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Ancestors of William Potter

Generation No. 15

      24584. Thomas Bustard, born Abt. 1380 in Nether Ex., Devonshire, England (Source: J. Bonesteel Edson, Edsons in England and America; Genealogy of the Edsons, (Knickerbocker Press, New York City about 1900), See notes for Thomas Bustard.).

Notes for Thomas Bustard:
Historical Notes and Observations
      re: Edson lineage
by H.S.S. Sternberg, after his research taken from the source The Edsons in England and America, by Jarvis Bonesteel Edson.

Assuming that Thomas Bustard of Nether Ex. Commune of Devonshire, England, was born about 1380 (3 generations before Thomas Edson, born about 1480), the recorded Bustard-Edson-Potter-Sternberg-Lopez-Hull-Bell ancestry covers a period of nearly 600 years. The total of 20 generations recorded is unusual.
Jarvis Bonesteel Edson quotes that Cussans (sp.?) asservates (sp.?) "except in a few rare instances, it is utterly impossible to trace a pedigree beyond the time of Richard II (1377-1399). While possible true, I do not include in our direct ancestry the alleged connection, as recorded in George Thomas Edson's Compilations, with the Cromwell-Williams line, which extends back to Thomas, a descendant of Carrodock of Glamorganshire, Wales, record. However, this is not in our direct ancestry, being through a grandniece of our direct ancestor, Samuel Edson, born 1645.

Our earliest recorded direct ancestor was Thomas Bustard, of the ancient family of Bustard of Nether Ex in the Commune of Devonshire, England. The Bustard Arms is described as "argent (silver?), on a fessqules (sp.?) between 3 pellets as many bustards (birds) or, with a border engrailed azure (bustard) impaling, quarterly, 1 and 4. Argent, a chevron engrailed gules (jewels?) between 3 unicorns' heads erased(?) azure (horne)(?) 2 and 3. Ermine, 3 fleur-de-lys gules within a bordure engrailed of the last (Fabian). Crest - a bustard's head argent between 2 wings, between the neck and wings as many ears of corn gules."

Our earliest recorded Edson ancestor was Thomas Edson, who was born about 1480 at Adderbury, Oxfordshire, England. He married Juliana Bustard, one of 6 children of John Bustard of Adderbury, Commune of Oxon, England, and Elizabeth Fox, daughter of William Fox, Gentleman, of Barford Commune at Oxon, England.
Jarvis B. Edson states that the name "Edson" is of Anglo-Saxon origin, being a combination of the word "ed", a variation of the ancient term "Ead," and the word "son," an explanatory suffix, establishing the relationship of a child to a parent (known as Ed, in this case). He also states that "Ead," as an Anglo-Saxon name signifies wealth, prosperity, happiness, joy or bliss. He says, "The ancient family of Ead, whose Anglo Saxon descendants were distinguished by such diversely spelled names as Eade, Ed, Ede, Eades, Eading, Eding, Edson and Edeson, early acquired distinction in Britain through its male representatives by martial prowess and knightly valor. There never was a reigning king of that country, according to a long-current tradition, that was not served by one or more of them mounted, from the coming of the first progenitor titled 'Ead' into Britain to the end of the Middle Ages. Being well born and of official rank, they, when afield in war, had coats of mail, helmets and shields, on each of which the armored ensigns of the family were distinctly displayed. These designative emblems, heraldically title their Arms, had descended from an early point of time to each successive generation, by right of inheritance, and not by special grant or confirmation, for they were possessed long before King Richard III founded, by letters patent, on 3/2/1403, the 'College of Arms' or, as it is more commonly called 'The Herald's College." The family arms of the Eads, Eades, Eds, Edes, and Eedes, as described by Sir Barnard Burke, [Ulster King of Arms, the distinguished author of The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales,] are "azure, a chevron engrailed between three leopards' faces argent." The azure is said to signify "courtesy and discretion" and the argent [silver], "chastity, charity and a clear conscience." The leopards' or lions' faces, styled common charges, are accepted as expressing "fearlessness and courage." The chevron, known as an ordinary charge, is regarded as implying military service, its shape being that of a bow or arch of a saddle. The engrailed or scalloped border of the chevron differences that bearing from one otherwise edged.
The village of Adderbury, in Bloxam Hundred, lies 5 miles south of Banbury, 20 north of Oxford, and 84 miles northeast of London. This was the home of Thomas Edson and of his father-in-law, John Bustard, one of the landed gentry, whose immediate ancestors were descendants of the ancient family of Bustard of Nether-Ex in Devonshire. In the time of William the Conqueror, Adderbury was called "Edburgberie," which J. B. Edson describes as a name strikingly suggestive of its having an origin closely identified with the Ead or Ed family.
The Edson family was old in England. As a family name it is rarely found either in England or the Americas. Jarvis Bonesteel Edson conjectures that as the field of Thomas Edson's career covered a part of the scene of the persecutions imposed by King Henry VIII's changing the church system in England, and Edward VI's sanctioning of the same, he [Edson] may possibly have been made to feel some of the many distressing afflictions of the vindictive spirit of his unjust persecution. The persecution may have been directed against Edson because of his unwillingness to abandon the form of worship to which he had long been accustomed and to which he adhered until the end of his life. He believed his conscientious scruples were right and in no way subordinate to the will of a despotic king. Thomas Edson was a small landowner. His son, Richard Edson, was born at Adderbury, but removed to Fillongley, Warwickshire, where he died. Richard's son Thomas was born and died at Fillongley, where his son, another Thomas, was baptized in 1572. It is said that Thomas Edson was intimately acquainted with some of the immediate kinsfolk of William Shakespeare, whose birthplace was at no great distance from Fillongley. In 1596 he married Elizabeth Copson, and to this union 7 children were born, all at Fillongley, including the direct ancestor to the Potter family, Samuel Edson, born on September 5, 1613. When Samuel was 25 years of age, a settler from the colony of Massachusetts Bay, New England, came to Fillongley. His descriptions of the natural attractiveness of the region and of the many enticing advantages engaged the thoughts of Samuel who realized that however long he might labor to acquire land or other property in England, his efforts would nevertheless be futile, by reason of the unwillingness of the large and small landowners to part with anything. He saw that his only opportunity for advancement in England lay in a chance of his becoming a tenant of a small farm. He also saw that his determination to become a colonist in Massachusetts would permit him to marry Susanna Orcutt immediately. He had plighted his troth before he had given any thought to going to New England. Samuel and Susanna were married in 1638 and sailed on June 1, 1639, arriving at Massachusetts Bay in the middle of July 1639. At Salem their Warwickshire friends who had settled there welcomed them. The first 6 of their children were born in Salem. In 1651 the family moved to Bridgewater, colony of New Plymouth, New England, where the last 2 children were born at Duxbury Plantation. Bridgewater became the family seat of the Edsons in America for the next 2 centuries and from Samuel Edson, designated as Deacon, is descended everyone now entitled to the name now living in the United States.

