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Northampton, and especially All Saints' Church, is of peculiar
interest to those from the United States of America. The
connection between the early settlers of Virginia and New England,
and the one time mayor of Northampton is now well established.
Lawrence Washington, born c. 1500, was mayor of Northampton in
1532 and 1545, and is a direct ascendent of the Washingtons of
Virgina. He resided at Sulgrave Manor in Northamptonshire.
It is also a little known fact that the mother of President George
Washington was Mary Ball, a descendant of a family most prominent
in the life of All Saints' Church in Elizabethan and early Stuart
days. The incumbent of All Saints' in the early part of the 17th
century was Thomas Ball, and several Ball families were prominent
parishioners. From one of these, the mother of George Washington
was descended. |
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There are many entries in the registers of All Saints' relating to
the family of a certain Daniel Washington in the reigns of James I
and Charles I, but his exact relationship to the head of the
family has never been quite clear.
As to the New England pioneers, Thomas Dudley, deputy to John
Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts and afterwards his
successor in that office, was once a parishioner of All Saints',
his wife being the daughter of Edmund Yorke of Northampton. He was
the son of Captain Roger Dudley (who served under King Henry of
Navarre, and was killed at the battle of Ivry) and is supposed to
have been born in or near Northampton.
Besides the Washingtons and the Dudleys, the names of many
families of early Virginia and New England appear in the registers
of All Saints'. Indeed, one of the early counties of Virginia was
named Northampton, and that one of the early towns of
Massachusetts received a similar designation.
On April 30, 1789, George Washington, standing on the balcony of
Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York, took his oath of office
as the first President of the United States.
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"As the first of every thing, in our situation will
serve to establish a Precedent,"
he wrote James
Madison,
"it is devoutly wished on my part, that
these precedents may be fixed on true principles." |
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