jeremiah dungan - Honeysuckle Farm, LLC

The First Baptist Preacher and the First Baptist Church in Pennsylvania: Thomas Dungan of Cold Springs

Reverend Thomas DUNGAN, Sr. was my maternal 9th great grandfather. He married Elizabeth WEAVER. As I said in my previous post, my mom’s family was thick as thieves in the Poconos and foothills in the 1700’s and this line is right in there with the PARSONS, BRINKER, and SEELY families! The line of descent for me goes from Thomas and Elizabeth to their son Jeremiah, to Jeremiah’s son George, to George’s son Jeremiah, to Jeremiah’s daughter Sarah. Sarah DUNGAN married Zebulon SMITH and they were my 5th great grandparents. Sarah and Zebulon’s daughter Elizabeth married Squire DALE and they were my 4th great grandparents. Elizabeth and Squire had a daughter named Sinthia who married James P. BULLOCK and they were my 3rd great grandparents. The line of descent continues through Sinthia and James’ son James M., to James M.’s daughter (and my great grandmother) Laura BULLOCK RITER. Fun fact about Thomas and Elizabeth: they had 38 grandchildren!¹ Now wouldn’t THAT make for an interesting Cousin Camp in the summer?!

Dungan Family Roots

Thomas was born about 1634 in London, England. Thomas’ father, William, was a perfumer and a London merchant. An interesting side note about William: one researcher believes William died due to a disease associated with the plague but not of the plague itself due to wording in his burial entry and the fact that no “P” (for ‘Plague’) was noted beside his name.⁹ William is said to have come from a Dublin, Ireland branch of the DUNGAN family that was “ennobled by Queen Elizabeth”.² (Other accounts say the family is from County Kildare, Ireland.³ Still other accounts say this DUNGAN line is not of noble lineage at all.⁹ (I’ll be covering this again in a future blog post.)

DUNGAN arms and crest. Found at Internet Archive.

According to information at Geni.com, “The Dungan genealogy was traced by researchers in the early 1900’s back to Emperor Charlemagne, 800 A.D.”³ I found the lineage written out in a book on Ancestry.com.⁴

The line from Charlemagne to Rev. Thomas DUNGAN.

Thomas’ mother, Frances LATHAM DUNGAN, was the daughter of Lewis LATHAM who was the Sergeant Falconer to Charles I.²

Thomas Dungan & Elizabeth Weaver

Thomas immigrated to the U.S. in 1637 with his mother and other family. They settled in Newport, Rhode Island.² He married Elizabeth WEAVER about 1663 in Rhode Island. Elizabeth had also been born in England and immigrated to the U.S. prior to 1663. Thomas died in 1687 in Cold Springs, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Elizabeth lived another 10 years and also died in Cold Springs. I was unable to find their burial locations. All traces of the church Thomas founded and also it’s accompanying cemetery where they were buried have disappeared with time. Together, Thomas and Elizabeth had 9 known children – William, Clement, Elizabeth, Thomas Jr., Rebecca, Jeremiah (my 8th great-grandfather), Mary, John, and Sarah.

Thomas held smaller elected offices between 1656 and 1681 including being the Representative from East Greenwich to the Rhode Island Assembly. In 1677, just before he came the Representative to the Rhode Island Assembly, he was named as a Patentee in the charter of the town of East Greenwich. Thomas also served as a Sergeant in the Newport Militia.

In 1682, he sold his East Greenwich, Rhode Island, property of 100 acres to his nephew and conveyed his homestead in Newport, Rhode Island (a 50-acre property) to someone else. Shortly after that he moved to Pennsylvania and settled at Cold Springs, Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Cold Springs & the Baptist Beginnings

In Cold Springs, Thomas founded a Baptist church – the first of its denomination in Pennsylvania. He was also the first Baptist preacher in Pennsylvania. He pastored the church he founded until his death in 1688.^{5, 6} The famous Pennypack Church (also written as Pennepack or Pennepeck)⁷ was an outgrowth of Thomas DUNGAN’s little Baptist church in Cold Springs. I was unable to locate the church nor was I able to find anyone who could tell me where the church had been. It has been lost to time as has the cemetery associated with the church.

This picture was found on FindAGrave website but I was never able to locate the place when I was in Pennsylvania this past May.⁸

Although I was unable to locate Thomas’ or Elizabeth’s graves, I did find an image of a memorial to Thomas DUNGAN. This image came from FindAGrave:⁸

Reverend Thomas DUNGAN memorial. FindAGrave.

