THE JERNIGAN FAMILY ONE OF OLDEST OF ENGLAND
Some Remarks About Family Names-jemigan A Remarkably Defi
nite One
1 have since childhood had a very high respect
f,,r the name Jermgan. If I recollect aright,
fl’liMinas R. Jermgan was a newspaperman of New
Jjcrii when I reached^ the stage of noting such
thing:'. In Cleveland’s first administration, I
iliaig it was,, the brilliant New Bern editor was
api ..tinted consul general to Shanghai, China.
Hi. at least, seems long enough ago to have been
in 1SS5. though it may have been during Cleve
]am;'s second administration.
\\ lien I returned from Louisiana to Clinton in
1'-i7. Mack Jernigaan was a highly appreciated
siinknt at the Clinton school, graduating that vear
the next, I believe. Coming to Dunn after se
em mg-his college degree and law license, he quick
ie noil favor as a lawyer, a citizen, and and as a
cl'.mvii worker. As a mere youth he became
u',."\ i r of Dunn. For years he has served as the
simm'ntendent of the great Baptist Sunday
mV-1 of the little c;ty, in which job he is stiil
meving great success. When I came as a resi
; ,,f Dunn, I found him serving as judge of
tm recorder’s a urt, in which job he is still
mm nobly serving.
ii> brother Dr. Jernigan has attained a simi
I; r high regard of the people of Dunn and as a
1;-1 viands well in his profession.
I'.gi ihere are'swarms of the name in the group
r,f o•■unties cornerinn near Dunn—Harnett.
S r. Johnston, and Cumberland, and,
n;v,1': ian extended connection such as that of the
Jon igans. you can but expect to find almost any
Lmw iif fellow. There are apt to be black sheep
in. :• any large flock and runts among any
!;■1 >!’>'0(1 of pigs And there are no-aaccount
Jrrwgnns. But it is a. shame for anybody bear
iso a name of the distinction the Jernigans bear
f he a -h.abby shout, a runt pig, or a black sheep.
About The Original Jernigans
I'r.ibahly the Jernigan family is the oldest dis
tinedv traceable family of English origin in the
.-mm.With most names there is no certainty when
tin- early genealogy of big folk run out that any
(.\ivting family ever had any blood connection
wkh the distinguished line. When surnames were
a.-mmed, hundreds or thousands of them were
occupation names, like Carpenter, Smith, Potter,
etc.: others wore taken because of complexion,
sccli as Black, Brown, etc.-; others were names
of .animals, the assignment being probably due
to traits reminding cf the animals thus honored
a.' -urnames, such as Fox, Wolf, Lyon, Coon,
etc.
A "I win. or Good win, was simply good wine,
the early English spelling of good being the same
a> that of god. The name could easily have been
a-'iuned because of excellency of vintages. Aid
e-man was eMerwan, the old English for older
being aider. Mood. Coats, and other names like
tlio.'O would he given because of pecularities of
dress or because the first of the name was 3
manufacturer of such articles. Taylor was a tail
or. 1 ’ope- was, of course, papa, meaning father.
And thus a long bst of names derived from
trades, personal pecularities, etc., arose.
The Grec test Of All Groups
I'ut, possibly the greatest of all groups was
com])().<£,] of those who took their fathers’ names,
wiih son appended in English, and Mac in Scot
h‘t;id and Ireland, sen in the north countries of
l .iirojie, etc. Many of the Macs have become son
in America. You may recall a month ago that,
’l: speaking of the Petersons on account of the
inquiry from Mrs. Lane, county historian of Bul
lock county, Ga., into the early history of the
Liermns in southeast North Carolina, I stated
Ikat the late Hamilton McMililan, of Red
springs, notable ^o* his theory of the Croatans,
Jicnised md of being Scotch because of the fac^
Ihiit his grandmother's family of McPeters, on
coining to North Carolina, anglicised the name
into Peterson. Peters may be McPeters with t e
Mac shedded. Cr it may have shed its on. 0
only Lave many such names lost their early form.
i'W foreign names like Swartz have been anglicised
into ftlack, etc. And such names as Jones are mere
dim tunings of Jenson (Johnson)y etc.. I shou .
