Sir Thomas Compton

• Sir Thomas Compton1
• M, #26307, d. April 1626
• Last Edited=20 May 2015
• Consanguinity Index=0.77%
• Sir Thomas Compton was the son of Sir Henry Compton, 1st Lord Compton and Lady Frances Hastings.2 He married Mary Beaumont, Countess of Buckingham, daughter of Anthony Beaumont and Anne Armstrong, after October 1606.1 He died in April 1626.2
• He was invested as a Knight, Order of the Bath (K.B.).2 He was invested as a Knight Bachelor on 25 June 1603 at Hereford, Herefordshire, England.2,3
• Citations
• [S8] BP1999 volume 1, page 228. See link for full details for this source. Hereinafter cited as. [S8]
• [S37] BP2003 volume 2, page 2927. See link for full details for this source. Hereinafter cited as. [S37]
• [S48] William A. Shaw, The Knights of England: A complete record from the earliest times to the present day of the knights of all the orders chivalry in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and of Knights Bachelors (London, U.K.: Heraldry Today, 1906), volume II, page 111. Hereinafter cited as Knights of England.
• From: http://www.thepeerage.com/p2631.htm#i26307 _______________
• Thomas COMPTON (Sir)
• Died: Apr 1626
• Notes: Mary Beaumont was created Countess of Buckingham in her own right on 1 Jul 1618. As a young woman, Mary was a waiting gentlewoman in the household of Lady Beaumont of Cole Orton, but by her first marriage, to Sir George Villiers of Brooksby, Leicestershire (d. Jan 1606), she had four successful children: John, Viscount Purbeck (b. ABT 1591 - d. 1657); George, Duke of Buckingham (b. 1592 - d. 1628), King James I's favorite; Christopher, Earl of Anglesey (b. 1593 - d. 1630), and Susan, Countess of Denbigh (b. ABT 1591 - d. 1655). Mary lived at Goadby with her children after Villiers's death but married twice more, first on 19 Jun 1606 to eighty-year-old Sir William Rayner of Orton Longueville, Hertfordshire (d. Nov 1606), and second to Sir Thomas Compton. The last marriage was unhappy, as Sir Thomas was impoverished and rarely sober. The Countess was buried in Westminster Abbey.
• Father: Henry COMPTON (1º B. Compton)
• Mother: Frances Anne HASTINGS (B. Compton)
• Married: Mary BEAUMONT (C. Buckingham) (dau. of Anthony Beaumont of Glenfield and Anne (Elizabeth) Armstrong) (w.1 of Sir George Villiers of Brooksby - w.2 of Sir William Rayner of Orton Longueville)
• From: http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/COMPTON.htm#Thomas COMPTON (Sir)1 ____________________
• Sir Thomas Compton
• Birth: 1564
• Death: 1632
• Thomas Compton was a knight. He served in the house of commons. His burial is in Compton Wynyates in the village of Stratford upon Avon.
• Note: Thomas Compton is the son of Henry Compton and Francis Ann Hastings. He was born in Compton Wynyates and was educated at Oxford.
• Burial: Compton Wynyates Burial Grounds, Compton Wynyates, Stratford-on-Avon District, Warwickshire, England
• Find A Grave Memorial# 14883691
• From: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=compton&GSfn=... _______________
• COMPTON, Sir Henry (c.1584-c.1649), of Allfarthing, Wandsworth, Surr.; Brambletye, nr. East Grinstead, Suss. and Finch Lane, London
• b. c.1584, 3rd s. of Henry†, 1st Lord Compton (d.1589), of Compton Wynyates, Warws., being o.s. with his 2nd w. Anne, da. of Sir John Spencer† of Althorp, Northants., wid. of Sir William Stanley†, 3rd Lord Mounteagle.1 educ. Christ Church, Oxf. 1599, aged 15; L. Inn 1602.2 m. (1) by 1604, Cecily (d.1624), da. of Robert Sackville*, 2nd earl of Dorset, 2s. 3da.; (2) 1624/5, Mary (d.1656), da. of Sir George Browne of Wickhambreaux, Kent, wid. of Thomas Paston of Binham, Norf., 4s. (1 d.v.p.) 2 da.3 cr. KB 25 July 1603.4 d. by 5 July 1649.5 sig. Henry Compton.
• .... etc.
• .... Consequently he was excluded from the Parliament that presented both his half-brothers, the 1st earl of Northampton and Sir Thomas Compton, and the latter’s wife, the mother of the duke of Buckingham, as suspect in religion.33
• .... etc.
• From: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/co... _____________________
• Sir Henry Compton
• Birth: Jul. 14, 1544
• Death: Dec. 10, 1589
• Henry is the Great Grandfather to the Prime Minister, Spencer Compton and Bishop of London, Henry Compton. Henry had two son's William and Thomas. William's son is Spencer Compton I (father to Spencer and Henry). Thomas's son is John of Roxbury Mass. Henry was educated at Oxford.
• Note: Father to Thomas and Grandfather to John Compton I of Roxbury Massachusetts.
• Burial: Compton Wynyates Burial Grounds, Compton Wynyates, Stratford-on-Avon District, Warwickshire, England
• Find A Grave Memorial# 14883718
• From: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=compton&GSfn=... ___________________________

