35 Wyeth and Wythe Men Fought to put down the “Slaveholders' Rebellion"

 Private John Jasper Wyeth, 44th Mass. Infantry

On this date, 160 years ago, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. It declared all slaves, in states still engaged in rebellion against the Union, would be free on the first day of 1863. The declaration turned the Civil War into a crusade against slavery. Many descendants of Nicholas Wyeth fought and died for America’s democratic ideal that all men are created equal. One of them, John Jasper Wyeth, wrote a memoir called “Leaves from a Diary Written While Serving in Co. E, 44 Mass.” In his book, John did not refer to his service in “The American Civil War” or in “The War Between the States” or “The War of Secession." John unequivocally called the war the “Slaveholders' Rebellion.” The Wyeth and Wythe Families of America book charts on pages 79-83 the names of 35 Wyeth and Wythe men who fought to put down that “slaveholders' rebellion.” Nine of those men died to keep the Union whole, destroy slavery and maintain the Constitution.  Photo of John Jasper Wyeth (1841-1906) is courtesy of his great grandson Keith L. Wyeth.  

Washington took Command of the Army a Stone's Throw from the Wyeth Farm

Cambridge Common, 3 Jul 1775, Currier and Ives Engraving

One of the days that made this country possible occurred 247 years ago on Cambridge Common.  Our ancestors had a front row seat to that history.  Across the road from the Common was the farm Nicholas Wyeth purchased in 1645 when he first settled in the New World.  On 3 Jul 1775, when George Washington took command of the Continental Army there, the Wyeth house was then occupied by Jonas Wyeth Sr.  Undoubtedly, Jonas’ nephews, Joshua, Jonas, and Ebenezer Wyeth III were stirred by the ceremony, for they soon joined the Continental Army.  The three brothers fought in several losing battles, but they had such respect for General Washington, because of his incomparable character, they served their full enlistment and supported the General's ideals long after many other soldiers dejectedly deserted the Army.  Please see pages 63-72 of the Wyeth/Wythe book for more information on the three brothers’ service.

Not all Wyeths and Wythes Across the Globe are Descended from Nicholas Wyeth

V. J. Wythe died in World War II

You will not find information on every Wyeth or Wythe across the globe in this book.  If you want to verify a relationship to Nicholas Wyeth, please contact the author at the Gmail address above right to find out if and how you are related to Nicholas. The name V. J. Wythe appears on this monument honoring war dead between 1939 and 1945 from St. Michael's church in Framlingham, Suffolk County, England. We don’t know how, but V. J. Wythe is likely descended from a brother or cousin of Nicholas Wyeth of Saxtead who came to Cambridge, MA circa 1644.  St. Michael’s in Framlingham joined with All Saints in Saxtead long before Nicholas was baptized in Saxtead in 1600.  Early Suffolk County probate records show a proliferation of Wyeths and Wythes with similar first names.  Of course, many people did not leave wills.  However, for those who did, it would be impossible to determine how the families match, even if all recorded wills were read.  This is why researchers have not been able to verify the legend that Nicholas Wyeth was related to Declaration of Independence signer George Wythe.  For theories of their connection, please see pages nine through 16 of The Wyeth and Wythe Families of America.

Risking Everything for an Abstract Ideal called Democracy

Battle of Lexington by William Barnes Wollen, 1910

Today marks the 246th anniversary of the beginning of the American Revolution. Burdened by increasing taxes and diminishing liberties, at least 14 descendants of Nicholas Wyeth were among the patriots on 19 Apr 1775 willing to risk everything for an abstract ideal called democracy.  Nicholas Wyeth's great grandson, Thomas Fessenden III, present on Lexington Green, heard Lexington Militia captain John Parker order his men to disperse after seeing his troops vastly outnumbered by the British.  Thomas later testified the Red Coats shot first in the battle that killed eight Americans.  While the British continued their fight at Concord, Parker assembled his survivors and the newly arrived Cambridge Militia near the Lexington and Lincoln town line.  Joseph Wyeth, brothers Jonas Wyeth, Noah Wyeth and Ebenezer Wyeth Jr. and Ebenezer’s son, Jonas Wyeth Jr. were Cambridge minutemen present in the battle which came to be known as “Parker’s Revenge.” The Wyeth and Wythe Families of America book details family heroism in the Revolutionary War on pages 57-72.

Remembering the World War I Service of Mary Elizabeth Wyeth

Mary Elizabeth Wyeth (insert) and the Army Nurse Corps, Base Hospital 68, A. E. F.

For Women’s History Month 2021, we honor World War I nurse, Mary Elizabeth Wyeth.  Mary was named for her great, great grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Brewer, the wife of Boston Tea Party and Continental Army veteran, Joshua Wyeth.  

A few years after graduating from Union Hospital’s nursing program in Terre Haute, Indiana, 27-year-old Mary set sail on 16 Sep 1918 for France with 100 other young women of the Army Nurse Corps of the American Expeditionary Forces.  Their destination was the newly purposed Base Hospital No. 68 in Mars-sur-Allier. 

