John Greenleaf Whittier family ties to Daniel Webester and William Batchelder Greene

Poet John Greenleaf Whittier, U S Senator Daniel Webster, and Colonel Reverend William Batchelder Greene all related and researching their lineage. To sort out the ancestral lines, these fellows had to depend on letter writing. Whittier contacted the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) for help with his genealogy research. 
Whittier did not have the Great Migration Papers or Facebook, but correspondences show how close his queries came to mapping out the family tree.

Honorable Daniel Webster (1782-1852) son of Judge Ebenezer Webster (1739-1806) and Abigail Eastman (1739-1816). Judge Ebenezer Webster, son of Ebenezer Webster, son of Ebenezer Webster and Hannah Judkins and Susannah Bachelder (d. of Benjamin Batchelder and Susannah Page, granddaughter of Nathaniel Batcheler, son of Rev. Stephen Batchelder). Daniel Webster in writing to his son Fletcher Webster in 1840: "I believe we are all indebted to my father's mother for a large portion of the little sense and character which belongs to us. Her name was Susannah Bachelder; she was the daughter of a clergyman, and a woman of uncommon strength of understanding. For a full genealogy and background visit Janice Brown's Cow Hampshire History Blog Salisbury New Hampshire Lawyer Orator Statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

William Batchelder Greene (1819-1878) son of Peter Nathaniel Greene and Susan Bachelder (d. of William Batchelder and Huldah Sanborn, d.of Deacon Benjamin Sanborn of Deerfield, NH) Photo: A carte de visite, or album card, 1861-62. He married Anna Blake Shaw (1817-1901) daughter of Robert Gould Shaw and Mary Sturgis. Some Batchelder Genealogy Nutfield Genealogy blog (search all surnames lots of information) Surname Saturday Batchelder of Hampton 

 In 1873 John Greenleaf Whittier wrote to Mr. William Batchelder Greene, of Boston, as follows:—

"My mother was a descendant of Christopher Hussey, of Hampton, N. H., who married a daughter of Rev. Stephen Bachelor, the first minister of that town.
"Daniel Webster traces his ancestry to the same pair, so Joshua Coffin informed me. Colonel W. B. Greene, of Boston, is of the same family."

letter of reply to JGW from Col. W. B. Greene: 

"Jamaica Plain, Mass., Sept. 24, 1873.

"Mr. D. B. Whittier, Danville, Vt.
"Dear Sir,—Yours of September 20 is just received, and I reply to it at once. My grandfather, on my mother's side, was the Rev. William Batchelder, of Haverhill, Mass. In the year 1838 I had a conversation, on a matter of military business, with the Hon. Daniel Webster; and, to my astonishment, Mr. Webster treated me as a kinsman. My mother afterwards explained his conduct by telling me that one of Mr. W.'s female ancestors was a Batchelder. In 1838 or 1839, or thereabouts, I met schoolmaster Joshua Coffin on a Mississippi steamboat, near Baton Rouge. The captain of the boat told me, confidentially, that Coffin was engaged in a dangerous mission respecting some slaves, and inquired whether my aid and countenance could be counted on in favor of Coffin, in case violence should be offered him. This he did because I was on the boat as a military man, and in uniform. When Coffin found he could count on me, he came and talked with me, and finally told me he had [once] been hired by Daniel Webster to go to Ipswich, and there look up Mr. W.'s ancestry. He spoke of Rev. Stephen Batchelder, of New Hampshire, and said that Daniel Webster, John G. Whittier, and myself were related by Batchelder blood. I did not feel at all ashamed of my relatives. In 1841 or 1842 Mrs. Crosby, of Hallowell, Maine, who had charge of my grandfather when he was a boy, and knew all about the family, told me that Daniel Webster was a Batchelder, that she had known his father intimately, and knew Daniel when he was a boy. At the time of my conversation with her, Aunt Crosby might have been anywhere from seventy-five to eighty-five years of age. When I was a boy, at (say) about the year 1827 or 1828, I used to go often to the house of J. G. Whittier's father, a little out of the village (now city) of Haverhill, Massachusetts. There was a Mrs. Hussey in the family, who baked the best squash pies I ever ate, and knew how to make the pine floors shine like a looking-glass.

"This is, I think, all the information, in answer to your request, that I am competent to give you.

"Yours respectfully,
"William Batchelder Greene."

In a note addressed to the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, JGW wites: "On my mother's side my grandfather was Joseph Hussey, of Somersworth, N. H.; married Mercy Evans, of Berwick, Me."

William Sloane Kennedy in his book, "John Greenleaf Whittier: His Life, Genius, and Writings," remarks on the lineage:
Some of the genealogical links connecting the Husseys of Somersworth with those of Hampton have not yet been recovered. But this much is known of the family, that in 1630 Christopher Hussey came from Dorking, Surrey, England, to Lynn, Mass. He had married, in Holland, Theodate, the daughter of the Rev. Stephen Bachiler, a Puritan minister, who had fled to that country to avoid persecution in England.

