The descendants of
George Flint and Elizabeth (Lee) Flint,
of Holbeach, Lincolnshire
Introduction
The Origin of the Family
Several legends regarding the origin of our family’s name have surfaced from time to time which are clearly the result rather of recent speculations, than of authentic traditions. If the events of a century ago are hardly remembered by anyone now alive, we can scarcely attach much credit to the notion that the family derived from Flintshire in Wales at least two hundred years ago. This idea of the name’s etymology may have been encouraged by the proximity of Flintshire to Liverpool, whence George Flint (III) left England in 1852, or by the fact (which could have been easily learnt through newspaper reportage) that the family of the well-known Canadian senator Billa Flint had come from Flintshire.[1] The truth is that the name Flint, while nowhere a very common one, is scattered about equally over at least five English counties,[2] and likely arose in different places and from different sources when surnames first came into use.
Equally without foundation is the idea of a relationship with the famous explorer Timothy Flint (1780-1840), after whom the city of Flint, Michigan was named. It has nevertheless in turn spawned the misconception that the “Flint Motor Company” there, which manufactured the “Flint car,” was named for a member of our family; whereas it was simply named for the city where it was founded.[3]
In fact no explanation of the family’s origin has, to the knowledge of the present writer, been offered which has the appearance of being a genuine tradition.
It is also unlikely — and indeed has not been suggested anywhere to our knowledge — that our family had any connection with “Flint Hall” in Holbeach Marsh, 2½ miles north of Holbeach, which was built by 1819, and apparently took its name from the material out of which it was constructed.[4] The building, later called “Flint House,” no longer stands, but it gave its name to “Flint House Road,” which leads to its site from the highway.[5] However, it is possible that the family had some connection with Flint’s Court in the town of Holbeach, which is mentioned in the 1881 census.[6]
There is no record of any Flint at Holbeach before the marriage of George Flint to Elizabeth Lee in 1788, and he was probably the first person of the name ever to live there in modern times.[7] Accordingly, a search was made in a large circle around Holbeach for a record of his baptism, and a plausible match was found with one born at Greetham, Rutland, whose family is outlined in the Appendix to this work. But the evidence, although suggestive, is only circumstantial.
A rather more tenuous possibility is that the Flints of Holbeach may have been somehow related to those of Thornton-by-Pocklington, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. When our George Flint III (1823-1906) moved to Toronto in the late 1870s and settled on the west side of Rose Avenue, another George Flint (1820-1899) aquired the property next door at almost exactly the same time. This man was a son of William Flint (1794-1876), of Whitby Tp., Ontario Co. (now part of the Durham Region), Ontario, and a grandson of Robert Flint (living 1805), of Thornton-by-Pocklington.[8] When this other George Flint left Toronto for Québec (where he spent the remainder of his life), he left behind his son, George H. Flint, a journalist and man of letters,[9] who while working as an assistant editor at the Globe actually lived for some years with our George Flint III.[10] But despite such intimate relations, family records cast no light on the question of whether the two families were related, or even suspected a relationship, and it is possible they became neighbors only by accident.
A brief outline of the family
As noted above, the first appearance of the name Flint at Holbeach is with the marriage of George Flint to Elizabeth Lee in 1788. His occupation is unknown, but he left an estate worth almost £1500.
The growth of the Flint family during the nineteenth century was considerable. From George and Elizabeth (Lee) Flint, six of whose eight or nine children survived adulthood, there descended 43 grandchildren, 122 great-grandchildren, and at least 169 great-great-grandchildren.[11] Declining birth-rates at the end of the century, however, caused a drastic tapering off of the growth of the family.
