1535944

[Chapman.FTW]

he late Reverend J. S. Purvis, formerly Archivist of the York Diocese,
has written:
"It is shown beyond doubt by the records of the York Diocesan Registry
that this Thomas Anderson had a wife Elizabeth and that they were both
Dissenters. Thomas is entered as early as 1667 as refusing to pay his
assessment or attend church; and he and his wife Elizabeth are entered
together for the same offense from 1673 through 1680. Elizabeth alone is
entered in 1683, suggesting that Thomas had died that year. Since
neither name is entered thereafter it is assumed that both had died.
The evidence that Thomas Anderson had become a Dissenter of some sort by
1667 reduces the chance that his children were baptized, married, or
buried at the parish church."

A study of later records does reveal, however, that his daughter
Elizabeth Anderson was baptized in the parish church in 1675. From the
Yorkshire Quarterly Meeting of the Society of Friends, we find that
Thomas Anderson was not only a Dissenter, but a Quaker. These records
further show that he was married to Elizabeth Fox of Bonwicke, a town
affiliated with the Hull Meeting, on March 10, 1671. The records
further show that he died on May 6, 1683.

In The Annals of Newberry, John Abney Chapman describes on page 598 an
Ancient Family Bible. The Bible, a King James or Authorized Version,
was printed in 1613, only two years after the first edition, by the same
printer of the original edition, Robert Barker of London. In it are
written these words: "THOMAS ANDERSON IS THE OWNER OF THIS BOOKE 1664".
Further family records written in this Bible give a record up to 1840,
and through it we can trace the family line through Thomas and Elizabeth
Fox Anderson to Elizabeth Anderson, who married Marmaduke Jackson and
became the mother of Sarah Jackson. Sarah Jackson, as we stated
earlier, became the wife of Giles Chapman.

It is thrilling to know that there is in existence today and in fairly
good condition this Chapman Family Bible which is now over three hundred
and sixty years old. One can only imagine the stories it could tell of
the persecution of the Quakers in England, the voyage to America in the
hold of a wooden sailing ship, and the journeys overland through
undeveloped country to Virginia and then to South Carolina. From
Newberry, the Bible traveled with Lewis and Rhoda Chapman to Indiana,
and with their descendants through Illinois to Missouri. When located
in 1973, it was in Pueblo, Colorado.

SOURCE: Giles Chapman of Bridlington and His Descendants, by Jesse Pugh
Chapman, Jr. 1976, pages v - vi.