This is where the family line gets confused some say that John the 1st was the son of Thomas Compton of the Compton Wyngates others say he was the son of William Compton then there is a possibility that William might have been Know as William Henry Compton.

According to the Compton/Wyngates John Compton the 1st would be the son of Thomas Compton and his father was Henry Compton and His Father was Peter Compton. This is where it get confusing Henry Compton Had nephew named Henry he was The Bishop of London He adopted John the 1st when his father Thomas Died and brought him back to England and then sent him back to America.

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Comptons are an ancient family, traceable to the Anglo-Saxon Alwyne, circa (ca.) 1042, a contemporary to King Edward the Confessor, in the times before surnames. "Compton" means a settlement (town) in or on a hill. Alwyne's son Turchill (or Turchid), Saxon Earl of Warwick at the time of the Norman conquest (1066), did not assist the English King Harold (contrary to his father, who "fought valiantly" against the invading forces according to Comptonology), thereby earning the gratitude of William the Conqueror. (See also Wynyates for a narrative of this early history. Lord Compton cites Collins, whom I have been unable to locate.) He was therefore allowed to retain his lordship and many landholdings, and an inspection of the Domesday Book is replete with Compton estates. Turchill became one of the early English to have a surname "de Eardene" (presumably from his residence at Arden). His son Osbert had several sons, including Philip (ca. 1200), who were the first in the line to take the surname de Compton. Philip was followed in the line by Thomas, Philip, Robert, Robert, Thomas, Edmund, William, Robert, Edmund, William (where the Wm. Bingham Compton document ends, ca. 1482), son Compton (possibly Peter, b. ca. 1500), Henry, William, Spencer, to our first American William, b. 1622 in Gravesend, New York. The researcher can compare the Bingham Compton document to Wyngates and observe the close (but not completely consistent) parallels in the genealogies. There is an ancestral (portions dating back to the 12th century) castle in Warwick, England, called Compton Wynyates [sometimes referred to as Wyngates], or "Compton in the Hole" (for its topography), which has been modified over the years and circumstances. The castle is the principal subject of Compton Wynyates. COMPTONS For a discussion of this and other coats of arms, see Compton Wynyates, p,. 28 citation infra. This one is the most distinguished of the Comptons, traceable to Sir William Compton. The royal lion here was conferred by Henry VIII.

Compiled by: Stephen Laurence Compton

Revised August 7, 1999

Genealogy of the Island Creek Comptons and Links to Other Families

PREFATORY COMMENTS Background

This is a personal history of the Island Creek, Kentucky Comptons, which began as a surf of Internet resources, and which has ended (to the extent these things ever end) with fieldwork--visits to county seats and surrounding environs in Virginia, Kentucky, West Virginia and Maryland, incuding courthouses, cemeteries, the heads of Eastern Kentucky hollers, as well as libraries from the Russell County Virginia Library to the Daughters of the American Revolution library at Constitution Hall and the Library of Congress.

My name is Stephen L. Compton. I was born November 14, 1947 in Pikeville, Kentucky. the son of Roy E. Compton, son of Grover C. Compton, son of James Buchanan Compton, son of William F. Compton, who came to Island Creek, outside of Pikeville, Kentucky, sometime prior to February 1849 from Southwestern Virginia. To this day, there is a tributary of the left fork of Island Creek, called the Billy Compton Branch. I have a "farm map" from the 1970's obtained from my uncle Earl Bevins, of the Island Creek area, a portion of which is reproduced herein. A couple of years after the sudden and untimely death of my mother Ellena Turner Compton of a heart attack in April, 1957, I left Pikeville in the fall of 1959 with my father for the Florida panhandle, where I lived in the vicinity (excepting a year in Vietnam in 1970-71) until 1973, when my first wife Linda and I, with daughter Ellena Carole (born September 26, 1969), relocated to the Memphis, Tennessee area, where I have been for the most part ever since. In 1980 Linda and I divorced, and I remarried in 1982 to Nancy Dickson Compton. Ellena married Adam Smith in August 1998.

