ORIGIN ON THE NAME

The families of Farnsworth in the United States and in Canada are ail of English origin, and undoubtedly dérive their name from one of two places in Lancashire, England, bearing the name of Farnworth. One of thcm is in the parish of Prescott, not far from Liverpooi. on the way to Manchester. It is believed, however, that the family derived its name from Farnworth, in the parish of Dean, a few miles north-west from Manchester, in the Hundred of Salford.

The word is a Saxon descriptive compound, from «fern» (Anglo Saxon fearn), the fern plant, and «worth» , in Saxon English, a valuable farm, or estate, the whole signifying a ferny land, farm or estate, the places to which the name was applied having been very productive of ferns.

Farnworth in the parish of Dean, was an ancient manor of about 1400 acres, with a manor court, and had upon it, a stone résidence that bore the name of Farnworth Hall. It was standing and occupied as the manor house as late as Queen Elizabeth's time and perhaps a little later, but it was afterwards sufïered to go to decay. It was probably occupied as a résidence in the days of Joseph and Matthias Farnsworth, the early emigrants to this country. The old manor is now a town, and has become ncted as a place for the manufacture of paper. The largest mills in that trade in England are there. It has a population of 25,000.

At first those named from their estâtes among the landed class of English, either were, or affected to be, of Norman descent, and in naming themselves used the French préposition «de», and so the owners and résidents on the «Fearney worth», called themselves «de Farnworth». In early times Farnworth was frequently

written «Fearneworth», as if it was pronouiiced in tbrce syllabes : Fear-ney-worth. Thus one signs as witness to a will, inl291, Roger de Farneworth. In 1311 Elias de Smethton, prior of the Knights Hospitalers of the Order of St. John of Jérusalem, conveys certain lands in Platt, a place near-by Farnworth, by deed to Adam de Farneworth. And his son Robert (1315) was seized of them by the same name.

The introduction of the «S» into the name is no doubt a corruption, and probably arose from some notion of euphony. The Groton (America) records almost uniformly spell the name without an ((S)) until about 1750 ; but the usage of the family had changed somewhat earlier. The pronunciation in early times in this country was probably as if spelled «Farnoth», as it is spelled in some of the records.

So far as is known, three Farnsworths were the only emigrants of the name, who settled in America. They are : Joseph, Matthias, Thomas.

Joseph Farnsworth of Dorchester came over with the Dorchester company in 1628. Matthias Farnworth (more than likely a brother of Joseph) was residing at Lynn in 1657 ; he probably moved to Groton in 1660 ; he is the Grandfather of Matthias, taken prisoner in 1704. Thomas Farnsworth, a Quaker, who apparently was connected in some way with the adventure of William Penn, came to Bordentown in 1681,

In August 1704, Matthias III Farnsworth was taken prisoner by the Indians and carried into Canada, where he was delivered to the French. By the parish records of Montréal we see that he was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church there, and the record as made in French, gives his name as Mathias-Claude Farneth. The name Claude was given to him by his godfather, Claude de Ramezay, Governor of Montréal. The name Farneth, is the approximate spelling of Farnoth pronounced by the young prisoner. He was naturalized at Montréal, and he married, on the 2nd of October, 1713, Catherine Charpentier, by whom he had twelve childrcn. From 1713 to 1754, ail the records give «Fanef» ; from 1754 to 1800, «Faneuf and Fanef»; from 1800 to 1850, «Faneuf», and from the latter, «Faneuf and Phancuf». His