One last item on Findagrave was a photograph of the recorded will of Thomas DUNGAN. I always hesitate to say what is someone’s signature but this does appear to be his signature since it doesn’t say “his mark”. So, for what it’s worth, Thomas DUNGAN’s signature on his will (bottom right corner):⁸

I always like to look through wills of my ancestors to see what they owned when they died. Thomas’ will recorded on 1 February 1688 lists household goods of “Linnen, wooling, Bedding, brass, pewter” but it specifically excluded his son Clement’s bed, his daughter Marie’s bed, and two brass kettles. As I was searching the internet for pictures I came a cross a costumer’s blog. If you’d like to see how the working men were dressing in 1688, I recommend clicking over to the Costume Historian blog. The post I linked shows a drawing of a sweep as he would have been dressed in 1688. If you’re interested in what the bed and mattress would have looked like in the 17th century around the time that Thomas died, I recommend going to the Pennsbury Manor website. They have a great article about it which you can read at the link. They also link out to a site that shows you how to stuff the mattresses. Look at picture at the bottom of the Pennsbury Manor article. Who can remember seeing mattress ticking like that at Granny BATES’ house?? Finally, the one specific item on the list – a brass kettle. At William Dykes Antiques website I found a brass kettle listed as late 17th-early 18th century and it stated this form was the earliest kettle form and that this kettle was of Dutch or English origin.

Brass kettle found at William Dykes Antiques.

Maternal Pennsylvania

Since I’m going in order of the names I researched in Pennsylvania, that means next week I won’t be writing about my mom’s family but I’ll be back to her family again soon. I hope you’ve enjoyed getting to know Thomas DUNGAN as well as the SEELYs and BRINKERs and PARSONS. My maternal Poconos ancestors have been fun to learn and write about. We’ve covered approximately half of my research out of a 10-day research trip to Pennsylvania. I’m looking forward to bringing you the remaining stories soon. Once I tell all the Pennsylvania stories we’ll move on to my trip to Missouri. It’s been an exciting summer of research. I hope you’re enjoying it as much as I have been. One last note for my cousins descending from Thomas DUNGAN: be happy! Ancestors in his paternal and maternal lines typically lived to about 100 years old. You have good genes, cousins!

Until next time,

Lisa @ Days of Our Lives blog

Resources

Dungan Family of Pennsylvania. Monroe County Historical Association, Stroudsburg, PA.
Davis, William W. H. History of Bucks County, Pennyslvania, from the Discovery of the Delaware to the Present Time. Accessed on the Internet Archive on 8 July 2022.
Geni.com. Accessed on 9 July 2022.
Justice, Alfred Rudulph, compiler. Ancestry of Jeremy Clarke of Rhode Island and Dungan Genealogy. Accessed on Ancestry.com.
Dungan Family History accessed at both Ancestry and ReligionDocBox.com on 8 July 2022.
Baptist History. Accessed on 8 July 2022.
GodRules. “History of Baptist Denomination – Pennsylvania.” Accessed on 8 July 2022.
Findagrave website. Accessed on 8 July 2022.
“The Ancestry of William Dungan”. The Genealogist. p. 194-202. Notebook located at Monroe County Historical Association, Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.

Once Upon a Time

Today’s story will be a little different. At least one of the parties involved would be very upset to be connected to or named in this story. So out of respect I’ll only be taking the names in this genealogy so far down the line and then I’ll stop. I’ll be telling the story in such a way that even if the persons involved read this story, they would not know it was their story. So forgive me if it’s a little vague at times.
Once Upon A Time
Once upon a time there was a boy and a girl…but it’s not what you think. They were brother and sister- Rebecca and William HENDRY. They were two of at least eight children born to George and Deborah (BORDEN) HENDRY. The children grew up in Virginia. I’m not going to go into a lot of details about their childhood since my information is conflicting on some points and I don’t want to pass on bad information. So their marriages are where their lives begin to diverge and that’s where we’ll go with this story.
The Girl
In the girl there’s a room,
in the room there’s a table,
on the table there’s a candle
and it won’t burn out.
In the woman there’s a song,
in the song there is hope,
in the hope, revolution.
~ Sara Groves, In the Girl There’s a Room

Rebecca HENDRY grew up and fell in love with Jeremiah Dungan.

Jeremiah Dungan Mill in Tennessee.

Rebecca and Jeremiah were married in Pennsylvania. One of their fourteen known children was a daughter, Sarah DUNGAN. Sarah was born in Tennessee. She married Zebulon SMITH. One of Sarah’s and Zebulon’s six children was a daughter named Elizabeth SMITH. I can’t go any further than this with naming names as I wish to try to maintain some anonymity for the person I mentioned above. So I will tell you that Elizabeth was born in Tennessee and was still there when she married. She and her husband- we’ll call him “Steven”- had ten children and one was a daughter named “Ann”. Ann married “Paul” in Indiana and together they had seven children. Paul and Ann’s son, “Mark”, was born in Indiana. Mark and his family moved to Missouri. There he met and married “Haley” and they had a daughter- “Lorene”. Lorene was the fourth of eight children. She married “Bill” in Arkansas and their daughter “Katherine” was born there. Katherine married “Tad” in Arkansas and their daughter was “Shelley”. Shelley married “Edward” and their daughter was “Lana”. Lana married “David” and they had a daughter named “Mary”. Remember Mary- we’ll come back to her later.
The Boy
In the boy there’s a voice,
in the voice there’s a calling,
in the call there’s a promise
and it won’t quiet down.
In the man there’s vision,
in the vision is a road,
it’s the road to his freedom…
~ Sara Groves, In the Girl There’s a Room