I believe I have established a reasonable record to run 29 generations of Comptons, back to Alwyne the Anglo-Saxon of Warwickshire in the 11th Century, and have marked my direct line accordingly at critical junctures. Of course, there are questions and issues that have arisen at certain junctures during the course of this inquiry. The principal issues are the parentage of William F. Compton and the lineage of another, 17th Century William in New Jersey, who I believe, with good evidence, to have been the son of a New York William. I mention these two in particular because the lack of definite proof has created controversy among those who have researched it. (See Comptonology, V. 1, No. 1, p. 3 for the first in a series of comments on this subject). In any event, one cannot come away without a tremendous respect for one's ancestors, the challenges and the migrations they undertook while making their mark in both Europe and America.

European Comptons

The following pedigree has been derived from an excerpt of William Bingham Compton, The History of Compton Wyngates, London, 1930 (obtained from Catherine Thorsen of Colorado); William Marquis of Northamption [notated in pencil in the original in the Library of Congress as William George Spencer Scott Compton], Compton Wynyates, Humphreys Pub. (London), 1904 (cited as Wynyates); Delton Blalock, British and American Comptons, 1984; a genealogy by James H. L. Lawler on the Internet (which makes the American William I connection with the English line); and, Comptonology [a journal edited by C.V. Compton which ran from the late 1930's through the early 1950's], inter alia V.1, No. 1; p. 74, V. 4, No. 1, p. 148, V. 4, No. 7, pp. 179-80. [A note on Comptonology: Early in the journal, Compton went to a sequential page numbering sequence, thus some citations may be to the page only.]

Comptons are an ancient family, traceable to the Anglo-Saxon Alwyne, circa (ca.) 1042, a contemporary to King Edward the Confessor, in the times before surnames. "Compton" means a settlement (town) in or on a hill. Alwyne's son Turchill (or Turchid), Saxon Earl of Warwick at the time of the Norman conquest (1066), did not assist the English King Harold (contrary to his father, who "fought valiantly" against the invading forces according to Comptonology), thereby earning the gratitude of William the Conqueror. (See also Wynyates for a narrative of this early history. Lord Compton cites Collins, whom I have been unable to locate.) He was therefore allowed to retain his lordship and many landholdings, and an inspection of the Domesday Book is replete with Compton estates. Turchill became one of the early English to have a surname "de Eardene" (presumably from his residence at Arden). His son Osbert had several sons, including Philip (ca. 1200), who were the first in the line to take the surname de Compton. Philip was followed in the line by Thomas, Philip, Robert, Robert, Thomas, Edmund, William, Robert, Edmund, William (where the Wm. Bingham Compton document ends, ca. 1482), son Compton (possibly Peter, b. ca. 1500), Henry, William, Spencer, to our first American William, b. 1622 in Gravesend, New York. The researcher can compare the Bingham Compton document to Wyngates and observe the close (but not completely consistent) parallels in the genealogies. There is an ancestral (portions dating back to the 12th century) castle in Warwick, England, called Compton Wynyates [sometimes referred to as Wyngates], or "Compton in the Hole" (for its topography), which has been modified over the years and circumstances. The castle is the principal subject of Compton Wynyates.

Early American Comptons (up to John I)

