John CONLEY

  General Notes:

From research done by Harry Wright Newman, F.A.S.G. written in a letter to Mrs. James S. Conley, 849 Edgewood Drive, Charleston 2, WV, dated April 7, 1945:

My dear Mrs. Conley,

Enclosed you will find the results of my Conley research as well as the census dat[a] on the Freeburns in Preston County. It is regretted that I could not produce a better history of the Conleys and that my trips to Frederick and Washington Counties were more or less disappointing in that respect. But we have the satisfaction in knowing that there is nothing in those places where the Conleys lived before and after the Revolution.

The Conley or Connelly was Scotch. From the time that the House of Hanover was established upon the throne of England by overthrowing or overlooking the claims of the House of Stuart there were continued uprisings or revolts especially among the Scotch or Jacobeans where the Stuarts received their strongest support. From 1702 until the final defeat of the Stuart forces, many Scotchmen had to flee the country and many prisoners taken by the Hanoverians were shipped to the Colonies and sold into certain periods of indenture. Consequently, the property on the other side of these Jacobeans was confiscated and they had practically nothing when they landed in the Colonies.

Maryland received a goodly number of these Jacobeans and a large colony of them settled in what is now Prince Georges County. It is highly possible that the Conleys were among these political refugees and for that reason we can not find much on them.

It is too bad that the Governor did not leave behind us the name of his grandmother, because it may have opened up some interesting connections. I firrmly believe that the father of John Conley, of Preston, County, was the John Conley who went to Kentucky. Recall that Michael Conley stated in 182[4] that he had only one son in the country, and after his death the only heirs were his widow (a second wife) a son of Joshua Conley, so by the process of elimination, John Conley, of Preston, certainly must have been the son of the one who ultimately went to Kentucky.

Received your card about the Martin-Morgan research, and while I have done a little on it, it is too early to make any definite statements.

Thanking you very much for your patronage, I am,

Very Sincerely yours,
Harry Wright Newman.

April 7, 1945

John married Elizabeth? UNKOWN.