Faulkner Line Highlights

Alex's last name is Faulkner. This name comes from his mother's paternal line and is Scottish! We were able to trace this line back to the 1600s, and along the way found some interesting tidbits and anecdotes. 

"Brown-Falcon,-Vic,-3.1.2008" by jjron - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons 

"Brown-Falcon,-Vic,-3.1.2008" by jjron - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons 


The surname "Faulkner" comes from the occupational name "Falconer," one who hunts with falcons. The earliest Faulkners in America were actually Falconers! Alex's 8x great-grandfather Patrick Falconer (1658-1692) arrived in New Jersey from Scotland in 1684. He married Hannah Jones (1669-1717), whose family had already been in the New World for generations.

Through Hannah Jones, the family has some distinguished colonial roots. According a history of the New Haven colony, her father William Jones (1624-1706) participated in hiding the "Regicide Judges" from crown prosecution in 1661. These men, Whalley and Goffe, had been among the Parliamentarians who sentenced King Charles I to death after the second English Civil War; when the monarchy came back to power they escaped to New Haven and were sheltered by the colonists. Meanwhile, Hannah Jones' mother was Hannah Eaton (1632-1707), the daughter of Theophilus Eaton (1591-1657), making Theophilus, the famous first governor of New Haven who was re-elected every year until his death, Alex's 10x great-grandfather. (As a side-note, Theophilus' brother Nathaniel, Alex's 11x great uncle, was the first person in Massachusetts tried for witchcraft.)

Patrick Falconer's son Patrick Faulkner (1692-1735) was born the year of his father's death. He married Deliverance Cooke (1695-1781), whose grandfather (Alex's 9x great-grandfather) Thomas Cooke (1615-1692) was one of the first men to set foot in the brand-new New Haven colony under Theophilius in 1637. The family saw New Haven merge with the Connecticut colony in 1664. 

During the American Revolution, Patrick and Deliverance's son Charles Faulkner (1731-1803), Alex's 6x great grandfather, served in Captain Vaill's Coast Guard near Guilford, Connecticut. He was wounded in 1781 by "a marauding party of British"* who landed on the coast. Due to his heroism, the nearby Faulkner's Island where his family lived may (or may not) have been named after him! The island may have been named after Charles, or the whole Faulkner family, or may have been named as a translation of its native name, "the place of the great fish hawks"; like the name of its residents, it morphed with time from Falconer's into Faulkner's. (*The most information we were able to find about this incident came from a self-published book by a Guilford author, Joel E. Helander; the book is The Island Called Faulkner's, published 1988, ISBN 0-935600-09-4. The self-publishing makes it a little suspect, and we have not yet been able to track down Helander's sources and check them out.)

Charles Faulkner's grandson Jeremiah Faulkner (1802-1885) married Jane Catherine Hewitt (1809-1884). Here, with Alex's 4x great-grandparents, the Hewitt and VanBenschoten lines enter the family tree from Jane's father and mother respectively. Both have long and distinguished histories in America. 

The Hewitt line came to Connecticut about 1650 with Alex's 10x great grandfather Thomas Hewitt (1630-1662), who, after marrying and having two children in the colony, was lost at sea in the West Indies in 1662. His widow petitioned the general court in 1670 to be able to remarry, since he had not been seen in eight years.

Thomas Hewitt's grandson Benjamin Hewitt (1688-1761) married his first cousin once removed Ann Palmer (1683-1760). The ancestor they had in common was Walter Palmer (1585-1661), Alex's 10x great grandfather. Walter was one of the founders of Stonington, Connecticut -- but was most notable for being charged with manslaughter in 1630, shortly after he arrived in Massachusetts from England. The book New England: The Great Migration and The Great Migration Begins, 1620-1635, describes the trial this way: 

On 28 September 1630 a coroner's jury met to "inquire concerning the death of Austen Bratcher ... dying lately at Mr. Cradock's plantation." The jury found "that the strokes given by Walter Palmer were occasionally the means of the death of Austen Bratcher, & so to be manslaughter." Palmer was bound over for trial on 19 October, but at that court the case was continued to 9 November, at which time a trial was held and the jury found Palmer not guity.

The Van BenSchoten line may have came to New York when it was still New Netherland, but the Dutch surnames and church records have made it difficult to trace "back to the boat"; we have got as far back as the 1730s and still have not reached European emigrants. The highlight of this line is Hermannus Dumond/Harmonus du Mon (1730?-1778), Alex's 7x great-grandfather. Although he was not enlisted in the Revolutionary army, starting about 1776 in Delaware County, New York, he passed intelligence about Loyalist and Loyalist Indian movements to the colonial military, and in 1778 was killed for his efforts by a party of Loyalists from Schorarie.

Jeremiah Faulkner and Jane Catherine Hewitt's son was Lyman Faulkner (1833-1889), Alex's 3x great grandfather, who married Virginian Sarah M Stokes (1848-1927). For a long time we could not find any further information on Sarah Stokes' family; after a recent research breakthrough, we believe her mother was Mary Cool (1830-1904), who sometime after having children separated from her family and was marked as "insane" on the 1870 census. It is possible although unconfirmed that she died at the Western State Hospital asylum in Staunton, Virginia. If that is true she is buried in one of the property's many unmarked graves. Mary Cool's grandfather was William Matheny II (1759-1836), Alex's 6x great-grandfather; he was a Revolutionary War veteran who enlisted in Augusta County, Virginia, in 1777; later that year he was in the Battle of Brandywine Creek in Pennsylvania. He was wounded in the leg and taken prisoner for several days, but was soon removed to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He recovered from his wound but did not rejoin the army; despite this, he was granted a pension after the war.

Lyman Faulkner and Sarah Stokes' son Myron Jeremiah Faulkner (1877-1953) brings us into the 1900s and more recent memory; he is Alex's great-great-grandfather, his grandfather's grandfather. He married Sarah Sanford (1880-1926), who was his first cousin once removed through the common ancestors Jeremiah Faulkner/Jane Catherine Hewitt. The Sanford line is also long and includes many colorful early American characters; we have given it its own write-up of highlights. 

Myron Faulkner and Sarah Sanford had two sons, Lyman George Faulkner (1903-1946) and Curtis Lewis Faulkner (1907-2003). Alex's great-grandfather Lyman was born and raised in Delaware County, New York; he married Helen Sutherland (1900-1986), whose family history has its own section on our website here. Lyman had one son, Alex's grandfather George Richard Faulkner (1930), before he died unexpectedly in a tractor accident at age 43. Alex's grandfather George has talked to us about his family, his life, and his memories here.

These are only the highlights of the Faulkner history! For the complete picture, we have charts and reports for download.