Re: Richard Pearse

www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/essex/vol5/pp151-162

Sir Benjamin Wright, Bt., in 1655; Pyenest in Waltham abbey conveyed to him from John Beresford

According to this, the earliest powder mills in England were in Surrey, not Essex: http://www.weyriver.co.uk/theriver/industry_5_gunpowder.htm

Per Wikipoo, for what that's worth, the Waltham Abbey mills started out as fulling mills (cloth production), changed over to oil mills (for pressing vegetable oils) circa the early 17th century, and weren't converted to gunpowder mills until circa the 1660s, during the "Second Dutch War".

In Guy Fawkes' time - and before, and long after - gunpowder was stored in the White Tower (core of the Tower of London) along with government documents. It was realized that this was not an ideal situation, but nothing was done about it for a long time.

Michael D. Pierce's report is biased, lacking sources, citations use other peoples errors as examples of FCP, reporting that FCP's geneaolgy is fake but cannot prove it is fake other than he simply does not believe it.

M.D.P. call's Frederick Clifton's geneaology fake, yet he isn't even referring to errors in the book but errors made by random people editing profiles on geni. As follows, his issues:

1. Michael Pierce’s father was not Richard, James, or Azrikam. (M.D.P. gives no reference as to why he is saying that and give no citations. Therefore, it is an opinion and not valid. This is false bias.

2. His brothers were not William, John, Richard, or Robert. (Same as no. 1. No reference or citation. It is an opinion and therefore not valid.This is false bias.

3. Michael Pierce was related to Thomas Pierce of Charlestown, Massachusetts, but how
they were related is unknown. Testing of Michael and Thomas’s descendants show
shared DNA. ( I did find DNA matches to the descendants of Thomas Pierce and this is true). Thomas is not listed as a brother to Captain William, John Pierce the Patentee, Captain Michael and Richard Pierce. Captain William Pierce was born in 1595, Captain Michael Pierce was born in 1615, Richard Pierce was born first about 1590 and John Pierce the Patentee was born probably 2nd. Thomas was born in 1583 which means he was born before these four brothers but who are his Parents? Thomas is probably one of the cousins. He mostly likely was part of the Merchants Guild as well and was in the salt peter business according to his profile. The coat of arms on his profile is correct. In fact that coat of arms was passed down in the family and one of the people in my family group showed me the coat of arms re-created and passed down to her father.

4. Michael Pierce did not have a middle name or initial. This one is not really the fault of FC
Pierce except in perhaps an indirect way. This is biased. Blaming FCP as being indirectly responsible for something someone else did past his death? Really? Again, random people editing geni profiles but MDP uses this as an excuse to blame FCP and call his genealogy book fake? Wow... grasping at straws aren't we MDP.?

5. Deacon Mial Pierce was the son of Ephraim Pierce and Hannah Holbrook. He was not the
son of Ephraim Pierce Jr. and Mary Low. (who would know? These profiles seem to have disappeared on geni.) He should probably take it up with former President George W. https://famouskin.com/famous-kin-chart.php?name=48046+ezra+cornell&....
There were several Pierce and Holbrook marriages. The Pierces and Holbrooks are closely entwined a few different ways. It not be hard to confuse one.

6. Judith Round’s maiden name was not Ellis. A citation noting that either Round or Ellis may be an ancestor is already noted on Judith Round's profile. Why is this an issue and what does it have to do with FCP' book? Did FCP make an error or is this another error made on geni by random people editing profiles? Every time someone makes an error on geni, they don't get to blame FCP, or any of the other sources available if they didn't do their research.

One must also remember the time period that the Percy's changed their name to Pierce and went into the Merchant Adventurers group, which by the way, is actually https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_of_Merchant_Adventurers_of_Lo... (a merchant guild under the order of Henry VII and Henry VIII). Cloth merchant may not sound very noble, but at that time, it was the best paid and wealthiest position one could hope to have and it was London's biggest export.

John Pers was called a weaver and may have been associated with the Merchants Guild. At one time there was a whole town of Percy's (whatever you want to call them in Norwich who were weavers. It was lucrative business. Not everyone was hanging out at Northumberland. The Percy's had a lot of cousins and lot of younger males in the family who were not awarded castles and such.
(Percy/Pearce weavers) Ref: History and Proceedings of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Volume 5
By Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association (Deerfield, Mass.) (p. 507) FCP did not write this book. This is a corroboration.

New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial: A Record of the ..., Volume 4
edited by William Richard Cutter (p. 1852) John Pers of Watertown and Percy family. FCP did not write this book. This is a corroboration. The author is an Historian and a Genealogist. (Pers is also a DNA match. It goes back to Sweden, Skane County and Norway. most likely the viking period or there are more Pierce, Pearce, Peirce, Percy cousins. (common ancestor not known) Their ancestors came from Denmark which at one time was considered part of that area, but came with Rollo. http://www.percyfamilyhistory.com/?page_id=46

.

Cutter is not considered a reliable source; good for biography and like all compilers, good on the later generations: especially bad on the immigrant generations.

For the immigrants to New England, Anderson’s Great Migration Project is considered “best of breed.”

What does he have on the arriving Pierces?

https://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=:a13...

Book - Captain Michael Pierce Including One Line of Descent, by Martha Stuart Helligso, 1981.

It is uncertain who the father of Michael Pierce is. Some say Richard, other John or James. Martha Stuart believes Azrikam and Martha Pierce. Azrikam was the son of ? Pierce and his wife, Anteres Lascelle, the daughte of Gershom and Meribe Lascelle, French Huguenots. (See the book - The Greene Family and It's Branches, by Lora S. LaMance)

The book Thirty One Generations, A Thousand Years of Percys and Pierces, 972 to 1969, by Barnard Ledward Colby, 1969, states he is the son of Richard Pierce, Jr, who had four sons, John, William, Michael, and Richard, Jr.

