Villains

On Friday night Doug got home early and we headed downtown to one of Sacramento's brewpubs for an early dinner, so we could catch a 6pm movie at the old Tower Theater.  Surely you've heard of the now defunct Tower Records.  Well, that business started right down there by the old Tower Theater in Sacramento.  Anyway, the movie we went to see was, "There Will Be Blood."  Daniel Day-Lewis won the Best Actor award for playing the villain, Daniel Plainview in this film, and yes he is a pretty despicable villain!  So, since I've been busy with my jury duty service, I decided to post this article that Doug wrote about a villain in his family history.  I'll be on jury service for another three weeks.

George Barlow- My Favorite Family Villain

So where are all the black sheep, the villains, in the family tree?  Surely we have them.  But with the hundreds of wonderful or at least solid and stolid ancestors, why don’t we hear more about the bad ones.  Is it because we are afraid to admit we are associated with them and we edit them out?  Is it because we want to forget about evil? Probably the records of the bad are erased from the record book more often than not. But it’s not a bad idea to remember that evil is present, may be nearby, and that it takes the will of people to oppose and defeat it.  In genealogy, we are rarely treated to a story of a truly bad person. Here’s one from my genealogy, preserved because the New England Puritans were such good record keepers.  In this story, my direct ancestors, including George Barlow, are in italics.  Don’t worry, it’s PG rated.

The Puritan migration to Massachusetts went full force from 1630 to 1640, and then stopped.  New England was filling up, and a new heresy had arrived from England—Quakerism, converting many.  The Puritans of Boston hated the Quakers who, like themselves, were outsiders and non-conformists, just newer ones.  The Puritans persecuted them viciously, including the hanging of Mary Dyer and three others in 1660.  But that’s another story.

Quakers settled in the Plymouth Colony towns of Sandwich, Barnstable, Yarmouth, and Dartmouth and of the early Quaker settlers was Daniel Wing, an original member of the Spring Hill Friends Meeting, in 1659, the first in New England. Because Quakers did not believe in taking the mandatory government loyalty oath, Daniel resisted, and the authorities fined him 5 pounds. They later fined him 10 pounds for refusing to inform on other Quakers (“refusing to aid the marshall”) in Sandwich.  Given that 5 pounds was a year’s wages, these were staggering fines. Daniel protected his property from government liquidation by having his brother administer his estate, thereby effectively declaring himself legally dead in his own lifetime.

The Sandwich marshall that Daniel resisted could only have been George Barlow, who appeared in Sandwich in 1657.  There is no record of his origins.  One observer wrote that Barlow had “not a single good trait.”  He had no wife but several children when he came to town and within a year was made constable, jailer, and special marshall for Sandwich, Barnstable, and Yarmouth.

Colony records show that George Barlow was ordered as constable in 1659 to search the homes of Ralph Allen and two others for evidence that they were associated with the Quakers, because “they may have in their possession papers and writings which are considered scandalous and dangerous to the colony.”

As constable and fine collector, Barlow received a ten percent commission of any fines or property he collected. In addition to taking their belongings, Barlow liked to taunt his victims by confiscating items in a way that hurt the most. Barlow  drove Ralph Allen’s Quaker brother out of town, then took the cow, all the corn in the house, a bag of meal, and the family’s only cooking kettle from Ralph’s sister-in-law, Priscilla, leaving her with no means to cook the food she no longer had.  

But George Barlow’s own house was in disarray.  Three of his daughters-in-law were punished for “cruel and unusual practice” towards George.  He was ordered to return a cow named Daisy that he had taken from his grown daughter Jane Besse in 1662. George’s will bequeaths his land and possessions to the children of his second wife, but only 5 shillings each to the two surviving sons of his first wife (name unknown), Aaron and Moses.  George Barlow clearly did not have the Puritan signs of grace, and was a drunk, to boot.

How did George Barlow  and Daniel Wing end up forever joined on the same family tree?  Barlow’s disinherited son Aaron Barlow married Beulah Wing, the seventh of Daniel Wing and Hannah Swift Wing’s ten children, and became a Quaker himself.  Aaron and Beulah had 6 children and moved down the road to Rochester.  Aaron later served as the town's Deputy to the General Court (the colony’s legislature).  Aaron’s other disinherited brother Moses, married Beulah Wing’s cousin.

As the anti-Quaker hysteria started to recede, by the 1670's, the Quaker pioneers began to reenter the mainstream of colonial life.  King Charles ordered persecutions of the Quakers to stop in 1662.  The Court restored Daniel Wing’s citizenship in 1669 and appointed him to a minor public office (surveyor of highways).

-Doug