cs 71 .Q9 1900 George Washington Flowers Memorial Collection DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY ESTABLISHED BY THE FAMILY OF COLONEL FLOWERS Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/memorialsofquise01quis QUESTENBERG, OF COLOGNE. " Every man .... shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensign of their father's house." Numbers, II. 2. 1 r MEMORIALS OF THE QUISENBERRY FAMILY IN GERMANY, ENGLAND AND AMERICA. Compiled and Edited By ANDERSON C. QUISENBERRY. [from a drawing of the seal on the will (1645) OF HENRY QUESTENhURY, OF MAIDSTONE, IN COUNTY KENT, GENTLEMAN.] ^And my God ptit it into my heart to gather together the people . . . that they might be reckoned by Genealogy." — Nehemiah. ^'MULLACH A-BU!" WASHINGTON, D. C. : GfBsoN Bros., Printers and Bookbinders. 1900. Only 150 Copies of this Book have BEEN Printed ; of which this Copy is No. .5S PREFACE. " This shall be zsrittoi for the goicratiotis to come." — PsALMS. cii, iS. In 1897 the compiler of this little work issued a volume called Genealogical Memoranda of the Qiiiseiiberry Fanii/y and Other Families, which contained all that could be found in the Virginia records, and elsewhere, concerning the earlv history of the Ouisenberry family in America, together with a good deal of more modern data relating to it. At that time, however, nothing was known or could be learned concerning the European antecedents of the family, though there was one item of information showing that people of the name had lived in London, England, about two hundred and thirty years ago. In October, 1898, through the kindness of that able genealogist, ^Ir. George W. ^Montague, of Xorthampton, Massachusetts, I received a clue which I have untiringly and persistently followed, at considerable expense ; and, although there is yet much to be desired, still the success that has crowned my efforts has not been inconsiderable. I have secured copies of German and English records (all reproduced in this book) which show conclusiveh' that our name was known in England as the name of an Englishman as early as 1468, and in Germany certainly as early as 1380, at which time it was, no doubt, already a very ancient name. It is much to be regretted that, owing to hiatuses in both the German and the English records, a lineal descent, abso- lutely undeniable from first to last, could not be established. But, taking the undeniable facts in conjunction with other 4 MEMORIALS OF THE QUISENBERRY FAMILY facts that may be reasonably deduced from them, I have been able to piece together a constructive lineal descent that seems about perfect in theory. A known descent of honorable people from 1380 to 1900 — five hundred and twenty years — is, indeed, a very fair record, and it is one that the Quisenberry family of to-day may unreservedly claim. I wish to place on record here the expression of my sincerest thanks to those who, without fee, have given me so great assistance in collecting data for this work. J. M. Cowper, Esq., of Canterbury, England, who has rendered his own country and ours invaluable service in the various books he has published, examined for me the ancient municipal records of Canterbury, covering centuries, as well as the church registers of that city, and many others besides. What he did involved a great amount of very exacting toil and care, but he did it all with a gentle and untiring courtesy for which I must be deeply grateful while life lasts. Mr. H. Mapleton Chapman very kindly examined for me the wills still preserved in Canterbury. Rev. A. P. Morris, vicar of Leeds, Kent, whose registers have furnished some of the most important data in this work, also went to extraordinary pains to show me courtesy, a fact which must ever be gratefully remembered. It will greatly interest my American readfers to know that Mr. Morris is the grandson of Mary Phillipse, of New York, who married Major Roger Morris of the British army, after having rejected George Washington — a fact which we have all read in biographies of Washington. Washington and Morris w^ere both aides on Braddock's staff in 1755. I am also indebted to the following-named ministers of the Church of England, who kindly, and without charge, exam- ined their registers for me ; namely : Rev. F. M. Millard, of Otham ; Rev. P. F. Wigan, of Thurnham ; Rev. John Scarth, of Berstead ; Rev. Mr. Southey, of Hollingbourne ; Rev. H. M. McDonald, of St. Nicholas, Rochester ; Rev. Percy G. Benson, of Hoo ; Rev. E. W. Bartlett, of Queenborough ; and Rev. P\ R. Alfree, of St. Nicholas-at-Wade, Isle of Thanet. All these churches are in Kent, and most of them are IX GERMANY, ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 5 adjacent to Leeds. Quite a number of rectors and vicars charged the usual fees for examining their registers, as they had a perfect right to do, and they, too, were as courteous as could be, and seemed very anxious to render me as much assistance as was possible. My experience with ministers of the Church of England impels me to consider them the most kindly and courteous body of gentlemen on earth. My thanks are also due to Cornwallis P. AVykeham-Martin, of Leeds Castle, Esquire; to Prof. W. W. Skeat, of Cam- bridge University ; to F. V. James, Esq., of the :\Iaidstone Museum and Library ; to C. T. Hatfield, of ?