Holbeach in the early nineteenth century was not an especially prosperous town, and when George Flint’s son Matthew Flint Sr. left by September 1832 for the more comfortable town of Wisbech St. Peter, Cambridgeshire, his departure initiated a chain of emigration. His brother George followed with his family in 1837 or 1838; and two of their brother John’s sons, George and Matthew, went in 1838 and 1846 respectively. Their sister Elizabeth (Flint) Parsons and a few other relatives remained (at least for some time) at Holbeach, but by 1851 the male line of the family was represented there only by John Flint II (b. 1823, living 1861).[12]
The family faired better at Wisbech and has left many descendants there, but Wisbech in turn lost many of its inhabitants to a second wave of emigration in the middle of the century. Matthew Flint Sr. (1803- 1886) left for Canada in 1845-48 and settled at the small village of Stouffville, in Whitchurch and Markham townships, York Co., Ontario. His sister Elizabeth (Flint) Parsons (1806-1896) followed him in 1851, and their nephew George Flint III (1823-1906) in 1852. In 1853 the latter’s sister Martha (Flint) Smith left Wisbech for Rochester, New York, and in 1861 their half-brother, Abraham Flint (1840-1886), left for Toronto, Ontario. This, and emigration to other destinations not yet determined, again drew away most of the family’s male line, and in 1930 Pamela Olive Flint, daughter of George Flint, was the last person bearing the surname to be born at Wisbech.
Just what happened to some of the English branches of the family remains a mystery. One of George and Elizabeth (Lee) Flint’s daughters, Ann (Flint) Smith, clearly left Holbeach with her family between 1832 and 1851, and her brother John’s daughter, Ann (Flint) Lord, with hers between 1851 and 1861. George and Elizabeth Flint’s son, George Flint (II), had a married son Edward who inexplicably disappears from Wisbech between 1851 and 1861, and a daughter Mary (Flint) Inkley whose family vanishes from Spalding, Lincolnshire, between 1861 and 1871. These disappearances largely account for the fact that of the 98 members of the fourth generation who did not die young, there are only 47 for whom issue can be traced, and only 42 can be traced forward to their own deaths.
While the English lines became scattered, a remarkably large group of descendants arose in Ontario from three of the persons who settled there. The branches of the family deriving from Matthew Flint, Elizabeth (Flint) Parsons, and George Flint III include over 1000 members, of whom about 35% are still concentrated in the general area of Stouffville, including the nearby town of Uxbridge, and the city of Toronto. One begins to see the effect of such concentration, for example, in the class-lists for Stouffville Public School of the late 1880s, in the Toronto street directories of 1909 on, and in Mrs. Heard’s lists of Hockley descendants, who became such an enormous presence in Uxbridge Tp. during the 1930s.
Out of the 1329 Flint descendants traced in this work, 225 (17%) belong to the male line of the family and thus bear the surname Flint. Normally, one would expect that with the number of offspring in the male line becoming halved with each successive generation, a family of the size and duration of the present one would have (on average) only about 33 members in the male line, accounting for less than 3% of the total. The main reason this proportion is in fact higher is that of the 22 members of the third generation who are known to have left children, six were males bearing the name Flint; so that by the end of the last century 27% of the fertile members of the family were perpetuating the surname in their children.
Of these six men just alluded to, the one who contributes the most to the total is George Flint (III) (1823-1906), of Stouffville, whose seven sons have left 121 descendants in the male line. Their descendants, almost all of whom proved to be traceable, form a majority (54%) of all the Flints treated in this work, and include almost all of those who are still living.
A note on marriage alliances
There are many aspects of the Flint family’s social and intellectual life which merit further study, including educational attainments, professional pursuits, and religious affiliation. Here only a much more modest study can now be attempted; namely that of some aspects of its marriage alliances.
No instance of a marriage between two descendants of the Flint family has ever been found; and there are only two cases known to the compiler in which a Flint descendant has married any kind of blood relative, namely that of Mary Flint to Thomas Inkley, a first cousin on her mother’s side, and of Magdalena Baker to her fifth cousin once removed, Eli Ramer (a relationship that passes through several females, and which was possibly unknown to the parties involved). It is however certain that during the last century the Flints (in what was evidently a typical fashion) tended not only to choose near neighbors as spouses, but to form further alliances with families with which they were already connected.
