William Howard Westray
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Westray Clan in Colonial
America by Cdr. William Howard Westray, U.S.N.
Ret., and wife Margaret October 5, 1985 (Rev. May 1986) The earliest
positive record of the WESTRAY family in America that we have been able to find
occurred in 1647 in the Isle of Wight County, Virginia, record book of
"Wills and Administration", Vol. 1 1623-1750.(5) In it William
WESTWARY was recorded as witness to the will of a Richard DEATH on March 3,
1647. In this same volume we find William WESTRAY as a witness to the will of
William JEWRY on January 1, 1651 and to John VALENTINE on May 8, 1652. While
WESTRAY appears clearly to be the preferred and correct spelling of the
family name, we find a number of variations of the spelling that consistently
occur in various records and documents; these are:
WESTRAY WESTWRAY WESTRA WESTORAY WESTWARY
WESTUARY WESTURA
WESTER WESTURAY WESTRY Two other similar
names, WESTON and WEST, appear to us to be inconsistent with WESTRAY, but it
is possible that at least some WESTON's could be WESTRAY's; we did not pursue
this conclusively one way or another. Possibly the
earliest occurrence of a WESTRAY in Colonial America is contained in the book
"Passengers to America" (3), which has an entry: "27 July,
1635 in the (ship) HOPE HUGH WESTON, William WESTLIE (age) 40". Could
this be the William WESTRAY or WESTWRAY who witnessed documents for others in
Isle of Wight County in 1647, 1651, and 1652, and received a large land grant
in 1664? There is also an Elizabeth COTE (age) 22, whom William would have
known and might have married, although other information indicates William
WESTRAY married Elizabeth NELMS. All these are possibilities of happenings
350 years ago. An early
colonial record that came to our attention is contained in "Cavaliers
and Pioneers, Patents and Grants, 1622-1666" (1). In it we found a
patent by Sir William Berkley, Governor of Virginia to William WESTWRAY, 750
acres of land in Isle of Wight County, September 26, 1664: "Upon a
branch of the Blackwater, beg. on the brow of a hill by a great poplar by the
swamp side, E. by Mathew TOMLIN's land, then SSE and SE, then WSW and WNW,
then N to the beginning." We physically inspected this site in September
1985 and found a great poplar by the swamp NE of the Blackwater River. We
talked to the present residents and learned that members of the TOMLIN family
had visited the area in the last year, endeavoring to learn something of
their ancestor Matt TOMLIN. We later found the microfilm of the original
handwritten patent in state archives at Richmond, Virginia with more specific
metes and bounds. However, in a record of "Wills and Administration"
Isle of Wight County (5), we found the record of the will of William WESTRAY,
leaving his estate to his relict (widow) Elizabeth WESTURAY (nee NELMS) on
August 9, 1664, 45 days before the date of the land grant. Thus it would
appear that William died before receiving the land grant patent, but that it
likely went to his widow. We find Elizabeth still in possession of this land
a few years later, when she deeded a part of it to a John Marshall and his
son Humphrey in 1666 (6). And on January 20, 1712, 44 years later, we find
neighbor Mathew TOMLIN conveying land to his brother John, and still
describing it as having a common boundary with Will WESTRAY's land (5). One
explanation of the above might be that Elizabeth ands Will WESTRAY had a son
named William who was considered the male owner of the land (with his mother)
after his father died. We found a
record of an Elizabeth WESTRAY's death in 1750, and she lists as legatee's
son William, daughters Eunice and Martha, and sons Robert and Benjamin. (5)
We conclude two possibilities from this record: (1) That this would be the
second Elizabeth, wife of the second William, (2) and that legatee William is
the grandson of the first William. We also find for the first time a Benjamin
WESTRAY, and a Benjamin married an Elizabeth SAWYER in 1763, and they
(according to our sketchy records), became the parents of Simon and Levi
WESTRAY, completing the direct line decendency to the present. In "Wills
and Administration", Vol. 2 (5), we find reference to a Will WESTRAY
being witness to the wills of John TURNER (1705), Rich WORRELL (1716), and
John MACKMIELL (1730). We find no record of Will's death but he could have
died between 1730-1750 and this period would be consistent with the decease
of Elizabeth in 1750. One of the
great difficulties in all this research is the almost total absence of birth
records, ages, and except for wills, absence of death records; even these
lack age information. What few such records one finds are usually found in
church records and family bibles. A group of ladies in Isle of Wight County
tried to tabulate these, including tombstone information, but we found no
WESTRAY's among these records. We were
particularly concerned with trying to determine the origins of Simon WESTRAY,
father of John WESTRAY, and grandfather of Willis WESTRAY. We found the
record of Simon's marriage to Mary SAUNDERS in Isle of Wight County, by Rev.
