From Regicide to Respectability: The Tale of the William and Thomasine Axtell Family
The Axtell family coat of arms, featuring three silver axes on a blue shield and the crossed axes with the motto “Sub cruce glorior” (“I glory in the cross”), was likely granted to Colonel Daniel Axtell around 1648-1650.
Reprinted under license from COADB/Eledge Family Genealogy.
From Regicide to Respectability: The Tale of the William and Thomasine Axtell Family
In 1534, King Henry VIII set about converting the soul of England. He had received an annulment from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and severed ties with the Pope in Rome.
Declaring himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England, he began the process of dissolving Catholic monasteries across his country.
In Gatesden, Hertfordshire, a small Augustinian monastery was ordered to sign over its buildings and surrounding lands to the Crown. Among the names signing the deed was John Axstyl. These lands were then distributed by the king. The Axtell family was among the beneficiaries.
The Axtells prospered over several generations, reproducing many Williams, Daniels, Thomases, Johns, Samuels, Sarahs, Susannahs and Rachaels. The repetition of names across branches became a family tradition and an historian or genealogist’s nightmare. Part of the challenge lies in the nature of the records: scattered, incomplete, and sometimes contradictory. What survives comes in fragments — church records, old family Bibles, wills, depositions, court entries, and secondhand genealogies. Piecing together a coherent family line from these scraps is like assembling a mosaic from broken titles.
. . . . .
The story of the Axtell family begins in 1618 when William Axtell (1587-1638) married Thomasine Burgoyne (1591-1675) at St. Andrew’s Church, Halstead, Kent, England. They went to live in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England, about 28 miles (45 km) from London.
Thomasine’s father was Burgoyne and not Cutler.
William Axtell was working as a bargemaster in Berkhamsted, a busy market town on the River Bulbourne. As a bargemaster of Berkhamsted, he oversaw the loading, movement, and maintenance of barges that carried goods along the Bulbourne and its adjoining navigation routes. Barges from Berkhamsted could connect to the broader canal and river network leading to London, making the role of bargemaster a critical link between local trade and the London markets.
William and Thomasine had eight children:
John (1614)
William (1616)
Thomas (1619-1647)
Daniel (1622-1660)
Samuel (1624)
Sarah (1628-1665)
Joane (1630-1673)
Ann (1633-1687)
A Nathaniel Axtell does exist during this period, but he was not the son of this William and Thomasine Axtell.
In English families of this period, especially respectable or property-holding families, a common practice was to name the first son after his father, the second son after his paternal grandfather, and later sons after uncles, maternal relatives, or religious or political figures.
Applying this naming pattern to the William and Thomasine Axtell family produces an anomaly. The first son is not William, but John. An important exception to naming patterns takes into account whether the mother’s father was particularly important through status, inheritance, or affection. For example, when the mother came from a respected or upwardly connected family, or when her family played a strong role in the household's fortunes, then the first male child would be named after her father instead of her husband.
A number of researchers believe that Thomasine was the daughter of John Burgoyne of Dry Drayton, Cambridge, located not far from Hertfordshire. Naming William and Thomasine’s first son John may reflect the tradition of honoring Thomasine’s father. William and Thomasine’s second son, William, would follow the more common pattern of naming after Thomasine’s husband, the child’s father.
Thomas Axtell and the Massachusetts Bay Colony
In the late 1500s, the Puritan movement emerged as a reformist wing within the Church of England. Puritans called for the removal of the remaining Catholic practices from worship and a return to what they saw as true biblical purity. Although they gained influence under Queen Elizabeth I and her successor, King James I, the Puritans were often at odds with King Charles I, who was King James’s successor who resisted their demands for simpler worship and greater congregational control. By the early 1600s, many Puritans faced fines or imprisonment. Some chose to leave England entirely in search of religious freedom abroad.
In 1620, a group of Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts Bay. Nine years later, in March 1629, King Charles I granted the Massachusetts Bay Company a royal charter. The charter officially incorporated the Massachusetts Bay Company and gave it the authority to govern the territory of Massachusetts Bay in New England. The company now had the right to trade and to establish a civil government and that included powers to enact laws, hold courts, and appoint officers.
