The Munsons of Texas — an American Saga

Chapter Three

THE MUNSONS OF NEW ENGLAND — 1637-PRESENT

SUMMARY

Two different families of Munsons are recorded in early New England, but it is not known if the Munsons of Texas are descended from either of them. Captain Thomas Munson was first recorded in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1637; and Richard Monson in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1663. Both families had many descendants, and these are well documented in two books authored by Myron A. Munson of New Haven around 1900. The early histories and other items of interest pertaining to these families are presented. The possibility that the Munsons of Texas descended from these Munsons is discussed.

The Thomas Munson Family of Connecticut

On December 11, 1620, (December 21 according to the calendar we now use) a band of plainly dressed voyagers moored their ship on a wild New England shore and knelt in prayer of thanks. These were the Pilgrims. They had braved the terrors of the little-known seas and sailed in the Mayflower to the place they called Plymouth, named after their point of debarkation — Plymouth, England. Among these Pilgrims was William Brewster with his wife and a son, Love Brewster. These were to be ancestors of one group of the Munsons who live in Texas today, 350 years later.

Because they were beyond the reach of England, the Pilgrims drew up a plan of self-government which they called The Mayflower Compact. It was an agreement to form a democratic government that would make "just and equal lawes. . . for ye generall good of ye Colonie, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience" [1]. The future colony of Massachusetts and the new nation that followed never varied from the espousal of this theme.

In 1629, following the struggling success of the Plymouth colony and the initial settlements at Salem in 1626, King Charles I granted a charter for the "puritan colony of the Massachusetts Bay in New England". Soon there were three settlements in the Massachusetts Bay Colony: Salem, Boston, and Gloucester. These settlements grew rapidly between 1630 and 1642 — a time in England when the struggle between Charles I and Parliament and the resulting Civil War made conditions especially unpleasant for the Puritans [see Inset 2]. Many of these immigrants were from Lincolnshire [see Inset 4]. By 1640 the Bay colonies are estimated to have had over ten thousand settlers and were beginning to expand westward. Early among these westward movements was the establishment of Hartford in the Quinnicticut Valley by Thomas Hooker in 1636 and New Haven by John Davenport in 1638.

Captain Thomas Munson, the first recorded Munson in America, was born in England in 1612 and is first located in Hartford in 1637. In that year he participated, at the age of 25, with Captain Mason's men in a successful campaign to drive the troublesome Pequot Indians out of the Quinnicticut Valley into the Fairfield Swamp. The battle took place at daybreak on June 5, 1637, eight miles northeast of New London. The tribe was virtually destroyed in this encounter, and Indian raids ceased thereafter.

The written record of that day, quoted from The Munson Record, tells the story:

May 1st, l637, the Generall Corte [court] att Harteford 'rdered that there shalbe an offensive warr agt the Pequoitt, and that there shalbe 90 men levied out of the 3 Plantacons [plantations], Harteford, Weathersfield & Windsor; Harteford was to furnish 42. Wednesday, May 10th, the Connecticut army, composed of 90 Colonists and 70 Mohegan Indians, sailed from Hartford, and occupied five days in descending the Connecticut river — sixty miles. Only two members of the expedition were killed, and sixteen wounded; while according to Capt. Mason six or seven hundred of the Pequots perished.

Harteford. Generall Cort [court], Tuesday Nov: 14th, 1637. . . It is ordered that every common souldier that went in the late designe against. . . the Pequoites shall have 1s. 3d. pr day for theire service at sixe dayes to the weeke. . . and that the saide payment shalbe for a moneth although in strictnes there was but three weekes and 3 dayes due. . .