^Iargate, Esquire ; to Walter Rye, Esq., of London, and to many others both in Kent and in London for valuable assistance most kindly rendered. To ]yliss Phillis Castleman Brown and Mr. Laurence Castle- man Brown, of Leeds, Kent, I am indebted for photographs from which the illustrations in this work are reproduced. In many ways they have both assisted me very materially. To my good friend Dr. Bernard Bunnemeyer, of Washing- ton, D. C, my thanks are due for translations of the German records and wills received from Cologne and Dusseldorf — a work that involved a considerable amount of application and study, owing to the archaic construction of those very ancient documents. Mr. Herbert Putnam, Librarian of the Con- gressional Library, has earned my gratitude by affording me unusual facilities for prosecuting my researches in the mag- nificent collection of books under his charge. My own work has not been slight, as I have written many hundreds of letters and read a great many books in connec- tion with my researches. W^hatever faults of construction, or otherwise, the book may contain, I hope may be kindly allowed for by my indulgent readers, in view of the fact that my work has mostly been done at night, after I had already wrought diligently throughout the day in other lines of action. I hope that those who read this book at all will read it thoroughly from end to end, as in that way alone can a proper understanding of it be had. 6 MEMORIALS OE THE QUISENBERRY EAMILY For a more detailed account of our family in America the reader is referred to Genealogical Memoranda of the Qicisen- berry Family published in 1897. Washington, D. C, Angust 75, igoo. IX GERMANY, ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 7 A CONSTRUCTIVE DESCENT. The following descent lacks absolute contirmation iu only a few instances ; and the presumptive eTideuce even in those instances is so strong as to render their correctness practically certain : 1. Tielmann Quesci^nberg, born in Bodenfelde, Brunswick, Germany, about 1380. Settled in Cologne, Germany, in 1424, where he died in 1446. Married Sybilla von Suchtelu, and had 2. Bertold Questenberg : lived and died in Cologne, In 1445 married Mar- gareth , and had 3*. Henricus Questenberg. born in Cologne about 1446 : educated at the Uni- versity of Cologne. Aliout 1467 married Catherine in England, and had 4. Augustine Questynbery> of Canterbury, England, born about 1468 : died about 1510. Married and had 5. John Questenbury, of Canterbury, born about 1493. Married and had 6. Henry Questenbury, of Canterbury, born about 1517. Married and had 7. Henry Questenbery. of Leeds, Kent, England, born about 1541. Married Mildred about 1562, and had 8. James Quessonberry (as it is spelled on the church register), born in Leeds, Kent, November 15, 1578 : died in East Greenwich, Kent, September 16. 1620. Married Joan , and had 9. Thomas Questenbury. born in Bromley, Kent, March 16, 1608. Went to Virginia about 1625 and remained there until 1650, when he returned to England, settling in Canterbury. Married in Virginia and had 10. John Quessenbury, of Westmoreland county, Virginia, born in 1027 : died 1717. Married Anne Pope, and had 11. Humphrey Quesenbury, born in Westmoreland county, Virginia, not later than 1674: died in King George county. Virginia, not later than 1727. Married and had 12. Thomas Quesenbury. born in King George county and died in Caroline county, Virginia : dates not known. Married and had 13. Aaron Quisenberry, born in Caroline county, Virginia, probably about 1715; died in Orange county. Virginia, in 1795. Married Joyce Dudley (as is supposed) and had 14. Bev. James Quisenberry, born iu Spottsylvania county. Virginia, July 5, 1759: died in. Clark county, Kentucky, August 5, 1830, having settled in Kentucky in 1783. On December 4, 1776, he married Jane Burris, of Orange county, Virginia, and had 15. Colby Burris Quisenberry, born in Clark county, Kentucky (then Fayette county, Virginia), July 7, 1788, and died there December 30, 1870. On December 16, 1810, he married L icy Bush, of the same county, and had 8 MEMORIALS OF THE QUISENBERRY FAMILY 16. James Francis Quisenberry, born in Madison county, Kentucky, October 15, 1824 ; died in Clark county, Kentucky, February 3, 1877. On October 14, 1847, be married Emily Cameron Chenault, of Madison county, Ken- tucky, and had 17. Anderson Chenault Quisenberry, born in Clark county, Kentucky, October 26, 1850. On May 1, 1879, he married Corinna Broomhall, of Springfield, Ohio, and had 18. James Francis Quisenberry, born in Lexington, Kentucky, July 10, 1886. IN GERMANY, ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 9 INTRODUCTION. One generation passeth azvay, and a?iother generation cotneth ; but the earth abideth Ecclesiastes, i, 4. The family which in America styles itself Ouisenberry, Quesenbury, Quesenberry, etc., has a strange and interesting history. So far as is at present known, it originated in the Harz mountains, in that part of ancient Saxony now known as Brunswick. The earliest record that has been discovered concerning any member of the family shows that he was in 1418 a merchant of the Hanseatic League, doing business in IvOndon, but retaining his citizenship, or home, in Lubeck, Germany. From 1418 to 1515 (and perhaps much later) several members of the family were engaged in the Hanse trade in London, all of whom were from Cologne, Germany. The Hanseatic League and its merchants are well worth studying, but, of course, they can be mentioned but briefly here. The Hanse merchants appeared in England as early as the year 879, in Saxon times, and remained there until 1599, a period of seven hundred and twenty years ; and they created and built up England's trade and manufactures, minted her money, and undoubtedly laid the foundations of the com- mercial supremacy which has made her the mistress of the seas. The term " sterling," as applied to English money, originated from the name " Easterling," which the English applied first to the