William Hubard on May 28, 1787. She was the daughter of John & Elizabeth
SAUNDERS, but his parentage is less sure. We have recently secured the
sketchy group record that shows Benjamin WESTRAY and Elizabeth SAWYER as
being married in 1763, and begetting Simon and Levi. Of course we have the
Benjamin as legatee of Elizabeth WESTRAY in 1750 noted above. The confidence
level of the group record is not high, but it is not inconsistent with other
information we have reliance on. Besides
visiting the site of the original WESTRAY land grant on the Blackwater River
in Isle of Wight County, we identified and attempted to visit two other land
sites with seeming WESTRAY connections. The first is called BURGH WESTRA,
located in Gloucester County about 13 miles north of Yorktown across the York
River. One reaches it by going to Gloucester Courthouse, and then proceeding
exactly 2.5 miles east on Route 3/14 where one finds a country road to the
right marked to "Dundee". Proceed to the end of this road through
the woods. There you will find a beautiful white brick mansion on a bluff
overlooking the bay, which was built and owned by a family called TALIAFERRO.
It is presently occupied by a family named BOYD (Laurel Barnett). Apparently
the mansion was copied from a Scottish mansion selected by the architect and
built on the site for the TALIAFERRO's about 1855. It was used as a hospital
during the Civil War. It apparently has no direct connection to the WESTRAY
family in America, but the coincidence of names is remarkable, and further
investigation might be rewarding. The other
landsite was called WESTERHAUS in Northampton County on Cape Charles. It is,
according to the description we read in "Historic Virginia Landmarks
Register", "...in an advanced state of deterioration, (but) this
compact farmhouse remains an outstanding and significantly rare example of
the Stuart-period southern vernacular architecture". We did not have
time to visit this site, but were we to do so we would proceed to the county
seat at Eastville and make inquiries as to its precise location from whatever
historical agency we might find there. WESTERHAUS is listed in the
"National Register of Historic Places", and would seem to warrant
further investigation as a WESTRAY (WESTER) family connection. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * This
document narrates the results of investigations conducted by William H. and
Margaret S. WESTRAY (Bill & Marge) during September and October 1985. We
visited libraries in Asheville, Richmond, and Smithfield, courthouse at Isle
of Wight, Virginia, Hillsborough, North Carolina, and various other
depositories of records of the colonial period. Our searches were limited by
time constraints and are not to be considered exhaustive. This revision was
updated in May 1986 by bits and pieces of additional information supplied by
Wilbur WESTRAY in Louisville, Wanda WESTRAY in Georgia, and Lloyd WESTRAY in
Dayton, Ohio. We were disappointed at not being able to find certain specific
information that we were looking for, but were pleased to find other
information concerning the 17th century WESTRAYs that we had not expected to
find. We hope that our efforts may provide clues for others to pursue and for
that reason are provided at the end, tabulations of vital statistics that may
be useful to others. Peter WESTRAY in Canyon Country, California is known to
be working on WESTRAY history in Britain prior to 1600, and at some time we
hope to incorporate his information in this record. Wanda's daughter Carolyn
is also doing research on early British WESTRAYs and has incorporated a lot
of it in their WESTRAY book of 1985. For those
WESTRAYs who are descended from Willis Calvin and Candice Lafayette Morgan
WESTRAY, you will be pleased to note the seeming direct line back to
Brigadier General Daniel MORGAN, hero of the American Revolution, who beat
the British forces under Carleton at Cowpens, South Carolina in January 1781.