The author was told by a local antiquary in Hampton, N. H., that there is a tradition in the town that Stephen Bachiler would not let his daughter marry young Hussey unless he embraced the Puritan faith. His love was so great that he consented, and came with his bride to America, where two years later his father-in-law followed him. Stephen Bachiler came to Lynn in 1632, with six persons, his relatives and friends, who had belonged to his church in Holland, and with them he established a little independent church in Lynn. The progenitive faculty of this worthy divine must have been highly developed: he was married four times, and was dismissed from his church at Lynn on account of charges twice preferred against him by women of his congregation. The recorded dates show that both he and his son-in-law, Hussey, came to Hampton in the year 1639. The Hampton authorities had the previous year made Mr. Bachiler and Mr. Hussey each a grant of three hundred acres of land, to induce them to settle there.

When and how the Husseys became Quakers is not known to the author. But in Savage's Genealogical Dictionary, II page 507, it is recorded that as early as 1688 a certain John Hussey of Hampton was a preacher to the Quakers in Newcastle, Delaware. The mother of the poet was a devoted disciple of the Society of Friends. That she was a person of deep and tender religious nature is evident to one looking at the excellent oil-portrait of her which hangs in the little parlor at Amesbury, Massachusetts. 

Abigail Hussey Whittier Portrait From Tony Shaw blog taken at The Whittier home: John Greenleaf Whittier (again) in Amesbury, Massachusetts: Literary New England #8

The head is inclined graciously to one side, and the face wears that expression of ineffable tranquility which is always a witness to generations of Quaker ancestry. In the picture, her garments are of smooth and immaculate drab. The poet once remarked to the writer that one of the reasons why his mother removed to Amesbury, in 1840, was that she might be near the little Friends' "Meeting" in that town.

Abigail Hussey (1780-1850) daughter of Samuel Hussey (1720-1814) and Mercy Evans (1735-1796) married John Whittier (1760-1830) son of Joseph Whittier (1716-1796) and Sarah Greenleaf (1720-1762). Below is genealogy from Early Settlers of Nantucket: Their Associates and Descendants

The above mentions Webster and Greene association the Rev Stephen Batchelder storm on pages 96-98.  http://www.hampton.lib.nh.us/hampton/biog/bachilertoc.htm

The newspaper clip below mentions some relics not traced yet, but any information would be appreciated.

Photo from Paul Noyes

   

Photo From Margo Reasner

                                                        

• John Greenleaf Whittier: A Biography. Francis Henry Underwood  
• The History of Salisbury, New Hampshire: From Date of Settlement to the Present Time John Jacob Dearborne
  
• Early Settlers of Nantucket: Their Associates and Descendants Lydia Swain Mitchell Hinchman 
• Online Books of William Batchelder Greene
• Batchelder, Batcheller genealogy. Descendants of Rev. Stephen Bachiler, of England who settled the town of New Hampton, N.H., and Joseph, Henry, Joshua and John Batcheller of Essex Co., Mass" 
• Vital Records of Haverhill, Massachusetts and American Ancestors.org 
• "Rev Stephen Bachiler," New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1892 Lane Library
•  The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, Volumes I-III. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2010), (Originally Published as: New England Historic Genealogical Society. Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, Volumes I-III, 3 vols., 1995 https://www.americanancestors.org/DB393/i/12107/61/23894420

Col William Batchelder Greene of Haverhill, MA

Col William B. Greene

William Batchelder Greene (April 4, 1819 – May 30, 1878) was born in Haverhill, Ma son of Peter Nathaniel Greene and Susan (Bachelder) Greene. He married December 22, 1845 in Boston, MA Anna Blake Shaw, daughter of Robert Gould Shaw and Mary Sturgis Shaw.

Mrs Mary Sturgis Shaw 

                                                         

Robert Gould Shaw 

                                                               

W B Greene was 2nd lieutenant in the 7th infantry in July, 1839 second Seminole War, resigned in November 1841.  Attended Harvard Divinity School---graduated 1845. Pastor at a Unitarian church in Brookfield, Massachusetts
Serve in the American Civil War and was a strong abolitionist
Colonel of the 14th Massachusetts Infantry and 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery and resigned his commission in October 1862.
Greene was a fine mathematician, and was versed in Hebrew literature and in Hebrew and Egyptian antiquities. below  the publishers preface to Greene's book Mutual Banking