Cologne merchants, and afterwards to all the merchants of the Hanseatic League who were domiciled in London. In that subdivision of this book called The Doctnneiits may be found much interesting information, culled from various sources, concerning the Hanse merchants of London. The English family of Questenbery, Questenbury, etc., must have originated about 1468, from one of the Hanse merchants in London named Ouestenberg, who came from Cologne, but married an Englishw^oman, settled permanently 10 MEMORIALS OF THE QUISENBERRY FAMILY in England, and became an English citizen. Many of the Hanse merchants did this, notwithstanding the severe penalty of being expelled the Hanse, and forfeiting all their financial interests in Hanseatic affairs, which invariably followed their marriage with English women. The young Questenberg, who gave up all for an honest love, was evidently disinherited and disowned by his father, for there are proofs that he began making his livelihood in England in an humble way, and very likely with but little capital other than his strong right arm and the love of his bonny English bride, for whom he had given up country, rank, and fortune. The Quisenberrys (however spelled) of America are all descended from that brave, manly, and high-minded young German of four hun- dred and fifty years ago ; and we have more right to be proud of him than if he had been a king upon a throne. It is probable that he settled first in London, and went into business there, it may be, as a cloth merchant in a small way, or perhaps as a merchant tailor. The Hanse merchants of the family generally dealt in cloth. The first Englishman of the family of whom positive record has been found was a "tailour" in Canterbury in 1490; and it was doubtless in that old cathedral city that the founder of the English branch of the family met and married his English wife. Canterbury was directly on the route that would be followed by travelers going from the continent to London, or vice versa ; and in those days it was doubtless a place where they had to stay overnight on the journey between the port and the metropolis. After the " tailour " there were, from time to time, mem- bers of the family in England who were shoemakers, cord- wainers, glaziers, grocers, yeomen, clergymen, and gentlemen ; and all of them, in whatever walk of life, were apparently thrifty people. In the later records some of the name appear as living in Maidstone, Eeeds, Dover, Deal, Chatham, Rochester, Hoo, Bromley, and East Greenwich, all (as well as Canterbury) in the County of Kent ; and some also lived in the city of London. IX GERMANY, ENGLAND AND AMERICA. II _It may be interesting to consider briefly the places in Ger- many and England in which the family is known to have lived, as well as the occupations its members have followed. In the copies of German records published in The Docu- ments there are frequent references to the Holy Roman Em- pire, of which many memibers of the family were Barons, Counts, etc.; and at least one of them was a Royal Imperial Councillor, or member of the Emperor's cabinet of advisers. The Holy Roman Empire, though vaguely claiming a much greater antiquity, was, as a matter of fact, primarily estab- lished by Charlemagne in Soo, but acquired actual stability in 962 under Otto the Great, King of the West Franks ; and from his time on there was an unbroken succession of Ger- man Kings who took the name and enjoyed the titular rank and rights of Roman Emperors, claiming to be successors to Augustus and Constantine ; and these Emperors were acknowl- edged in the western countries and by the Latin Church as the heads of the whole Christian community. Their power, however, was practically confined to Germany and Northern Italy, and became very weak even in those coun- tries after 1250. The government of the Holy Roman Empire was never an absolute monarchy, and such powers as it had at its best diminished greatly, so that the imperial prerogatives became very vague and uncertain. The imperial crown was, in theorv, elective ; and from 1440 to 1S06 all the Emperors except two belonged to the house of Hapsburg. In 1806 Fran- cis II, of Hapsburg, resigned his imperial title, and with him the Holy Roman Empire ended. The citv of Cologne was founded in 51 A. D. by the Romans, and has always been a place of importance. It was loner a free citv and continued to be one after it was annexed to the Holy Roman Empire in 8 70. It was the first of the German cities to attain any considerable commercial impor- tance, and was for a long time one of the most important factors of the Hanseatic League. It was the first German citv that sent Hanse merchants to London, and thus the term " Cologne merchant was known there a great while 12 MEMORIALS OI^ THE QUISENBERRY FAMILY before the expression " Hanse merchant " came into use. For many years the Diets of the Empire sat in Cologne. The city was always a stronghold of the Roman Catholic faith, and is said to owe its decline, in a large measure, to its intol- erance in expelling Jews and Protestants from its borders. It is very irregularly built, and the older streets are narrow, crooked and dirty. The English poet Coleridge visited the place in 1804, and this is how it inspired his muse : " In Cologne, a town of monks and bones, And pavements fanged with murderous stones; And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches, — I counted two-and-seventy stenches, All well-defined and several stinks ! " It is well to state, however, that when Coleridge visited Cologne the Questenberg family had been extinct there for some time. Otherwise the town might have smelled better, and