Martha Stuart Helligso's book also claims that Michael is the brother of John and William.

John was a leader of the Merchant Adventurers and owned the Plymouth Colony patent, also known as "Mr Pierce's company". Some records say he owned the Mayflower also. In 1622 he substituted the original patent with another giving additional powers to himself which, if it had proved effective, would have made the Pilgrims his vassals. He attempted to sail to America on two different occasions to take possession of his kingdom, but both times severe storms forced the ships to return to England resulting in financial loses so great that he was forced to assign his patent to the Plymouth Colony.

William is noted as a "hero", as much as brother John, was a "villian". - Captain of the Mayflower on her second voyage. He brought the first cattle to New England from England on the ship "Charity" in 1624. He brought from the West Indies to New England the first cotton and the first sweet potatoes on the ship Desire in 1626. He published the first bound book in English to be printed in North America - Pierce's Almanac of 1639. In 1641 he was killed by the Spaniards in the Bahamas while attempting to land a shipload of colonists on the Island of Providence.

———

It looks to me like various claims have been made about Michael Pierce’s ancestry.

And I notice no baptismal records on offer to support any parent claim.

@Maven B. Helms
<<According to this, the earliest powder mills in England were in Surrey, not Essex: http://www.weyriver.co.uk/theriver/industry_5_gunpowder.htm&gt;&gt;

It doesn't exactly say that the EARLIEST powder mills in England were in Surrey. And there is contradictory evidence here: https://theodora.com/encyclopedia/g2/gunpowder.html

<<The manufacture of gunpowder seems to have been carried on as a crown monopoly about the time of Elizabeth, and regulations respecting gunpowder and nitre were made about 1623 (James I). Powder-mills were probably in existence at Waltham Abbey about the middle or towards the end of the 16th century. >>

This strongly suggests that the EARLIEST gunpowder mills actually were at Waltham Abbey.

More here: https://www.royalgunpowdermills.com/history-heritage/300-years-hist...

<<Early supplies of gunpowder in England were hand produced from imported materials in the Tower of London, which acted as a main store and distribution centre and was known as the 'powder house'. The first gunpowder produced in England in privately owned mills was at Rotherhithe on the Thames in 1544.

The story of gunpowder produced at Waltham Abbey starts with a fulling mill for cloth production originally set up by the monks of the Abbey on the Millhead Stream, an engineered water course tapping the waters of the Lea. Mills were adaptable and in the early 17th century it was converted to an 'Oyle Mill', i.e. for producing vegetable oils. In the second Dutch War gunpowder supply shortages were encountered and the oil mill was converted to gunpowder production, possibly in response to this. In 1665 it was acquired by Ralph Hudson using saltpetre made in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. [...]

The Waltham Abbey Mills were one of the first examples in the 18th century of an industrialised factory system, not often recognised. In 1735 they were described by Thomas Fuller, a local historian, as "the largest and compleatest works in Great Britain" and in the 1860s by Colonel George Rains as the "best existing steam powered mills in any country". The Royal Gunpowder Mills certainly boast an illustrious past.In operation for over 300 years, there was never a challenge the Royal Gunpowder Mills could not rise to in the development of gunpowder and explosives. Its superior production methods and high quality results earned it a reputation on an international level and played a significant part in the rise of Great Britain as an international power. >>

Interesting historical background: https://militaryrevolution.s3.amazonaws.com/Primary+sources/Gunpowd...

This may be an authoritative text: Cocroft, Wayne (2000), Dangerous Energy: The archaeology of gunpowder and military explosives manufacture, Swindon: English Heritage, ISBN 1-85074-718-0.

The Second Dutch War was 1665-1667 and involved England trying to horn in on Dutch sea trade routes (and pick off a couple of vulnerable colonies, like Nieuw Netherland, afterwards New York). That's much too late to have anything to do with Guy Fawkes.

@Maven B. Helms wrote: <,The Second Dutch War was 1665-1667 and involved England trying to horn in on Dutch sea trade routes (and pick off a couple of vulnerable colonies, like Nieuw Netherland, afterwards New York). That's much too late to have anything to do with Guy Fawkes.>>

What does the above have to do with << Powder-mills were probably in existence at Waltham Abbey about the middle or towards the end of the 16th century.>>>

???

Is additional information that goes beyond the immediate topic forbidden?

Tracing my own paths, I found this thread and became engrossed in NoName's post of
"Was this Richard (b 1615) a son of Robert Percy/Pierce?"

This mystery seems to be the hinge of which my lineage leads towards Richard the brother of John "the Patenteer" and William "the Mariner" or alternatively, Thomas Percy of the GPP.

This URL :https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/fanchart/LB48-JR8
places Richard (1615) as the son of Richard (1590) and Martha Jacobs (1593)
A source listed as: "Pearce, Bartlett, Matthews, Smart, and Allied Families" by James Alonzo Matthews. But this seems to also carry the unsubstantiated claim that Richard (1590) came to the colonies aboard the Lyon for which the passenger list does not list him, so this parental linkage as it stands through this URL seems unverified.

Re: Robert Percy, I found this corroborating your mention of his travel in ~1635.
Passenger list of Jan 2 1634 of the ship Bonaventure (London-StDomingo-Virginia)
https://www.packrat-pro.com/ships/bonaventure.htm
Percy Robert 40

'NoName', thank you for your insight and efforts - curious if you many have found any further information on this mystery or might have thoughts on where those interested might/should search?