Six months later, a group of Puritan shareholders led by John Winthrop signed the Cambridge Agreement, pledging to immigrate to New England and to take the charter with them. By bringing the charter to the colony, the settlers ensured the creation of a self-governing Puritan commonwealth, free from direct royal oversight.
The 1629 decision led directly to the Great Migration, beginning the next year with the Winthrop Fleet. Within 23 years of the landing of the Mayflower, the population of the Massachusetts Bay Colony had grown to about 20,000, and the founding of new towns like Boston and Salem.
. . . . .
The Axtell emigration from Berkhamsted to the New World coincided with the beginning of the English Civil War. In 1638, Thomas Axtell, the third son of William and Thomasine Axtell, married Mary Rice. In early 1643, they sailed to the New World with their two small children, Mary (1639-1704) and Henry (1641-1676) and arrived in Massachusetts Bay. In October 1643, Thomas purchased five acres of land in Sudbury, Massachusetts Bay Colony, from Edmund Rice, his father-in-law and former neighbor in Berkhamsted, who had arrived in Massachusetts five years earlier. Thomas died in March 1646.
Thomas and Mary’s daughter, Mary, married John Goodnow and they had eleven children and their son, Henry, married Hannah Merriam and they had six children (Samuel, Hannah, Mary, Thomas, Daniel, and Sarah).
In the spring of 1676, the Wampanoag and Narragansett tribes led by “King Phillip” of Mount Hope, Rhode Island, attacked several small communities in the interior of Massachusetts, killing many of the settlers. Henry Axtell was killed on the road between Sudbury and Marlborough.
Henry’s sons, Thomas (1672-1750) and Daniel (1673-1735), carried on the Axtell name. Son Samuel (1666-1683, died when he was 17 and had no decendents. Thomas married Sarah Barker and they had seven children. Daniel married Thankful Pratt and they had ten children.
The Axtells thrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and branched out across the northeast. Over a dozen men in the fifth and sixth generations of Axtells fought in the American Revolution.
Daniel Axtell and the Carolina Colony
Daniel was the fourth son of William and Thomasine Axtell. Given his family’s Puritan leanings and the popularity of biblical names at the time, it is likely that Daniel was named for the Old Testament prophet — a figure associated with judgment, steadfastness, and defiance in the face of tyranny.
After Daniels’s father died in 1638, he left his family in Berkhamsted and became an apprentice to a grocer in London. In 1639, he married Mary Marsam in Luton, Bedfordshire, England. Their son, Daniel, was born in 1640.
By 1643, Daniel had left his trade and had found his calling in the Parliamentary army, serving first as a trooper in Oliver Cromwell’s cavalry (“Ironside”). In 1645, Cromwell’s cavalry became part of the New Model Army and during the English Civil War, Daniel Axtell rose through the ranks from captain, to major, to lieutenant colonel.
In June 1644, King Charles I’s wife, Queen Henrietta Maria, and their newborn daughter, Henrietta Anne, fled to France, her native country, so she would not fall into the hands of the Parliamentarian army. In France, she could raise funds to support her husband’s Royalist army. Queen Henrietta Maria was daughter of King Henry IV and Queen Marie de’ Medici of France, and the sister of King Louis XIII. A year before her arrival, her brother Louis had died from tuberculosis and he was succeeded as king by his four-year old son, who became King LouisXIV. The French court welcomed the aunt and new-born cousin offering them sanctuary.
The next year, on June 14th, the Parliamentarian New Model Army, under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell, defeated the main Royalist army under King Charles I and Prince Rupert at the Battle of Naseby. The Parliamentary victory led to the king’s capture.
In January 1649, Charles was put on trial for high treason before a special court set up by Parliament. Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Axtell served as Captain of the Guard, commanding the soldiers who kept order inside Westminster Hall.
Raised in strong Puritan belief, Daniel may have seen his role at the king’s trial less as a soldier and more as someone carrying out what he believed to be God’s judgment.
Fifty-nine commissioners signed the King’s death warrant. The majority were members of Parliament. Daniel Axtell’s role as Captain of the Guard did not call for him to sign the warrant.
Oliver Cromwell died in 1658 and was succeeded as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland by his son, Richard. Richard lacked his father’s authority and stature, and the Commonwealth unraveled.
King Charles’ eldest surviving son, living in exile, was invited to restore the monarchy. He became King Charles II of the three kingdoms, England, Scotland and Ireland.