his imagination might have been sweetened ; and, fur- thermore, he would, beyond doubt, have seen some good- looking women in the place. Kent is a maritime county in the southeastern corner of England, and is the portion of England that lies nearest to the continent of Europe. It was in this county, near the present town of Deal, that Csesar landed with his Roman legions in 55 B. C. He found the county settled by a tribe of Belgse, from Gaul — the ancestors of the modern Belgians, and doubtless also of the Angles and Saxons who later occu- pied all England. These Belgoe had disposessed the native Britons of a large part of southeastern England and of the whole of Kent. They are described as, upon the whole, a very fine people, with some curious customs, among which was that of brothers possessing their wives in common. The Romans occupied Kent for about four hundred and fifty years, and after them came the Saxons, and, at inter- vals, those all-devouring " wolves of the sea," the Danes, un- der their standard of the thievish Raven ; and, finally, in 1066, came the Normans. And all these — Britons, Belgse, Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans, laid well the founda- IN GERMANY, ENGLAND AND AMERICA. ^3 tions of "pure Eng-lish blood." Under the Saxon regime, Kent was an independent kingdom, and perhaps the most powerful of the heptarchy. That " the men of Kent " and " the Kentishmen " have, as a type, always been of strong character and individuality, is sufficiently evidenced by the fact that they have been able to maintain through all and varying vicissitudes many of their old Saxon customs — such, for instance, as the law of gavel- kind — which have not survived elsewhere in England. Kentish soil seems ever to have been the breeding- o-round of that spirit of protest against injustice and oppression which has served, through the centuries, to gradually build England into what she is to-day — among all the nations the advance guard of the forces of civilization. It was in Kent that Wat Tyler's "insurrection," as it is called, occurred in 1381 ; and Jack Cade's rising in 1450 was also one of Kentishmen. These uprisings — the indignant protests of honest English hearts — have not been treated fairly in history. Instead of being the traitorous and reprehensible affairs the historians have pictured them, they were rather the efflorescence of true patriotism — the justifiable and praiseworthy revolts of good and honest men against the aggressions, oppressions and injustice of an idle and worthless privileged class who sought to exploit and despoil them. Wat Tyler and Jack Cade truly had hearts of English oak, and they deserve places in English history alongside of Oliver Cromwell and John Hampden. The beneficial results of their protests have been felt in every subsequent moment, wherever the English blood has gone or the English tongue has spoken. Speaking of Tyler's insurrection, Thorold Rogers says : "The true cause was the incidents of villeinage, and the dis- satisfaction felt at revived oppression. It is noteworthy that Kent took the lead in the movement. But there were no serfs in Kent. To have been born in that county, and to prove one's birth there, was a bar to the proceedings by which a lord claimed the recovery of his serf. In the m.any accounts which I have read from the County of Kent there is no trace of the 14 -MEMORIALS OF THE QUISENBERRY FAMILY serf-tenure, or the serf. . . . Kent was the headquarters of Cade's revolt in 1450, and took action in ahnost all consider- able events up to the days of the Commonwealth." At all times Kentishmen have prided themselves upon being " the most English of Englishmen." Moreover, the County of Kent, and especially the valley of the Medway and the district about Maidstone, has been called " the garden of England." Many of the ancient Questenburys (as they spelled the name) lived in or near Maidstone, and nearly all of them lived in the valle}^ of the Medway. So we of the name, at this day may mark the happy fortune which, like a good fairy, has ever attended our race. We have been transplanted from Kent to Kentucky — from the garden of England to the garden of America. Kentucky, and especially the blue-grass region about Lexington (in which Quisenberrys have lived since the first settlement of the State), is the acknowledged garden of America. And as the Kentishmen are "the most English of Englishmen," so also Kentuckians are the most English people of our newer England, America. Prof. Shaler, in his history of Kentucky (1885), says : "In Kentucky we shall find nearly pure English blood, mainly derived through the Old Dominion, and altogether from districts that shared the Virginia conditions. It is, moreover, the largest body of pure English folk that has, generally speaking, been separated from the mother country for two hundred years." And so the translation of our stock from Kent to Kentucky, across almost three hundred years of time and nearly four thousand miles of land and water, has really been but a natural passage from like unto like. The city of Canterbury, where our name first appears as that of an Englishman, is very ancient. The Romans found a town there in 55 B. C, which they called Dudovernum ; and after their time Ethelbert, the fourth Saxon King of Kent, established his capital there, and called the town Cant- warabyrig (" the town of the Kentishmen ") and in the course of time this was euphonized into Canterbury. This ancient city has long been the ecclesiastical metropolis of VIEW NEAR LEEDS, KENT. IN GERMANY, ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 15 England, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England, has had his official seat there for many centuries. It is but natural that this should be so, since it was at Can- terbury that Christianity was first permanently established in England in 596, by St. Augustine and his fellow-missionaries from Rome ; and St. Martin's Church, in Canterbury, is the very earliest seat of English Christianity, as it was in this church that Bertha, the Queen of Ethelbert, was baptized before Augustine's arrival. Kentucky members of our family will, doubtless, be inter- ested in the fact that the word canter^ which designates a favorite gait of Kentucky horses, comes from the expression " Canterbury gallop," the easy pace at which pilgrims rode to Canterbury in the olden time, when going to do reverence at the shrine of the martyr Thomas A' Beckett. Of the other towns and villages in Kent, in which members of our family lived in the past centuries, it is not necessary to say much here. Maidstone is the shire-town ; or, as it would be called in America, ''county-seat." Rochester and Chat- ham, both ancient, are really one city. Charles Dickens was born in or near Chatham, and in one of his short stories he says: "If any one knows to a nicety where Rochester ends and Chatham begins, he knows more than I do." The village of Bromley was (in 1608) the birthplace of the first person of our name who came to America, and it was then fourteen miles from London, of which it is now a part. The father of this pioneer to America was born in the village of Leeds, where his grandfather was living certainly as early as 1563. Leeds is about four miles from Maidstone, and was long the seat of Leeds Priory, a Saxon foundation ; and Leeds Castle, a beautiful and majestic pile, is still there, one of the best preserved ^ pecimens of ancient English castles. It is interest- ing to know that Leeds Castle was once the home of the Fairfax family, some of whom came to \^irginia and were prominent in Colonial affairs. Several short histories of the village and parish of Leeds have been printed, but none of them are satisfactory. St. Nicholas, the parish church, is 1 6 MEMORIALS OF THE QUISENBERRY FAMILY very ancient, and its remarkable square tower is much more ancient than the body of the church. This tower is believed to have been a Saxon fortification. The chime of bells in this old church is said to be the finest in Kent. The church registers of the neighboring parishes of Maid- stone and Leeds show the entries, three hundred and fifty years ago, of such unusual names as Brockman, Couchman, Haggard, Hickman, Trussell, Eubanks, Stubblefield, and Quessenbury. Unusual as these names are, however, for many years they were all numerously represented in Clark county, Kentucky ; and this fact may serve to show how strong a strain of ancient Kentish blood flows in the veins of the people who inhabit central Kentucky. In the County of Kent the ties of kinship are so extensive that the expression " Kentish cousins " has become a proverb. The word cousin probably nowhere else in the world expresses the same mean- ing that it does in Kent, in England, and in Virginia and Kentucky, in America. It will be seen that in its history in Germany and England the family has had among its members several monks and one Saint (St. Cuniberte), and its other members have ranged in " occupations " from highly ornamental Lords, Barons, and Counts to such useful and indispensable members of society as tailors, shoemakers, etc. Of all these classes, we of to-day have most reason to be proud of those of our forbears who who were useful men ; for though the Lord and the Count and the Baron may be gorgeous creatures, of much dignity, pomp, and magnificence, yet the world could get along all the better without them. But in what would men be better than savages except for the tailors, the shoemakers, and the people who make things ? Truly has Carlyle said in Sartor Resartus : " Society, which the more I think of it astonishes me the more, is founded upon Clothes. Often in my atrabiliar moods, when I read of pompous ceremonials. Royal Drawing Rooms, Levees, Couchees, and how the ushers and macers and pursui- IN GERMANY, ENGLAND AND AMERICA. vants are all in waiting ; how Dnke This is presented by Archbishop That, and Colonel A by General B, and innnme- rable Bishops, Admirals, and miscellaneons Functionaries are advancing gallantly to the Anointed Presence ; and I strive, in my remote privacy, to form a clear picture of that solem- nity — on a sudden, as by some enchanter's wand (shall I speak it ?) the clothes fly off the wdiole dramatic corps, and Dukes, Grandees, Bishops, Generals, even the Anointed Pres- ence itself — every mother's son of them stand straddling there with not a shirt on them, and I know not whether to laugh or weep." The world's grandees and potentates have ever been but stumbling-blocks in the w^ay of the progress of humanity. No great fundamental reform in history has ever come from the ruling or aristocratic classes, but always from those who have been pinched by poverty. The Savior of mankind clearly understood this fact when he chose as his disciples and coad- jutors only the very humblest men. History shows that the greatest reform in the annals of England, and to which the Anglo-Saxon race largely owes its present measure of politi- cal and religious liberty, w^as accomplished by men w^ho occupied the " common " stations in life. It was an uprising from the very foundation, and those commonly called the " dregs of society " defeated royalty and nobility everywhere. Joyce, the tailor ; Pride, the drayman ; Venner, the cooper ; Tuffnell, the carpenter ; Qkey, the