 
Preface
A Short Sketch of the Author of this Essay on Mutual Banking. WILLIAM B. Greene was a prominent figure among the Massachusetts idealists during the middle of the nineteenth century. He was more than six feet high, slender, somewhat high-shouldered, but with an erectness brought from West point, where he had been a cadet though not a graduate. He had served in the Indian wars in Florida, and his whole bearing was military and defiantly self-assertive.
"Greene became a Unitarian preacher and retired to a small country parish. He was a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, of 1853; later he left the ministry and went to Paris until the Civil War recalled him. Offering his services to Governor Andrew, he was made colonel of the First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery."
In 1849 he wrote a series of newspaper articles, which were afterwards published as a pamphlet under the name of Mutual Banking. They have been pronounced "the best exposition of finance ever written in the English language during that period". In the following pages this pamphlet appears somewhat reduced from the original. The reader is cautioned that Greene's use of the word "usury" designates not only the excess of interest permitted by law, but all interest whatsoever.
When the last edition of Greene's Mutual Banking was printed in 1895, several plans of currency reform had just been proposed by the three political parties, of. that time in U. S. A. and in the preface the question was asked of the leaders of those parties (which other followers of Proudhon had asked before). "Why is not the credit of a bank's customers as good a basis for currency as that of the bank itself?'' This question has been partly answered by that provision of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 by which Federal Reserve Currency can be issued in exchange for the re-discounted notes of the customers of member banks. “This is a distinct step forward, as it supplies the machinery for expanding mercantile credit, directly, and gives rise to, a hope that in future, a move would be made to decrease the cost of this credit.
The reader is requested to read the scheme and constitution of Proudhon's Bank of Exchange and People's Bank. Unfortunately these banks could not function because Proudhon was sent to gaol in connection with the defamation of President Bonaparte. We intend to publish these in future along with a short biography of Proudhon who is the originator of the Mutualistic idea.

From  A glimpse of William B. Greene in 1854

“For Turkey.—A Paris correspondent of the New York Tribune says, that upon the proposal of a medical student, twenty young American students volunteered in ten minutes to aid the Turks with their unpracticed skill. The same writer states that Americans were leaving every day for the Turkish camp. Among those who had gone, were Col. Macgruder, of Mexican war celebrity; Mr. Quincy Shaw, of Boston, and the Rev. William B. Greene, late Unitarian clergyman at Brookfield.” [Boston Investigator, April 26, 1854]

“We are gratified (says the Transcript,) that the Commonwealth has secured the services of Mr. William B. Greene as Colonel of the Essex (14th) Regiment. Mr. Greene is a native of Essex County, and is forty-two years of age. He left West Point at the end of two years on account of ill health, but after regaining his strength, was selected to drill troops for many months upon Governor’s Island. He then procured active service as a Lieutenant in 7th U. S. Infantry in the Florida war. He distinguished himself in that severe service, having, most of the time, the command of two companies, and at one time a Major’s command. He is not only a thorough-trained, modest, brave, and high-toned officer, but is a man of marked intellectual capacity. He has shown that he has the “born gift” of leading men. He will know how to temper strict discipline with kindness, and stern command with courtesy. Mr. Greene has resided with his family for several years in Paris, but as soon as he heard of the attack upon our troops in Baltimore, he sold his country-place, shut up his house in Paris, and came to offer his services to his native state. We congratulate the 14th Regiment upon its good fortune.” [Boston Daily Advertiser, (Boston, MA) Saturday, June 29, 1861]

 From New York Times June 3 1878 Obituary

FIELD AND STAFF

Colonels

William Batchelder Greene, 42; clergyman; Haverhill; July 5, '61; resigned Oct. 11, '62.

Born in Haverhill, April 4, '19, son of (Peter) Nathaniel Greene the founder of the Boston Statesman. He was appointed to West Point in '35 but did not graduate, though he was made a second lieut. in the 7th U. S. Infantry in July, '39, the year in which he was due to graduate. At West Point he was associated with Isaac I. Stevens, another Essex Co. boy who, at the head of his division, was killed at Chantilly, H. W. Halleck, Jas. B. Ricketts, E. O. C. Ord, H. J. Hunt, E. R. S. Canby, and others who achieved fame in the War of the Rebellion. After serving through the Florida War, Lieut. Greene resigned in Nov., '41. He then entered Harvard Divinity School, from which he was graduated in '45. As a Unitarian clergyman he held a single pastorate, that of Brookfield, Mass. Sometime between '41 and '47, Col. Greene was a member of the famous Brook Farm Experiment at West Roxbury. A radical in almost everything, he was a pronounced Abolitionist, though a Democrat in politics; and later a Free Soiler. In 1853 he was a member of the Constitutional Convention. Having gone abroad for study and improvement, he was in Paris at the beginning of the war. He returned at once, offered his services and was assigned to the command of the 14th Regiment.

After his resignation he resided in Boston or vicinity till about a year and a half before his death when he again went abroad. He died May 30, '78, at Weston-Super-Mare, England, and his body was returned to America for burial in Forest Hills, Roxbury.

