What is Historical Fiction?

Historical fiction transports readers to another time and place in history and involves actual historical figures and events.

Our ancestors are more than just names and dates in census records and city directories. Behind the names and dates of our ancestors are stories of great love, loss, courage, and epic diversity: where they write their history and, here, we honor them.

In the following story of John Copeland of Dolphinlee, I have attempted to transform the facts of his young life into a way that will bring John out of history and set him beside you at the table: loving, fearful, and devout.

All names, places, and dates in John’s story are historically accurate and follow his early life in England. I will introduce you to John, his father, Lawrence, and his brothers and sisters. John will transport you back through time as he prepares to leave England for Virginia at age 19.

Hopefully, these one-dimensional ancestors and their lives will become indisputably accurate to you as I place them in story form, illuminating their lives and allowing you to experience a more complex truth.

John Copeland, Immigrant of Dolphinlee and Son of Lawrence Copeland 

One hot day in July of 1635, a 19-year-old lad stood on the Gravesend docks looking out at the Thames as it snaked its way through London on its course to the sea. While waiting for the call to board his ship, the Assurance, he watched the many sailors boarding their ships for journeys to ports worldwide. He watched the dock workers and stevedores loading and offloading cargo, moving it to and from the many ships docked along the pier.

St. Mary’s Church Lancaster & Cockerham  

Every day was a hardship for John and his family as they tried to remain inconspicuous in their devout and secretive Catholic faith. It was a struggle to go about their daily lives while living clandestinely among their many protestant
neighbors who might turn them into the authorities where grave retribution awaited. He thought the most about his father and his many burdens, which were the same burdens responsible for his life-changing departure across the sea.

For one hundred years, his family had kept the Catholic faith after Henry VIII converted the country to Protestantism, where there was no tolerance in matters of faith. The thought of abandoning their Roman Catholic faith and religious
practices was untenable for the Copeland family. They were among many who lived in northwest England, especially in Lancashire, where there were more Roman Catholics than anywhere else in England.

Catholic Copelands

John thought about his Priest and his friends and neighbors with whom he had worshiped in the secret sanctuary of his home, and it had been a hidden center for Catholic Mass for generations. He lamented he would no longer pray and honor God together with his small community of believers or receive the Holy Eucharist.

John thought about his cousin, another John Copeland, who was studying at a Catholic seminary in Douay, France, where the English sent their sons to study for the priesthood. He would return to Lancashire, take his place among other clandestine priests, and serve their community. John knew his family would likely harbor John in their home as they had so many others. He remembers how he had helped to hide other local priests in the priest holes in Dolphinlee house when the authorities were known to be searching them out.

John Copeland, alias Street, Priest

It was necessary to help them avoid seizures. Priests, if captured, were imprisoned for long periods in Lancaster Castle. Most were hanged, had their hearts cut out, and their bodies emasculated. Others were drawn and quartered.

There were two small hidden rooms located on either side of the large center chimney where they could be enclosed and stay warm in the cold weather while hiding from the authorities. John prayed the priests would be able to remain safe from arrest and make their lives miserable in cold, disease-ridden Lancaster Castle.

John was worried about leaving his father without sufficient help and with one less son to help him with the estate. He reminisced how he had often helped his father, Lord Robert Dalton’s land steward for the Dolphinlee and Auldcliffe estates.

Lawrence’s life as a land steward was an essential and laborious job for one man. He spent long hours tallying ledgers, keeping records of the parkland, game animals, livestock, and crops. He also maintained a rent roll of tenancies and
documents of the farm boundaries. He employed and oversaw several department heads, such as the head gardener and head gamekeeper, and paid their workers’ wages.

Lawrence oversaw manorial finances for Lord Dalton. He directed the management of land, crop, and livestock productivity, and He might also have managed village judicial proceedings as many land stewards did in the 17th century. Lawrence was also the administrative and household steward, where he oversaw domestic affairs, and this was a significant position to be held by a man yeoman distinction.