Myron A. Munson, in The Munson Record, further explains:

On the northern margin of the present city of Hartford was a cleared and fertile tract of 28 acres, which the grateful town allotted to the returning heroes; it has been known as the Soldiers' Field. . . eight acres of this Field. . . contained thirteen allotments, the most southern of which was that of Thomas Hale, adjoining the Spencer lot; then came in order the lots of Samuel Hale, William Phillips, Thomas Barnes, and Thomas Munson. . . Soldier Munson's house-lot, comprising two and one-half acres, was on the east side of the present High Street, opposite the head of Walnut (about two blocks N. E. of Union R. R. Station); our High Street was then known as 'the highway leading from the Cow-pasture to Mr Allen's land.' There was a house on this ground in February, 164l, which was probably built by Munson the Carpenter. Previously to this date, he had sold the place to Nath. Kellogge. . .
Previously to. . . February, l640, Thomas Munson had quit Hartford plantation and cast in his lot with the settlers at Quinnipiac [the site of present-day New Haven]. Such experiments were numerous. The Historical Catalogue of the First Church, Hartford, gives the names of 147 early members; seventy-four of them, including Thomas Munson, are said to have removed to other settlements. The men who had a sight of Quinnipiac while engaged in the Pequot War were enthusiastic over the place. In April, 1638, Davenport and his fellow-adventurers sailed into the West Creek. . . The following year [l639], on the 4th of June, a Fundamental Agreement was enacted in Mr. Newman's barn: its main point was that church-members only should be free burgesses, and have the elective franchise. . . It was ordered that whoever should hereafter 'be admitted here as planters' should subscribe their names to the 'Agreement': the fine signature of Thomas Munson is sixth in a list of forty-eight, (thirteen signed by their mark). Accordingly. . . there is no reason to doubt that he became a New-Havener as early as 1639; he may have joined the settlement during its first year.

This Captain Thomas Munson lived the next forty-six years as an active and eminent citizen of New Haven. His professions are recorded as carpenter, civic officer, and military service. He died on May 7, 1685, at the age of 73, and was buried on "The Green" in New Haven. His monument, a slab of sandstone, may now be seen in the Grove Street burial ground at No.9 Linden Avenue. His signature remains on many documents.

Thomas' wife in New Haven was Joanna Munson. She shared his life there for approximately thirty-six years. Neither the date of their marriage nor that of the birth of their first child, Elizabeth, is known. Their second child and only son, Samuel, was born in 1643, and their third child, Hannah, in 1648. Joanna died in New Haven in 1678 at the age of 68, and her gravestone stands beside that of her husband.

A footnote in The Munson Record suggests some interesting speculation on the date of Thomas Munson's voyage to America and of the possibility of an earlier wife:

In Hotten's Lists of Emigrants, page 279, appear the names and ages of all the Passengers which tooke shipping In the Elizabeth of Ipswich. . . bound for new Eng Land the last of Aprill, 1634; one of them is Susan Munson, aged 25. This Susan, three years older than Thomas, may have been his wife. . . It is impossible to doubt that Joanna Munson, who was two years older than Thomas, who died seven years before him, and whose grave stone is a twin to that of Thomas, was his wife, though possibly by a second marriage.

This passage suggests that Thomas had come to America before l634, possibly in l633 at the age of 21, or even as early as 1629, and that possibly his first wife, Susan, was coming to meet him. [see Inset 4]. If so, she apparently perished en route or soon thereafter, and Thomas, possibly as a result, moved to the new frontier settlement at Hartford and participated in the Pequot war there.

In New Haven Thomas and Joanna Munson raised their two daughters and a son. Daughter Elizabeth married Thomas Cooper and resided in Springfield, Massachusetts. Daughter Hannah married William Tuttle and lived in New Haven. Both couples raised families and had many descendants.

Samuel Munson, the only son of Thomas and Joanna, married Martha Bradley on October 26, 1665, and lived in New Haven and nearby Wallingford, Connecticut. Samuel Munson's occupation is recorded as shoemaker and tanner. He and Martha raised nine sons and one daughter. These nine sons account for the very large family of the Munsons of Connecticut, who make up the subject matter of The Munson Record. These nine sons raised sixty-three recorded children, of whom the families of seventeen sons are detailed in The Munson Record. These seventeen "Heads of Clans" were born between 1689 and 1739.

