We are especially interested and excited to learn of Nikki Paine’s discovery of a book by Denise Bailey, (2003) Ashford People in the 1400s, 1500s and 1600s. A P Willox, Lyminge that is not much bigger than a pamphlet, but contains “a wealth of information on families in Ashford.”
Nikki reported to Terry Brown, “Your ancestor’s name (Ralfe Dayton) actually appears in this book as being one of the 17 emigrants who left Ashford and sailed for New Haven, Connecticut; possibly from Sandwich on the Hercules.” Bailey said her source for this information came from the “Topographical Dictionary of Emigrants” at the British Museum. Bailey also states that the reason for emigration was for religious freedom of thought.
Does anyone have access to the Denise Bailey work?
We located a copy of Bailey’s source, the Topographical dictionary of 2885 English emigrants to New England, 1620-1650, Banks, Charles Edward, 1854-1931 at https://www.hathitrust.org/ digital library and found Ralph Dayton on page 75. See image below.
As you can see from this image in the Topographical dictionary of 2885 English emigrants, the reference provided for Ralph is the New Hampshire Genealogical Magazine 3/528. Terry is searching for a copy of this magazine.
We are anxious to determine if Bailey assumed that New Haven was the possible destination of Ralph’s vessel because New Haven is the “New England Town” associated with Ralph, or if Bailey found further evidence in the magazine.
My own amateur observation of the table is that if Ralph traveled with others on the same Hercules voyage, he probably landed in Massachusetts, but of course, we don’t know that Ralph was aboard the Hercules (even though many from his congregation including Comfort Star, Rose Tritton and perhaps Tomas Osborne came on the Hercules about 1635). Personally, I still believe Ralph and family probably landed at New Haven a few years later with the Whitfield fleet as we explain in our book.
More coming from Nikki in the next post…
Dayton Ancestry 