Deacon Samuel Edson was a millwright. He erected the first corn mill in Bridgewater, where he was a first settler and one of the 5th original proprietors. In 1666 the court appointed him to the Council of War. He represented Bridgewater in the General Court at Plymouth in 1676. His son, Samuel Edson II was born at Salem, Colony of Massachusetts Bay, in 1645. He participated in the Indian Wars against King Phillip. He lived in what was later West Bridgewater, where his father gave him 40 acres. His house, along with 16 other buildings, was burned when the Indians raided Bridgewater on May 8, 1676. In the spring of that year he was a member of a company of 21 soldiers who went out one day to meet another company under Capt. Church. Failing to meet the company, they unexpectedly came upon a party of Indians, fought them, and took 17 prisoners, with considerable plunder. These prisoners were sold for money and the town voted "that the soldiers that took them should have it [the payments]." Samuel Edson II did not marry until about 2 years after the death of Indian chief, King Phillip, and the end of King Phillip's War. In 1678 he married Susannah Byram, one of the 6 children of Nicholas and Susanna (Shaw) Byram. Nicholas was reportedly the son of an English Gentleman from the County of Kent who had removed to Ireland at about the time Nicholas was born. When Nicholas was 16 his father sent him to the West Indies where he was sold to service to pay his passage. After his time expired, he made his way to Weymouth, Colony of Massachusetts Bay, New England. In 1660 he bought 3 original proprietary shares, or purchase rights, in the Town of Bridgewater. Soon after that he and his wife and 6 children moved from Weymouth to Bridgewater. Samuel Edson II became a proprietor of the Town of Bridgewater about 1683. He was a "Selectman" in 1709, 1712, and 1719, and he represented the town in the General Court at Boston in 1697 and 1713.

