Dameron-Damron Family AssociationSuffolk Observations by John Preston Dameron, DDFA co-founder DDFA
In October 2023, my wife, Edna, and I visited Suffolk, England along with my oldest son, John Christopher Dameron, and his wife Harp and two grandchildren. We were in England for eight days. My son, owner of Dameron Architecture in Brooklyn, New York had been invited to take part in an exhibition in London, so Edna and I went with my son and family and to see some of the country including a day in the area where Dameron’s once lived. Strong circumstantial evidence points to the area near Ipswich, Suffolk, as the place where the Dameron’s lived before coming to America. I did not research in Suffolk but visited many of the places associated with the English Damerons: Damerons Farm in Henley, Westerfield Manor, St. Clements Church, Ipswich, Grundisburgh, and Otley Hall the seat of the Gosnold Family. The following account is based on my observations coupled with what I know about the English Dameron’s and is not intended to be a genealogical article. The Dameron Family name first appears in Suffolk in the 1400’s. It it’s found with variations elsewhere in England, but nothing nails down the Dameron line to any part of England or elsewhere. Since surnames as such did not fully evolve in England till after the Norman Conquest, it Is uncertain when the first man who bore the name Dameron was in England or how the name was adopted. In over 40 years of research, I have found no paper trail to connect them with any French Knight named Phillippe, or Latinized Exergius or any residents of Bruges in Belgium. In my system of possible, probable, and proven, considering all factors, I believe the family migrated through different areas of England and had settled in Suffolk in the 1400s. It is probable that Lawrence Dameron came to Virginia from Suffolk, England, due to a large body of circumstantial evidence which cannot be refuted. It is possible that he is the same Lawrence, son of a George Dameron, 1615 christened at St. Clements Church. No one in the time I have been researching has been able to disprove by fact either of the probability or possibility. About half a dozen different “genealogies” connecting Lawrence Dameron to England and beyond exist on the internet or elsewhere. None are backed by solid proof partially because even in England, several have the same first name, some are even living during the same time frame. Sorting these out from available records is difficult if not impossible. A simple timeline of known facts will discredit most of these “genealogies. ”I have my own theories as to the English line of Lawrence, but I will not verbalize them. I will say that Lawrence was NOT married to Dorothy Roach, daughter of a Sir John Roach since no documentation backs that up.
In spite of what you may find online, none of the Suffolk Dameron’s had the title “Sir’, although at least on had the title “Mister”, then reserved for large landowners. There was a Sir Walter Dameron in the time of King Edward III, but he is spoken of about an area far from Suffolk and can be connected to no one by a simple mention in a record.
More certain are the connections between the Suffolk Dameron family and the Gosnold family. The most famous of whom was Bartholomew Gosnold who named Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard in 1602, and was an organizer of the Jamestown Colony. He captained the Godspeed as Vice-admiral of the ships and member of the first Jamestown Council before he died in 1607 of disease. The Dameron Family name first appears in Suffolk in the 1400’s. The name appears in Hereford in the West near Wales a century earlier but not later. DNA suggests that our family is part of the “Cumberland Cluster” found first in Northwestern England
John Dameron with portrait of Robert Gosnold III Otley
Hall was home to many generations of Gosnolds until it was sold in the late 1600’s after the family lost much of its fortune during the English Civil War (they supported the Royalists against Cromwell). Bartholomew Gosnold’s father, Anthony, was a second son and lived in Grundisburgh, a small village not far away. Anthony was at one time in debtor’s prison. Bartholomew never made Otley Hall his home, but probably received his early education there and may have even met with planners for the Jamestown there. The current Otley Hall owners play up the Bartholomew connection. The attached restaurant is named for Bartholomew’s daughter Martha. We had a private tour of the building. The building, which was added to and remodeled several times from early Tudor times to the twentieth century, was fascinating.
The earliest known connection between the Gosnold and Dameron families was in 1555 when George Dameron married Elizabeth Gosnold. Elizabeth was daughter of Edmond Gosnold of Coddenham, a small village near Otley. His will names daughter Elizabeth Dameron. George and Elizabeth Gosnold Dameron had a son Edmond or Edmund Dameron who somehow gained ownership of Henley Hall. George’s brother John inherited from their father William Dameron, Westerfield Manor which was passed to the Collett family through John’s daughter who married a Collett. Edmond Gosnold’s brother, Robert, inherited Otley Hall from the second John Gosnold. This Robert would have been Bartholomew Gosnold’s great-grandfather. Edmond Gosnold would have been both grandfather to Edmond Dameron and Bartholomew Gosnold’s great uncle. Edmund Dameron is mentioned as “godson” in Edmond Gosnold’s will. There is, however, one closer connection between the Bartholomew Gosnold and the Dameron’s through a different surname. Robert Gosnold III who owned Otley Hall, and Anthony Gosnold who was father of Bartholomew, had a sister named Cicely Gosnold. Cicely married Rev. Thomas Thorn. This is the only known marriage for Rev. Thorn. In Rev. Thorn’s will he names children of a deceased daughter as: Thomas Dameron, John Dameron, George Dameron, Anne Dameron, and Mary Dameron. These would be first cousins once removed to Bartholomew Gosnold. Much of this information can be documented in records of the Gosnold/Gosnell family by wills, marriages and other sources found online and in several Gosnold family histories. A similar list of names can be found in the will of Edmond Dameron but are not exact. But many Dameron’s had the same first name and this could possibly be the same or an entirely different family. I could create a hypothetical family tree connecting the second John Gosnold of Otley Hall to Lawrence Dameron of Virginia, but this might add to the myth because of cloudy conclusions. Henley Hall from an early painting.
