NOTES FROM OLD ENGLISH RECORDS.

People will not look forward to posterity who never

Look backward to their ancestors. -- -- BURKE.

Radulphus de Dolieta, Testemonio: For forgiveness of misdeeds of himself and his predecessors and successors he grants in the time of William, King of England, to the Monks of St. Michael for the brotherhood and the prayers of St. Michael and the Monks, his servants, all the dues on his lands, etc. [Recorded in original charters in archives of La Manche, Abbey of Mont St. Michael for Benedictine monks in Diocese of Avranche, France, A.D. 1085-1087.]

NOTE: Dolieta is said to have been the name of a place on the coast of Normandy, probably in the province of Manche (which included the peninsula on which Cherbourg is located) near the town of Avranches and the neighboring Mt. St. Michael; and this Rudolp of Dolieta, a Norman noble, who accompanied the conqueror appears to have been the progenitor of all our family in England.

William, son of Alan Dolatel or Dolitel, is mentioned m8d. Patent 7, Edward 1. [year 1279].

Robert Dolittel for some offense was granted a royal pardon "by reason of his services in Scotland." Guilford. Jan.20 Calendar of Patent Rools 31, Edward I.[year 1303].

Thomas Dolittle of Ketherminster [Worcestershire] proclamation Oct. 20, 1578. Worcester Wills, part II., Vo. I., Fol. 326.

Thomas Dolitell of Kederminster, Cave(Vp6w6n?t, Apr. 2, 1579; Vol. VI., Fol. 391.

Thomas Dolitill, Kederminster; will admin., 19 June, 1579; Worcester Wills, Vol. VI., Fol. 107.

Hunfrey Dolitle at Stone, Worcestershire. Will adm. 31 July, 1582; Worcester Wills, Vol. VI., Fol. 120.

John Doli`tle, at Bromisgrove, Worcestershire. Will adm. 26 Feb., 1585; Vol. VI., Fol. 140.

NOTE: These are from a complete list of wills granted in the Consistory Court of Bishop of Worcester, 1439 to 1642.

Thomas Doolitlie of Kidderminster. Name appears on Roll of 39 Elizabeth [year 1597].

George Doelittell, Middlesex, plaintiff in a suit regarding money matters. Chancery proceedings, Series II., bundle 266 [year 1600].

John Doolittle, lincesed to alianat; 15James I. [year 1618].

William Doolittle and his wife, Jane, resided at Kidderminster in 1630.

Thomas, their son, was bapt. there Oct. 20th of that year.

Anthony Doolittle, a glover was living at Kidderminster in Worcestershire about 1630. He was married and had at least three sons, and is mentioned as an "honest and religious" citizen.

Rev. Thomas Doolittle, M.A., a very prominent Nonconformist tutor and divine, third son of Anthony (above), was born at Kidderminster in1632, or the latter part of 1613. While at the grammar school of his native town he heard Richard Baxter preach as lectures in1613 the sermons afterwards published as "The Saints' Everlasting Rest," which produced his converssion and formed the ground for that peculiar esteem and affection which he would often express for that holy man as whom God had made his spiritual father. Through the wish of his friends that he be educated for the law, he was placed with a country attorney, but scrupled at copying writings on the Sabbath, and returned home to his father, complaining of the wound it had made in his spirit, and added that he could no more think of returning to the place or of applying himself to anything else as the business of his life, but serving Christ in His work of the gospel. Mr. Baxter, it is said, had great regard and affection for the boy, and considering him a promising youth, encouraged him to study for the ministry, and sent him Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where he made such proficiency in learning as fully answered Mr. Baxter's expectations. He went to the University June 7, 1649, at the age of seventeen "under the privilege and blessing of a tender conscience and heart set right with God; and as he improved in learning he grew also in grace, which qualified and disposed him to lay out his accomplishments to the honor of his Lord." After taking his degree of master of arts at Cambridge, he went to London, where he was soon taken notice of for his earnest and affectionnate preaching, and in preference to other candidates was chosen (1653) as their pastor by the parishioners of St. Alphage, London Wall. He received Presbyterian ordination. In after years he would refer to the great concern he was under, upon the occasion, in deep sense of the weight of the work and from the consideration of his youth. He asked counsel of God and applied himself with all his might to the work which was so blessed that, to old age he was wont on proper occasions to remember with thankfulness the divine power that attended his ministrations at his first setting out. Sometime after his settlement here, he married a very prudent and pious gentlewoman, who proved a noble and affectionate life companion through those persecuting times.

