In July 1686 there arrived together in Massachusetts two persons, the Reverend Charles Morton and his pupil Samuel Penhallow, the first of whom was to play a part in the public life of the province, the second to be a Commanding figure in New Hampshire, founder of an eminent family that still continues.

Charles Morton was born at Egloshayle in 1627, his mother a small heiress, Frances Kestle of Pendavy. At Oxford he did well academically but, a serious youth, became a Puritan - at Wadham, of all colleges - and during the Protectorate was intruded into the rectory of Blisland. At the Restoration he was ejected and went to London, where he founded the celebrated Newington Academv-a highly esteemed school for Dissenters, which included Defoe and Sanuel Wesley among its pupils and many of the principal Dissenting ministers. Calamy says of him that "he had indeed a peculiar talent of winning youth to the love of virtue and learning, both by his pleasant conversation and by a familiar way of making difficult subjects easily intelligible."

Harassed by the bishop of London's courts, Morton decided to leave for New England with young Penhallow and a nephew, another Charles Morton who, as a doctor, was a useful recruit to the colony. Another nephew had preceded them-so among the Massachusetts Mortons there is Cornish blood. Morton had been given an expectation of becoming president of Harvard but, for fear of offending the authorities, was disappointed of it. He set on a school which, with his talents, threatened to become successful; so the Harvard authorities, no better than the bishop of London, made him give it up. Instead, he became minister of Charlestown, where his preaching was highly esteemed and where he was the first minister to perform marriages, hitherto regarded as a civil rite. A kind man, without resentment, Morton made himself useful to Harvard, became a Fellow and eventually vice-president. He exerted himself actively for the college, and lectured on scientific subjects. His manuals on science and logic were used as text-books at Harvard far into the eighteenth century, and he left the college a bequest in his will. In the politics of the commonwealth he followed the dominant line of the Mathers. It is to be regretted that he did not know better than to follow them into the odious prosecutions for witchcraft at Salem, but religion misled him into this. He founded an association of the leading ministers of the province to meet at Harvard everv six weeks for spiritual counsel and mutual support. A prolific writer on religious and biblical themes expounding, for example, the text from Jeremiah on "the stock in heaven knoweth her appointed times" - he wrote more usefully on the improvement of Cornish agriculture by the use of sea-sand.

Samuel Penhallow, born at St. Mabyn July 2, 1665, was the son of Chamond Penhallow and Ann Tamlyn. Of good family, he bore a coat of arms: vert, a hare argent; for crest, a goat argent, horned or. He was also of virtuous youth: the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel proposed to support him for three years while he learned the language of the Narragansetts to become a missionary to the Indians. Moving to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he had a better -at any rate, a more paying -idea: he married the daughter of the president of the colony, Mary Cutt, who was an heiress, and made a fortune out of trade with the Indians. He became the largest landowner in the colony, for his wife "inherited from her father a valuable patrimony, part of which was land whereon a large portion of the town is built." By 1722 he had acquired the largest estate in Barrington, Some 750 acres. With his wife's money he was enabled to engage successfully in trade; and encouraged by the sexual prowess of hare and goat, so prominent in his coat of arms, he knocked up a family of thirteen by his wife before she died, fairly young,- when he married again, a widow by whom he had another son. So the Pcnhallows have increased in New England, whereas they have come to an end in Cornwall.

This energetic man proceeded to play a leading part in the public affairs of New Hampshire for the rest of his life. His father-in-law, President John Cutt, the wealthiest man in the province, welcomed the reliable Penhallow into the charmed circle of the Great House and from the first leaned upon him in matters public and private. Penhallow's entry into the colony's governing, class - he came from as good family as they - opened the way for his trading ventures. He had come with the idea that the setbacks from which the colonists suffered were punishments for their not caring, for the spiritual welfare of the Indians; he soon found that trade was better. After making a success of that he proceeded, with firm and confident step, to occupy nearly every important office in the state.