The tendency to perpetuate existing relationships may be seen with especial clarity in the three branches of the family which settled at Stouffville, because of the excellence of the local records and the availability of published studies for many of its early families.[13] At Stouffville, at least, this impulse is one which to a considerable extent transcended differences of social class, and even of ethnicity; though in the latter case it must be noted that many of the German families with which it intermarried were not readily distinguishable as such, as they had earlier adopted the manners of their Anglo-Canadian neighbors in Ontario. Thus Bartholomus, Weidmann, and Breul became Bartholomew, Wideman, and Brewels; and many of their descendants were quite content in the misconception that they were of English origin.[14]
There are numerous surnames which are allied with more than one branch of the Flint family. Some of these names are quite common, and most presumably represent unrelated persons,[15] but a substantial number are of persons for whom geographical proximity suggests some connexion,[16] especially when the marriages are to siblings, or even to the same person.[17]
As for known relationships among the spouses of Flint descendants, the families of Yake and Stouffer each contribute three marriages (the Stouffers being perhaps also distantly connected with the Stauffers, Stauffer being the original spelling of the name). There are also double connexions with the families of Barnes, Elliott, Gerrow, Inkley, McCullough, Patterson, Quale, Ramer, and Teed, to all of which attention is drawn in the text at the points where they occur.[18] Two of these Stouffer marriages, and the two Patterson marriages, are each cases in which two Flint descendants married in turn the same person.
Aside from these cases in which the related persons bear the same surname, there must be many others whose connexions to one another are through female lines.[19] Though such relationships are naturally less obvious to the investigator, several cases have come to light. Eli Ramer is a striking example, for besides having been a third cousin of J. Frederick Ramer,[20] he was a third cousin of Lewis Bartholomew,[21] a ____ of Albert Amos Truax,[22] a third cousin once removed of Harold Lintner and a third cousin of Mary Edith (Jones) Hockley,[23] a second cousin twice removed of David Stouffer,[24] a third cousin of the latter’s nephew Andrew Stouffer, and, most interesting of all, a fourth cousin once removed of his father-in-law Franklin Baker,[25] by virtue of which relationship he and his wife were each other’s fifth cousins.
Andrew Stouffer himself (husband in turn of both Lilian O’Brien and Florence Parsons) is a another example of highly ramified relationships, for besides being related to Eli Ramer as just stated, he was a nephew of David Stouffer, a third cousin of J. Frederick Ramer,[26] a third cousin once removed of Lewis Bartholomew,[27] a fourth cousin of Franklin Baker and a ______ of Albert Truax,[28] a second cousin twice removed of Harold Lintner and a fourth cousin once removed of Mary (Jones) Hockley,[29] but possibly also a distant relative of Abraham Yake.[30] David Stouffer, on whom we shall not dwell here as he did not leave issue, shared all his nephew Andrew Stouffer’s kin except Lewis Bartholomew.
Frederick Ramer, a third cousin of both Eli Ramer and of Andrew Stouffer, and a second cousin once removed of David Stouffer, was also a first cousin once removed of William Appleton Bruels,[31] and a third cousin twice removed of Harold Lintner and fourth cousin of Mary (Jones) Hockley.[32] Harold Lintner, besides being related to the Ramers and Stouffers, was a third cousin twice removed of Franklin Baker,[33] and a third cousin once removed of Mary (Jones) Hockley.[34] Franklin Baker, besides being related to Eli Ramer, Harold Lintner, and the Stouffers, was a ______ of Albert Truax.[35] Mary Edith (Jones) Hockley was related to the Ramers and Stouffers and Harold Lintner. Albert Truax was related to Eli Ramer, Franklin Baker, and the Stouffers. Lewis Bartholomew was related to Eli Ramer and Andrew Stouffer, and William Bruels to Frederick Ramer.
In sum, taking only the certain cases into account, we can add to the list of families given above as being ancestral in the male line to more than one Flint spouse, the following who were ancestral in female lines: the Burkholder and Lehman families, with six descendants each, the Reiffs with five, the Reesors and Hersheys with three each, and the “English” Weidmans, “German” Widemans, and the Boyer, Bruels, and Sherk families, all with two apiece.
A note on sources
As a number of correspondents have expressed interest in the sources on which this research is based, a brief description of some of these is given here. Printed sources of the narrative kind are cited in the notes, and it is not feasible to consider the numerous disconnected documentary materials used, so that this discussion will be confined to manuscript compilations, which are at once the least accessible and the most valuable class of record.