Upon becoming king, Charles sought vengeance for his father’s death. Although Daniel Axtell did not sign the King’s death warrant, he played a significant role in the trial. He was captured, tried, and sentenced to be executed. On October 19, 1660, Daniel Axtell was hanged, drawn and quartered.
Even at the gallows, Daniel Axtell bore the weight of his name. Like the prophet for whom he was likely named, he stood convinced that he had acted in the service of God’s justice, not man’s law. He died without apologizing, a final act of loyalty to the cause he believed just.
Some sources refer to a daughter who was eight at the time of her father’s execution. The story goes that her father had written her a letter while he was in prison berating her for never having visited him. Researchers have never located baptismal or legal records for this child. Many believe that she was a Restoration-era invention, designed to further tarnish the reputation of her father, the regicide.
Many in England did not share Daniel Axtell’s belief that the trial and execution of Charles I were acts of divine justice. History would remember him as one of the regicides, the men directly responsible for executing a king.
In 1663, King Charles II granted a charter to eight Lords Proprietors as a reward for their support in restoring him to the throne. The charter granted land that stretched from what is now Virginia to Florida. The colony was named Carolina after Charles I, Charles II’s father. The proprietors were granted near-sovereign control of the land including the authority to create laws, establish courts, collect taxes and distribute the land.
The Lords Proprietors created a hierarchical, plantation-based society beginning with a hereditary noble title, Landgrave, a noble class who ruled over the large estates. They were supported by lesser titled nobles called Caciques, and followed by freemen, indentured servants, and finally enslaved Africans. Landgraves were to receive up to 48,000 acres of land in perpetuity, often along rivers and other prime locations.
. . . . .
In 1659, Daniel Axtell (1640-1683), the son of Daniel Axtell, the regicide, married Rebecca Holland (1638-1720). They had seven children, two boys and five girls:
Sibilla (1661-1686)
Daniel (1662 -1680)
Mary (1663-1765)
Holland (1665-1692)
Rebecca (1667-1749)
Elizabeth (1670-1725)
Ann (1672-1751)
In about 1680, during the reign of Charles II, Daniel, Rebecca and a number of their children fled to the Carolina colony after their house in Stoke Newington, England, was searched for seditious libels.
In 1682, the Lords Proprietor awarded Daniel, even though he was the son of the regicide, the noble title of Landgrave for bringing a number of settlers, mainly nonconformist Protestants, to the Carolina colony. The title of Landgrave came with 3,000 acres of land in perpetuity. This land was along the Ashley River in what is now near Summerville, South Carolina. Daniel’s wife, Rebecca, became Lady Rebecca Axtell. They established a plantation that they named Newington.
When Daniel Axtell died in 1683, the title of Landgrave passed to his second son, Holland. Daniel’s older son, Daniel, who would have inherited the Landgrave title had he not died at sea in 1680 on his way to the colony.
Holland Axtell died in 1692, without heirs. This ended the Axtell surname in the Carolina colony and the line that stemmed from his great grandfather, William Axtell, the regicide’s father. Lady Rebecca Axtell, Holland’s mother, continued to live on the Newington Plantation on the Ashley River until her death in 1720. Her mother-in-law, Mary Marsam Axtell, the regicide’s widow, appears to have immigrated to the Carolina colony in the 1680s and died in Charles Town a few months after her daughter-in-law. The river journey between the plantation and Charles Town was short, and one wonders whether the two women, bound by loss and family ties, saw each other often. Their deaths ended the Axtell surname in the Carolina colony.
Although the Axtell surname in the Carolina colony that traced back to Daniel Axtell, the regicide, died with grandson, Holland Axtell, Holland’s sisters did continue the Daniel Axtell DNA in the Carolina Colony.
For example, In 1685, Holland’s sister, Rebecca (1667-1749) married John Moore in Charles Town. In 1697, they moved to Philadelphia where he practiced law. In 1700, John became Attorney-General for King William and from 1704 to the time of his death in 1732, he was the Collector of Customs. John and Rebecca Moore had nine children.