Extremely scholarly in his tastes, well versed in the classics and Hebrew, a writer of note on mathematical, philosophical and historical subjects, he was above all an idealist. How much the loss of his only daughter, Bessie, in the wreck of the vessel Schiller, off the Scilly Isles, may have contributed to his somewhat unfruitful life cannot be told. His wife, Anna Blake, was a daughter of Robert Gould Shaw, and an aunt of the Col. Robert G. Shaw, who fell at the head of his 54th Mass. Regiment at Fort Wagner. His uncle, Charles G. Greene, was the founder and for many years editor of the Boston Post, with which The Statesman had been merged, and the family stock, through which he came, included Gen. Nathaniel Greene of Revolutionary fame, and Judge Albert G. Greene, who wrote the noted poem, "Old Grimes."

In the Boston Advertiser, June 4, '78, soon after his death, a friend of Col. Greene gave a critical estimate of his character and intellectual life. "Mr. Greene, indeed, was one of the most powerful

in a planing mill. There he joined the Boston Fusiliers, continuing in the company until the war broke out, though he returned to Ipswich in the spring of 1857. From that time to the end of his life he made his home on the Shatswell farm and excepting when away in the civil and military service, followed farming there.

From the time he entered the service as captain of Company A, of this regiment, he was indefatigable in performing his duties and fairly won his promotion. On the fatal nineteenth of May, he was second in command, and when Major Rolfe was killed the command devolved upon Major Shatswell, the senior officer. During that battle he was severely wounded in the head by a minie ball and partly stunned. He was taken to the rear and the wound was dressed. Recovering consciousness he returned to the command of his regiment and remained until the retreat of the Rebels at dark gave him an opportunity for rest. During the fight June 16, his sword was shot away from his side. Two days later he was again struck by a minie ball in the side and thrown to the ground. But he quickly remounted his horse and continued to lead his men. A small book filled with papers and orders had saved his life, the bullet lodging in the cover of the book against his side. He had a narrow escape from capture, June 22, when he was surrounded by the enemy and remained concealed in the thicket from nine in the morning until after dark when he succeeded in rejoining his regiment. At the Battle of Boydton Road, Col. Shatswell performed one of the most difficult tactical movements successfully, changing front in line of battle while under fire. At Cold Harbor his favorite horse was killed by a Rebel shell, but fortunately the colonel was not in the saddle.

In January, 1865, he was obliged to take a leave of absence on account of illness, returning to his command March 5, 1865. Though he received his commissions as lieutenant colonel and colonel, he was not mustered into service, and remained with the rank of major, in command of the regiment until mustered out. Every man in his command regretted what they felt was lack of appreciation of his gallant service. This feeling finds expression in various contributions to this book. He had the honor of leading the regiment in the Grand Review in Washington.

Col. Shatswell was over six feet in height, of soldierly bearing, having a powerful voice and a strong personality. He was a natural leader, a discreet, brave and kindly officer. He was considerate of his men, tempering discipline with humanity and common sense, taking his share in privations and dangers. He appeared as calm under fire as on dress parade. Mention is made elsewhere of his devotion to his comrades after the war, his love for the regiment and his activity in the Regimental Association.

Returning to his farm after he was mustered out with the regiment, he tilled the soil, was in the teaming business and dealer in hay, etc. In April, 1869, he was appointed assistant superintendentof the county insane asylum and held that office until it was abolished, many years later. Afterward he was assistant master of the Essex County House of Correction. In town affairs he became a leader. He was chief of engineers, constable, chief-of-police, for many years a selectman and during his last term was chairman of the board. At that time the selectmen were also the overseers of the poor and assessors. During his later years he was curator of the Agricultural Building at Washington, D. C., until a few years before he died.

He was a member of General James Appleton Post, G. A. R.; of John T. Heard Lodge, Free Masons, of which he was Worshipful Master for five years; of Washington Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, and Winslow Lewis Commandery, Knights Templar, of Salem.

As a town and country officer in civil life he displayed the same sterling qualities that distinguished him in the military service. An able executive, upright and honorable, efficient, courageous and conscientious in the discharge of every duty, Col. Shatswell was an exemplary public officer. In private life he was quiet and unassuming, social by nature, making many friends, generous in helping others. No wonder he was beloved and honored by his comrades in arms. He married June 15, 1861, Mary White Stone and had two daughters, Fannie W. and Annie L. He married, second, Sept. 3, 1899, Mrs. Susan Hobbs.

Sources:  
The roster of Union soldiers, 1861-1865, Volume 2
Massachusetts in the rebellion Gale Cengage Learning
First Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Heavy Artillery Three Years
History of the First Regiment of Heavy Artillery, Massachusetts Volunteers, Formerly the Fourteenth Regiment of Infantry, 1861-1865 To Read Full Text  
Vital Records Of Haverhill, Massachusetts to the end of the year 1849