The earliest known collection of records relating to the Flint family is a bible record kept by Mary (Madgham) Teed (1800-1885), mother-in-law of George Flint III (1823-1906).[36] This covers strictly the period 1847-59, and simply lists vital events without any description of the people to whom they relate, so that (in the worst cases) the births of children are listed without naming their parents. The work of identification has taken several years, and is still not complete.
Much better in this respect is the bible record kept by George Flint’s son, Simeon Flint, from 1884, which is all one could want in accuracy and detail,[37] and the list of the children of Elizabeth (Flint) Parsons compiled by J. Franklin O’Brien (1867-1940), which is remarkable for the precision of the dates, and for the attention which it gives to children who died young.[38]
It is only much later that we find any attempt to compile connected pedigrees, the first known being the manuscript prepared by the Rev. Dr. George Yetter Flint (1911-1976), made when he was still a very young man in college, and perhaps begun so early as 1928.[39] It treats the descendants of George and Mary Rose (Teed) Flint down to grandchildren. Though lacking dates, it is uniquely comprehensive, being the only reliable compiled source for several of the names it includes. Possibly he was encouraged in this work by his father, the Rev. Dr. Charles Wesley Flint, whose antiquarian interests are evidenced by a series of scattered notes on the Flint family; these seem however to be a product of his last years, and lack the clarity of his published works.[40]
The next of these MS works is a pedigree of the descendants of George and Mary Rose (Teed) Flint compiled by Ida Flint (1883-1957), who had a long-standing interest in family history, and whose work is valuable, despite the scarcity of precise dates.[41] Its only serious error is in giving the surname of Mary Rose Teed as “Tweed.” Another version of this chart, produced by Ruth (Mayo) Bruels (d. 1971), inherits the last error.[42]
We next come to a set of notes dictated in 1969 by A. Gordon Flint (1888-1971/3) and his wife to his nephew David G. Flint, again covering the descendants of George and Mary Rose (Teed) Flint.[43] This contain several errors, the most serious of which is the confusion of George Flint (II) with his son of the same name; but it is useful for information on later generations.
The last of the MS works we have to discuss is on an altogether different scale than the foregoing. This is the vast Teed Family Tree (1974) produced by Annie G. (Allen) Teed (1899-1983), tracing over a hundred descendants of Henry and Mary (Madgham) Teed, mostly in the Canadian branches.[44] The treatment of the offspring of George and Mary Rose (Teed) Flint is incomplete, but this chart occupies a unique place among the works discussed here in supplying an adequate identification of Mary Rose Teed.
Compilations and collections more recent than these have been made by several living researchers whose work is referred to in the Acknowledgements above, and perhaps it is not too much to hope that more will one day be discovered. Even if these rich sources are now depleted, there must remain many records of other kinds — such as those of towns, schools, and corporations — which have been unavailable for examination or have escaped the present compiler’s detection.
Notes
| 1. | See Burke’s Colonial Gentry, 2 vols. (London, 1891-5), 1:193. |
| 2. | Henry Brougham Guppy, Homes of Family Names in Great Britain (London, 1890), p. 485. |
| 3. | No one named Flint was connected with this venture; see “New Durant Concern Organized,” New York Times, 29 July 1922, p. 14, col. 4. |
| 4. | The Old Series Ordnance Survey Maps of England and Wales, Vol. 5 — Lincolnshire, Rutland, and East Anglia (Lympne Castle, Kent: Harry Margary, 1987), p. 39; for the date of the original drawing upon which this plate was based see p. xi. Mr. John Orange wrote to me: “No one seems to know how it came by the name Flint Hall … [but] flint was used as a building material locally. When the fens were drained and reclaimed from the sea some 100-200 years ago, the sea walls were built by Dutch navigators … [who] used flint-stone as a good hard wearing material for such work. Sutton Bridge Church is built entirely of flint.” |
| 5. | The house and farmland was bought by the Crown in 1918, after the first World War, and divided into 10 units, which were rented out by the Ministry of Agriculture as smallholdings for the returning soldiers. The house itself was divided into two households. It was finally demolished in the late 1960s or early 1970s and no trace remains, although some old farm sheds remain. The last occupant of the house was Mr. R. Marshall, now (1989) of 66 Marsh Road, Holbeach St. Marks. (The writer is much indebted to Mrs. D.K. Jenkinson, of Holbeach Library, and to Mr. N.C. Simson, Secretary of the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society, for this information.) |
| 6. | 1881 Census of England, Lincolnshire, registration district: Holbeach, subdistrict: Holbeach, enumeration district 11, pp. 7, 8; PRO RG11/3211, folio 7 (both sides). |
| 7. | In 1796 the parish register names a Samuel Flint as the father of an Elizabeth Flint baptized on 13 Oct., but this is almost certainly an error for George Flint.
