York City, and died there June 11, 1895. He had among others:

William (IX).

Louis Earle Carman (IX), born in New York, in 1863. Married Gertrude Adele Lent, also descended of a historic American pioneer family. They have Gertrude Adele, born September 29, 1890, and Dorothy Walker, born October 7, 1894.

These searches cover a period of over three and a half years, partly in combination with searches of other families, and in round figures represent examination of nearly 750 volumes, including the extensive manuscript data gathered by the late William Stillwell Carman."

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