Since the sea crossing took place at the height of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, the deadliest in history, Mary’s nursing work for the Corps actually began aboard ship.  Once in France, none of Mary’s nursing experience prepared her emotionally or physically for caring for the vast numbers of soldiers wounded by high-explosive artillery shells, poison gas burns and "shell shock" who arrived by the trainload at No. 68.  Many men were sickened by flu that in turn took the lives of several of Mary's fellow nurses.  

When Hospital No. 68 closed on 15 Jan 1919, Mary transferred to Base Hospital No. 93 in Cannes, France.  There in May 1919, Pvt. John McLaughlin, a young man from her hometown, on leave from the 8th Battalion, 20th Engineers, wrote his mother about seeing Nurse Mary on the sunny coast.  After 59 years of marriage, Mr. and Mrs. John McLaughlin and their military tombstones now rest side by side in Terre Haute’s Highland Lawn Cemetery.  

Sources: Ethel Ross Wyeth Canion; Alpha Sawyer, US Base Hospital 68 A.E.F (Boston: Griffith-Stilling Press, 1920), 26, 40, 43 and 124; Christina Wyeth Baker, The Wyeth and Wythe Families of America (Berwyn Heights, MD: Heritage Books, 2019), 211; and the Terre Haute Saturday Spectator, 17 May 1919, 24.

The Daughter of Rebecca Parks Andrew Wyeth Fox is Depicted in Thomkins Matteson's 1855 Painting

Thomkins Matteson painting from Wikimedia Commons

On 26 May 1698, Mary Wyeth, the 49-year-old unmarried daughter of Nicholas Wyeth and Rebecca Parks Andrew Wyeth Fox, wrote in her last will and testament that anything “due from the estate of my Father Wyeth and my Mother Fox my will is it be disposed of to my five Brothers Thomas Andrew, Daniel Andrew, Nicolas (sic) Wyeth, John Wyeth and William Wyeth and to my sisters Sarah Fiske and Rebecca Jacobs.” The sister Mary mentioned, Rebecca Andrew Frost Jacobs, is shown here with her hands raised in anger at her daughter Margaret for accusing her grandfather George Jacobs Sr. of witchcraft. This painting has been widely used to depict the trials that started on 1 Mar 1692 in Salem, MA. For more information on Mary’s will and her siblings accused of witchcraft, please see pages 41-56 and 153-154 of The Wyeth and Wythe Families of America book. 

First Lieutenant Peter Wyeth Johnson was a True American Patriot

Vietnam Wall Memorial, Washington, DC

Today on 13 Feb 1968, 23-year-old 1st Lt. Peter Wyeth Johnson, U. S. Army Special Forces Green Beret, was killed instantly by rifle fire while leading an assault on enemy positions near Qui Nhon, Vietnam.  Following in the footsteps of his grandfather, World War I veteran Marion Sims Wyeth, Peter also was a true American patriot.  John Kerry, now U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, in his book, Every Day Is Extra remembered his high school classmate, Peter, as a good friend who loved to read and write poetry.  See this link to the Wall-of-Faces for more on Peter's service.

Joshua Wyeth Coined the Phrase “Boston Tea Party”

First Steps toward a Democratic Government

247 years ago, on 16 Dec 1773, 15-year-old Joshua Wyeth, a Boston blacksmith in training, smeared his face with soot and helped trash an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company.  Joshua was a brave member of the generation of American patriots who fought a war against the tyrant English King George and set the United States on its course to democracy.  Spoiling the tea was a political protest in reaction to the tax British Parliament added to it without input from the Colonies.  Years later, Joshua would playfully be the first person to call the actions of that night in 1773 a “Tea Party.”  However, at the time, the protest was a serious act of rebellion.  He and others in the secret society, Sons of Liberty, saw themselves as patriots fighting to give a voice to American Colonists, but had they been caught, they would have been executed as traitors.  Joshua’s story, and the details of 19 of his children, whose names can be verified, show on pages 211-218 of The Wyeth and Wythe Families of America book. Public domain photo credit: John Andrew, artist, Yale University Art Gallery.

Pfizer purchased WYETH Pharmaceuticals in 2009

Airplane Distribution of WYETH Polio Vaccine 

With Pfizer’s COVID vaccine now rolling out around the world, we are reminded the Wyeth name has been cutting edge in medicine since 1860 when brothers John and Francis Wyeth founded the company that would become the pharmaceutical giant WYETH. The Wyeth and Wythe Families of America book details Pfizer’s purchase of WYETH for a $68 billion cash-and-stock deal. Photos of the brothers, furnished by Pfizer appear, with their stories, on pages 397 and 398 of the Wyeth/Wythe book. The polio vaccine rollout photograph shown here is courtesy of the Wyeth brothers' 2nd great grand nephew William Maxwell “Max” Wyeth IV.

The book includes the children of the seventh generation from Nicholas Wyeth

Because Nicholas lived in the 1600s, his descendants in generation seven were born in the late 1700s or early 1800s. For many people, this book will end at the generation of their great grandparents or great, great grandparents. If you have trouble figuring out your most recent ancestor in the book, please drop the author a note at the Gmail address above right to get the lineage from Nicholas Wyeth to you.