A Frances Flint (for whom there is no baptismal record) married 10 Nov. 1806 at Holbeach, William Morriss, and they had a large family including Frances Ann (d. young), William George, Frances (d. young), Rebekah, John Flint, Maria, Catharine, another Frances Ann, James, and Caroline. On 6 Sept. 1836 an Elizabeth Flint, spinster, aged 19 years, married a Watkin Andrews, widower, of Holbeach, aged 34 years. She was evidently an orphan, as there were “no persons authorized to give … consent” to the marriage. No children of this couple have been found. |
| 8. | As was probably first discovered by Mr. Stephen Wood, of the Whitby-Oshawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society, who rendered invaluable assistance in the preparation of this account. |
| 9. | He later moved to Montréal, and became a writer for the Witness. For praise of one of his papers, see Lawrence J. Burpee, “Charles Heavysege,” Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, 2nd series, vol. 7 (1901), “Transactions,” sect. 2, pp. 17-60. He may have been the George Flint who was translator of Lucien Huot’s Siege of the Fort of St. Johns in 1775 (St. Johns, Québec: New Publishing House, 1889), of which there is a copy in the Public Archives of Canada; but the work is lacking a preface, which might have given a clue as to the translator’s identity. He may also have been the George Flint whose obituary appears in the New York Times, 26 Feb. 1918, p. 13, col. 5. |
| 10. | Toronto city directories, 1886 and 1887. The records of the Globe do not appear to have survived. |
| 11. | See the Statistical Synopsis following this introduction. |
| 12. | Apart from his immediate family, the only other person surnamed Flint in the 1851 census was a 12 year-old girl named Frances Flint (unidentified), who was born in the town and was visiting a widow named Mary Harris, of Brewhouse Yard, next door to John Flint. She is too old to have been his daughter and too young to have been his sister. |
| 13. | There are several contemporary biographical collections of varying quality, the unreliable History of Toronto and [the] County of York (Toronto, 1885) to the useful Commemorative Biographical Record of the County of York (Toronto, 1907). The best modern pedigrees are those contributed by Mr. Frank Johnson, of Stouffville, to Markham 1793-1900, ed. Isabel Champion (Markham Historical Society, 1979). A superb study of some of the early settlers is afforded by Mrs. Harriette Marr Wheeler’s William Marr of Northampton County, Pennsylvania (Grosse Pointe, Michigan, 1983). In addition to these and other published works, Mr. Johnson, Mr. William Britnell of Mississauga, and Mr. Douglas Yake of Uxbridge all have important works or collections in progress; and the Markham museum owns a vast manuscript by Norman E. Wideman, consisting of 14 volumes of about 100 pages apiece, of which parts are slowly being incorporated into the works of other writers. |
| 14. | The descendants of Philip Weidman were known as the “English Widemans” by their Mennonite neighbors (Markham 1793-1900, p. 56); and the Bartholomews even deceived Mr. Johnson, who thought them “possibly of Huguenot origin” (Ibid., p. 61). |
| 15. | This is especially so of the ten cases of the name Smith, five each of Brown, Jackson, and Wilson, and the four each of Baker, Evans, and Jones. There are also three each of Clarke, Cole, Gray, Harrison, Johnson, Marshall, Miller, Walker, and two each of Anderson, Campbell, Clark, Cooper, Cunningham, Davis, Dodds, Green, Harper, James, Hill, Kerr, Knight, Lee, McMillan, Merrick, Moore, Munroe, Patterson, Reed, Ross, Sanders, Scott, Taylor, Thompson, Walker, Warner, Warren, Wells, and Wilkes. Of the three McCulloughs, two are related to one another and the thrid probably unrelated. |
