William Gregg (abt. 1640 - 1687)

Born about 1640 in Glenarm, County Antrim, Ireland [uncertain]

Husband of Ann (Unknown) Gregg — married about 1672 in Ireland

Descendants

Died 1 Sep 1687 at about age 47 in Strand Millas, Christiana Hundred, New Castle County, Delaware

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Chet Snow [send private message] and Margaret Kerns [send private message]

Biography

William was a Friend (Quaker)

William Gregg migrated from Ireland to Delaware.

William Gregg was born circa 1640, possibly in Glenarm, County Antrim, Ulster, Ireland. His parents were Presbyterians who had been moved and given new lands as Protestant colonists in the north of Ireland in the 1620s. His father may have been another William Greg. In May 1653, during the Commonwealth, William Greg was forced to give up his Glenarm lands and, together with other Ulster Presbyterians, was transported some 200 miles south to County Waterford in Munster^[1]. They were resettled near the town of Ardmore.

William married a woman named Ann in the early 1670s (based on the dates of their children's birth), probably in Waterford, Ireland.

According to Hazel Kendal in Quaker Greggs^[2], 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 born in Ireland^[2]:

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"^[2][3], which left 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^[2].

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)^[2]. In January 1684, he received a warrant for an additional 400 acres^[4], 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. His son, John built the current house in 1701.

The William Gregg family, all devout Quakers, were part of the Newark Quaker Meeting^[2], 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"^[2].

William Gregg did not enjoy having the meeting moved to his locality for long. Although still not old (~45) he died on September 1, 1687^[2]. He was probably buried on his plantation of Strand Millas^[5]. 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].

Research Notes

William Gregg's Wife

(Please see G2G discussion.) One of the most common errors seen in this line is the listing of Ann Wilkinson as the wife of William Gregg, the immigrant ancestor of the line in the area. This comes from a notation in Cook's book about the Quaker immigration to Pennsylvania, in which he states: "One William Gregg, of Toberhead Mtg., and Ann Wilkinson, of Antrim Mtg, were married at Antrim, 11 Mo 5, 1702." The problem with this idea is that William died about fifteen years before this date, so obviously he could not have been married to this Ann Wilkinson.

Cook was not suggesting this was the marriage; he was using the listed Greggs as an example of there being Quaker Greggs in the north of Ireland, which backs up his theory that William Gregg came from that area with the Quaker Dixon family.

However, generations of genealogists have misread this and made Ann Wilkinson into the emigrant William's wife. Ann Wilkinson (who was a real person) has now been detached as this William's wife and replaced her with a new Ann Unknown.

Josiah Gregg Family Bible

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 John Gregg Cane

The cane pictured was John Gregg's (see comments on picture). By family tradition this 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^[7].

Other Colonial Gregg Families

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. 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.

Sources

1. ↑ Names of Presbyterian landholders and others proposed to be removed from Ulster into Leinster and Munster, in 1653. [Declaration by the Commissioners for the settling and securing the Province of Ulster; dated at Carrickfergus, the 23rd of May, 1653] in 'The history of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland', by J. S. Reid, Publication 1837, Vol II, page 494 https://archive.org/details/historypresbyte00killgoog/page/494/mode/2up
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7} The descendants of William Gregg, the Friend immigrant to Delaware, 1682 : from which nucleus disseminated nests of Greggs to Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. (aka: Quaker Greggs) by Hazel May Middleton Kendall Publ: Anderson, Indiana 1944; page 21, https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/viewer/184154/?offset=0#page=22&viewer=picture&o=&n=0&q=
3. ↑ The Caledonia and the Darien Disaster https://rollwindmill.org/html/caledonia.html
4. ↑ Myers, A. Cook. (1902). Immigration of the Irish Quakers into Pennsylvania, 1682-1750: with their early history in Ireland. Swarthmore, Pa.: The author. 1902; page 319 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015008548714&view=1up
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. ↑ Joan Norton and Edward Heite (March 1973). National Register of Historic Places Registration: Strand Millas and Rock Spring: http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/73000520.pdf
7. ↑ The Gregg Family, online, courtesy of the Wayback Machine (accessed March 31, 2015

See also:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strand_Millas_and_Rock_Spring
• http://mchhistory.blogspot.com/2013/02/mch-history-blog-on-road-strand-millas.html

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Michael Lechner and Sharon Moffitt Cowen, for editing this profile on Aug. 18, 2012. Thank you to Chet Snow for rewriting the biography of his 8th great grandfather, William Gregg II, "The Friend," on February 7, 2015.