In the passing of the Uniformity Act (1662) he studied it prayerfully and acting conscientiously became a Nonconformist. Faithfulness to God made him prefer reproaches, contempt, straights and persecution to worldly advantages and plenty in a way he regarded sinful. Although poor, he, with his wife and three little children, left his parish and source of income. The day after he preached his farewell sermon one of his parishioners presented him with 20/, saying it was something with which to by bread for the children, as an encouragement to his future trust.

He removed to Moorfield and opened a boarding school, which succeeded so well that he took a larger house in Bunhill Fields. At the time of the plague (1665) he moved his school to a safer locality a Woodford Bridge by Epping Forest, and of his household of thirty, none became ill. His consoling letter to friends in the stricken districts of London was published by them under the heading, " a Spiritual Antidote in Dying Times". After the great fire which followed the plague, he returned to London. His zeal led him to erect a meeting house near his dwelling in Bunhill Fields, and later a large commodious place of worship in Mugwell street, (the first of the kind in London, if not in England).

Here he preached with marked success to a numerous congreagtion, for he would not accept the Act of Uniformity as a discharge from the minisrty. How erver, he was not left undisturbed. The Lord Mayor sent for him giving his word of honor that he would not be detained. Mr. Doolittle called upon his lordship, who endeavored to dissuade him from preaching, intimating the danger he might otherwise be in. But he told his lordship he was satisfied of his right and call to preach the gospel, and could not promise to desist, and in the way of his duty could trust Provindence with his person and concerns. On the following Saturday a company of the King's train band attempted to seize him at midnight, but as they were breaking open his house-door he escaped over a wall to a neighbor’s, and they searched in vain. In the morning he returned preparing to reach, but as similar action was also taken against some of his colleague, he was persuaded to yield his pulpit to another minister for that day. However, the service was broken up by a company of soldiers, whose officer entered and cried aloud, "I command you in the King's name to come down." The minister retorted: " I command you in the name of the King of Kings not to disturb His worship." The meeting was broken up and a guard stationed there to prevent services and later it was used as the Lord Mayor's chapel.

On the indulgence granted by the King in 1672, Mr. Doolittle took out a license for his meetinghouse. The original document was long to be seen in the vestry, where he used to preach, and is believed to be still preserved. Again he resumed his preaching, for he made religion his business, and was never so happy as when engaged in its duties. Scare anyone spent more time in the study than he. He also took a large house in Islington and started an academy, where he fitted young men for ministry, among whom was his son, Samuel. When the King's license was recalled in1673, Mr. Doolittle moved to Wimbleton and here some of his pupils followed him, and continued to seek instructions from him privately. He kept himself from public notice as much as possible, being sued in the crown office for several hundred pounds "for the heinous repeated offenses of teaching and preaching the gospel." Here, one day, when out riding, a military officer seized his horse and stopped him. Mr. Doolittle asked what he meant by stopping him on the King's highway. The captain looked earnestly at him, suspecting him to be a minister, but not being certain, let him proceed, but threatened he would know " who that black devil was" before he was three days older. On the third day the singular incident occurred that this same captain choked to death while at dinner.

He returned to Islington before 1680, but in 1683 was again dislodged, and removed to Battersea, and later to Chapham. At times his home was rifled and his goods sold. His person was often in danger, but he providently escaped and was never imprisoned.

The emigratiom destroyed his academy, but not before he had contributed to the education of several men of mark. Mathew Henry, Samuel Bury, Thomas Emlyn and Edmund Calamy, D.D. were among his pupils. Two of his students, John Kerr, M.D., and Thomas Rowe, achieved distinction as Nonconformist tutors. In 1687, Mr. Doolittle lived at St. John's Court, Clerkenwell, and though the academy was at an end he still received students for the ministry until the death of his wife.

The Toleration Act of 1689 allowed him to resume his services at Mugwell street, where he continued up to the close of his life, preaching twice on Sundays and lecturing on Wednesdays "a faithful preacher and pastor, watching for souls as one who must give an account." He felt very keenly the loss of his wife in 1692 in the fortieth year of their married life, and it occasioned his preaching and publishing those discourses which he called "The Mourner's Directory." They had three sons and six daughters, but in 1723 all except one daughter were dead. One daughter married a Mr. Sheafe and had a son living in 1775.

Mr. Doolittle's death came after a very brief illness, sparing him the inactivity of declining years, which he dreaded. He preached with great vigor on Sunday, May 18th, from the text I. John v:4, took to his bed in the latter part of the week, lay for two days unconscious, and died May24, 1707, in the fifty-third year of his ministry, being the last survivor of the London ejected clergy. The burial was at Bunhill Fields. It is said of him, "He was a very worthy and diligent divine," "won considerable renown as an author of books on practical divinity" and "was so well known by his labors from press and pulpit that his memory is deservedly precious to all the churches." "He made conscience of practicing what he preached to others, and this not only invisible conversation, but in the transactions between God and his own soul." In this connection he preached many sermons on Rom. xiv. 7, 8, and gave ten directions for a holy life and peaceful death, one of which was to enter into personal covenant with God, and accordingly an extensive but impressive and heart-searching covenant, drawn up by and for himself, which he reviewed from time to time, was found among his papers after his death.