This victory led to General Nat Greene's seeming victory over Cornwallis at
Guildford Courthouse two months later, and to Cornwallis' surrender to
General George Washington at Yorktown in September 1781. Candice's father was
Archilus MORGAN, probably born in Hillsborough, North Carolina in 1781,
apparent illegitimate son of General MORGAN. The General died at Winchester,
Virginia in 1802, but his wife died in Russellville, Kentucky in 1816 at the
home of her grand daughter Matilda O'BANNON. Her daughter was Betsy HEARD who
also died near there in 1813. *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BIBLIOGRAPHY: (1) CAVALIERS AND PIONEERS, Abstracts of
Va. Land Patents and Grants, Volume 1, Nell Marion Nugent, Va. Land Office,
Richmond, Va., published by Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, Md. (2) EARLY AMERICAN EMIGRANTS, 1623-1666,
by George Cabel Greer, 1979. (3) PASSENGERS TO AMERICA, Genealogical
Publishing Co., Baltimore, Md. (4) MARRIAGES IN ISLE OF WIGHT COUNTY,
1628-1800, Chapman, Blanche Adams, 1895, Genealogical Publishing Co.,
Baltimore, Md. (5) WILLS AND ADMINISTRATION, ISLE OF
WIGHT COUNTY, 1647-1800, Volumes I & II, Chapman, Blanche Adams,
Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, Md. (6) SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ISLE OF WIGHT
COUNTY, BODDIE, John Bennett, 1938, Chicago Law Printing Co., Chicago,
Illinois. (7) MICRO-FISCH RECORDS OF MARRIAGE BONDS,
18th century Buncombe County, Ashville, North Carolina, Public Library. The following is the history of the family
of William Howard Westray The Westray Family Tree The Westray
family name appears to be derived from the islands of Westray and Papa
Westray which lie off the northern coast of Scotland in the Orkney Island
group. Westray is the northernmost and westernmost of this group. Other
Islands in the group include Ronaldsay, Sanday, Hoy, Shapinsay, Stronsay,
Rousay, and Mainland. The principal settlement on Westray is the town of
Pierowall, a small seaport of several hundred people. The island also
contains Balfour Castle on the side of a hill about a mile outside of
Pierowall, which is the ancestral home of the Earl of Balfour. It is a small
stone castle with strong defenses, but in excellent, almost completely
preserved condition. It is a National Trust Property, open to the public,
tended by a farmer and family who live in a separate home nearby. A principal
landmark is Westray Lighthouse which lies high on a cliff near the northwest
point (Noup Head) overlooking the North Atlantic. Although several hundred
feet above the sea, we found many rocks and shells that had been thrown up
from the sea onto the plateau around the light, attesting to the violence of
storms that occur there from time to time. There were
several old churches with graveyards, and although we searched diligently, we
could not find the Westray family name on any of the many tombstones or
headstones. We did find many English given names, that have appeared to occur
in the Westray family over the years. The
principal industry appears to be cattle and sheep herding. There is also
fishing, and many of the Westraymen were seafaring men. The captains of both
the interisland steamers we rode were Westraymen. Westraymen
also seemed to have family ties to the Scandinavian countries of Norway,
Sweden, and Denmark. Some of the earliest Western settlements appear to occur
in the Orkneys. The settlement of Skara Brae on the West coast of Mainland is
actually a subterranean village on slight rise overlooking the sea. It is now
a National Trust (NT) property, open to the public and well preserved and
maintained. The people who occupied it several millennia ago, are believed to
have come there by sea from the Eastern Mediterranean, probably Crete or
Cyprus. The
provincial capitol of the Orkney Islands is Kirkwall on Mainland. It has a
magnificent ancient Cathedral, another NT property. The great British naval
base of Scapa Flow is located at the South part of Mainland. We reached
Kirkwall by the Island steamer St. Olaf, from Scrabster, Thurso, Scotland. We
were able to take our car along on this part of the journey, which was loaded
into the ship's hold by cargo sling. On the day trip we occupied the first
class lounge, a simple salon with benches around the walls and with the
following plaque on the wall: "This lounge is certified for use by 30
passengers, unless occupied by sheep, cattle, or other encumbrances." We
literally found out what this meant on our return journey a week later, when
we were displaced for one night by a herd of sheep. Sometime,
several centuries ago, a group of Westrays, along with a family of Morgans,
migrated from Northern Scotland into Wales. They apparently came from the
Loch Ness area. They appear to have been supporters (septs) of Clan Urquhart.