As a side note, Axtell, North Carolina, is a rural community between I-95 and I-85, six to eight miles as the crow flies or 10 to 12 miles by road to the Virginia line. Although small and unincorporated today, the region was once part of the early backcountry frontier between Virginia and Carolina. The name Axtell reflects the name of an early settler from post-colonial times. Axtell’s proximity to early trade routes and plantations gives it historical importance even though the village itself no longer exists.
Also note that the Carolina territory was originally one proprietary very large colony. In 1691, the Lords Proprietor appointed a separate deputy governor for the northern region. In 1712, a northern and southern region became official and they became known as provinces. They began functioning as two distinct colonies, each with its own governor and administration. In 1729, the Crown bought out most of the Lords Proprietor and North and South Caroline became separate royal colonies.
William Axtell and the Jamaica Colony
Oliver Cromwell envisioned driving the Kingdom of Castile out of the Caribbean. In December 1654, 30 ships and 2,000 men sailed from Portsmouth, England to fulfill Cromwell’s Western Design. The fleet, under General Robert Venables and Admiral William Penn, made a stop at Barbados where they added another thousand men and then sailed to Santo Domingo, Hispaniola, the de facto Castilian capital in the Caribbean, to rout the Castilians. Unable to dislodge them, the fleet moved to the lightly guarded island of Jamaica, one of the four major islands in the Greater Antilles. The English captured Jamaica in May of 1655. Fifteen years later, 1670, the Kingdom of Castile in the Treaty of Madrid ceded the Island of Jamaica to the Kingdom of England.
. . . . .
William Axtell (1616-), the second son of William and Thomasine Axtell, was the brother of Daniel Axtell, the regicide. William married and had two sons, William (1644-1724) and John (-1731) both born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England.
John, the younger son, immigrated to Jamaica and settled in St. Andrew Parish where he married twice. He and his first wife, Joyce, had three children: John (1680), Grace (1682) and Christian (a girl) (1685). He and his second wife, Elizabeth, who he married in 1690, had a daughter, Elizabeth (1691). Most likely, all four children were born in St. Andrew Parish.
William, the older son, was ambitious and studied to be a Doctor of Physic, a physician. By the time he was 28, he would have earned a university degree in the arts (B.A.), a Bachelor of Medicine (M.B.) and a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) at Oxford, Cambridge, or at a prestigious university on the continent. His training would have taken seven to ten years beyond grammar school.
Based on the extent of the required education necessary to become a medical doctor, William Axtell would not be eligible to enter the practice of medicine before 1665 and without the proper connections, would find it difficult to develop a practice in England. Establishing a practice in one of the English colonies was an option and a Doctor of Physic could practice in the colonies without a license from the Royal College of Physicians in London. Dr. William Axtell chose to immigrate to Port Royal, Jamaica.
In 1678, Dr. William Axtell married Sarah Pyatt and they had two sons, William and Daniel.
William, the elder son, was born in Jamaica and he married Elizabeth Heathwood in 1694. Although William was named executor in his father’s will that was probated by the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in London, he was not involved in its 1723 probate in London. William, however, moved to England about the same time and died in London in 1731.
Daniel Axtell ( -1744), the younger son, was a merchant in Port Royal. He, like many of the merchants in Port Royal, dealt in pirated goods. In March of 1715, he chartered three sloops to William Stewart that were bound for the Gulf of Honduras where they were to meet Edward Thache (Blackbeard). The next year, he stored stolen merchandise in his warehouse in Port Royal from Henry Jennings’s capture of the French vessels, the St. Marie and the Marianne.
Then he and his co-owners chartered the Tyger to Jonathan Barnet, the Eagle to John Wills, and the Barsheba to Henry Jennings. In 1716, the Chief Justice of Jamaica ordered Daniel’s arrest for conspiring with pirates. There is no evidence that he was ever arrested but he did continue to operate as a merchant and landowner in Port Royal until he left for London after his father’s death.
Daniel Axtell had married and he and his wife Mary had five children:
Daniel
Joseph
Susanna
Rebecca
In 1723, Dr. William Axtell died in Port Royal at the age of 79. His sons, William and Daniel, sailed with their families to England to participate in the probate of their father’s will in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. Wills involving substantial estates in the colonies had to be probated in London at this court. The will was filed for probate on the 6th of October 1725.
After the probate, both William and Daniel and their families stayed in England where they raised their families.
