378 



HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



Saored 



to the memory of 



Catharine Thomas, 



■widow of 



Thomas Thomas, 



who died the 15th day of 



January, A.D. 1825, 



in the 79th year of her age. 



Saored 



to the mercery of 



Charles Floyd Thomas 



son of Thomas Thomas. 



and Catharine Thomas, 



who died on the 2d of 



January, A.~D. 1802, 



in the 24th year of his age. 



Sacred to the memory 



of 



Nancy Thomas, 



daughter of 



Thomas Thomas, 



and Catharine Thomas, 



who died in February, 1795, 



aged 19 years. 



Also of Gloriana Thomas, 

 daughter of Thomas Thomas, 



and Catharine Thomas, 



who died Dec. 19, A.D. 1779, 



aged 7 years.- 



Any one who is familiar with the origin of family names in England 

 must know that there are many persons with such patronymics as Field, 

 Wood, Hill, &c, who are in no way related to each other. Apparently 

 the former of these has been hereditary in the Flushing family since the 

 conquest,* indicating a (so-called) Norman descent. Lancashire seems 

 to have been the English cradle of this race. It is stated in " Burke's 

 Commoners/' under the head of Delafield, that Hubertusde la Feld held 

 lands there, (presumably for military services) in the Third of William 

 I. and that others of the name were proprietors in the same bounty dur- 

 ing the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the "Concher book of 

 Whalley Abbey " which has been published by the Chatham Society is 

 a deed of Adam, son of Henry Delffeld of a house and lands at Falenge 

 in Rochdale, Lancashire, and a quit claim of the same by Adam's son 

 Robert. These documents are not dated ; but from surrounding cir- 

 cumstances the time of their execution can be approximately fixed as 

 the middle of the thirteenth century. It was most certainly before the 

 fourteenth, for the Abbey was at the date of these documents at Stanlaw, 

 where it's buildings were mostly burnt in 1289, and in 1296 all it'.s com- 

 munity had removed to Whalley. Rochdale stands near the Yorkshire 

 border, and the high road from it to Halifax passes Sowerby in this 



a See Freeman's Norman Conquest. 