| 16. | Abraham, Feasby, Forsythe, Irwin, Martin, Risebrough, and the four Taylors who married descendants of W. Charles and Emily Rose (Miles) Hockley, of Uxbridge Tp. |
| 17. | Elford, Heimeller, Payne, Simpson, Taylor (Margaret and Marie), and Young (Barbara and Roland). |
| 18. | In other cases of duplicated names, such as Breuls/Bruels, Revis, and Sullivan, one of the relationships is an indirect one, involving the mediation of another marriage. |
| 19. | Some as-yet unconfirmed possibilities are a relationship between the Stouffers and Stauffers and the Stoffer grandparents of Ralph A Scott, and between Joanne Burritt (wife of Dr. Curtis Congo) and Lucretia Burritt, mother of Ruth Merrick (wife of Thomas Frank Wilson). |
| 20. | This was in the male line; they were also fourth cousins through the Burkholder family, and shared a slightly more distant Lehman descent. |
| 21. | Lewis Bartholomew’s paternal grandmother, Mary Boyer, was a sister of Elizabeth Boyer, Eli Ramer’s paternal great-grandmother. |
| 22. | They were both descended from the Reiff family. |
| 23. | They were all descended from Jacob and Maria (Lehman) Burkholder. |
| 24. | They were both descended from Christian and Fronica (Reiff) Reesor. They were also through the Burkholder family third cousins once removed, and they shared Hershey and Lehman descents. |
| 25. | They were both descended from the Reiff family. |
| 26. | They were both descended from Abraham and Anna (Burkholder) Lehman. |
| 27. | Andrew Stouffer’s mother’s mother’s father was Philip Weidman, brother of Catherina Weidman, who was the maternal great-great-grandmother of Lewis Bartholomew. |
| 28. | They were all descended from the Reiff family. |
| 29. | They were all descended from Ulrich Burkholder (1710-1786), and slightly more distantly from the Lehman family. |
| 30. | Stouffer’s mother’s mother’s mother was Sarah Anna Langin or Long (1752/3-1805/6), and the maternal grandmother of Abraham Yake was Sarah Long (d. 1862). The relationship is claimed by Evelyn Todd, who in her Burrs and Blackberries from Goodwood (Goodwood, 1980), p. 17, explains the forms Langin and Long as variants of the same name. |
| 31. | His paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Sophia Breuls, was a sister of Julius Breuls, father of William Appleton Bruels. |
| 32. | They were all descended from Ulrich Burkholder (1710-1786), and slightly more distantly from the Lehman family. |
| 33. | They were both descended from Henry and Catherine (Van Hoben) Wideman. |
| 34. | They were both descended from Jacob and Maria (Lehman) Burkholder, and they also shared more distant Burkholder and Lehman descents. |
| 35. | They were both descended from Casper and Esther (Reiff) Sherk. |
| 36. | It is now (1989) in the possession of Mrs. Mary Southgate, of Wisbech, from whom a copy was kindly procurred by Mr. Neville Palmer, of Elm, Cambs. |
| 37. | It is now in the possession of Mr. David G. Flint, who kindly provided a copy. |
| 38. | There are copies in the possession of Mr. Franklin P. O’Brien and of Mrs. Beulah (O’Brien) Meier, both of whom kindly provided copies. |
| 39. | It was once in the possession of his sister, the late Dr. Lois Henrietta Flint, who kindly provided a copy. |
| 40. | These notes are now in the possession of Mrs. Leslye Greaves, who kindly provided copies. |
| 41. | It is now in the possession her grand-niece, Beth Sheehan, who kindly provided a copy. |
| 42. | This variant is in the collection of Mr. Norman Baker, who kindly provided a copy. |
| 43. | A copy was kindly provided by Mr. David G. Flint. |
| 44. | It is now in the possession of Mrs. Nora (McGuire) Teed, of Thornbury, Ontario, who kindly provided a copy. |
From the Genealogy Page of John Blythe Dobson
URL = cybrary.uwinnipeg.ca/people/Dobson/genealogy/ff/Flint1989/introduction.cfm
This page placed on the website May 2003
Last revised 13 June 2005