Series 13 - Shepherd-Wansbrough letters

112pp

Kerby A. Miller created his transcripts of the Shepherd-Wansbrough letters from the original manuscripts held in the Sheppard Family papers, Quaker & Special Collections, Haverford College, Pennsylvania [identifier number HC.MC-858].

Transcripts of 9 letters written between 1700 and 1732, by a group of interconnected Irish Quakers: James Wansbrough (County Westmeath); his brother-in-law Thomas Shepherd (Cohansey, New Jersey); Shepherd’s nephew of the same name (County Tipperary), Thomas’s wife Ann, family cousin Robert Dawson (Bristol, England), and Benjamin Chandlee (native of Edenderry, now in County Offaly, who settled in Philadelphia). In addition to the transcripts, the series contains associated notes and family information compiled by Kerby A. Miller, Kevin Herlihy, and Bruce D. NBoling, and their correspondence regarding the Shepherd-Wansbrough family.
Per Kerby A. Miller: ‘Strangely among the first Irish emigrants to North America were those whose parents had but lately come to Ireland as part of the Cromwellian conquest and settlement. A mixture of economic disappointment and religious radicalism sent fair numbers across…
…The Shepherds from north Tipperary are an example of this. Several score of Shepherds(variously spelt) came to the American and West Indian colonies between 1654 and the 1750s, chiefly as indentured servants, convict servants and free migrants from London, the surrounding counties and the hinterland of Bristol, bound for Virginia, Maryland or Barbados. Some Shepherds had earlier migrated to New England in 1635. Probably most fortunate were the Shepherds who went to Ireland and were beneficiaries first of Cromwellian confiscation and then of Charles ll's guarantees of settler rights (the Acts of Settlement and Explanation of 1661-1665). In 1683, three Shepherd brothers, David, John and Thomas, came to West Jersey, helping to initiate both the settlements north and south of the Cohansey river, and founding the first Baptist church in future Gloucester county. They may have followed or accompanied an uncle, John Shepherd, who died c. 1690, for whom two of them acted as executors. Yet probably it was English and Irish Quaker initiatives which brought them to West Jersey. Their sister Ann stayed in Ireland, as did other siblings; Ann's husband James Wansbrough kept in touch with the Shepherds, and apparently went out to their offspring after 1728, although all three of the emigrants were then dead.’

Another letter written by Benjamin Chandlee is located at P155/112/3/1.