Out of a ducal coronet or, a cubit arm holding a sprig of roses all ppr. Supporters-Two leopards ar. pellettee each gorged with a collar gu. charged with four bezants. Motto-Pro Deo et Rege.

Parsons co. Hereford. Gu. a leopard's face between three crosses pattee fitchee at the foot ar. Crest-a halbert headed ar. embrued gu.

Parsons. Sir Thomas Parsons of Great Milton, Oxford, 1636, Sir John Parsons, Lord Mayor of London 1704, and Humphrey Parsons, Lord Mayor, 1731. Gu. two chevronels erm. between three eagles display or. Crest-An eagle's leg erased at the thigh or, standing on a leopard's face gu.

Parsons. Island of Barbadoes; borne by the Rev. John Parsons, M.A., of Begbrook House, co. Gloucester, vicar of Marden, co. Wilts, son of the late Daniel Parsons, Esq., M.D., of Barbadoes. Gu. two chevronels erm. between three eagles displ. or. Crest-A demi griffin sergeant ar. beaked and armed gu.

Parsons (Langley, co. Buckingham, Epsom, co. Surrey, and Stanton-on-the-Wolds, co. Nottingham, bart. extinct 1812; this family obtained a baronetcy in 1661, and became extinct in the male line on the death of Sir Mark Parsons, 4th and last baronet). Ar. a chev. betw. three holly leaves vert. Crest -Upon a chapeau gu. turned up erm. a griffin's head erased ar. beaked also gu.

Parsons, co. Buckingham. Az. on a chev. ar. betw. three oak leaves or. as many crosses gu. Crest-On a chapeau az. turned up erm. an eagle's head erased ar. ducally crowned or. charged on the neck with a cross gu.

Parsons. C'lanclewedog, co. Radnor. Quarterly, 1st, or. a chev. betw. four crosses crosslet fitchee gu. for Parsons; 2d, ar. two lions pass. guard. az armed and langued gu., for Hanmer; 3d., erm. a lion ramp. sa. armed and langued gu. a canton checquey or and gu., for Jeffreys; 4th, gu. three owls ar for Morgan. Crest-A demi-lion ramp. gu. Motto-Quid retribuam.

Parsons. Steyning, co. Sussex; Per fesse az. and sa three suns or. foils vert, banded or.

granted April 23, 1661. Crest-A garb of quatre

Parsons. Az. two swords in saltire blades ar. hilts and pomels or. pierced through a human heart ppr. in chief a cinque-foil az. Crest-A tower ar.

Parsons. Of Overbury, Offenham; also of Hemmerton Court, co. Gloucester, az. a chev. erm. betw. three trefoils slipped, ar.

AMERICAN PARSONS' ARMS AND CONNECTIONS.

Of the above arms, those of Sir Thomas Parsons of Great Milton, and Sir John Parsons and Sir Humphrey Parsons of London, were "stated by the Rev. Jonathan Parsons in 1769, in writing to his son, Major-General Samuel Holden Parsons, to have been the same claimed by some of the American family. Professor Theophilus Parsons, of Harvard University, in presenting Lewis B. Parsons, in 1867, with a copy of his memoir of his father, Chief Justice Parsons, wrote in it, 'from your friend and kinsman,' and stated that his family" (that of Jeffrey Parsons) "came from the same place in England as did Cornet Joseph Parsons, only at a later date, emigrating first to the Barbadoes and then to Gloucester, Mass." (Papers of Major-General Lewis Baldwin Parsons, privately printed.)

As the grandson of Cornet Joseph Parsons' younger brother, Deacon Benjamin Parsons, the Rev. Jonathan Parsons, born at West Springfield, Mass., November 30, 1705, was in a position to know from which branch of the English Parsons family his ancestors derived their descent.

V.

PARSONS GENEALOGIES.*

EDITED BY ALBERT ROSS PARSONS.

"A lively desire of knowing and recording our ancestors so generally prevails, that it must depend on the influence of some common principle in the minds of men. We seem to have lived in the person of our forefathers; our calmer judgment will rather tend to moderate than suppress the pride of an ancient and worthy race." (Gibbon's Memoirs.)

"The whole conception of immortality undergoes an important change if we regard the personal consciousness, with its ego, as a mere partial and temporary limitation of a larger self, the growth of many seasons [generations], as it were, of earthly life. The doctrine of transcendental individuality does not conceive the soul to be wholly plunged into the successive bodies it constructs. We must not look for the consciousness of identity in the leaves of successive seasons [generations] but in the tree which puts them forth. The interest of the tree in last year's leaves is just the nutriment and growth it derived from them. The experience and activity of one of our objective life-times will be assimilated for results quite other, perhaps, than those which the interest of the contracted ego proposed, and probably bear but a minute proportion to the gradually accumulated psychical contents of the whole individual. The constant aim of ethics is to bring the personal ego to the point of view of the transcendental subject, to which the mere pleasures of that ego are indifferent." (Du Prel: "Philosophy of Mysticism," pp. xviii, xvii, xx.)