Log cabin built by Rebecca (Hendry) Dungan's brother, William Hendry; refurbished ca 1985. — Log cabin built by Rebecca (Hendry) Dungan’s brother, William Hendry; refurbished ca 1985.

Log cabin built by William Hendry, refurbished about 1985.

Remember Rebecca HENDRY’s brother- William? Let’s talk about him now. William HENDRY grew up and fell in love with Elizabeth JONES. They were married in Virginia. Like William’s sister Rebecca, William and Elizabeth moved to Tennessee where they had a daughter named Mary Ann HENDRY. Mary Ann was the middle of three children. She married John BEAGLES. John and Mary had a son named Edmund who was born in Tennessee. Edmund was the third of four children born to John and Mary Ann. Edmund BEAGLES married two women and I’m not sure which is Julia’s mom so I’m going to call Julia’s mom “Malinda” for now. Edmund had quite a few children- numbering in the teens. For this story, I’m only interested in his daughter named Julia Ann. Julia was born in Tennessee. Julia married a man I cannot name for the reasons listed above. We’ll call Julia’s husband “Johnny”. Julia and Johnny had a son- “David”. David was born in Indiana and he married “Angeline”. The first of David’s and Angeline’s four children was a son named “Monroe” who was born in Arkansas. Monroe married “Lizzie”. The oldest of Monroe’s and Lizzie’s sons was “Isaac”. Isaac married “Lillian” and together they had eight children one of whom was “Donald”. Donald married “Irene” and together they had “Ruthie”. Ruthie was married briefly to “Allen”. Together they had two children, one of whom was “Terry”. Remember Terry- we’ll be coming back to him.
The Girl + The Boy = A Dream
Tell me what you know
about God and the world and the human soul,
how so much can go wrong
and still there are songs.
In the man is a work
and the work is his future
and the future is his children
and he won’t slow down.
In the woman there’s a faith,
in the faith there’s a prayer,
in the prayer there’s a promise…
~ Sara Groves, In the Girl There’s a Room
Sometimes when a boy and a girl meet, they fall in love. They marry, they have children. They dream of a long, wonderful life together. Sometimes that long, wonderful life happens- and sometimes it doesn’t. Then their children grow up and the cycle starts all over again. Boy + Girl = Dream.
We started with a sibling set- William and Rebecca HENDRY. They started life together as siblings and we watched as their families expanded and traveled until both families ended up in Arkansas but neither family knew anything of the other. Now, we’ve made our way to another boy and another girl, “Mary” and “Terry”.
Another Boy + Another Girl = Another Dream
In the boy is a dream,
in the dream he is standing,
and he stands without fear
and he won’t sit down.
In the girl is a song,
in the song there is hope,
in the hope there’s defiance…
Tell me what you know
about God and the world and the human soul,
how so much can be wrong
and still there are songs.
In their hearts and souls
an unstoppable refrain,
Hope sings in defiance.
~ Sara Groves, In the Girl There’s a Room
Mary and Terry didn’t grow up together. In fact, they didn’t know each other until shortly before they married. Mary knew nothing of Terry’s family. Likewise, he knew nothing of hers. They fell in love. They got married. They had children. Neither one ever knowing that Mary’s 8th great-grandparents were George and Deborah (BORDEN) HENDRY- parents of William and Rebecca; neither one ever knowing that Terry’s 8th great-grandparents were the same George and Deborah (BORDEN) HENDRY- parents of William and Rebecca.

The Moral of the Story

Adam and Eve painting by Domenichino.

Know your family. Know your family history. Know your mate’s family history. And if you’re the one yelling, “Gross!” right now- this story IS yours. It happens all the time. Don’t think you’re exempt. You’ll never find anyone to whom you AREN’T related. Besides, if you’re a Christian you should have known that we all go back to ONE BOY and ONE GIRL – Adam and Eve- and ONE DREAM- to love and be loved and have a long, wonderful life.
Love the ones your with- they’re the ones God gave you. In the lyrics at the beginning of this tale it says, “in the hope [is] revolution” and at the end of the lyrics it says, “Hope sings in defiance.” So sing out in defiance of hate and loneliness. Sing out – and reach out – with love. Love is the revolution we need.

Be defiant:
LOVE.

Until next time,
Lisa @ Days of Our Lives

Tag: jeremiah dungan