He often made the 6-mile trek to Lord Dalton’s home at Thurnham Hall to discuss estate business. In August 1626, Lord Robert Dalton requested several men to attend him at Thurnham Hall to initiate his will. Dalton asked Lawrence Copeland and Thomas Covell Esquire to sign as supervisors of the will. Essential men of the community witnesses. They were Henry Hesketh, Edward Gervis, Lawrence Copland, and Thomas Cooke. Lord Dalton’s son and heir, Thomas, was underage, and he had explicit desires that his relative, Roger Downes, of Wardley Hall, near Manchester, have the wardship of Thomas until he came of age.

Lawrence’s lease for land tenure with Lord Dalton was for life, and the lease would continue to his oldest son upon his demise. John knew the estate was in good hands, as his oldest brother Robert would take over running the estates for Lord Dalton.

Robert would accompany his father as he collected rent from the tenants and helped with the account books. John and his other brothers helped their dad with many chores on the farm. He was allowed to catch a few fish while his dad was involved with the fishery, and the Lune was known for having a good supply of salmon. If he was lucky, he could catch an occasional speckled trout.

For the last ten years, the stewardship had been especially hard for his father. Lord Robert Dalton died shortly after making his will in 1626. He left Mister Downes, the ward of his nine-year-old son, but he lived far away in Manchester. Therefore, Lawrence shouldered many of the duties his lordship would have carried as well as his own.

The stewards of Dalton’s other holdings stood up to help run the estate without a capable heir. The Balls were stewards at Cockerham and the Canfields at Robert Hall, and they had always worked well with the Copelands of Dolphinlee. All helped with the upkeep of Lord Dalton’s estates and guided his young son into his future lordship in matters of the estates.

Lord Dalton/Land Steward

John thought of their many neighbors he might never see again. He would miss old Henry Parker, their neighbor who lived by the old Lune mill. (FN Tyldesley) Diary 15 and 21) Henry would come to mass at Dolphinlee and sometimes stay for dinner with the family. He would miss Mr. and Mrs. Crosskell FN, who lived on the neighboring farm just north of Dolphinlee. The Crosskells had the biggest dairy in the neighborhood. Sometimes, when their cows had not produced many calves that year and milk was spare, they relied on Mr. Crosskell for their milk. He always managed a good herd.

As John returned to his surroundings, he saw his friend and shipmate Richard Ball coming toward him. John greeted his friend, and they began to discuss the upcoming trip. They spoke of the goings on at home in Lancashire on their sister estates and how their families would cope with them going to the colonies. John was overjoyed he was not making the voyage entirely alone. Like John, Richard was escaping the English yoke of Catholicism and the hardships this brought upon their families.

Richard Ball

As John looked around, he discovered many others were crowding around, waiting to board. He suspected there were a few hundred mostly young men and women who looked as lost as he felt. They would have much to discuss with their fellow passengers on the way to Virginia. He prayed to God for a safe and uneventful crossing and a good life in their new home, Virginia.

NOTATION:

Further examination of John’s earlier years in Virginia has brought more questions than answers. Extremely little information exists except for two more importations to the Virginia colony along with Richard Ball. We can only guess at the circumstances under which he came. It was common for those who could not afford to pay for their passage to have it paid for by tobacco planters, shopkeepers, lawyers, and anyone who could use their services to work off their debt.

Indentured servitude usually lasted four to seven years. If John could not afford to pay for his passage, he likely came as an indentured servant. He would only be in his mid-20s when he finished with his contract, and he would then be free to make his own choices in life. Tobacco was the new cash crop of Virginia, and many were making their wealth by purchasing land and growing tobacco to be sent back to England.

Source Material Used for This Article:

John Copeland, son of Lawrence Copeland of Dolphinlee, Lancashire, England, sailed on the Assurance from Gravesend, England to the Yorktown area of Virginia in 1635. Richard Ball, likely from Dolphinlee, was also on the manifest.

At the top of the manifest was written the following: “Assurance Manifest/ Theis under-written names are to be transported to Virginea imbarqued in the Assurance de Lo: Isack Bromwell & Geo. Pewsie Mr Examined by the Minister of the Towne of Gravesend of their conformities in ot religion. The men have taken their oaths of Allegiance & Supremacy.” 