"All of us, and every one of us, ought to know how we have come to be what we are, so that each generation need not start again from the same point and toil over the same ground, but, profiting by the experience of those who came before, may advance toward higher points and nobler aims. What history has to teach us before all and everything, is our own antecedents, our own ancestors, our own descent. The past is darkness

to him who does not know what those who came before him have done for him, and he would probably care little to do anything for those who are to come after him. Life would be to him a chain of sand, while it ought to be a kind of electric chain that makes our hearts tremble and vibrate with the most ancient thoughts of the past, as well as the most distant hopes of the future." (F. Max Müller, 1889.)

"To the careful student of social forces and results, the family history will plainly exhibit such facts as these: that families continue to bear, as such, definite physical and mental characteristics from generation to genera

* A plan has been arranged by which additions may be made to these genealogies at any time by addressing the Editor, in care of the New York Historical Society.

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tion; that these are maintained and improved in their quality by thorough education, and that they inevitably degenerate without it; that hardships bravely met in one generation exalt the privileges and surroundings of those succeeding; that the physical and social surroundings of a family exert a long and a strong influence upon its whole future history. It makes generally quite as great a difference in the style of growth that a family exhibits, and often through long periods of time, where and how it is placed for its natural manifestation of itself, as where a plant is set, whether in much sunshine or in little, and with or without much exposure to sudden chills and storms." (Professor Dwight.)

I. EARLY EMIGRANTS FROM ENGLAND OF
THE NAME OF PARSONS.

1. To AMERICA.

In early records the name Virginia does not necessarily refer to the region to which that name is now restricted. The purpose of the Pilgrims was to settle in the domain of the South Virginia Company "somewhere between the Delaware and Hudson rivers." But the captain of the Mayflower professed to be unable to land there. Hence, while lying off Cape Cod, November 11, 1620, the Pilgrims formed a body politic under a social compact to plant the first colony in "Northern Virginia," i.e., the present New England. It thus appears that the name "New England," given by Captain John Smith in 1614 to the northern coast, was, in 1620, not yet in general use. After the Pilgrims had officially styled the place where they landed Northern Virginia, naturally it would long continue to be customary to designate briefly ships sailing for the Pilgrim settlement as bound for Virginia. (See "The Colonies"; Thwaite.)

Joseph Parsons, of Colchester, near Springfield, Essex, England, the home of the Puritan * William

"The most interesting phase which the Reformation anywhere assumes is that of Puritanism which came forth as a real business of the heart; and has produced in the world very notable fruit. Look at American Saxondom; and at that little Fact of the sailing of the Mayflower, two hundred years ago, from Delft Haven in Holland! Were we of open sense as the Greeks were, we had found a Poem here; one of Nature's own Poems, such as she writes in broad facts over great continents. For it was properly the beginning of America; there were straggling settlers in America before but the soul of it was first this. These men,

...

I think, had a work! The weak thing becomes strong one day if it be a true thing. Puritanism was only despicable, laughable then; but nobody

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Pynchon and his cousin Thomas Parsons, was in the congregation of the Rev. John Robinson at Leyden, Holland. The Rev. John Robinson and Joseph Parsons were among those members who did not sail in the Mayflower. This Joseph Parsons is held by some to have been the father, and by others the uncle, of,—

CORNET JOSEPH PARSONS, who is the first of the name of Parsons in the New England records.

John Parsons sailed in the Marygold, 1619, and was enrolled February 16, 1623, among those then living at the eastern shore of (South) Virginia.

(a) Thomas Parsons, aged 30, sailed January 2, 1634, in the Bonaventura, bound from London to Virginia. (b) Thomas Parsons owned an estate in Boston in 1639. Savage says he may have been the same as (c) Thomas Parsons of Dedham and Medfield. (d) Thomas Parsons married Lydia Brown at Windsor, June 28, 1641. Stiles says he may have been the same as Thomas (a) above. He was an owner in Palisado Plot, 1650; agreed to keep the Rivulet Ferry, 1652; served in the Pequot War and received fifty acres for services then rendered; and died September 23, 1661. According to the foregoing data, Thomas (a), (b), (c), and (d) may all be one and the same person.

(a) William Parsons sailed from Southampton, April, 1635. (b) William Parsons, a "Fifth Monarchy man," was admitted to the church in Boston, April 20, 1644. Savage says he may be the same as William (a).

Henry Parsons, aged 14, and

Phillipp Parsons, aged 10, both sailed, June 23, 1635, in the America from Gravesend (a port on the Thames for Essex) bound for Virginia.

(a) Joseph Parsons, aged 18, sailed July 4, 1635, in the Transport, from Gravesend (a port for Essex), bound for Virginia. On account: i, of the correspondence of his age with that of (1) Cornet Joseph Parsons;

can manage to laugh at it now. Puritanism has got weapons and sinews; it has fire-arms, war-navies; it has cunning in its ten fingers, strength in its right arm; it can steer ships, fell forests, remove mountains; it is one of the strongest things under this sun at present! " (Carlyle: "Heroes," IV.)