PATRILINEAL LINE
The Davenports
From Cheshire to Coventry to New Haven — nine consecutive generations
BEFORE AMERICA
The Davenport English Roots
Medieval Cheshire: The Chief Foresters
The first recorded Davenport ancestor is Ormus de Davenport, who settled in Cheshire after the Norman Conquest of 1066. The family took their name from their estate at Davenport, derived from Old English meaning "settlement by the trickling stream." Their ancestral seat, Capesthorne Hall in Cheshire, has been in family and Bromley-Davenport hands since before the Domesday Book of 1086, and remains so today. For over four centuries, the Davenports held one of the most unusual hereditary offices in England: Chief Foresters and Master Sergeants of the Peace for Macclesfield and Leek. From roughly 1217 onward, they enforced the royal forest laws with the power of life and death, without trial or appeal.
The Davenport Arms
A silver field bearing a chevron between three crosses crosslet fitchée sable. The crest: a man's head with a rope around the neck, the badge of the hereditary Master Sergeants, worn on their helmets as they patrolled the forests enforcing the king's law. Not a symbol of violence, but of office and authority.
Photo Reference: Davenport Coat of Arms, courtesy of the Stamford Historical Society (gift of Mrs. Elizabeth Davenport Spence).
From Coventry to London: Rev. John Davenport's English Career
The fifth son of Henry Davenport, draper, alderman, and Mayor of Coventry in 1613, Rev. John Davenport was born in 1597 into a family of civic prominence. By 1624 he was Vicar of St. Stephen's Coleman Street, one of the most significant Puritan parishes in London. He joined the "feoffees for impropriations," an ambitious scheme to purchase church benefices and install godly ministers across England. Archbishop Laud shut it down in 1633, and Davenport fled to Holland. In Amsterdam he became co-pastor of the English Reformed Church, and in 1637, at the invitation of his close friend Theophilus Eaton, gathered his congregation and sailed for New England. He was forty years old and would never return to England.
THE DAVENPORT LINE
Nine generations
to John Sidney Davenport Jr.
GENERATION I
Rev. John Davenport & Elizabeth Wooley
1597–1670 · Coventry, England → New Haven, CT
The founding minister of New Haven Colony and the man whose vision eventually gave rise to Yale College. Fled Archbishop Laud's crackdown; years in Amsterdam exile. See his dedicated profile for the full story.
GENERATION II
John Davenport & Abigail Pierson
1635–1677 · Born in The Hague; New Haven, CT
Born while his father was in Holland exile, he was raised in London in the household of Lady Vere, a prominent Puritan noblewoman. He joined his parents in New England as a young man, was admitted Freeman of New Haven in 1657, and served as Deputy for eight years. A founding trustee of the proposed New Haven college that eventually became Yale.
GENERATION III
Rev. John Davenport & Elizabeth Morris
1668–1731 · Boston, MA → Stamford, CT
Baptized by his grandfather, the colony's founder, he attended Hopkins School in New Haven and graduated from Harvard in 1687. He was ordained in Stamford, Connecticut in 1694, where he spent his entire ministry. He was the leading member of Yale's Board of Trustees from 1714 to 1731 and the principal force behind relocating the young college from Saybrook to New Haven, where it has remained ever since.
GENERATION IV
Hon. Abraham Davenport & Elizabeth Huntington
1715–1789 · Stamford, CT
Yale 1732. He represented Stamford in the state legislature for 25 sessions, served as State Senator, Judge of Probate, and Judge of the County Court. In 1776 he was dispatched to assist General Washington's army, and in 1777 served on Connecticut's Committee of Safety. He died in 1789 of a heart attack while presiding over a court case. See the story of the Dark Day of 1780.
GENERATION V
Maj. John Davenport, Esq. & Mary Sylvester Wells
1752–1830 · Stamford, CT
Yale 1770. A Revolutionary War major in the Continental Army's Commissary Department and an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati. He served in the Connecticut legislature from 1776 to 1796, and in the U.S. Congress for eighteen years. In 1824 he welcomed General Lafayette to his mansion on Main Street in Stamford, where hundreds had assembled to honor the distinguished visitor.
GENERATION VI
John Alfred Davenport, Esq. & Eliza Wheeler
1783–1864 · Stamford → New Haven, CT
Educated at the Academy at Greenfield Hill under Rev. Dr. Timothy Dwight, later President of Yale. He spent half a century in mercantile life in New York and Brooklyn. He experienced serious reverses during the War of 1812 before settling in New Haven in 1853.
GENERATION VII
Rev. John Sidney Davenport & Elizabeth Sewall Leverett
1808–1900 · Hartford, CT
Yale 1833. Ordained a Congregational minister and later an Episcopalian, he served parishes in Massachusetts and New York before spending eleven years in mercantile life in New York City. He joined the Catholic Apostolic Church in 1866, published a volume on Christian unity, and moved to Hartford in 1874 as an evangelist. He lived to be ninety-two years old.
GENERATION VIII
John Sidney Davenport, Jr. & Mary Elizabeth Rintoul
1846–1937 · Oswego, NY → New York, NY
Yale 1866, Harvard Law 1869. An attorney and counselor at law who practiced in New York City, where he was active in the Good Government Club of Richmond County and served in civic and reform efforts for many years.
GENERATION IX
John Sidney Davenport Jr. & Louise Marguerite Warwick
1877–1946 · Manhattan, NY → Richmond, VA
Born in New York, he attended Trinity College in Hartford and entered the offices of his uncle David Parks Fackler in New York in 1898. Sent to Richmond in 1901, he became actuary of the Life Insurance Company of Virginia in 1902 and rose to Vice-President in 1925. Richmond came to him through work. Marguerite came to him through Richmond.