FN 1 Ed. Hotten, John Camden, The Original Lists of Persons of Quality; Emigrants, Religious Exiles, Political Rebels, Serving Men Sold for a Term of Years, Apprentices, Children Stolen Maidens Pressed, and Others Who Went from Great Britain to the American Plantations 1600-1700. Reprinted New York: Empire State Book Company from a London Edition of 1874, 580 pages. (Accessed 3-10-2015 http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupid?key=olbp57774)

Assurance Manifest/ Theis under-written names are to be transported to Virginea imbarqued in the Assurance de Lo: Isack Bromwell & Geo. Pewsie Mr., Examined by the Minister of the Towne of Gravesend of their conformities in ot [?] religion. The men have taken their oaths of Allegiance & Supremacy.”

Not all Lawrence’s children could be found in the International Genealogical Index. Additional children were mentioned in brother Thomas’s Barbados will as living in Nansemond County, Virginia.

St. Mary’s and Cockerham Christenings and Burials. Also, Thomas Copeland’s will written in Barbados.

Thomas Copeland will:

• -Merchant 16 Aug. 1693, i RB6/2, p. 54. 
• -Mo (denotes mother )Susannah Hill in Nansemond in James River in Virginia – l and she is
• possessed of [?] Notation: Susannah, mother of Thomas, may have been a second and younger
• wife.
• -same to Henry Copeland, son of br [brother] Henry Copeland Decd; 
• -James Copeland, son of bro [brother] James Copeland – land in possession of Richard Mincher(?); 
• -bro [brother] Francis Copeland 
• -William Rolls, eldest son of sis [sister] Mary Rolls  
• -James Consent son of my Susan Consent
• -John Porter, ye __ _ my sis Elizabeth Porter 
• -bro John Copeland 
• bros ____- Copeland & James Copeland- Xtrs [Executors]
• -Nathaniel Heywood and Thoma s ___- Xtrs in trust, signed Thomas (x) Copeland. Wit: [Witnesses} William Fisher, John Smith, Thomas Huse [Hughs?]
• Proved 18 Sep 1693 . 

Dolphinlee Copelands and their Catholicism. Bulk “Dolphinlee from about 1580 was the residence of the Copeland family, who were leaseholders of the Daltons and acted as their agents. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Lawrence Copeland had two-thirds of his estate at Dolphinlee sequestered for his religion.”

Priest Holes: Phil Hudson Priest Holes/ WTW Potts, Editor, The Lost Treasures of Dolphinlee, Contrebus
Vol XXIV Phil Hudson contributor, The British & Irish Archaeological Bibliography, pgs. 21-25. Phil Hudson, who had access to the architectural review held at the Lancaster City Museum written up in the
1970s before the Crown brought the manor home down. The land then became used for a young
offender’s prison.)

Billington wrote, “of this family, John Copeland alias Street, took the College oath at Douay on Sept. 13, 1638, and probably came to serve the mission in this neighborhood”.

“Mass was said in the little old chapel at Dolphinlee from a very early period, and the house provided
the usual hiding place and means of escape for the Priest in case of a sudden raid by the pursuant — a not infrequent occurrence in times of political agitation.

Croskell Farm. Robert Croskell of Bulk, Yeoman House, garden and 2 barns in Bulke [Bulk], with 2 closes called Bulke’s Bottom 10 ac., the Meadow at the Damsire 3 r., New Close 4 ac., Moss Sike 5 ac., Calfe Close Head 3 ac., Calfe Close 6 ac., Calfe Close Meadow 1V2 ac., Long Banke [bank] Meadow 3 ac., Long Bank 3 ac., 2 parrocks [paddocks] 1 ac. 3 r. and Croft 1 r., held from Robert Dalton of Thurnham Hall, esq., deed, for lives of R. C., Ann daughter of John Lee of London, gent, and Ann daughter of Christopher Croskell of Lancaster, saddler, rent £1. 16s. 9d., 2 hens or 6d., 2 capons or 12d., 2 days shearing and suit of court.