John Woodall/Wattles, Scottish Prisoner of War

While working on my Mom's side of the family, I discovered we descend from John Woodall (or Wattles as the name was spelled in the States) who came to New England as a Scottish prisoner of war.  It came as a surprise as most of my ancestors immigranted on their own to the colonies for a better life or religious freedom. John Woodall was forced from his home of Scotland and brought to New England where he would have a family and yet meet a tragic end.

The years of  1646-1651 saw a series of armed conflicts between the supporters of the monarchy which was lead by King Charles II who had been declared King after his father King Charles I had been beheaded.  King Charles wanted to continue the expansion of power of the Stuart monarchy over Parliament.

King Charles II

Whereas, Parliament wanted a greater role in control of the government.  Until that time, Parliament functioned as an advisory committee to the King and was only called together by the King and could be dissolved at any time.  Parliament was made up of the gentry and represented more the people, but could not legally force its will on the Monarchy.  So after the death of King Charles I, a Commonwealth of England was formed and later a Protectorate under the personal rule Oliver Cromwell who became a virtual dictator.

Oliver Cromwell

So a young John Woodall, born about 1630, supported the Stuart monarchy when King Charles II arrived in Scotland in 1650 as did most of his countrymen.  The Royalists, as the followers of King Charles were called, were overwhelmed and defeated by the Army of the Commonwealth under Cromwell.  The final Battle of Worcester on September 3, 1651 resulting in  King Charles II going into hiding and then exile in France.  The Royalist Army suffered a loss of three thousand men and ten thousand men taken prisoner, one of which was our ancestor John Woodall.

Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester

The prisoners were taken to London where it was noted that most of them had no shoes or little clothing.  John could have been executed, but an Act of Parliament in October 1651 instead, had 8000 prisoners sent at their own expense to New England, Virginia or the West Indies.  Two weeks later, 272 men were put onboard the "John and Sara" and sailed to New England.  John Woodall's name appears on this list of prisoners.

Upon his arrival in New England in 1651, John and his fellow prisoners were sold.  John was "bought" by Samuel Richardson, an original proprietor of Woburn, Massachusetts.  Samuel died in 1658 and the inventory of his estate included "for service of servants their time to come... Item, John Wattles, five pounds.'  After Cromwell's death in the same year of 1658, his son Richard Cormwell was declared to be protector, but he was removed by the Army after 7 months.  Eventually monarchy was restored and King Charles II returned to England in 1660.   Despite the return of the monarchy he had fought for in 1651, John did not return to his native homeland of Scotland.

John in December 1666 at about age 36, married Mary Gould and settled in Chelmsford, Massachusetts.  There they had three known children, a son, William and two daughters, Rose and Mary.  John was a farmer or husbandman as term was then used for his occupation.  Unfornately within ten years, the period of time in the colonies saw the uprising of the natvive people against the growing number of Colonists.  So began King Philip's War which was lead by a Wampanoag leader who took the English title of King Philip.  The town of Chlemsford came under several attacks and John was killed in one of them between February and April 1676.  His wife and children escaped to the safe harbor of Dorchester, Massachusetts.  After the war, his family recieved 16 shilling and eight pence for his death.   I

John's descendants would continue on in the Colonies and play an important role in colonial history.  Abigail Belcher, the wife of his son William Wattles, was the daughter of Samuel Belcher, the original owner of the house in Braintree, Massachusetts, now [2019] owned by the National Park Service, where the future President John Adams and his wife Abigail, lived and where President John Quincy Adams was born.  William Wattles being our direct ancestor.

Adams Homesteads in Massachsuetts

John’s grandson, Captain John Wattles, another ancestor in our line, married Judith Fitch, a descendant of  Rev. James Fitch, the  founder of Lebanon, Connecticut, as well as Major John Mason, Deputy Governor of Connecticut Colony, once renowned and now notorious for conducting the near-extermination of the Pequot Tribe, and also Rev. Robert Peck, a nonconformist during the reigns of James I and Charles I and the leader of the Puritan emigrants who established Hingham, Massachusetts.

From there, our line departs with the marriage of Zerviah Wattles to Israel Damon and the family moving to Wiscassett, Maine and their descendants moving north to Piscataquis County and marrying into our Woodward line of ancestry.

John Wattles, a Scottish Prisoner of War, who came to America, not by choice but by force, would survive a War and battle in his own country which involved thousands, only to be killed in an attack by group in a much smaller numbers and die at only age 46 years.

Any of my cousins on my Mom's maternal side can join the Scottish Prisoner of War Society or join their facebook page as well which has a lot of the information I found on John Wattles.