On the west bank of Loch Ness at about midpoint of its 30-mile length, there
are the ruins of Urquhart Castle on the side of a hill overlooking the loch.
This is the low side (low road) of the loch. The east side is quite mountainous
and constitutes the high side (high road). Loch Ness, of course, is the home
(?) of the fabled Loch Ness Monster, "Nessie". Not much is
known about the occurrence of the Westrays and Morgans in Wales, and we did
not visit there. However, it was learned from our cousin Barbara Morgan who
did some research on the subject, that the families of Westray and Morgan
immigrated to America sometime in the 17th Century and settled somewhere in
southern Virginia, probably around Okracoke or Kitty Hawk, North Carolina,
near Pamlico Sound. Sometime later, according to my father Vernon Kennerly
Westray, they migrated westward in North Carolina, thence to Tennessee,
thence to Kentucky, where they settled around Lewisburg and Russellville in
Logan County near Bowling Green. There they remained where they operated a
tobacco plantation. They probably were slave owners before the Civil War. The
Morgans and Westrays retained close ties and intermarried during this period.
My grandfather was Willie Calvin (Tom) Westray and he married Candice Morgan,
my grandmother, probably sometime around the middle of the 19th Century. I
never knew Tom Westray, but did know Candice Westray, a frail old lady with
black hair and wonderful eyes, who could read her bible without glasses until
she died in about 1932 at the age of 100. The tobacco plantation that Tom and
Candice managed was near Lewisburg. Russellville was the Logan County seat
where records are kept. Tom and Candice begat at least three sons, John the
oldest, Vernon, and one other (possibly a Tom who may have been older than
John), who died young; he served as an entertainer with Teddy Roosevelt's
Rough Riders in Cuba during the Spanish American War, and reportedly wrote
the song "When You and I were Young Maggie", at that time. Grandpa Tom
had a brother who begat a son named Herbert, whom I knew. Herbert was about
40 in the early 30's when I knew him. He was small and wiry, and had the
nickname of "Stick". He was very devoted to my grandmother, his
Aunt Candice. He used to bring her "white mule" (corn likker) to
drink, and uncut tobacco to chew, a habit she undoubtedly acquired while she
and Tom were plantation owners. There was a saying in Logan County that
something was as clean as, or as white as "Tom Westray's white
shirt". Candice has a brother named Benjamin Rice Morgan. They were very
close, and he use to bring her gifts. When I knew them, they all lived in
Louisville, Kentucky. We used to visit there on Derby Day. Grandmother
Candice lived with my Uncle John Westray and his wife Pernella (Pernie) in
Louisville and died in their home about 1932. Pernie and John had one child,
a son named Herbert, born about 1920. Note the Herbert name again. My father
Vernon Kennerly Westray, was born in Louisberg on April 30, 1880. At about
age 20, still unmarried, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri with his cousin
Benjamin Rice Morgan, Jr., who was known as Harry. Vernon also acquired the
nickname "Dick" which he used in those days. He was a milkman, and
he loved to run. He ran long road races, 10 miles or more, and at times ran
Marathon races (26 miles, 385 yards). In 1904, at the St. Louis World's Fair,
he is reported to have run in the Olympic Marathon, from Granite City,
Illinois to the fairgrounds in St. Louis, and was reported to have finished
7th. When I was a young boy I remember seeing newspaper clippings and a medal
to that effect - since lost. Vernon married for the first time about that
time. Do not know his wife's name, but they had a daughter named Cecilia. I
met Cile once or twice when I was about 5. She was probably born about 1905,
but died at age 21 of pneumonia. I did not know her married name. Vernon
apparently divorced his first wife and married again about 1907. We believe
her name may have been Gladys. He had one son by that marriage, who was named
"V. K." after his dad. V. K. was born in about 1910. V. K. has a
daughter, Nancy and two sons named Pete and Mike. Pete served in the Navy in
nuclear submarines, but now lives in Southern California and works as a
technician for an electronics manufacturing company near Pomono. Mike is a
policeman with the Davey, California Police Department. Vernon's
second marriage broke up a few years later, but in about 1917 he married
Margaret Evelyn Giedinghagen. Margaret was originally a Tucker from Poplar
Bluff, Missouri but her parents died of smallpox in an epidemic about 1900
and she and her younger brother named Armin were adopted by Fred and Amelia
Giedinghagen of Owensville, Missouri. Margaret was born about March 9, 1894,
and died in Key West, Florida while living with us in March 1980. I was born
in St. Louis, Missouri on March 9, 1918. I grew up in St. Louis, attended
school there through high school (Roosevelt H. S.), and early college
(Missouri U. extension in St. Louis). After high school, I worked at Emerson
Electric Co., and at McQuay Norris Manufacturing Co. In February 1938 I
enlisted in the Naval Reserve as an Apprentice Seaman. I was interested in
flying and I was stationed at the Naval Reserve Air Base at Lambert Field,
outside of St. Louis. I became a mechanic and rear gunner on various types of
old biplanes. On June 10,
1939, Margaret Caroline Sandoe and I were married at Wright City, Missouri.
