Odds & ends.
We’re burrowing down on those First Generation (historic-record speaking) ancestors in the American Colonies, right now. In otherwords: we’re on the trail of the Monteiths.
In this instance, the church father, John Monteith, Daniel’s brother and uncle of the celebrated Rev. John Lenox Monteith*:
Rawlinsville, in the eastern part of the township [Martic township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania] is
credited with a population of about two hundred, has
two stores, a hotel, and a church. It has a good
school, and is the centre of a thrifty agricultural
population. … The Methodist Episcopal
church at Rawlinsville is an active society. The
building, a frame structure, was raised in 1875. The
original trustees were John Monteith, Elias Aument,
John Hart, Jacob Hart, H. L. Thompson, Abraham
Creamer, Samuel Drumm, Lewis Volrath, Washington
Drumm. The church is now in the Mount Nebo circuit. It
has a Sunday school of about 140 members.
It seems that Daniel’s younger brother (and also a Revolutionary War veteran), John, had taken an active role in establishing his Protestant faith from early-on in life.
That focus of the family upon the establishment of the church’s place in frontier communities was very important to the Monteiths and those that were their close friends, apparently. After all, Daniel — the more “civic-minded” brother that pursued political office and Court standing — maintained his official letter of membership in his brother’s Hopewell Presbyterian Church in New Bedford, Pennsylvania, and chose to be buried there. And, it’s interesting that between the Streators and the Montieths, from about 1775 through most of the 19th century, the Templeton family married into families of preachers and lay deacons that could debate how many angels could dance on the head of a pin with the best of ‘em.
* That’s from “History of Lancaster County” by Dr. Frederick Klein, 1924, as excerpted by Sam Kelly, http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/ROBINSON/2002-02/1012846190 2011.03.19
Another side note from back when:
“John Cobb, purchased from Isaac and Mary Beach, May 15, 1788, and the survey of which property was made by Lemuel Cobb, May, 14, 1788. The homestead was sold by William Ripley Cobb, and the other heirs to John Moneith, of Newark, New Jersey. John Cobb was born in Parsippany, New Jersey, September 5, 1755; married, August 8, 1819, Elizabeth Shaw, and died June 1, 1858. Their son, Andrew Bell Cobb, died January 31, 1873.”
A Hint as to Daniel Monteith’s parentage origin:
Sarah Leackey [Lecky or other variants], Daniel’s Scots-born wife, was birthed in or around Dundee, Scotland. Just up the coast is Menteith, a neighborhood up the way, and Dundee is on the Fourth — the estuary of the river that bounds the ancient earldom of Menteith. And, when I say “Earldom” in the olde Perthshire, I mean an ancient Pictish family group that probably fought off the Romans, back when that was fashionable.
Did I tell you I found THE ‘Maestre’ Niel Campbell?
In my original published ‘biography’ of Maestre Gilberto de Tempilton I extrapolated that the warrior friend of Robert the Bruce was also the educated “Maestre” Neil Campbell. Now, I find, there were apparently two contemporaneous Neil Campbells that were “clearly” kinsmen, back in the day.
Best known to history is Sir Neil Campbell, son and heir to Colin Campbell, who was one of Robert I’s closest associates and military commanders, who was the only one I’d found when I first published the original version of Maestre Gilbert de Templeton’s biography.
But the other day, I learned that there was a second Maestre Neil Campbell, a cleric that was an auditor for Bruce the Competitor along with his probable cousin Neil (the Bruce’s lieutenant and close confidant) and relative of that Neil’s father, Colin.**
This educated religious man was also the political confidant and probable steward of a Great Lord on the peninsula just above the Isle of Bute, back when The Bruce was making his escape to that snowy isle of Ireland’s northern sea, back when the king of England had a large bounty on the Bruce’s head, and the Isle of Bute and its northern peninsular headland made all the difference in the future king’s escape.
This “cousin Neil, the priest” was yet another probable Continentally-educated man, so the suppositions about Maestre Gilbert are merely reinforced by this discovery. The fact that he was a similarly situated university-man and Patriot on a friendly shore also buttresses our suppositions about Gilbert Templeton allegiances and role viz. powerful lords back in those volatile times.
** Barrow, G.W.W., Robert Bruce and the Commuinity of the Realm of Scotland, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1965. p. 397 - or 406, in my copy.