The Gravesend, New York, William lived with the Dutch and was referred to as Weilleum. Gravesend was an early English settlement in an area in modern Brooklyn adjacent to Coney Island. It is a mere hop, skip and a jump to Sandy Hook, New Jersey and Monmouth County. (Sandy Hook is also known as one of the haunts of Captain Kidd.) William was one of the 39 original settlers of Gravesend, became a leading citizen and was appointed constable in 1677. Both the elder and the son William, who migrated to New Jersey appear in the early records (See inter alia, Stillwell, Historical and Genealogical Miscellany, New York and New Jersey, 1930, Blalock, Comptonology, V. 1, No. 1, p. 1; see also History of Monmouth County 1664-1920, Lewis Hist. Publ. Co., pp. 321 et seq.; Mandeville, The Story of Middletown, Christ Church (pub.), 1927, pp. 36 et seq., and others. Comptonology and Blalock, among others, then opine that his son, William, married Mary Bowne, daughter of Captain John Bowne and Mary Haverland [whose descendants also reportedly include Daniel Boone], and went with a number of others in 1666 to Monmouth County, New Jersey, and were among the founders of Middletown. In December 1667, the records indicate William was was identified with lot 15 in the town itself, and lot 14 in the "Poplar field [sic]". (Aside: Mary's sister Sarah's descendants include Abraham Lincoln, see Blalock, also Comptonology, V. 1, No. 4, p. 17). It is reported both Comptons and Bownes were Baptists and left to escape religious persecution, but the political and land patent conflicts between the Dutch and British between 1650-1670, which ultimately resulted in New Netherlands being titled to the British and becoming New York around 1670, were undoubtedly the principal cause for this particular migration. We do know they founded a church. It is reported that there was an earlier migration of the Bownes and Comptons from Massachusetts, probably for religious reasons (as "accursed Baptists"), but the documentation is scant. William and Mary had ten children. William died ca. 1709 (Comptonology, V. 2, No. 6, pp. 28-29). One of his sons, Richard, married Prudence (Providence) Isselstyne [or Usselton] (of Dutch extraction), and had a son (among other children, Isselstyne, the father of John I, who in turn married a Lydia Carhart and after her death Margaret Raemer, a German lady. Richard was born December 1673. He and Prudence had seven children. It is from this theory that this genealogy is based. In Whitehead (ed.), New Jersey Colonial Documents, v. 2, 1687-1703, p. 397, Comptonology, Blalock (pp. 2-3), Richard signed a petition to the King to appoint a suitable person as Governor, 17 July 1701. It is relevant to note that the next signature on the document is that of William Bowne, thus reinforcing the Dutch (and New York) circumstantial evidence supporting the New York identity of William. (See also Comptonology, V. 1, No. 1, p. 1; Comptonology, V. 2, No. 7, p. 31; Comptonology, V. 3, No. 9, p. 121; Comptonology, V. 4, No. 3, p. 161). Richard died prior to 1711 (Comptonology, V. 2, No. 9, p. 42.) Others believe the William here is the son of John Compton of Roxbury Massachusetts and Kent County England. There is some discussion of this in Comptonology, v. 1, No. 1, pp. 2-3. There is certainly a William of Middlesex County with a family with issue including an eventual John, but the William of Monmouth (New York) has the virtue of the multiple Dutch and Bowne historical connections. We also believe with Comptonology (Comptonology, V. 1, No. 3, p. 1) that the Middlesex Comptons eventually migrated through Maryland to Virginia. My research, particularly a copy of an old family Bible and an accompanying analysis, at the Maryland state archives, indicates this branch migrated to Culpeper County Virginia, and includes Zachariah, although I have not thoroughly researched it.

John Compton I, generation 1 below, is one of three sons (including Ezekial and Abraham) of Isselstyne Compton, who married Aaltjie Blaaw (aka "Orchie Blue" in Hopewell NJ in 1720. (See Blalock for additional details). John first married Lydia Carhart and had a daughter Amy, and possibly others. After Lydia died, John married Margaret Raemer ca. 1755 (Comptonology, V. 2, No. 7, p. 31, whose family had left Germany in 1735, also to escape religious persecution. John Compton left New Jersey with Abraham Compton (relation uncertain, if any), and arrived in Augusta County Virginia by 1772. John and Abraham continued to migrate, and John bought land in Botetort County in 1775. Abraham served in the Revolutionary War, and was reportedly killed, (see Blalock) but compare the DAR Patriot Index, Centennial Ed., Pt. 1, p.634, which shows an Abraham b. ca. 1747 NJ, died in 1779 in VA, married to Mary Compton. In any event, John was killed by a falling tree limb in 1778. He and Margaret Raemer had eight issue, per Blalock, see infra. (Blalock says John Jr. went to Missouri, but the DAR Index and other records contradict this).

It is said that Thomas Compton is John Compton, of Kent & Roxbury dad due to Birth Certification Proof. see John Compton, of Kent & Roxbury birth certificate for proof.

Methodology and Acknowledgments 

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