We made our home in St. Louis. Margaret attended Lindenwood College, a girls
school, in St. Charles, Missouri. I worked in a foundry as a lab assistant
and attended college at night. World War II broke out in Western Europe in
1939, and in the spring of 1940, when the U. S. Navy began to expand I was
called to active duty at Lambert Field where I helped service and maintain
Navy Training planes. The Lambert Field Naval Reserve Base was being expanded
to train Navy pilots and I became part of that operation. I also began to
take flying lessons with civilian operators at Lambert Field. Margaret was
still going to Lindenwood College, in nearby St. Charles, and I used to
"buzz" her school when I flew early morning training flights. Our first
son, Richard Howard was born on May 10, 1941. In the summer of 1941 I was
transferred to the Naval Air Station, Lakehurst, N. J. for parachute
training. While I was at Lakehurst, Margaret's father, Clarence J. Sandoe,
and my father Vernon Westray died suddenly. Lakehurst was the home of Navy
Lighter-Than-Air operations. The dirigibles Shenandoah, Los Angeles, Akron,
and Macon, all had been homeported there. The Hindenberg had burned there.
The dirigibles had been destroyed or retired, but the U. S. Navy had started
building large patrol blimps (K-ships) and began flying anti-submarine
patrols for British merchant convoys sailing out of New York. I participated
in some of these flights in the summer and fall of 1941. In November
1941, I reported back to the Naval Reserve Air Base at Lambert Field in St.
Louis where new expanded facilities had been built. On December 7, 1941 the
Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the U. S. was suddenly in the war with
Japan, Germany, and Italy. I had learned to fly by then, and the Navy,
needing pilots, gave me an officers commission as a pilot. I became a flight
instructor for a while and later flew PBY and PBM patrol seaplanes in the
Atlantic and Caribbean. We had duty
in Trinidad, London, Norfolk, Dallas, Chicago, Monterey, California,
Pensacola, and many other cities in our country and abroad. We all traveled
throughout Europe, and I traveled in Africa and the Middle East, as well as
the Far East. We moved
around a lot during the war years and afterward. I was usually land based and
Marge and the kids were usually with me wherever I was stationed. Barbara
Ann, our daughter, was born in Dallas, Texas, in June 1945. Our youngest son,
William Kenneth, "Ken" was born in Boston in November 1946. Our oldest
son, Richard "Skip" is now a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy,
stationed at San Diego. He is an electronics engineer and a specialist in
guided missiles. He has two sons. The oldest is Paul Westray, who recently
completed training camp with the Marine Corps, and expects to soon be
stationed in Washington D. C. with the Marine Corps Drum and Bugle Corps.
Peter, the youngest, lives with his mother Donna Westray, in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, and attends high school there. Barbara
Westray, is a school teacher in Atlanta, Georgia. She teaches physical
education and science in a Christian School there. Ken is
married and has two children. He is an industrial and chemical engineer and
works as the new markets executive for the English China Clay Co., Ltd., with
American offices in Atlanta. Ken's children are Sandra 13, and Timothy 9. Ken
and his wife Linda make their home in Roswell, Georgia, a suburb north of
Atlanta. W93.84West2 This information from: William Howard Westray 1401 Sunset Drive Key West, Florida 33040 |