In August 1699 he was made justice of the peace, in September speaker of the General Assembly, in December treasurer of the province - an office which he held for the rest of life, except for a year's absence in England. In 1702 he became recorder of the province and a member of the council; in 1714 a judge of the Superior Court; in 1717 Chief Justice, while from 1719-22 he was also recorder again. His career proceeded without contretemps except for a moment when the governor was absent and the lieutenant-governor took on himself his powers. Penhallow objected and was suspended; shortly after the governor. re-appeared and restored the faithful Samuel. As recorder he kept a careful record of the colony's troubles with the Indians, and in 1726 he published The History of the Wars of New England with the Eastern Indians. It is largely a harrowing recital of Indian atrocities - no conception that the Indians were being inexorably pushed out of their own lands; but then, when did Puritans ever see anybody else's point of view? The book has its small authentic place in early American historical writing, and Samuel Penhallow his as an historian. His public career, involved in all the actions of those times, - coincided with the history of the province-which it is not my purpose to write.

His first wife, by whom his good fortune came, died in 1713. He pays her a tribute of modest pride: "her attire was always neat and handsome, an utter enemy to anything gay or fashionable; as she was not so modist as to be first in fashion, neither was she so singular as to be the last out of it." He himself died, aged sixty-one, in 1726. He left to his "well beloved wife £150, with free liberty of carrying away with her whatever she brought." To the six surviving younger children he left £300 each, the eldest son, John, to maintain them out of the estate until they were twenty-one. He had already provided several lots of land for these children. There were small bequests to the family, £5 to the poor and £5 to the pastor. Then he added a codicil: "instead of wine, gloves, tobacco and pipes, which are usually expanded on such occasions [his funeral], I order £5 more to be added" to his £5 for the poor. Samuel Penhallow's estate was inventoried at £1904 1s. 4d. so the proportion for the poor was hardly excessive.

Tle family tradition is that there was an eldest son. Samuel, who went to England, married there and remained there - if so, he was disinherited; that there was a daughter Phoebe who married four times and had a numerous progeny. What we know for certain is that son John, born in 1693, succeeded to something of his father's place. He carried on the family trading connections under the name of John Penhallow and Company. In 1711 his father had made him clerk of the Superior Court. In 1719 he was engaged in making a new settlement to the east, sixty miles east of Piscataqua. This brought on further fighting with the Indians, and we find young Captain John Penhallow serving against them and carrying the war eastward.

John's second son married a daughter of Hunking Wentworth - Mark Hunking had served on the council with Samuel Penhallow - and had eleven children. A younger son of this marriage married Harriet Pearce and had a family of six. After many years as a shipmaster, Hunking Penhallow entered business at Portsmouth. For his last twelve years he was member of either council or senate of New Hampshire, and was one of the Committee of Safety during the Revolutionary War. His youngest son, Benjamin, followed family tradition and became a judge of the Court of Sessions. In the fifth generation Captain Pearce W. Penhallow followed his father to sea and commanded a ship in trade with the Southern States, about 1850. While another member of the family, about the same time, joined the gold-rush to California, starting a San Francisco line.

Thus they spread. All these names - Penhallow, Hunking, Pearce - are Cornish. We may observe in this group the apparent eugenic fact that the expansive circumstances of life in the New World in general favored a much larger increase of stock than in the Old.

EXTRACT FROM UNKNOWN BOOK FROM 19th CENTURY

Samuel Penhallow was born, probably at Tregaddock his grandfather Tamlym's house, on 2nd July 1665, His father Richard Penhallow, of whom he, was the second son, was the representative of an ancient family, deriving their name from Penhallow in Filleigh, which they had for centuries possessed. His mother, the second wife of Richard Penhallow, was Mary, the daughter of Walter Porter of Launcelles, by Gertrude daughter of Richard Chamond, son of Sir John Chamond, who was sometime Steward for the Priory of Bodmin.

Chamond Penhallow was of puritan proclivities, and was intimate with Charles Morton, who sometime held the rectory of Blisland during the interregnum; and when that gentleman established a school at Newington Green, co.Middlesex, young Penhallow, in 1683, was, placed under his care. He continued at Newington for about three years, when the school was broken up because the Ecclesiastical authorities did not consider it proper that dissenters should be allowed to take part in the education of the young. Penhallow made diligent application to his studies, and by his progress and conduct gained the affection of his master, consequently upon the latter determining to emigrate to America he was invited, with others, to accompany him, to which, with the consent of his parents, he acceded and arrived in New England in July 1686.<> Before Penhallow left England, the New England Society for the Propagation of the Gospel [1] offered him £20 a year for three years if he would acquire a knowledge of the Indian language, and promised him £60 a year afterwards for life if he devoted himself to the Ministry and preached to the Indians at times.