fireman ; Deane, the servant, and Cromw^ell, the brewer, with other tradesmen, gained control of Parliament, and wielded an influence on behalf of the people which will continue to radiate until the end of time. lycaving, therefore, our Barons and Counts to the presence wherewith our tailors and shoemakers have encased them, we come now to speak of those other occupations wherewith our forefathers busied themselves. There were among them those who wrote themselves "Gentleman." "What is a gentle- man?" is a question that has been mooted in some of the American newspapers ; and one of them gave the surprising t8 memorials of the ouisenberry family definition that "A gentleman is a man who doesn't work, and is out of jail." Blomefield's History of Norfolk (Vol. 3, page 782) says the first time the title gentleman was used in any deed was Edward III, 4 (133 1), when Sir Thomas de Haville sold lands in Kettleston to John Temper, Gentleman. The Encyclo- paedia Britannica (ninth edition) in a foot-note to the article on Precede7ice^ says : " The heralds and lawyers are agreed that ' gentlemen ' are those who by inheritance, or by grant from the Crown, are entitled to bear coat armor." (See Coke, Inst, iv, c. 77; Blackstone Comm. i, chap. 12; Titles of Honor, pt. 2, ch. 8 ; Guillim's Display of Heraldry, pt. 2, ch. 26.) One Harrison, a unique painter of manners in the reign of Elizabeth, gives the modus operandi oi evolving a gentleman, to wit : " Whosoever studieth the laws of the realm, whoso abidetli in the university, giving his mind to his book, or professeth physic or the liberal sciences, or beside his service in the room of a captain in the wars, or good counsel given at home whereby his commonwealth is benefited, can live without manual labour, and thereto is able and will bear the port, charge, and countenance of a gentleman — he shall, for money, have a coat and arms bestowed upon him by the heralds (who in the charter of the same do, of custom, pre- tend antiquity and services, and many gay things) and there- unto being made so good cheap, be called Master — which is the title men give to esquires and gentlemen — and be reputed for a gentleman ever after." At least one member of the family in England was a clergy- man ; but it is hardly necessary to describe the duties and status of a clergyman of the Church of England. When he has not already higher rank he necessarily takes rank as a gentleman. Two members of the family were grocers in London, and were members of the Worshipful Company of Grocers of that city, one of the wealthiest and most ancient of the guilds ; and its members were, of course, freemen of the corporation of Eondon — that is, citizens with the right of suffrage, a class IN GERMANY, ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 31 it was often the case that the younger merchants fell in love with and married English girls, notwithstanding the severe financial penalties. These, almost without exception, settled down to some useful occupation in London, or elsewhere in England, and became the founders of English families ; and, of course, their German names became Anglicized, and were more or less changed in the process. IV. In Cologne the Questenbergs were men of great wealth, and from time to time filled most of the important municipal ofhces, and some of them sat in the Cologne Senate ; yet they remained burghers or commoners for many years. Before the year 1600 the family was ennobled and granted a coat of arms, and as a pedigree of the line by a prominent German genealogist (Fahne), extending from before the time they were ennobled down almost to the time they became extinct, is given in The Documents^ it need not be repeated here, fur- ther than to quote the opening sentence : " Qitesteiiberg.—K Cologne family which, remarkable as it is, rose in three gen- erations from ordinary burghers to be Barons, Counts, Imperial Counts and Princes." A copy of the coat of arms of the Cologne family of Oues- tenberg, taken from that in the official Wappenbuch of the cit)^ of Cologne, is reproduced as the frontispiece of this work. A technical description of the arms is given in another place. The wills of the ancient citizens of Cologne are now pre- served in the Royal Archives at Dusseldorf, and from thence have been procured copies of seven wills of Questenbergs, extending from 1523 to 1646, and these are printed in The Documents^ some in whole and some in part. They are well worth reading, and they show very clearly the status of the Questenberg family for the period they cover, so that need not be gone into here. Johann Questenborch, whose will is dated January 3, 1523, was the son of Bertold- and the grandson of Bertold\ the son of Tielmann. Johann's 32 MEMORIAI.S OF THE OUISENBERRY FAMILY son Bertholdt'^ was also a Hanse merchant in England, where he seems to have been a rattling blade and a riotons liver. However he pulled himself together; and in 1543 died rich and respected, and in the odor of sanctity. The most illus- trious member of the family who ever lived in Cologne seems to have been " The noble Lord Hermann von Questenberg, Lord of Gross-Kolschaw, Pomeisel, Strogetitz and Erdtberg, Court Councillor of His Roman Imperial Majesty." There is no earlier Questenberg will now on file than that of Johann Questenberg, 1523 ; but in the miscellaneous records reference is made to the will of Tielmann Questen- berg, who died in 1446. Doubtless there were other Ques- tenberg wills between that time and 1523, but they are now lost, which is much to be regretted, as they would be of much greater interest than the later wills, interesting as the later ones are. Some