Kelsall - A Quaker Family - Part II The Early Years

by Julia M Beeden

In Part I of this account we learned how Joseph Kelsall, the ancestor of all our North Lancashire Kelsalls, came to live at Rooten Brook Farm in Quernmore, in Lancaster Parish¹ His older brother John left home and eventually settled in Wales and to all intents and purposes ceased to be a North Lancashire Quaker.

Joseph Kelsall became a farmer at Rooten Brook in Quernmore, one of the old vaccaries of the once Royal Forest of Wyresdale. On October 12th 1725² he married Margaret Winder³ the daughter of William Winder, a member of an old Wyresdale family. The ceremony took place at the Wyresdale Friends' Meeting House, a part of the Lancaster Monthly Meeting⁴ The couple settled at Quernmore in Wyresdale and raised a family of eight children, often erroneously recorded as seven presumably because of an early death. The family was a member of the Wyresdale Friends and thus their births are recorded there.

The first child, Elizabeth, was born on July 7th 1926. Another daughter, Agnes or usually Ann, was born on either 7 March or 7 July 1728. By the time of her marriage she was known as Ann (an alternative name) so perhaps the 'duplicate' entry in the register is in error. A third daughter, Jennet, was born on 5 June 1730 and another, Margaret, was born on either 3 August or 19 September 1732.

A son, Joseph, was born on 16 September 1734, followed by William on 23 May 1737. A third son, John, was born on 16 December 1739 and a fourth, Thomas, arrived on 27 November 174- Jennet was the only child of Joseph and Margaret who died in infancy, at about five years of age, on 6 December 1735 and, presumably, was buried at the Wyresdale Meeting House Burial Ground. The father, Joseph Kelsall, died on 29 April 1758 and was buried on 1 May at Wyresdale, aged about 73. His wife, Margaret, died on 26 June 1782 aged 82 and was also buried at Wyresdale Meeting House on 30 June 1782. Joseph and Margaret were the first Kelsalls to live at Tarnbrook in Upper Wyresdale, a settlement of up to 20 cottages and farms. The Friends documents show that the early Kelsalls were involved in the local Industry of felt-making and hat-making which had developed at Tarnbrook.

In his Journal John Kelsall wrote of his brother Joseph's life at Tarnbrook and later at Rooten Brook. During the 1745 'Scotch' Rebellion (now usually known as the '45 Jacobite Rebellion) he noted that a party of Scots came to the Upper Wyresdale area looking for horses. They failed to find Joseph Kelsall's animals as he had taken them to an outbarn and fed them there. It was reported that the Scots left the district with one horse and a cart and a servant⁵.

All the surviving children of Joseph and Margaret Kelsall married and had children of their own. This is where the Kelsall family tree becomes complicated because of similar Christian names and Intermarriage and marriage alliances with spouses closely related to others in the wider family.

Elizabeth married Jonah Mason of Lancaster and had many descendants. Ann married John Jackson of Quernmore, 'the honest miller'. At the time when he made his will he was residing at Hareappletree in Quernmore, another of the former Wyresdale vaccaries. The fourth child, daughter Margaret married John Morrison, a salt (sail) cloth manufacturer of Lancaster. Joseph, the eldest son but fifth child, married Ellen Edmundson at Yealand Meeting House near Carnforth, and settled on a farm near the Wyresdale Meeting House. The farm was held on a life lease by Joseph's family. William, the second son, married Margaret Jackson and farmed at Tarnbrook. They eventually had three sons and six daughters. The seventh child, Thomas, married Dorothy Jackson his sister-in-law Margaret's sister. The youngest son, John, married Mary Corless of Banton House in Ellel and they lived at Rooten Brook.

The links created by the marriages with members of the Jackson family provide connections with other research undertaken by the writer with regard to the Jackson families at Spout House, Scorton, Oakenclough and Calder Vale. The Kelsalls also feature in the history of Guy's Farm, at Nan's Nook in Ellel, and the Jackson brothers were witnesses to a Holden family will. d

References

1. Julia M Beeden. 'Kelsall - A Quaker Family. Part I. Origins' in The Over-Wyre Historical Journal, Vol IV. 
2. Calendar dates have been altered in line with the modern calendar.
3. John P Bibby. The Bibbys of Conder Mill and their Descendants, Liverpool, 1979, p 44.
4. Registers of the Society of Friends, Lancaster Monthly Meeting.
5. John Kelsall's Journal, manuscript notebook in the possession of Mrs E Woodhouse, Ellel.