William Gregg II page saved

Saving of the William Gregg II page as per 10 May 2022

... was a Friend (Quaker)

Biography

William Gregg II was born circa 1642 in Glenarm Barony, County Antrim, Province of Ulster, Ireland. His parents were Presbyterian "dissenters" from Glen Orchy, Argyll, Scotland. They had been moved and given new lands as Protestant colonists in Northern Ireland in the 1620s. His parents were William and Mary Grace Gregg. In May1653, during England's civil war, the family was forced to give up their Glenarm lands and, with other Ulster Scots, were transported some 200 miles south to County Waterford in Munster Province, Ireland. They were resettled near the town of Ardmore. This was a policy of the English government to eliminate too-great concentrations of originally-Scottish landed gentry in Ulster.^[1][2]

William Gregg II married Ann Wilkenson before 1667, in County Antrim, Ireland. ^[3]; he died 1 September 1687. ^[4] in Strand Millas, near today's Centerville, Christiana Hundred, New Castle, Delaware. According to Hazel Kendal in Quaker Greggs, he and his family were converted to the Society of Friends (Quakers) after the visit to Waterford by William Penn in 1678.

William & Anne Gregg had the following children, all in Ireland:

1. John Gregg b: 1674 in Ardmore, Waterford, Ireland

2. George Gregg b: 10 Jul 1674 in Ardmore, Waterford, Ireland (died young)

3. Ann Gregg b: 1675 in Ardmore, Waterford, Ireland

4. Richard Gregg b: 1676 in Ardmore, Waterford, Ireland

According to the "Immigration of Irish Quakers," William Gregg, (1642-1687) and his wife Ann came to America with the Dixon, Hollingsworth and Sharpley families of northern Ireland. They all immigrated to America in 1682, most-likely aboard the ship "Caledonia," which left County Antrim, Southern Ireland, in October 1682. It landed at Upland (now Chester PA) on the Delaware river. The Gregg family moved south from Upland to new lands in what were called "the three lower counties" of Pennsylvania. They later became the state of Delaware.

In 1682, William Gregg II received a grant of 200 acres in the upper part of the Christiana Hundred from "Rockland Manor," (a large estate belonging to William Penn). In January 1684, he received a warrant for an additional 400 acres, on which he built a log cabin at a site he called "Strand Millas," after a landmark near his former home in Ulster, Ireland. His land was on the West side of Brandywine Creek near the New Castle county border (later, the state of Delaware border) between the modern towns of Centerville and Montchanin. In the book "Ancestors of Gregg Livingston Neel", the author states that "Strand Millas lay on what is now the Montchanin Road, Delaware. This is in the vicinity of the upper reaches of Winterthur estate and Center Meeting Road. William Gregg lived on "Strand Millas" between 1683 and 1687.^[5]

In her book, "Quaker Greggs," Hazel Kendal states that at first, the William Gregg family, all devout Quakers, were part of the Newark Quaker Meeting, held once a month on the property of Valentine Hollingsworth, East of Brandywine Creek. However, in early 1687, Gregg and his neighbors (Matthias Defosse, Henry & Thomas Hollingsworth, Thomas Woolasten, George Hogg, William Hoge, John Hussy and William Dixon) were given permission to start their own meeting, named the Centre Monthly Meeting, on the West side "by reason of the dangerousness of ye ford."

William Gregg did not enjoy having the meeting moved to his locality very long. Although still quite young (45) he died on September 1, 1687, and was buried on his plantation of Strand Millas. His wife Anne died in January 1692 and was buried nearby. On her death, the property was divided between their two surviving sons: John and Richard Gregg. The Gregg family's descendants owned the property for the next two centuries. Today, the Strand Millas House (1701) & adjacent Rock Spring are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.^[6]

In America there were eight Greggs who may be regarded as colonial family heads, some of whom were related. One of these early arrivals in the American colonies, one, William Gregg I [born William McGregor] is definitely known to have descended from the Clan Mac Gregor in the sept Gregg (24).Although he went from Ulster, Ireland to the colonies, William Gregg's family was of clannish and pure Scottish blood.Long residence in Ireland prior to emigration to Delaware does not establish the family of William Gregg I as of Scots-Irish lineage in Ulster

1. ↑ Conquest and Land in Ireland: The Transplantation to Connacht, 1649-1680, by John Cunningham, 2011. A Google book, online at: https://books.google.com/books?id=zIv29FnQMHkC&pg=PA36&lpg - pg. 36.
2. ↑ http://www.gregghistory.com/Master.htm?#TreeGregg
3. ↑ See: https://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Gregg-48-3
4. ↑ According to Albert Cook Meyers' Immigration of Irish Quakers, William Gregg died on ye 1st of ye 7th month... The 17th Century Quaker dating system went by Day, Month, Year but the year began on 25 March; hence the 7th month was September. Thus, William's death was Sept. 1, 1687. It was not July 1, 1687.
5. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (accessed 11 February 2021), memorial page for William Gregg Jr. (1642–1 Sep 1687), Find A Grave: Memorial #63388074, citing Gregg Plantation Burial Grounds, New Castle County, Delaware, USA ; Maintained by LaDon Brennan (contributor 46902635) . - includes references to many sources.
6. ↑ http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/73000520.pdf and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strand_Millas_and_Rock_Spring

Sources

Can you add any? (aside from Ancestry.com submissions: click the Changes tab and see the deleted section "Sources Previously Included" for Ancestry.com references)

• https://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/gregg/209
• The Gregg Family (accessed March 31, 2015)
• http://www.geni.com/people/William-Gregg/6000000001131192746?through=6000000003703011058 - cites several source books.
• Conquest and Land in Ireland: The Transplantation to Connacht, 1649-1680, by John Cunningham, 2011. A Google book, online at: https://books.google.com/books?id=zIv29FnQMHkC&pg=PA36&lpg

Following sources from Michael Lechner:

• A.M.C., "Gregg-Dixon-Houghton, of Newcastle County, Delaware", The Era Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 11, Henry T. Coates & Co., 1898. pg 331
• Cowen Family History, compiled by Sarah Gaunt Thompson.
• Cowen Family History, compiled by Judy Cowen-Hodges.
• Cowen Family History, compiled by Sharon Moffitt Cowen.
• Lechner Family History, compiled by Michael Lechner, with my father Ted Harrold Lechner. Lechner Family History.

Note

Thank you to Michael Lechner and Sharon Moffitt Cowen, for editing this profile on Aug. 18, 2012. (Following is some information that I accidently deleted in February 2014. See this Changes page for additional deleted information.)

• A note in Josiah Gregg's (1823-1903) Family Bible Record states that William Gregg was born in Scotland. He met William Penn in Lead Mines of North Ireland and was converted by him to a Quaker. William came to the Colonies in 1682. He died and was buried in July 1687 on his own plantation near Wilmington, New Castle County, Delaware.
• The cane pictured was John Gregg's (see comments on picture). The cane had belonged to William Gregg, born in Scotland in 1616. He moved to Waterford County, Southern Ireland where he died about 1672. He had three sons, John, William, and Richard. John and Richard died in Ireland. William left Ireland in 1682 with the silver-studded ivory cane he had inherited from his father. Source: The Gregg Family, online, courtesy of the Wayback Machine (accessed March 31, 2015; previous link no longer active)

Thank you to Chet Snow for rewriting the biography of his 8th great grandfather, William Gregg II, "The Friend," on February 7, 2015.