A Relative tale of three Governors of Maine

One of the stories I had been told many years ago by my great-aunt, Leona was that her grandmother was a cousin of two Governors of Maine.  If my great-aunt had told me the names, I didn't remember them or knew who they were at the time.  Several years ago I had tried to see if any of my great-great-grandmother, Susan Church (Spaulding) Mower's first cousins had been Governors and I had come up empty in that search. Recently with the addition of "Thru-lines" on Ancestry, I was able to trace down lines of my family related to me by DNA.  My research revealed that the tale of two Governor cousins was partially true and shed light on a third Governor of Maine connection.

My ancestor "Sue" as she was called by the family was actually a second cousin of two Governors of Maine through her grandfather's side and her grandmother's side.   Her grandfather was a great-uncle to one governor and her grandmother a great-aunt to another governor.

Susan C. (Spaulding) Mower
My great-great-grandmother

Governor Abner Colburn was a 2nd cousin to Sue Mower on her maternal grandfather's Benjamin Weston's side. [see my Weston Family Farm post for more on Benjamin Weston] 

Governor Abner Colburn of Maine

Gov. Colburn was born March 22, 1803 in Skowhegan, Maine, son of Eleazer and Mary (Weston) Colburn.  He  served three years in the Maine House of Representatives before being elected the 30th Governor of Maine in 1863. He served only one term during the Civil War years.  He became president of Skowhegan Savings Bank as well as president and director of the Maine Central Railroad. He served as the Chair of the Colby College Board of Trustees from 1874 until his death in 1885.  He was the uncle of the writer Louise Helen Colburn.   Many of his historical items can be seen in a museum that she began, the Skowhegan History House.  Colburn never married and resided in Skowhegan with his brother Philander Colburn who also never married, but also a wealthy business in Skowhegan.  Gov. Colburn died January 4, 1885 in Skowhegan, Maine.  

On Sue Mower's maternal grandmother's Anna (Powers) Weston, she was a 2nd cousin to Governor Llewellyn Powers.

Governor Llewellyn Powers

Gov. Powers was born October 14, 1836 in Pittsfield, Maine, son of Arba and Naomi (Matthews) Powers.  He attended Colby College and law school in New York.  After receiveing his law degree in 1860, he set up practice in Houlton, Maine in 1861.  He served in the Maine House of Representatives for several years and was Speaker of the House in his last term.  It was his bill in 1876 that abolished capital punishment in Maine.  He became Maine's 44th Governor in 1897 and served until 1901.  He married Martha Averill and they were parents to five children.  Llewellyn died July 28, 1908 in Houlton, Maine.  

My ancestor Sue was living during the time when both of her 2nd cousins became Governors of Maine, although she as woman would not have been able to vote for them.  I can only assume that probably the men in the family including Sue's husband, William Mower, would have voted them into office as they were both Republican governors and until my Dad and myself, my family had all been Republicans.  

Recently the addition of Thru-lines on Ancestry revealed another connection to a Govenor of Maine. My DNA connected me to the Reed family of Fort-Fairfield which I had known from tracing the siblings of Sue Mower.  Her older sister Electa (Spaulding) Reed was the grandmother of Govenor of Maine, John Hathaway Reed.  Sue was also the great-aunt of a Governor of Maine. 

Governor John H. Reed

Gov. Reed was born January 5, 1921 in Fort Fairfield, Maine.  He served in the Navy during World War II and came back to Maine serving in the Maine House of Representatives and Maine Senate.  In 1959, Maine had four Governors, one of which was John Reed.  Gov. Edmund Muskie had resigned to take his seat in the U.S. Senate in January 1959.  Robert Haskell then became Governor for 5 days until Governor Clinton Clauson was sworn in as Governor in 1959.  Gov. Clausn died while in office on December 30, 1959.  With John Reed as Senate President, he then became Maine's 67th Governor.  He was elected in 1960 and again in 1962 to become Maine's first 4 year Governor until 1966 when he was defeated by Ken Curtis.  Gov. Reed then took a seat on the National Safety Board and later was Ambassador to Sri Lanka under Presidents Nixon and Reagan.  He died October 31, 2012 in Washington, D.C.

I was a little too young to be aware of Gov. Reed during his term in the 1960s, as I didn't come along until 1963.  No one in my immediate family ever mentioned any connection to him and probably were not even aware as I don't believe my great-aunt meant he was one of the connections to a Maine Governor as she only said her grandmother was a cousin to two Maine Governors.  Whereas she herself was a 2nd cousin to Gov. Reed.