of us, no doubt, will take a deep interest in reading in these old wills about the Lords and Barons and Counts who who have adorned the annals of our family's history. It is certainly a consolation to know that they were not " robber Barons," but made their money honestly and by their own exertions — which is a great deal more than can be said of many Lords and Barons and noblemen of high degree. A very interesting statement is that of Lord Frederick Constantine von Questenberg who, in 1646, when about to renounce the pomps and vanities of this wicked world and enter a monastery, made a will ; for, as he said, when he became a monk, he " suffered a spiritual death with respect to the world and its possessions." In this will he makes the surprising statement that he was " more than seven feet tall ! " A yet greater interest attaches to this statement when it is remembered that " the old stock " of Quisenberrys in Virginia were very tall men. Rev. James Qnisenberry, who went from Virginia to Kentucky in 1783, was six feet six inches in height ; Dr. John Qnisenberry, who, much later, also went to Kentucky, was six feet and seven inches ; several others were almost as tall, and but few of the men of the family were under six feet and four inches. IX GERMANY, EXCxLAXD AXD AMERICA. 33 To this same will of Lord Frederick Constantine Ouesten- berg we are indebted for the information that we have had a real canonized saint in our family. He bequeaths to his much-beloved noble uncle St. Cuniberte, of Cologne, 150 Cologne thaler, as a remembrance.'' The routine of a saint's life in those days is believed to have consisted in living in a squalid hut, counting beads, and refraining from washing himself. From this latter fact may have arisen the expres- sion, ''the odor of sanctity,'' so often applied to saints and holy men. The Countess Elizabeth Constantina von Ouestenberg, the sister of Lord Frederick Constantine, above mentioned, mar- ried Gundacker, Prince of Diederichstein ; and their uncle, Caspar von Ouestenberg, became the Abbott of the famous Strahoff ^Monastery in Prague. He was a very learned man, and his biography has been published several times in Prague. The family of Ouestenberg became extinct in Cologne " before 1797.'' The wonder is that it did not become extinct long before that time, as so many of them became monks and nuns. It may be well to state that the Ouestenbergs of Cologne educated their sons at the best German universities, and many individuals of the family instituted prominent religious foundations. V. Some time after 1600 a branch of the Cologne family of Ouestenberg went to Austria, where they became even more distinguished than the parent stem at Cologne. The line of the Austrian branch is included in the Ouestenberg genealogy in TJic Documents. Count Johann Adam von Ouestenberg was Councillor of War to the Emperor of Austria, and was one of the most famous War ^Ministers known to Europe. His memory has been embalmed in literature as a principal character in Schiller's PiccoIoiiunL The Austrian branch of the family became extinct upon his death in 1752 without 34 MEMORIALS OF THE QUISENBERRY FAMILY male issue. To the Count of Kaunitz-Rietburg, whose sister he had married, he left by will his coat of arms but not his title. An account of the Count of Kaunitz-Rietburg may be found in the Kncyclopsedia Britannica. The arms of the Austrian branch of the Questenberg family were : Ecartele de or et de azur, au hon de sable arme et lampassee, de gules la queue fourchette brochant sur les ecarteleurs. Casque couronne. Cimie7^ : — Un panache de douze plumes de autriche, ecartele de or et de azur. Lambreqiiin .•— De or et de azur. The arms of Questenberg of Cologne are almost identical with these, the principal difference being that while the Austrian branch had a dozen ostrich plumes in their crest the Cologne family had but five. It appears that a branch of the Cologne family of Questen- berg settled in Silesia, but there are none of the name there now, and that branch has probably also been extinct for many years. In 1899 the directories showed that there was no person of the name of Questenberg in any of the cities of Germany or Austria. The nearest approach to it — and it is very close — is the name of a widow, Rob : Quastenberg, who lives in Hamburg, and who has not replied to a letter that was sent to her. Neither do the directories give the name of Questen- berg in any of the cities of the United States or Canada, though there is a Charles Quastenberg living in New York city, who likewise has not answered a letter — and no infor- mation could be gleaned from either of these sources. So it may be concluded that Questenberg, the original form of our name, is everywhere extinct as the name of people. VI. It has already been shown that Tielniann Questenberg's son Bertold had four sons, of whom Henricus Questenberg, the eldest, must have married in England about 1467. Hav- IN GERMANY, ENGI.AND AND AMERICA. 