George Bigelow Chase

“ As Aquila Chase was supposed to have come from Cornwall, no importance had ever been attached to this pedigree by the American genealogists, and Mr. Somerby, influenced by the traditions that Aquila and Thomas Chase were mariners, had searched in vain for some months the records of Cornwall, Hampshire, Kent, and other sea-coast Counties, for traces or indications of the emigrant's family. Cornwall, especially, had been most diligently searched, as Mr. Coffin, in his "History of Newbury" had stated that Aquila Chase was from that County. ”

“ Burke gives Chase vel Chansey; he should have given Chasey—the name of a modern family, who have assumed the arms of Chase. He is wrong again in his description of the arms of the Chesham family, inasmuch as he calls the crosses flory, whereas they should be patonce. It is not improbable that the different variety of arms are in fact the same, as the persons who copied shields of arms from monument were often not careful to read correctly. ”

“ Into the history of this delusion we have not the space, nor is the place to enter, although on some accounts desirable, as there are many respectable people in Massachusetts, shrewd and cautious otherwise in all their dealings, who still declare that there is "something in it," and who,—while unable to tell even the names of their grandfathers,—are, or till quite recently were, ready to subscribe money to test the claims of ancestors from whom they cannot and never have undertaken to prove descent. ”

“ Somerby, as it has been since by other distinguished antiquarians, of the identity of the American with the English families. The date of birth coincided with another tradition lingering in some branches of the American family, that Aquila Chase, of Newbury, had called his first son, but the fifth child that was born to him, after his father's name as well as his own, "that Aquila the first was Aquila the second, too." The register at Chesham contains no other mention of Aquila, Thomas and Mordecai than the record of their births. ”

“ Theodore Chase, of Boston, as the possessor by inheritance of some of the family papers of Aquila Chase, who was one of the first settlers and grantees of Hampton, in 1639 or 1640, was often applied to by persons of the name when the periodic excitement relative to these fancied claims arose. ”

“ At the request of several of the descendants of the family living in New England, it is now reprinted. It was not the writer's intention to prepare at this time any extended account, from the materials at his command, of the history of the family in England or America. ”

“ Thomas4 Chase, one of the original settlers of Hampton, was in New England as early as 1636. In 1639. he was, together with his brother Aquila,4 afterwards of Newbury, one of the original settlers of Hampton, where he died in 1653. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Philbrick. ”

“ Joseph6 Chase, of Newbury, was born March 25, 1677. About the year 1726, he sold his extensive estates in Newbury, and removed to Littleton, Mass. He is usually styled Planter. He married November 8, 1699, Abigail Thurston. ”

“ Of these children we propose to notice Aquila,5 Thomas5 and Moses,5 and some of their descendants.
Aquila5 Chase, of Newbury, a Sergeant in the Essex Regiment, was born September 26, 1652, and died July 29, 1720. He married Esther, daughter of John Bond of Newbury. ”