IN THE BEGINNING …JACKSONS CONNECTED TO CROMWELL
Interim Mysteries & Possible Treasures
Updated May 14, 2008. Source material on SYMONDS

The first casualty of war is truth, usually mangled and slaughtered long before the first human loss of life. The methods may change, but the motives and the outcomes have been much the same throughout all of human history. At the time of Oliver Cromwell’s war on Ireland in the early 1650s., the English press gave considerable ink to stories of atrocities visited upon the Irish Protestants by neighbouring Catholics. Many of these stories were definitely untrue. Others were suspect. That there was conflict in Ireland between landowners and tenants and landless people was indisputable. That the propoganda of the British papers was effective in making it seem much worse than it was - was also true.

However this all played out at the time, what we have been told is that some of our ancestors moved to Ireland as a result of their participation in Oliver Cromwell’s military campaign and subsequently did well for themselves. It helps when you are on the wining side. Although many of the particulars are still unverified, our early family history rests on the received lore that the man who began the JACKSON line of our family came from Co. York and was in Cromwell’s army. He was granted land for his services at an estate called Mount Leinster. All this comes from Blin BROWN recording conversations with her grandfather, David JACKSON who would have been the great-grandson of George JACKSON. If you are still with me, this George JACKSON is supposedly a descendant of the elusive and unnamed JACKSON who supported Cromwell's Irish campaign either as an investor or a soldier.

Then again, this whole story may prove to be a bum steer. There is another version from Amy Lloyd, a daughter of Sir Thomas JACKSON, which I will get to at the end of this account.

The two facts that this land was granted and that the JACKSON in question seems to have put down roots in Ireland would lead me to think that he must have been either a reasonably wealthy investor or else an officer of sorts. This is not just fanciful thinking. Military men who served in the lower ranks usually received small grants of land for their services - not enough to successfully farm - and then were often tricked out of their holdings. There are many stories of foot soldiers being shown a piece of substandard land by their supervising officer and then being informed that this was the land that they had been awarded “by lot”. Being more trusting than wise, they would then trade their actual land away in exchange for a white horse or a barrel of beer while their cunning officer added more acreage to his holdings (see p. 145 Prendergast).

There are several JACKSON names associated with the land settlements that came on the heels of Cromwell’s victory. We don’t really know whether “our” JACKSON was one of the initial “investors” or one of the “adventurers”. These were two of the ways that wars were financed in those days. Investors put up money to fund the campaign, “risk capital” as one might call it, and then were amply rewarded if the campaign succeeded. Meanwhile, those who served as military men were then paid at the conclusion of the campaign with the spoils of war, in this case Irish property taken from the previous residents, most of whom (but not all) were Catholic.

For the investors, there were two opportunities for investment: the original Act in March 1642 and the subsequent offering of June 1642 for “the sea adventure”. (NOTE: My source for names is Bottigheimer. P164-184)

*Both these men were listed twice, once as investors and once as adventurers. Since the amounts in both cases were the same, I am assuming duplication.

We do have some possible information on Joseph JACKSON. In The Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, p 619 – there is an entry for “JACKSON OF ENNISCOE AND CARRAMORE”. A Francis JACKSON is the “younger son of Joseph JACKSON Esq. Of Sneyd Park in the co. of Kent who passed over into that kingdom as captain of dragoons in Cromwell’s army”. There doesn’t seem to be a fit with any of the descendents listed in the pedigree given, so I suspect we can cross him off our list of possible suspects for our family tree.

There are a few other names of interest in this book:

NOTE: I am including HAWKINS because of the family connections to Caesar HAWKINS of the Honk Kong Shanghai Bank, a cousin of Sir Thomas JACKSON.

Many of the original investors, with holdings both large and small, did not stay to farm the land themselves but instead were absentee landlords. At this stage of our research, we have no idea at what point our JACKSONS became permanent residents of Ireland – but it is safe to assume that it was some time between 1646 when the lands were granted and 1766 when the first of our JACKSONs is listed as a resident in the Creggan Census.