Samuel Edson III was born in Bridgewater on January 14, 1690. When he was not quite 18 he married Mary Dean who was 20. She descended - on her mother's side - from the family of Oliver Cromwell. At an early age Samuel III turned from Puritanism to the Church of England, and he is regarded as the founder of Trinity Episcopal Church in Bridgewater. On January 23, 1747 he and Mary deeded 14 acres of land at Bridgewater to a Society in England for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts, the income from which was to be appropriated to the support of public worship in the Protestant Episcopal Church in Bridgewater. It was leased to his nephew, John Edson, of Bridgewater, for 999 years, at an annual rental of $21.00 (or Ł21.00). Samuel III and Mary Edson were the parents of 14 children, 13 of whom grew to maturity. Mary and Samuel died in Bridgewater on February 5, 1770 and December 27, 1771, respectively. Their remains are entombed in Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church graveyard.
Samuel III and Mary Dean Edson's seventh child, Obed Edson, was born in December 31, 1720, and married in 1741 Keturah Willis, daughter of Jonathan and Abigail Willis. They had 5 children. Keturah died in 1750 and on May 21, 1751 Obed married Martha Thomas at Middleborough, Province of Massachusetts Bay, and they, too, had 5 children. Martha died in Richfield, Otsego County, NY, on December 6, 1795. Obed moved to Taunton, Massachusetts, at some period and in 1776 sold that property. He died at Richfield on September 8, 1804. The records of the first census of the United States, in 1790, do not show an Obed Edson as head of household in New York or in Plymouth or Bristol Counties of Massachusetts Bay. That census shows two Obadiah Edsons as heads of families in Berkshire County, Massachusetts.

Obed I and Keturah Edson's son Obed II, born May 12,1747, moved to Ashfield, Franklin County, Province of Massachusetts, soon after his marriage to Prudence Fiske on April 22, 1769. Their first two children, Prudence and Obed III, were born at Ashfield on March 4, 1771, and May 6, 1772, respectively. Their 6 later children were born between June 19, 1774 and July 25, 1785 at Lanesborough, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, not far from the Massachusetts - New York state line. It appears, therefore, that they moved with their first children from Ashfield to Lanesborough sometime between May 6, 1772 and June 19, 1774. Obed II purchased land at Lanesborough in 1782, '83, '84, and '86. He conveyed land there in 1789 and 1790. The records of the Church of England in Lanesborough show that he was elected chorister in 1773, '74, '75, '76, '81 and '82, and elected warden in 1781-83 and in 1786. His brother Lewis was elected chorister (choirster [?]) in 1781 and '82. His brother Thomas also moved from Bridgewater to Lanesborough. Obed II's wife, Prudence Fiske, died at Lanesborough and Obed II married, in 1794, Sarah. The Church of England's records show that Obed II's second wife, Sarah, was baptized there on August 10, 1794. He was elected 2nd vestryman of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Richfield on 5/20/1799, and his named appeared for the last time on the vestry in 1814. There were no children from his marriage to Sarah.
It is said he lived one half mile north of Monticello, or about 2 miles southwest of Richfield Springs, on the right side of the road running northward, first in a log house, afterward in a frame dwelling which later was occupied by his son, Stephen Fiske Edson. Obed II's wife Sarah died at Richfield in 1824 and he died there in 1840 at the age of 94.

Obed III first married Aurora Higgins, but she died with no issue, and in 1794 he married Fanny Thankful Bigelow, one of the 21 children of Elisha and Thankful (Beebe) Bigelow . They were parents of 3 children, one of them Obed IV. In the May 19, 1796 issue of the Otsego Herald or Western Advertiser, there is listing of Obed Edson III, being in the clothing business at Cooperstown. On August 8, 1798 he, a merchant of the town of Richfield, gave a mortgage to George Fraligh and John Bartlett, to secure payment of $747.54 on several pieces of land lying in the town of Richfield, in Schuyler's Patent. On January 17, 1801 he bought an acre of land on the Chenango River in the town of Hamilton (later called Eaton), Madison County, New York, and erected there a cloth-dressing works. Obed III died at Hamilton on August 16, 1804.

Following Obed III's death, Fanny Bigelow married Maj. Samuel Sinclair. Maj. Sinclair had served 3 years in the American Revolutionary Forces. He'd been at Monmouth and other battles and had suffered with the army during the winter of Valley Forge. He also had served in Gen. Sullivan's campaign against the Indians on the New York - Pennsyvania frontier in 1789. He was one of the first settlers of Hamilton (Eaton). Sternberg estimates he was at least 16 years older than Fanny Bigelow Edson.