Soon after their arrival in America, Mr. Morton had an invitation to take charge of the Church of Charlestown, which he accepted, and young Penhallow accompanied him thither. The political troubles, however, which took place in Massachusetts about that time, discouraged him from entering the Ministry, and he removed to Portsmouth. Soon after his settlement there he married Mary daughter of John Cutt, a native of Wales, at that time President of the State. She inherited from her father a valuable patrimony, a part of which consisted of a large tract of land upon which the town of Portsmouth was built. Mr. Penhallow engaged in trade and accumulated a large fortune. He lived in a style superior to most of his fellow-townsmen, exercising hospitality on a liberal scale. He acquired great influence, and taking an active part in the management of the town, was soon made a Magistrate, in which office he displayed great prudence, Promptness, and decision character. He was appointed by the House of Representatives of Deeds. In 1714 he was made Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature, and in 1717 Chief Justice of the same court, which office he held until his death. It is said that "a strong mind improved by education added to his long acquaintance with public business, enabled him to discharge the duties of the office with as much credit to himself as could be expected from any one not bred to the profession of the law." Mr. Penhallow likewise held the office of Treasurer of the Province for several years. His last account was rendered to 9th November 1726, and-he died at Portsmouth on 2nd December in the same year, aged 61 years and 5 months. By his first wife, who died in 1713, he had 13 children.

His son, John, was Clerk of the Superior Court at Portsmouth in 1729, and Registrar of the Court of Probate there from 1731 to 1735, in which Year he died. He married a daughter of Hunking Wentworth, and had two sons, John, who, in 1770, was the largest taxpayer in Portsmouth, and Samuel, who is called the "good deacon." John had two, probably three, sons: Hunking, Benjamin, and perhaps Thomas W. (Wentworth?) it is related that "Benjamin Penhallow one day saw a lady who stopped at Mrs.Parker's, on her way to Portland. He sought an introduction, and in due time was married to Susan, the daughter of Colonel William Pearce of Gloucester. They were visited by a young lady, Miss Harriet Pearce, daughter of David Pearce of Gloucester, and Hunking Penhallow took her for his helpmeet. When Miss Mary Beache of Gloucester was afterwards on a visit to Mrs. Hunking Penhallow, she was first seen by Thomas W. Penhallow, who became her husband. This matrimonial alliance with Gloucester made him acquainted with his second wife, who was half-sister of Hunking Penhallow's wife." [2]

These particulars of a Cornish worthy and native of this parish, and the extension of the pedigree annexed, collected from sources not readily accessible, will be of interest to Cornish genealogists, as shewing the continuation with credit in the New World of an ancient Cornish family, which, as far as we know, has become extinct in the Old.

Chief Justice Penhallow, in 1725, published in Boston, a History of the Wars of New England with the Eastern Indians. The first edition of this work having become exceedingly scarce, in 1859 it was reprinted in Cincinnati.[3]

ARMS OF PENHALLOW: - Vert. a Rabbit squat, ar.

[1] This Company was first formed under a pretended Act of Parliament in 1649, but, through the influence of Sir William Morice, Secretary of State, was incorporated, by letters patent dated 7th February 1661-2, (Rot.. Pat. 14th Charles H., part 2, No. 17.) under the title of "The Company for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England and parts adjacent" The Company acquired a considerable extent of lands, including the manor of Eriswell in Suffolk, and its funds have considerably accumulated. By a Decree in Chancery in 1836, Canada, as being the part of the British Dominions nearest adjacent to New England, was placed within the limit. of the operations; of the Company. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to say that this Company is quite distinct from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which was not incorporated until 1701.The New England Company is little known.

[2] Brewster's Rambles about Portsmouth, p. 340.

[3] Bibl. Cornub, vol. ii,

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