Major William Hathorne (Hawthorne's paternal great-great-great grandfather;
c. 1606-1681)
Major William Hathorne arrived in the New World in 1630 on the Arbella. After living in Dorchester, MA, he moved around 1636 to Salem. He became a deputy to the General Court of Massachusetts and gained the rank of major in campaigns against the Indians. He was, as Hawthorne later characterized him, "a bitter persecutor" of Quakers. In particular, he is remembered for ordering the whipping of Ann Coleman. Both in "Main Street" and in "The Custom House" sketch, Hawthorne refers to this ancestor as a persecutor of Quakers, and he is referred to indirectly in "Young Goodman Brown."
Justice John Hathorne (son of Major William Hathorne and Hawthorne's paternal great-great-grandfather; 1641-1717)
John Hathorne was the third son and fifth child born to Major William and
Anna Hathorne. He became a prosperous merchant in Salem and a judge on the Superior
Court. He was also commander-in-chief against the Indians in 1696. He is best
known, however, as the "witch judge" as he was a magistrate of the Court of
Oyer and Terminer and the chief interrogator of the accused witches in the Salem
witchcraft hysteria of 1692. John
Hathorne is enterred at the Charter Street Burying Point in Salem.
Joseph Hathorne prospered, first as a ship captain and then as a farmer. He married Sarah Bowditch, daughter of William Bowditch and Mary Gardner, who was the first cousin of Ruth Gardner Hathorne.
Son of Josepth Hathorne, Daniel married Rachel Phelps at 27
Union St. in Salem, the house where Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804.
Daniel Hathorne served in the Revolutionary War and was hailed for his bravery
in a song entitled "Bold Hathorne." When he died in 1796, he was honored by
the Marine Society and the Fire Club at his funeral at the Charter
Street Burying Point, and the notice of his death was published in the Salem
Gazette.
Hawthorne was also descended on his father's side from the Phelps; his paternal
grandmother was Rachel Phelps Hathorne. Rachel is a descendant of Henry Phelps
and his first wife, Eleanor Batter . Henry's second wife, Hannah, was originally
married to Nicholas, Henry's brother. Nicholas and Hannah Phelps were Salem Quakers
who held meetings at their home in the Woods, as the area west of Salem was called
at the time. William Hathorne had ordered that those who held such meetings be
arrested, and eventually Hannah was jailed and Nicholas was banished from the
Massachusetts Bay Colony. Thus Hawthorne may have felt a connection to both the
persectors of Quakers and the persecuted which, says Margaret Moore in The
Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne, may account for "the very ambiguity with
which he treats the Quakers" (37).
We are grateful to Richard James Phelps, Associate Director of Public Affairs,
College of the Holy Cross, and Gwen Boyer Bjorkman, noted Quaker/Hannah Phelps
historian, for the following genealogy of the Phelps/Hathorne connection:
Henry Phelps, born 1595, married Eleanor Sharp
son Henry Phelps, Jr, born 1615, arrived in Salem 1634, married Eleanor Batter
son John Phelps, born 1644, married Abigail Antram
son Henry Phelps, born 1673, married Rachel Guppy
son Jonathan Phelps, born 1708, married Judith Cox
daughter Rachel Phelps, born 1733, married Daniel Hathorne
son Nathaniel Hathorne, born 1775, married Elizabeth Clarke Manning
son Nathaniel Hawthorne, born 1804
Son of Daniel Hathorne, Nathaniel Hathorne was, like his son, born at 27
Union St. in Salem. Like many of his Hathorne ancestors, Nathaniel Hathorne
chose a life at sea. He sailed aboard the America in the late 1780s, aboard
the Perseverance, a ship owned by his brother-in-law, Simon
Forrester, in 1796. Nathaniel Hathorne married Elizabeth Clarke Manning
who lived a block away on Herbert
St., on August 2, 1801. Their first child, Elizabeth, born on March 7, 1802,
and their second child, Nathaniel, born on July 4, 1804, were both born while
Hathorne was on a sea voyage. Hathorne returned later in 1804, having achieved
the rank of Captain, and was inducted into the East Indian Marine Society in
November of that year. He sailed on this last voyage on December 28, 1807, on
the Nabby bound for Surinam, or Dutch Guiana. Less than a month later, on January
9, 1808, his wife gave birth to Maria Louisa. A few months later, in early April
of 1808, she received the news of her husband's death from yellow fever in Surinam.
