The Upton Memorial; A Genealogical Record of the Descendants of John Upton, of North Reading, Mass. Together with Short Genealogies of the Putnam, Sto (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: FIRST GENERATION. John Upton, l as we have said, is the ancestor of all in this country who bear the name of Upton, so far as we have any knowledge. Tradition, apparently well supported, relates that he came from Scotland; but as the name savors of an English origin, he may have been born in some adjacent county of England, perhaps Westmoreland, where, as we have seen, the name has been found for two centuries, and which formerly belonged to the kingdom of Scotland. The time of his i-emoval to America was a time of great commotion in the mother country; and there seems to be no improbability in what the tradition further relates, viz., that he was one of the Scottish prisoners taken by Cromwell, either at the battle of Dunbar, Sept. 3. 1650. or at the battle of Worcester, just a twelvemonth later. It is a little remarkable, though perhaps of no special significance, that the battle of Worcester was fought very nigh the town of Upton; thatLambert, with a part of Cromwell's army, held Upton church in the face of the enemy during some days previous; and that Fleetwood. with a strong division, crossed Upton bridge, over the Severn, on the evening before the battle, to attack the Scottish posts about the suburb of St. John, on the west side of the river, a short dis tance below Worcester, and on the opposite side from that city. In the battle of Duubar. ten thousand Scottish prisoners fell into the hands of Cromwell; in the battle of Worcester, about seven thousand, many of them persons of quality. Hundreds of them were sent to this country; but whether John Upton was one of them, we have no means of ascertaining. " Two hundred and seventy of these Scottish prisoners were sent to Boston, where descendants of some of them still dwell. They were cared for in their poverty ...