While the genealogical data in The Munson Record are amazingly complete, there nonetheless still exists a real possibility that one or several of the Munson men from these early families migrated to the southern colonies in the early or middle 1700s and thereby account for the ancestors of the Munsons of Texas. The last chapter of The Munson Record is entitled "Addenda: Unlocated Munsons". Therein the author, Myron A. Munson, writing in Connecticut in the 1890s, reports as follows: "Though proof is wanting, there can be little doubt that the Senator [Mordello S. Munson] is of the Thomas Munson race. . . At any rate, he is a most loyal Munson, and an honor to the Family name. He [Mordello] writes that a neighbor of Dr. Henry J. Munson accosted him when a young man, and extended cordial greeting to him as one of the Doctor's sons whom he had known from childhood: 'it was with difficulty [Mordello wrote] [that] I could persuade him I had never met a member of Dr. Munson's family.'"

Adding a little spice to this theory is a study of names given to the men in the early New England Munson families. A review of the names of boys born during the 1700s reveals many of the same names found in the early generations of the Munsons of Texas. In both families, the names Robert, Samuel, and William are common, but most amazingly, in the New England family there are five cousins in different families who were named Jesse Munson, all born between 1740 and 1772. None of these exact individuals appears to have been our Jesse, father of Henry William Munson, either because of the inappropriate years of their births or the complete record of their northern residences. This certainly shows, however, that the name Jesse was frequently used in this Munson family, and it adds credence to the possibility that yet another cousin was the father of our Jesse and Robert Munson in the middle 1700s. But this possibility is destined to remain nothing more than speculation until a future industrious genealogical researcher successfully locates a positive family connection. To date, all efforts have been unsuccessful.

The Richard Munson Family of New Hampshire [2]

In the foreword of Myron A. Munson's book, The Portsmouth Race of Monsons-Munsons-Mansons, he writes: "While the Author was industriously accumulating information in regard to the descendants of Captain Thomas Munson, the pioneer of New-Haven, he discovered Richard Monson, an ancient citizen of Portsmouth [New Hampshire], whom it was impossible to connect with the New-Haven race by any relationship this side of the Atlantic. . . He visited Portsmouth and made a study of records there, and in neighboring towns, by which he was confirmed in the impression that Richard was the originator of a distinct Race of Munsons."

That author then cites the variable spelling of the family surname among members of this family as follows: "Richard the First, of Portsmouth, always signed thus: R. The public scribes wrote his name, so far as my memoranda testify — twice, 'Munson', three times, 'Manson', and sixteen times, 'Monson'. There has been the same diversity through succeeding generations, both in the usage of the Family, and of public scribes. Many persons have been indifferent in regard to spelling, using different modes in the same document. . . It is incumbent for genealogical researchers to always remember the variable spelling of names in earlier times."

The first record in which Richard Monson appears is dated November l, 1663. James Drew sells to Richard Manson, fisherman, of Portsmouth "All that halfe & halfend eale of all that Dwelling house & eight acres of Land,. . . in Portsmouth, &. . .all. . .wayes, pathes, passages, Trees, woods, undrwoods, comons. . . the consideration being 19l 10sh: 20sh in money, 'five barrells of mackerell, and ye residue. . . in wel cured well condiconed ffish.'" This purchase appears to have been Richard's residence the rest of his life — thirty-nine years. Disposition made in 1699 indicates that it was located beside "a Little Runn of Water known as Richard Monson's Brooke."

In May or June of 1677, Richard Monson was one of the appraisers of the estate of "Robart Monson of the Isles of Shoals." Out in the Atlantic, about ten miles southeasterly from Portsmouth, are several rocky and barren islets which are known as the Isles of Shoals. Together they measure less than six hundred acres, and vegetation is small and scant. In about 1676, William Pepperell, at the age of 22, settled at The Shoals and established an extensive fishery. One of the earliest residents was the fisherman Robert Monson, who died there in or about 1677. This was twenty-five years before the death of Richard Monson of Portsmouth. Author Myron A. Munson wrote: "For twenty-seven years I have inclined to the supposition that Richard Monson, who was one of the appraisers of Robert's estate, was Robert's son; or possibly they may have been brothers. . ."