On December 28, 1797, Obed II conveyed land at Lanesborough to John Powell, Jr., also of Lanesborough. His change of residence to Otsego County, New York, is indicated by a deed made January 31, 1798, wherein Levi Beardsley and his wife of Richfield Springs, Otsego County, New York, conveyed 113 acres and 151 rods of land in Schuyler's Patent, Otsego County, to Obed Edson of Lanesborough, Berkshire County, Massachusetts. It is assumed that Obed II and Sarah, his sons Stephen Fiske Edson and Willys Edson, and his unmarried daughter, Lucy Edson, moved to Otsego County in 1798. It also appears that Obed II's brother Thomas and his family moved from Berkshire County a few years earlier, possibly at about the same time, settling in Fly Creek, in the Cooper Patent. Obed II and Thomas' nephew, Lewis Edson (son of Lewis and Hepzibah Edson) had settled in Otsego County a few years earlier, possibly at the same time (1793) or shortly after Obed III (born May 6, 1772) settled there. Lewis Edson, the younger, was grandfather of Lewis Edson Waterman, inventor of the fountain pen. Mr. Waterman

Mary and Samuel died in Bridgewater on February 5, 1770 and December 27, 1771, respectively. Their remains are entombed in Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church graveyard.

Among Samuel Edson II's brothers and sisters was Joseph Edson, born in 1649 at Salem. These brothers participated in the Indian Wars together and Joseph did not marry until 1678. He married Experience Field, sister of John Field, who came from Providence in 1677. Joseph Edson's son, Josiah Edson, was born at Bridgewater in 1682. Josiah was, for a long time, the captain of a military company, a Justice of the Peace, and a Deacon in the Church. He was a Selectman from 1704 to 1734 and a representative in the General Court for the years 1735, 1736, 1739, 1743, and 1745. He possessed a very large and valuable real estate and had a mind liberally endowed by nature. From early manhood until almost the close of his life in 1762, he held some office of trust and importance. However his chief occupation was farming and he took delight in improving the largest and best-kept farm in Bridgewater. He and his wife, Sarah Packard, had 7 children. The second of these, Abiah, married Samuel Alden in 1728. Alden was the great grandson of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins Alden. The third of the children, Col. Josiah Edson, was born on January 24, 1709, graduated from Harvard in 1730, was the owner of large real estate and represented Bridgewater for 12 years in the General Court at Boston. His term there expired in 1773 in the stormy years preceding the American Revolution. He was the colonel of a full regiment of militia and when the crisis came the old man stuck to his King and his colors. He saw only disaster in any attempt to coerce the parent government. He had been one of the 17 "rescinders" in the General Court when that body voted, on June 30, 1768, 92 against 17, not to rescind their appeal to the other colonies to resist the oppression of the Crown. He was also one of the "36" mandamus councilors of 1774. In the excitement of the time, he found his position unbearable and in the autumn of 1774, he left his home and joined the British Forces in Boston. In the early part of 1776 he accompanied the Royalist troops to Halifax, Nova Scotia, later returning to Headquarters on Long Island, New York. On September 23, 1778, by resolve of the General Court of Massachusetts, his property was confiscated and sold. He died December 28, 1778, broken hearted and depressed, still with the British Army on Long Island. His widow existed in poverty and was helped by the Town. His confiscated home at Bridgewater was, as late as 1949 , marked with a sign stating that this was where the "Tory" lived. As far as ascertained, Col. Josiah Edson was the only Edson who was a Tory sympathizer. Several Edsons of his and following generations served with distinction in the American Revolutionary Forces.


Children of Thomas Bustard are:

	12292	i.		William Bustard, born Abt. 1400 in Nether Ex., Commune, Devonshire, England.
		ii.		Richard Bustard, born Abt. 1400.

      28928. Sir-Lawrence De Warren (Source: Brřderbund WFT Vol. 2, Ed. 1, Tree #0612, Date of Import: May 2, 1998), born Abt. 1315. He married 28929. Isabel Leigh Private.

      28929. Isabel Leigh (Source: Brřderbund WFT Vol. 2, Ed. 1, Tree #0612, Date of Import: May 2, 1998), born Abt. 1315 (Source: Brřderbund WFT Vol. 2, Ed. 1, Tree #0612, Date of Import: May 2, 1998); died WFT Est. 1346-1474 (Source: Brřderbund WFT Vol. 2, Ed. 1, Tree #0612, Date of Import: May 2, 1998).

Child of Sir-Lawrence De Warren and Isabel Leigh is:

14464

William De Warren, born WFT Est. 1346-1423; died WFT Est. 1382-1498; married WFT Est. 1370-1455.

29184. John Fleg (Source: Brřderbund WFT Vol. 2, Ed. 1, Tree #6261, Date of Import: May 1, 1998), born Abt. 1340 (Source: Brřderbund WFT Vol. 2, Ed. 1, Tree #6261, Date of Import: May 1, 1998); died Abt. 1395 (Source: Brřderbund WFT Vol. 2, Ed. 1, Tree #6261, Date of Import: May 1, 1998). He was the son of 58368. William Fleg.

Child of John Fleg is:

14592

John Fleg, born Abt. 1370; died WFT Est. 1403-1461; married WFT Est. 1389-1421.

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