tl'ink it likely tbH the name Vann is nothing ti
tlte Dutch syllable Van, equivalent of high Her
nntn Fern.. A Dutchman, moving to England,, Van
T'Uren for instance, might be called simply an
i’P bis neighbors till the shorter form stuck. Tha
n ould be all the more likely if the latter part 0
the name, as many Dutch names are, was^ ar
to pronouned. The Dutch Micklejohn would ne
conie Littlejohn. ‘T- ' - - -, _a
There would arile a variety'of names sfi
peterson/Pierson, FefffSon, fremlhe several speu
ings of the Apostle’s name, common in every
country where the New Testament had been taken
and Christianity established. Thus .every Tom,
1C / £a , Harry *n England,. when the decree
went forth that every man should assume a sur
®ame, might become the father of a race of
nomsons, Thompsons, Dicksons, Dions, Harri
sons. The consequence is that not only such names
as those but also hundreds of names derived from
traded, peculiarities, etc., like Driver, Carter
Cooper, Barefoot, Stone, Byrd, White, Arm
strong (Strongarm), might arise in dozens of
communities and there be no remotest connection
in the families of the same name.
Place Names Distinctive
wn me otner nana, there is a large group of
names that are distinctive and bearers of which
wherever they may be may account themselves of
identical origin, barring changes of names bv
adoption, by choice, for the sake of hiding iden
tity, etc., a group of happenings that bars out
right tracing of genealogy as much as that of
the-multiplicity of derivations, or more. For in
stance, I was surprised, in looking over old rec
ords in Clinton, to find that our good neighbors
the Pughs had received that name 125 years
earlier by the adoption of a Sampson lad by a
Pugh of old Dobbs county.
Barring such accidental names, place names
are usually distinctive and bear marks of rather
aristocratic derivation. In French such names
are denoted by the prefix de; in German by von;
in English by the names of early places. Ham,
which*, we have preserved in the word hamlet,
means town, and any name ending in ham bears
a mark of distinction, for the name of the “ham”
was assumed by only the most prominent family
in the town. The Granthams, for instance, were
real folk in old Grant Ham or Grant Town. The
Oldhams were the big folk of the Old Town after
the superseding Newtown had arisen. Yet that
fine old name, one of the oldest, evidently, in the
English language, has been butchered by a large
portion of the descent by the change to Odum, or
Odom. And even our “Grantham” has! been dis
guised, or camouflaged, by the the pronouncia
tion of the final t of Grant with the ham. Be
thune is the name of an important French town,
but the family was early transplanted in Scot
land. And thus it goes.
Names That Are Even More Distinctive
Than Place Names
But there are some names that are more defi
nite and distinctive than place names, and Jerni
. gem is one of them. The Jemigan family is one
of the oldest English names, but is not English.
Therefore, there is only one family of that name
derived from England, barring accidental
changes, such as I mentioned above. But the
main branches of such families were very subject
to be wiped out in the male line by participation
in the wars. For wars in the days of chivalry
were largely sports of the nobility. Accordingly,
while the lords of the house of Jernigan were'
off fighting and dying in battle, Peter, Tom,
Dick, and Harry, and tneir sons were sleeping
safely, if not comfortably, in tbeir peasant cot
tages. Bpt swarms of derivatives from the young
er branches might later survive. But the Jerni
gan blood, I should guess, is most largely dis
persed in England through the daughters of the
house. In fact, the Jernigan house is represented
in recent times in England by the present house
of Stafford. And from records furnished by that
house I am preparing to give you a definite idea
of +he antiquity and prominence of the jernigan
name and station.
The Jernigan Genealogy Authoritatively
Traced
Before me is a statement of the Jernigan line
age as copied jfrom the British peerage. . This -
document was furnished- Thos. R. Jermgan, men
tioned at the outset, in 1910, by the Lady Staf
ford of that date—whether she is still living I
do not know.. The founder of the house in Eng
land was supposedly of Danish descent. Anyway,
the well established records show that the first
“Ternegan” spelled with an e, rather than an i,
was a comrade of King Canute coming to Eng
land when that Danish king of Albion returned
to the island kingdom from his native Denmark
after a-visit to Rome. From the documents be
fore me I quote the following.: ^
“Weaver tells us ‘the name hath been of ex
emplarie note before the Conquest’ (Norman)—
and adds the following account as e^racted out
of the pedigree of the family anno 1030. Canute
king of England and Denmark, after his return.
from Rome, brought with him captains and sol
diers from Denmark. The Jernegans were the
most in esteem with Canute, who gave unto said
tjernegan certain royalties ; gave him also manors
in Norfolk’.”
