Prior and Bowne

1548–1771

The line in brief

On 24 August 1662 the magistrates of Rustdorp, on Long Island, told the Director-General “that the majority of the inhabitants of their village were adherents and followers of the abomnible sect, called Quakers, and that a large meeting was held at the house of John Bound, in Vliasingen [Flushing], every Sunday.” John Bowne was taken to Fort Amsterdam and fined for letting the Friends “hold their conventicles and meetings in his house.” He would not pay, was kept in a dungeon on bread and water, and on the last day of 1662 was put on a ship for Holland. To the West India Company, which drew up a paper for him to sign, he answered: “For which of you being taken from your wife and family, without just cause, would be bound from returning to them unless upon terms to act contrary to your conscience, and deny your faith and religion.” The directors had already written to Peter Stuyvesant, on 16 April 1663, that he might “shut your eyes, at least not force people’s consciences, but allow every one to have his own belief, as long as he behaves quietly and legally,” and in March 1664 Bowne was home at Flushing.

He was born at Matlock, Derbyshire, in 1627, the son of Thomas Bowne, a shearman of the Lime Tree there; he came to Boston with his father and his sister Dorothy in 1649 and settled at Flushing in 1651. In April 1656 Capt. John Underhill wrote to John Winthrop Jr., “Hannah Feke is to be married to a verie gentiele young man of good abilitie of a loveli fetture and good behayiour,” and on 7 May they married. Hannah was a daughter of Lieut. Robert Feake of Watertown and Greenwich and of Elizabeth Fones, the niece and widowed daughter-in-law of Governor John Winthrop. She joined the Friends who met in the woods, and her husband, “so struck by the beauty and simplicity of their worship,” asked them to meet in his house, which still stands; George Fox stayed there in 1672. In 1675 Hannah, who had “received a gift in the ministry,” sailed to visit Friends in Britain. “Dear heart,” he wrote to her, “… the like largeness of love for one particular person I have seldom found amongst them, as it is for thee.” He joined her in London, and she died there in January 1677/8, “age about 40.” His father Thomas had died at Flushing in September 1677, “aged upwards of 82,” while his son was in England.

Their daughter Elizabeth, four when her father was shipped to Holland, married in 1678 John Prior, the eldest son of Matthew Prior of Killingworth upon Matinecock, near Oyster Bay. Matthew, an English Quaker who had a grant of land at Salem in 1638, had been sent to Setauket to take possession of land that Major Daniel Gotherson, who owed him money, had bought from Capt. John Scott; Scott’s titles were forged, and in 1664 Prior applied to Brookhaven “in great distress,” and the town sold some of Scott’s goods “to procure the said Priar three cows for the relief of his present necessity.” In 1667 he was one of the purchasers of Killingworth from the Matinecock Indians, and Friends met in his house. In March 1675 he was in the boat that overturned in Maryland and drowned the young preacher Hannah Wright, and he wrote her testimony: “She was wholly given up for the servis of truth … & hath laid down her head in her heavenly father’s bosom in peace.” John and Elizabeth were “Friends and farmers” at Killingworth. He died in 1698, and she married Samuel Titus. Their daughter Hannah, born in December 1681, married William Frost of the Matinecock farm about 1700; he was killed in 1728 when the carcass of a beef he was slaughtering fell on him, and she lived until 1771. Their son Isaac married Mary Cock, the granddaughter of Hannah’s aunt Elizabeth (Prior) Feke.

Where it went

  1. 1595Matlock, DerbyshireThomas Bowne
  2. With his father and his sister Dorothy1638Salem, MassachusettsMatthew Prior
  3. 1649BostonJohn Bowne
  4. 1651Flushing, Long IslandJohn Bowne
  5. 1664Brookhaven, Long IslandMatthew Prior
  6. 1667Matinecock, Oyster Bay, Long IslandMatthew Prior

Six generations

The Prior name, three generations

  1. 2Mary Prior d. 1700Wife of Matthew Prior of Killingworth upon Matinecock, near Oyster Bay, Long Island, and probably the mother of John Prior and Elizabeth (Prior) Feke, through whom she is twice an ancestor of the Frosts.
  2. 1John Prior 1650–1698A Friend and farmer of Killingworth upon Matinecock, Oyster Bay, Long Island, probably the eldest son of Matthew Prior.
  3. 0Hannah Prior 1681–1771Wife of William Frost (1674) and probably the mother of Isaac Frost (1717).