Richard and his wife, Ester, raised four sons and a daughter in Portsmouth, and these sons gave rise to a considerable clan of Monsons, Munsons, and Mansons in New Hampshire and Maine.

Thomas Volney Munson

A noteworthy descendant of Richard Monson was his great-great-great-great-grandson, Thomas Volney Munson, of Denison, Texas. Thomas Volney's father, William, had moved from New Hampshire to Illinois in 1829. Thomas was born on September 26, 1843, on a farm near Astoria, Illinois, and graduated as B.S. in 1870 from the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky (now a part of the University of Kentucky). For a year he held the chair of natural sciences at his alma mater. In 1872 he started a market-garden and nursery near Lincoln, Nebraska, but the hot winds of summer and the clouds of grasshoppers convinced him to move. In 1876 he joined his brother, William Benjamin , in Texas and founded his now famous nurseries at Denison.

Thomas V. Munson was an unusually active and accomplished horticulturist. His specialty became the study of the wild grape varieties of North America. It is reported that in his lifetime he traveled over fifty thousand miles around the continent collecting and studying the native grape varieties. Through hybridization he developed some three hundred new grape varieties, many of which are still grown commercially. The botanical classification which he presented at the 1885 New Orleans Exposition was officially adopted and is still in use today. He published a large illustrated work entitled Native Grapes of North America; he wrote a section in the American Encyclopedia of Horticulture entitled "Viticulture in the South"; and his last work, published in 1909, was a scholarly and elegant production entitled Foundations of American Grape Culture.

His greatest recognition came, however, in the 1880s, when he collaborated on a program to save the French wine industry. A new disease had appeared in the vineyards of France, and it quickly became the scourge of the vineyards of Europe. It was caused by a plant louse, or aphid, and was called phylloxera. This insect lived and fed on the wild grape plants of North America with little damage, but it was unknown in Europe. American grape varieties had evolved so that they were not harmed by this aphid — the insect and its host lived happily together. The aphids' ability to destroy non-resistant vines was not realized until it was carried to southern France on imported American vines. It is reported to have destroyed one-third of the vineyards in France, and it did further damage as it spread to other parts of Europe.

The phylloxera aphid feeds on both the leaves and the roots of the vine, but it does the most serious damage when it attacks the roots of non-resistant varieties. The roots become enlarged and rot away, the leaves then turn yellow, the vine stops growing, and it soon dies. Nearly all native American varieties are free from damage from root attack, and damage to vineyards is best prevented by grafting European grape varieties onto American rootstocks.

When the French wine industry was threatened with destruction, the French Commissioner of Agriculture, Pierre Viala, contacted Thomas V. Munson to enlist his help in finding the best American grape stocks which would resist phylloxera and thrive in the dry, chalky soils of France. The resulting research effort was successful, and today essentially all grapes in Europe are grown on the American understock selected by Thomas V. Munson. For these contributions, the French Government sent a delegation to Denison, Texas, to confer upon him the Legion of Honor with the special title "Chevalier du Merite Agricole." He was only the second American to receive the French Legion of Honor, and the National Society of France elected him to honorary membership. In 1906 the Kentucky State Agricultural College (now a part of the University of Kentucky) conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Science, with the president of the institution extolling his accomplishments thusly: "No man in America is better entitled to this honor."

Thomas Volney Munson died on January 21, 1913, at Denison, Texas, with a final request: "plant a vine on my grave and see it clasp its hands with joy." His elaborate gravestone in Denison is carved with grapevines and clusters of grapes, and his nursery, willed to the United States Department of Agriculture, is preserved as a memorial to his achievements. He was a contemporary of Mordello Stephen Munson of Brazoria County, and Myron A. Munson wrote in The Munson Record: "In 1883, Thomas V. Munson called our attention to Mordello as an attorney-at-law who had been 'a prominent and exemplary member of our Legislature and Senate several terms, and a man of fine standing.' Though proof is wanting, there can be little doubt that the Senator is of the Thomas Munson race, a member of one of the lost tribes" [3].

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