Today (June 19, 2019) I am beginning to address a deficiency that has existed on this website since its inception – the lack of information on other important families from Devon and Newfoundland which had close ties to the Morry family. This oversight was perhaps forgivable initially, since the focus of the site is admittedly the Morry family itself. But the more I have researched the Morry family the more I have become familiar with these other families with close business and family ties (through marriage) to the Morrys during various periods of their migration and development and come to realise that they formed an equally, if not in some cases more important role in history than did the Morrys themselves and are therefore worthy of being highlighted here.
Obviously the level of detail that I am able to provide on these other families is commensurate with the extent of my previous research. In some cases, where this is insufficient to provide a worthwhile contribution, further research may be needed over the coming years. I will focus primarily on families, members of which intermarried with the Morry family. But passing reference will also be made with those substantial business partners that contributed to the advancement of the Morry family.
Finally, it should be noted that, even though some families mentioned below were more closely connected to the Morrys during the years when the Morrys were residents of England while others did not become closely associated with them until they moved to Newfoundland, all of these families had roots in Devon and a greater or lesser association with Newfoundland.
Devon Families
The Carters
While the focus of my early family research was, somewhat understandably, focussed on the bearers of my own surname, with special attention paid to the man and his descendants who brought that name to Newfoundland (Matthew Morry – 1750-1836, my 4th great grandfather), it is a source of some embarrassment to me that in so doing I completely neglected an earlier generation of my family to come to Newfoundland: that of Robert Carter (1722-1800) and his wife, Ann Wylly and their descendants. Robert was my 5th great grandfather, thus a generation previous to Matthew Morry. His arrival in Newfoundland sometime about 1742 preceded the birth of Matthew Morry, let alone his early voyages to that country.
The “paper trail” concerning the Carters is actually much more extensive and complete than that pertaining to the Morrys. Hence, a number of pages on this website will be dedicated to these valuable records.
First amongst these is a page dedicated to what is known as the “Carter Papers” held by the Provincial Archives Division of The Rooms Corporation: “The Carter Papers – MG 31”
A second source of more detailed information, albeit on a much shorter time frame can be found in the Journals of Robert Carter, JP, a grandson of the original Robert Carter immigrant. These Journals span the period between 1832 and 1852 and were cut short by his untimely death in that year: “Journals of Robert Carter, JP” . These too can be found in both their original form, as a transcript prepared by Jean Carter Stirling and on Microfilm at the Provincial Archives Division, the latter under the heading “MG 920 PANL Film 163”
A third major repository of Carter documents is also found at the Provincial Archives Division in the form of what they refer to as the “Carter (Benger/Nason) Papers – MG 247”. These papers have been digitally photographed but have not (for the most part) been transcribed at this time (January 2024) but it is hoped that they will gradually be presented here in a new page yet to be created and dedicated to this enormously complex legal case which straddled four generations from the time of the original Robert Carter that if his great grandchildren.
The Grahams
The first family that comes to mind when thinking of the important families in Devon associated with the Morry family is of course the Grahams. Although they are not the first family, chronologically, to have played an important role in the lives of the Morrys, they are the most important in terms of the Morry family association with marine careers and the Devon-Newfoundland codfish trade.
The first wife of Matthew Morry I, our immigrant ancestor, and the mother of all of his children, was Mary Graham, the second child and eldest daughter amongst the five sons and six daughters of Capt. Christopher Graham and Mary Churchwill.
The extent of our knowledge of this family is limited to this one generation. No one knows from whence or when Capt. Christopher Graham first came to Dartmouth, except that it must have been sometime in the mid-1700s. The couple were not married before 1743 when their first child, who also alter became a sea captain plying the Newfoundland trade, and who bore his father’s name, was Christened at St. Saviour’s Church. At the time of his christening on 14 December 1743 he was recorded under the name of “Christopher Graham Churchwill” with no father’s name given and only later, presumably after his parents’ marriage, did he reverse the two surnames and become “Christopher Churchwill Graham”.
There is no record of the marriage of Christopher Graham the elder and Mary Churchwill, even though her family is well represented in the parish registers of St. Saviour Church of England in Dartmouth before they bore their first child together. That said, it seems likely that Christopher senior was a “Dissenter”, as Protestants who did not adhere to the Church of England beliefs were then known. After their first son, all other children’s christenings were recorded at the Flavel Congregational Meeting House. And Dissenters were not exceptionally good at recording their Births, Marriages and Deaths. Hence the absence of a marriage record at the Flavel Meeting House does not necessarily imply that this couple was not married there; it could simply have not been recorded. On the other hand, the Christening of their first son took place at St. Saviour’s Church of England in Dartmouth, yet there is no record of their marriage at that church either. It is possible that they dispensed with a formal marriage and lived common law. Due to the fact that he was likely Presbyterian (with a Sottish surname this would have been most common), and the fact that the christenings of all of their later children were recorded at the Flavel Meeting House, it is most likely that they did not actually attend services at St. Saviour’s, even though it was in that churchyard where they were both eventually buried. In those days, only the Anglican churches had consecrated ground for burials.
The Sweetlands
The Holdsworths
The Prideauxs
The Windsors
This page has been sorely neglected since I started it with the best of intentions to fill in the blanks. I still hope to get around to putting flesh on the bones as time passes but it other priorities have kept me from doing so up until now (March 11, 2022).
But for now, I cannot think of a better way of introducing the Winser/Winsor/Windsor family of Aquaforte than by present here the excellent summary presented by Anna Elton-Morris to the assembled masses at the Windsor Family Reunion at St. Philips Church in Aquaforte, July 21-31, 1988. New information has emerged in the meantime but this is an excellent summary and contains wonderful anecdotes to spice up their story.
Peter Winsor 1781 by Anna Elton-Morris
The Le Messuriers
Newfoundland Families
The Wheelers and Bishops and Their Kin
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