The line down the left is drawn as the tree draws it: solid where a record shows the link to the parent above, dashed where it rests on compiled accounts, dotted where it is reasoned from the evidence, grey where it is only possible. A bar fades where a birth or death year isn't known.

Everyone in the line, 14 people

Notable ancestors and small world

3 notable ancestors in the line

  • John Bowne

    Quaker of Flushing, banished by Peter Stuyvesant in 1662 for holding meetings in his house; his appeal won a ruling for freedom of conscience in New Netherland

  • Elizabeth Fones

    Governor Winthrop's niece and daughter-in-law, twice widowed or abandoned, the heroine of Anya Seton's The Winthrop Woman

  • Hannah Feake

    Quaker minister of Flushing, who crossed to preach in Britain and died in London in 1678

With the famous kin, on Notable connections →

Still being worked on

Open questions

  • Matthew Prior’s English origin, and his wife Mary’s maiden name.
  • John Prior’s birth day, and his marriage day, April or November 1678 (Hinshaw in full, or Wilson’s Bowne Family of Flushing, 1948).
  • John Bowne’s birth month, March or May 1627 (his journal’s “3rd month”).
  • Thomas Bowne’s wife; Anthony Bowne’s will of 1619 and Thomas’s own will of 1675.
For the record: the line at a glance and how sure it is

The line at a glance

Matthew Prior (d. bet. 1685/6 and 1692), of Salem, Brookhaven and Killingworth = Mary (d. 1700) > John Prior (1650/1-1698), of Killingworth = Elizabeth Bowne (1658-1721/2) > Hannah Prior (1681-1771) = William Frost (1674-1728), of Matinecock > Isaac Frost (1717-aft. 1798), of Mill River Neck and Dutchess County.

The Bownes: Thomas Bowne (bp. 1595, d. 1677), shearman of Matlock > John Bowne (1627-1695), of Flushing = Hannah Feake (c. 1637-1677/8) > Elizabeth Bowne, above.

The Feakes and Winthrops: Adam Winthrop (1548-1623), of Groton Manor = Anne Browne (d. 1629) > Anne Winthrop (1585/6-1618 or 1619) = Thomas Fones (d. 1629), London apothecary > Elizabeth Fones (1609/10-bef. 1674) = Lieut. Robert Feake (d. 1661/2), of Watertown and Greenwich > Hannah Feake, above.

The scope walks every ancestor of Hannah Prior. Her husband’s side is the Frost and Fairchild line, which stops at her. Matthew Prior and Mary stand also in the Cock and Feke line, through their daughter Elizabeth, wife of John Feke. Robert Feake and Elizabeth Fones, with the Foneses and Winthrops above them, stand in the Cock and Feke line through their son John, and in the Underhill line through their daughter Elizabeth, wife of Capt. John Underhill. So Hannah’s son Isaac and his wife Mary Cock were second cousins through Matthew Prior, and second cousins once removed through the Feakes.