The name varies during the centuries, part of
the time being written Jemingham. I have here at
list of sixteen heads of the house of Jemigan. The
last was Sir Thomas, who had no sons it seesns^
but one daughter, who married Thomas Miller,
whose third son William married Margaret Monk
and came to New England in 1631, to be followed
to Massachusetts in 1635 by Thomas Miller, an
other of the family. The titles seem to have pass-t
ed to the house of Stafford, through the marri
age of an earlies daughter of the house into that'
family. Therefore, I judge there are no high titl
ed Jernigans in England at this day. However^
Lady Stafford, in her letter to Thomas R. Jer
nigan, says: “As your ancestor settled in Amer- ,
ica in the 17th century, I should think he was a
son of Sir Edward or Sir Richard.” Yet there
must have been more Jernigans of lower estate'
than of high in England after a family residence
of 700 or 800 years, and that guess of Lady Staf
ford’s is only that—a guess.
I shall not go into the details of the data, but
will cite a few of the most creditable historic
facts about the family. 'Sir Hubert Jernigan, son
of the then head of the family, was involved ip!
the revolt of the insurrection of the Barons)
against King John. It is not stated definitely;
whether that was on the famous occasion of Run
nymede and the Great Charter. He was later
pardoned, the record goes, by Henry III,’ indi
cating that it-was not on the Runnymede occa->
sion, since the barons at that time required no
pardon, but were masters of the king himself.
'Sir Henry, of Queen Elizabeth’s day, was still
adhering to the Catholic church and was showii
no favors by the Viirgin Queen, though.she was
entertained by him on the occasion of her prog
ress through Norfolk. Sir Richard Jernegan tilt
ed in the famous Cloth of Gold tournament. In
Somerleyton Hall, one of the seats of the fam
ily, in memory of Sir Richard, appears this in
scription : i
“Jesus Christ, both God and Man,
Savelhey servant Jernegan.” ,
One of the Sir Thomas Jernegans was an ad
miral of the English fleet, and a portrait of him
by the painter Kneller occupied a place on the
walls of Somerleyton Hall till comparatively re
cent years.
There is scarcely a doubt that every Jernigan
is descended from the comrade of King Canute,
but the portion of the blood of that ancestor of
twenty-odd generations ago is so small in the pre
sent day Jernigan that the old Dane could not re
proach himself greatly if he should return and
'find not all Jernigans living up to the highest:
mark. If there has been no intermarriage of Jer
nigan stock in a present-day Jernigan’s ancestry
he would have something like one four-hundred
millionth of the old Dane’s blood in his veins—so
little that a gnat might suck it all out at one time
and then not have begun his meal. But other,
very notable blood has been mixed with tho
Dane’s during the thousand years since he came
to England with King Canute, and every other!
grade of blood has been mixed ifi the gener ations
of that millennium. So we peasant folk may ac
count ourselves nearly as thoroughbred as any
of the descendants of kings. Our two good fine
■ Dunn citizens are probably as good as the best of
their old name. .
The Jernigams in This Section
The original Jemigan of this section must have
been one of the earlier settlers in upper Sampson,,
coming say 175 years ago. The late Rev. Frank
P. Jernigan of Arkansas, who sought the history;
of the family and was over here two years ago
on that mission, assumed that the ancestor of
the great group of Jemigans in these four out
five counties, came from the neighborhood of.
Suffolk, Va. - •'
The Remarkable family of Lewis Jemigatl
There are too many of them to attempt any]
particularities, but the remarkable family of the
elder Lewis Jernigan deserves attention. There
were six sons and three daughters, all rearing
families except Junius. The others were, and ar$,
for several are surviving: Lewis Preston, father;
of Attorney and Dr. Jemigan; Hannibal W.,
William James, Austin, Josephus, and Junius Jer
nigan; daughters, all of whom married Jemi
gans, Mrs. Julius Jernigan, Mrs. G. S. Jefnigan,
and Mrs. B*. H. Jemigan. Thus there are eight
families of children from the Lewis Jernigan
branch, enough to magnify the family in coming
years. -
.(Qontlmxefl on page tits) . " „ \