As for our trip in Suffolk, we gleaned no new genealogical information. We ate a good English meal at Martha’s Restaurant and explored a beautiful garden next to the grounds of Otley Hall before we drove to Dameron’s Farm in Henley. There, along narrow tree-lined roads with no markings, we saw thatched roofs, small and larger farms and slightly rolling land that reminded me of Southside Virginia between Tidewater and Piedmont. There was no Henley Hall (long since razed) or sign of its ruins, but several farm buildings had been converted to bed and breakfast cottages. There was no one to ask if any of the buildings were old enough to be built by the Dameron’s or if there was little more than the name that existed on the sign, “Dameron’s Farm”, to connect it to our family. Next, we journeyed to Westerfield to see that manor that has been so often publicized in connection to our family. We were told that it was privately owned and gated, but we may be able to see some of it from the street. Our driver parked in front of the gate where we saw most of the building, still painted pink as in some of the photos we have, but larger trees hid some of the building. It seemed nearly as large as Otley Hall. At a beeping horn, our driver got out and talked to the driver of a large vehicle behind us. Our driver told the occupants that we came from America and asked if we could see the building. We were told to pull around and as the gate was opened and we met the driver’s employer. The coat of Arms on either side if the Gate read, ”Furneaux” but the owner was introduced to us as “Lord Ashley” which seemed to impress our driver, a London native who knew more about alternative music and Football (soccer than history. “This house belongs to a Lord!” he exclaimed to us. His Lordship told us that he bought the property 35 years ago from a man called Hockings. They shed no new light on its history or as to what extent it had been restored. His driver did most of the talking but the owner shook my hand before we left. We learned later that the man was Richard William Cattermole, Lord Furneaux. Lord Ashley may have been a lesser-known title. Richard Cattermole’s photo matched the man I had met. He was not a former member of parliament. (Not all lords were in the House of Lords). He was a retired hotel magnate, once founder of numerous corporations and was one of the wealthiest men in Suffolk. I was glad that Westerfield Manor was in good hands and that someone owned it who could keep it up. Westerfield according to our information was two miles from Ipswich but it seems that the small town merged into the larger city.
There is a train station in Westerfield which also served Ipswich. Ipswich itself is slightly larger than Roanoke, Virginia. We were told that our two-and-a-half-hour drive by car (due to several factors) was only one hour by train and residents often commuted to London! We passed buildings old and new till we came to St. Clements Church where in 1615 a young Lawrence Dameron was christened. The building no longer is used as a church but sometimes hosts civic events. That day the building was locked. The church was made of flint rocks and was in good repair. Names and dates on some of the older tombstones in the church graveyard were worn and illegible. I found no familiar names on those I could read. We also drove by St. Mary Le Tower Church which was the more prestigious church of the 1600’s. It looked like a larger St. Clements. We then went to the quay which bordered the river Orwell (from which a writer, Eric Blair, took his pen name: George Orwell) and looked at the small boats on the river and the University of Suffolk buildings. To summarize our impressions, from the facts that we do know, many Dameron’s were, born, christened, married and died in Suffolk, England, from the 1400’s through the 1600’s. They owned property and made wills. The name is found earlier and later along with those of similar spellings in sparse accounts in other parts of England.
The Suffolk records cover the appropriate time span of the immigration to America and are much more numerous but are unfortunately not as complete as we wish since we cannot positively identify our Lawrence Dameron. If he was not the Lawrence who was christened in Ipswich, then he had to have been a close relative. In fact, the Gosnold family of Otley and other Suffolk towns are proven to be related to the Damerons in that area. Bartholomew Gosnold was born in Grundisburgh in 1571 and grew up in that small village. The George Dameron who married Elizabeth Dameron in 1555 also lived in Grundisburgh. This town today has about 1500 residents and could have not been much larger in the 1500’s. George’s son Edmond who died in 1605 had sons named Edmond, John and George.
I will not connect the dots but will only say that most of these first names are well known in early Dameron genealogy. Was Captain John Dameron who brought the Duty to Jamestown in 1620 a cousin to Captain Bartholomew Gosnold who brought the Godspeed there in 1607? We can only guess. The name Bartholomew is common in the Dameron family but is rare in the Gosnold family except for the sea captain and one of his children who died young. The name Dorothy is common in the Gosnold family but cannot be directly connected to any Dameron’s in England.
In absence of documents, I will not attempt to draw any specific conclusions. Thomas Keene, Jr., another Gosnold descendant, immigrated to Kent Island in the Chesapeake Bay. When this island was awarded to the State of Maryland, he moved to Northumberland County, Virginia. There are other Suffolk surnames also found in the early Northumberland County, Virginia, records. Make your own assumptions, but please do not present these as fact! Just enjoy the history of a family that bore the same or variation of the same surname that we share.
I am at present delving into a large file of transcripts and copies of English Dameron records in an attempt to sort out facts which may shed further light on the English ancestry of our Dameron’s. The DDFA Researcher who studied some of these records reached no conclusions as to Lawrence’s parentage. I am sure that his origin and early life will continue as an item of conjecture for years to come. If no records are ever found, at what point does a “Leap of Faith” or an attempt to connect dots be accepted? I am going to say without fear of valid contradiction that our Lawrence most probably was of the Suffolk, England, family. I challenge our research minded family members to DISPROVE this. Sometimes a romanticized version of ancestry may be more appealing than reality, but WHO WE ARE is more important in any case than from whom we descend, whether it be noble patrician or peasant plowman.