In about 1740, Daniel sailed to New Jersey where he purchased 2,000 acres of land in what is now Bedminster, township Somerset County. He returned to England and died in Holborn, Middlesex, in 1744.
In 1746, Daniel’s eldest son, William (1720-1795), sailed to New Jersey to dispose of some of the land holdings he inherited from his father. He made his way across the Hudson River to Manhattan where he became known as “William the Gay.” He met Margareta de Peyster (1728-1780), the daughter of Abraham de Peyster, who was socially and politically prominent.
After they married, they lived in a mansion on Broadway and in a country home, Melrose Hall, in Flatbush, Long Island (now Brooklyn).
William sided with the Loyalists during the Revolution and was made a Member of the Council. General William Howe commissioned him Colonel of a corps of Loyalists on Long Island.
Margareta died in 1780, three years before the end of the war. In 1784, William fled to England and his property was confiscated.
William and Margareta had no children but it is reported that he “adopted” his niece, Elizabeth Shipton (1757-1822), who became his sole heir. Elizabeth was the daughter of Rebecca Axtell Shipton. Rebecca was the daughter of William Axtell, Dr. William Axtell’s older son.
William “The Gay” Axtell was the son of Daniel Axtell, Dr. William Axtell’s younger son.
Therefore, since William and Daniel were brothers, Rebecca and William “The Gay” were first cousins. Elizabeth and William “The Gay” were first cousins once removed.
In the casual language of the 1700s, William would call Elizabeth his “niece.” When Elizabeth’s father, Isaac Shipton of Watford, died in 1780, William brought her into his household in what then was described as an “adoption.” Adoption meant assuming responsibility for a younger relative’s future, often with the expectation of providing for them in a will and William did just that.
Later that year, Elizabeth married Major Aquila Giles of the Continental Army. This caused her adopted father, William, not to speak to her for the remainder of his life. But even after this rift, he left her name in his will. As a result, she inherited whatever property he held in England and Jamaica.
With the help of Alexander Hamilton, Elizabeth and Aquila were able to petition Governor George Clinton and the New York State Legislature to enable them to buy back William Axtell’s property, including Melrose Hall in Flatbush. Ironically, the proceeds from her adopted father’s estate may have been used to facilitate this purchase.
Conclusion
Three sons or their descendants of William and Thomasine Axtell carved out unique paths in the New World.
Thomas, the third son, and his descendants made their life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, their roots deepening with each generation. From their early commitment to religious freedom grew a lineage that would one day produce at least a dozen patriots who fought for American Independence.
Daniel, the fourth son, found his calling with Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army, was selected to be the Captain of the Guard at the trial and execution of King Charles I of England. He was executed for his service. His son, Daniel fled England with his family to the Carolina colony and became a Landgrave, a noble in the feudal-like scheme of the colony. His appointment as Landgrave came along with a title in perpetuity and 3,000 acres of land. Daniel, the regicide’s male line, was cut short with the death of his grandson, Holland, who had inherited his father’s Landgrave title and plantation. His older brother had died at sea without heirs, so it was only through Holland’s daughters that the Axtell DNA survived in the Carolina Colony.
William, the second son, died in England and had two sons, William and John, who immigrated to the Jamaica colony. William, the elder son, earned the title of Doctor of Physic and opened his practice in Port Royal. His younger son, Daniel, became a merchant and like many merchants of his time, conspired with pirates to store and sell their plunder. Daniel did quite well and was able to associate with other merchants to sponsor vessels for privateers. A sixth of the plunder for each sponsored vessel contributed to Daniel’s wealth.
Upon the death of Dr. William Axtell, Daniel and William, his brother, and their families moved to London. Daniel spent some of his acquired wealth purchasing land in Bedminster, New Jersey.
After his death, his son, Daniel, went to New Jersey to sell some of the land he inherited and eventually crossed the Hudson River into Manhattan, where he became a favorite of the upper class. He married the daughter of a prominent loyalist family and General Howe appointed him to post support the Crown’s efforts to suppress the independence movement.
So history takes its twists and turns, as demonstrated by the Axtell family. One line of descendants supported American independence. A second line, descendants from a regicide, becomes Landgraves, the new nobility in a southern colony. And a third line returned to England, then joined high society in New York City, to support King George’s efforts to save his America. And they all carried the surname Axtell.
Martin A. Frey
August 17, 2025