Since Hal MOORHEAD’s notes suggest that our ancestor might have been Cromwell’s barber, I have compiled a list of Cromwell-associated barber/surgeons (the two trades being as one in those days – bloodletting being all the rage). The names of JACKSON, DILL or MOORHEAD don’t show up as barber/surgeons (DILL & MOORHEAD don’t show up at all. Also the DILL family seems to have been in Ireland prior to Cromwell’s invasion.), but since our George JACKSON is a generation or two removed from Cromwell’s land settlements, there could have been a line which passed through a female descendant of any of the men beneath, who then married a JACKSON.

* Richard SYMONDS was b 1612 in Nuneaton WAR. He lived most of his life in London and also Atherstone WAR, where he d in 1691. He was wealthy. His wife was Elizabeth, but I don't know her surname: it might have been Gardner. In his will he left 'my land in Ireland in the Barrony of Clanwilliam in the County of Tipperary in the Province of Munster' to his daughter Elizabeth who was m to Thomas Inge, a gentleman of Atherstone. The land, at the time of the will (1689), was let out 'for nigh seaven yeares yet to come' to one Richard Hammerton of Clanmell, a merchant. I don't know what happened to the Inges, but doubt they would be poor enough to need to go off to Ireland to live on 222 acres. I haven't found any Symonds-Jackson marriages.
SOURCE: “Janet”, who emailed me on May 13, 2008

OTHER LEADS TO CONSIDER (LONGSHOTS):
There is one other nugget of interest and I have no idea about its reliability. A record in Family Search (the Mormon’s files – www.familysearch.org ) shows a Thomas JACKSON b. 21 Jun 1692 at Killenure, Queens, Leinster, Ireland. The appearance of the name “Killenure” is tantalizing on account of the JACKSON family farm on a townland in Armagh with the same name. The father of this Thomas JACKSON was a Thomas JACKSON of Mountrath, Westmeath, Leinster, Ireland (b. 1656). This is the same place that Joseph JACKSON was awarded land. Unfortunately for our purposes, the father of this Thomas JACKSON is alleged to be Richard JACKSON (b. 1626), which of course doesn’t fit with any of the names listed as investors or adventurers. Of course, one name could be a second name. Who knows?

George JACKSON b. 04 Feb 1715 at Mountmellick, Laoighis, Ireland. His father was also a George JACKSON.
JACKSON, Sir. George. B. 1776; m 1814, Anne Day, dau. Of William Woodville, Esq. Cr. 1813. Seat, Forkhill, co Armagh. “The Pocket Peerage of Great Britain & Ireland”
J ACKSON, Owen, Catholic. Creggan, Armagh. “Ireland 1766 Religious Census” SOURCE: Ancestry.com

SOURCES FOR CROMWELLIAN RELATED NAMES:
Bottigheimer, Karl S. English Money and Irish Land: The ‘Adventurers’ in the Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1971.
Predergast, John P. The Cromwellian settlement of Ireland New York. P.M. Haverty, 1868.

AMY LLOYD'S ALTERNATIVE VERSION:
The Jacksons came from Northamptonshire and went to Ireland in Elizabeth's reign, and were given grants of land in Co. Carlow (N. Leinster) for distinguished service in the Army.
George Jackson lost all his property -he went over to Bath and became engaged to an English lady, the daughter of an earl, who refused to live in Ireland. He returned to raise money by selling his life interest in the property, and then found that the lady had jilted him and married another. He went to France and squandered all his fortune. He then returned to Ireland and was glad to get the post of school-master in the Charter School, Creggan, Co. Armagh. He married Margaret McLaughlin in 1755 and lived in Liscalgot, Co. Armagh and had 3 sons and 7 daughters. His eldest son David, married Margaret Bradford, a violent tempered red- haired woman, who, disgusted at the money being spent to get back the Mt. Leinster property, burnt all the Title Deeds. They lived at Urker, bought in 1760 [property which allegedly came from Margaret BRADFORD], and had 2 sons and 3 daughters. His son John married Elizabeth McCullagh and had 1 son and 3 daughters. David, who married Elizabeth Oliver and had 5 sons and 4 daughters, his second son Thomas, married Amelia Lydia Dare and had 4 sons and 5 daughters.