How sure it is

  • Hannah to John Prior and Elizabeth Bowne (compiled, probable): second of John Priar’s children “as shown by Friends’ Record in New York,” “II Hannah, b. 22/10 mo. (Dec.) 1681; m. William (2) Frost” (the Cock genealogy, 1914, p. 290), and “Hannah, daughter of John and Elizabeth (Bowne) Pryer of Matinecock” (the Frost Genealogy, p. 22). The Quaker 10th month, before 1752, is December; the Frost Genealogy’s “Oct. 22, 1681” misreads it. Her marriage to William Frost, about 1700, is from the Frost Genealogy (compiled, probable).
  • John Prior to Matthew Prior and Mary (compiled, probable): “John Priar of Matthew and Mary,” first of Matthew’s children “as shown by Friends’ Record in New York” (Cock genealogy, pp. 285, 290). Other records tie Matthew to his children’s marriages: he witnessed his daughter Mary’s Quaker marriage to John Underhill in 1668, sold a house and lot to “his son-in-law John Underhill” in 1678, and in 1693 his daughter Martha married as “dau. of Mery Pryer of Matinecock.” John’s birth is damaged in the print (February or March 1650/1); his marriage was “9/2 mo. (Apl.) 1678” by the Cock genealogy or “Nov. 2, 1678” by the Frost Genealogy; he died on the 2nd of the 4th month (June) 1698, where the Frost Genealogy has 1 February.
  • Elizabeth Bowne to John Bowne and Hannah Feake (documented, proven): Hinshaw’s abstract of the New York Friends’ records, under her husband John Prior, “m Elizabeth BOWNE, dt John & Hannah”; second of the “Children of John and Hannah (Feake) Bowne,” from the Bowne family register and the Friends’ records (Cock genealogy, p. 285); and the Frost Genealogy. John Bowne married his second Hannah, Hannah Bickerstaff, only in 1679.
  • John Bowne to Thomas Bowne (documented, proven): Bowne’s own journal, as Field (1895) quotes it, “he was baptized at Matlock … and his father, Thomas, on May 25th, 1595, at the same place. They left England together in 1649.” The Matlock register begins only in 1637. Thomas as the “youngest son, Thomas Bowne,” of the will of Anthony Bowne of the Lime Tree (1619) is compiled and probable (Field: “there is hardly a doubt”); Thomas’s wife is not known.
  • John Bowne’s marriage to Hannah Feake (compiled, probable): the 7th of the 3rd month (May) 1656 (Yarnall, 1908; the Cock genealogy; Field), a month after Underhill’s letter. The Frost Genealogy has July 7 on one page and May 7 on another.
  • Hannah Feake to Robert Feake and Elizabeth Fones (compiled, probable): “dau. of Lieut. Robert Feake and Elizabeth (Fones) Winthrop his wife” (Cock genealogy, p. 282), borne out by her brothers’ conveyances of 1660 and 1669 “to ‘our brother John Bowne,’” by Captain Underhill, her sister’s husband, calling Bowne “my Brother John Bound” in his will of 1671, and by the name she gave her youngest daughter, Martha Johanna, after her mother’s daughter by Henry Winthrop. Her death in London is documented and proven: the register of Friends at Devonshire House has “the 31st of 11th month, 1677,” and adds “age about 40.”
  • Robert Feake’s marriage to Elizabeth Fones (documented, proven): Winthrop’s journal, 27 Jan 1631/2, names “Mount Feake, from one Robert Feake, who had married the governor’s daughter-in-law.”
  • Elizabeth Fones to Thomas Fones and Anne Winthrop (documented, probable): Adam Winthrop’s diary records Anne’s marriage in February 1604/5 and the birth of “her seconde daughter” on 21 Jan 1609/10 (Winthrop Papers 1:88, 104); that this daughter was Elizabeth is the Frost Genealogy’s.
  • Anne Winthrop to Adam Winthrop (documented, proven): his diary, “my daughter Anne.” Anne Browne as her mother is compiled and probable.

Apart from Elizabeth Bowne’s parents, John Bowne’s father, Elizabeth Fones’s parents and Anne Winthrop’s father, the parent links above Hannah Prior are compiled, most of them from the Frost Genealogy (1912) and the Cock genealogy (1914), the work of one small circle of Long Island genealogists who shared notes; they quote the Friends’ registers, the town books and the wills, and many of their quotations can be checked in print. Matthew Prior’s parents and his wife’s maiden name are not known; WikiTree’s “Mary Clark” has no source.

Set aside: the Capt. John Bowne who married Lydia Holmes and died at Middletown, New Jersey, in 1683/4 was a son of William Bowne of Salem, Gravesend and Middletown, “said to have come from Yorkshire,” a different family, Unrelated to the Bownes of Matlock and Flushing (Coddington, 1943). WikiTree’s Ludlam as Thomas Bowne’s wife comes from a novel, and Field’s thought that the name was once Bohun, from a resemblance of arms, is unsupported. The research is in research/mcmillan/Frost_Underhill_Bowne_Feake.md, sections 1.B and 1.D.

Their families and the files

+ 5 husbands, wives and children

Research filesresearch/mcmillan/Frost_Underhill_Bowne_Feake.mdresearch/mcmillan/McMillan_Frost_Master_Research.md

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