19 that was not nearly so numerous in England in the by-gone centuries as it is to-day. The only curious matter now recalled about London grocers is that they were first called " pepperers." It is probable that many of our family in England were of the yeomanry class, and it has been admitted at all times that " the yeomanry of England " have been the mainstay and backbone of their country. The yeomen of Kent have been an especially thrifty and progressive class, who generally acquired considerable wealth, so that they have given rise to a little folk-song well known in England, to wit : " A Knight of Gales, a Gentleman of Wales, And a Laird of the North Countree, — A Yeoman of Kent with his yearly rent Will buy 'em out, all three." Now, if a yeoman of Kent with the rents he collects in a single year can buy out a Knight, a Gentleman, and a Eaird, then it must be admitted either that he is indeed a substantial man or else that the other three are remarkably "poor critters." There has been much curious speculation as to the origin and true meaning of the word yeoman. The Gentleman^ s Magazine says : " The title yeoman is of military origin, as well as that of esquire and other titles of honor. Yeomen were so called because, besides the weapons fit for close engagement, they fought with arrows and the bow, w^hich was made of yew^ a tree that hath more repelling force and elasticity than any other. After the Conquest the name of yeomen, as to their original office in war, was changed to archers." Eliezer Edwards adds ( Words ^ Facts ^ and Phrases) : " The word yeoman, how^ever, may be a corruption of that of gentleman. G and Y were anciently used interchangeably. The word orentleman, contracted as in modern times to g^emman^ might have been written yemma?i^ from which the transition to the modern form of yeoman would have been easy. Verstegan gives the Anglo-Saxon word for gentleman as gemsene, which favors the hypothesis." 20 MKMORIAI.S OF THE QUISENBERRY FAMII^Y Harrison, the Elizabethan writer, says : " Yeoman are those which by our laws are called legales homines^ free men, born English. . . . The truth is that the word is derived from the Saxon term zeoman^ or geoman^ which signifieth (as I have read) a settled or staid man. . . . This sort of people have a certain preeminence, and more estimation than the labourers and common sort of artificers, and they commonly live wealthily, keep good houses, and travel to get riches. They are also for the most part farmers to gentleman, or at the leastwise artificers ; and with grazing, frequenting of markets, and keeping of servants (not idle servants, as gentlemen do, but such as get both their own and part of their master's living) do come to great wealth, insomuch that many of them are able and do buy the lands of unthrifty gentlemen ; and often, setting their sons to the schools, to the universities, and to the inns of court, or otherwise leaving them sufficient lands whereupon they may live without labour, do make them by those means to become gentlemen. These were they that in times past made all France afraid." Nothing of particular interest has been learned concerning the craft of ancient English tailors, except that they were generally men of good repute, and were held in creditable esteem. Many of them gained considerable wealth, and there are numerous instances of tailors attaining high rank and official position. It was no uncommon thing for gentlemen, baronets, and even noblemen to enter their younger sons as apprentices to tailors ; and the present Prince of Wales is a freeman of the Merchant Taylors Company of London, as his father was before him. It might interest the reader to consult an illustrated authority on Costumes^ and get some idea of the fearfully and wonderfully constructed garments our ancestor, Augustine Questynbery, " tailour," was making in the good city of Canterbury in the year of our Eord 1490 — two years before Columbus discovered America. One member of our family about four hundred and fifty years ago w^as a " Glasyer," or glazier, which seems to have been anciently a calling of distinction. The Encyclopaedia IN GERMANY, ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 21 Britaniiica, in the article on Glass, says that in the roll of the taxation made at Colchester in 1295 three of the principal inhabitants of the town are designated as glaziers. From as early as 1543 several of our famil}^ have been designated in the records as shoemakers and cordwainers. The editor has been surprised, in "reading up," to find that so extensive and so exquisite a literature has grown up about " the gentle craft of shoemaking," as it is called. One of the most fascinating books in the English language — even rivaling Izaak Walton's Compleat Angler — is that quaint old work The Delightful, Princely and Entertaining History of the Gentle Craft, by T. Deloney, published in 1678. Shoe- making is called " the gentle craft " because in all ages and countries so many men have gone from the cobbler's bench to the very highest distinctions in every walk of life. As statesmen, orators, poets, admirals, generals, ministers — in fact, in every calling — shoemakers have attained the greatest eminence. Time out of mind " the gentle craft " has been invested with an air of romance. This honorable title, given to no other occupation than that of shoemakers, is an indica- tion of the high esteem in which the craft is held. Saints Crispin and Crispinian who, it is said, were born real princes of the blood, are the patron saints of the shoe- makers, and were shoemakers themselves. They traveled about first in Gaul and then in Britain preaching to the poor. They maintained themselves by making shoes, which they sold to those who were able to pay. For the very poor they made shoes without money and without price ; and there is a legend that in order that they might be able to do this St. Crispin, in the goodness of his heart, would go forth at night and steal the leather from which to make the shoes. All shoemakers are now^ called " Sons of Crispin," and as St. Crispin was a real prince, the old saying arose that "a shoemaker's son is a prince born." A cordwainer was a high-class shoemaker — a worker in Cordovan leather, or the fine goat-skin leather from Cordova, in Spain. Cordwainers were first called Cordo-