Six different portraits of Mr. Doolittle have been engraved. The one accompanying his "Treatise on the Lord's Supper," and reproduced here, was executed by Robert White, who was successful in likeness and gained much reputations by this picture.

A number of short poems are attributed to Mr. Doolittle, among which is one of six verses, commencing, "Dust drawn to the Life, yet dull and shortly dead," etc.

Knightrider Court in the city of London, between Carter Lane and Knightrider street, was formerly called Doolittle Lane and poetry connected with it appears in London Past and Present, page 511.

The following is a list of his works, some of which obtained great popularity and underwent many editions:

· A Sermon Concerning Assurance; 1661.

· A Spiritual Antidote Against Sinful Contagion in Dying Times; 1665.

· A Treatise Concerning the Lord's Supper; 1675. (Has probably gone through more editions than any other book on that subject.) It was also translated into Welsh

· Directions How to live After a Wasting Plague; 1666. (After the great plague.)

· A Rebuke for Sin by God's Burning Anger; 1667. (After the London fire.)

· The Young Man's Instructor and the Old Man's Remembrances; 1673.

· Captives Bound in Chains Made Free by Christ, Their Surety; 1674.

· A Sermon concerning Prayer;1674.

· The Novelty of Popery; 1675.

· The Lord's Last Sufferings Showed in the Lord's Supper; 1682.

· A Call to Delaying Sinners; 1683. (Has gone through many

· editions.)

· A Sermon on Eyeing Eternity in All We Do; 1683.

· A Scheme of the Principles of the Christian Religion; 1688.

· If We Aim at Assurance, What Should They do Who are Not Able to

· Discern Their Own Spiritual Condition; 1677.

· How many the Duty of Daily Family Prayer be Best Managed; 1676.

· A Murderer Punished and Pardoned,-The Life and Death of T.

· Savage; 1668.

· The Swearer Silenced;1689.

· Love to Christ Necessary to Escape the Curse at His Coming; 1693.

· Earthquakes Explained and Practically Improved; 1693. (A sermon following the great London earthquake.)

· The Mourner's Directory; 1693.

· The Righteous Man's Hope and Death Considered and Improved for the Comfort of Dying Christians to Which is added Death Bed Reflections;1693

· A Plain Method of Catechising; 1698. (This was his special excellency and delight.)

· The Saints' Convoy to and Mansions in Heaven; 1698.

· A Complete Body of Practical Divinity; 1723. (This volume, “designed to engage the reader all the way in communing with his own heart by serious application of the end and life of all doctrine," is a large and most pains-taking work being left by him for publication at his death. It was the product of his Wednesday techetical lectures and a commentary on the Assembly's Catechism, which he believed an excellent summary of Christian doctrine.)

Rev. Samuel Doolittle, (son of Rev. Thomas, above) was a student and assistant of his father, and later many years a minister at Reading. Some of his sermons are published. He died 1717. James Waters preached his funeral sermon, "The Christian Life a Hidden Life, Col.iii.,3."

New England civilization has penetrated every State in the Union, and patriotic men and women are found wherever her civilization is found. * * * Cling to your puritan heritage. It is one of your greatest gifts. - -WM. MCKINLEY. Speech at St. Albans, 1897.

The heredity surname, the name of the family handed on from sire to son, was at the time of the conquest, 1666, unknown in England, and it was only just coming into use in Normandy. The custom made way so very slowly that even at the close of the higher nobility, and throughout the thirteenth the old habit of self designation by the Christian name was still very commonly met with. The Normans brought the fashion of surnames into England land and the circumstances of the conquest gave it a fresh impulse. Many Norman settlers retained the names which they had already taken from their estates or birthplaces in Normandy, and these "place names" are the oldest surnames in England. At he same time there was an almost complete exchange of the old English proper names for the ones which came over with the conqueror.

Though a name of long-standing in England yet not one of common occurrence, Doolittle is of Norman origin, and belongs to that numerous class of surnames which in becoming Anglicized have by degrees assumed the spelling of those words sounding most like them, but not necessarily having any connection with their original meaning. It is to be hoped that those who have aspired to the dubious rank of authority on the origin of names and have, without attention to the facts, set this down as a nicknames, have not followed such unwarrantable assumptions throughout their work.

It is recorded that one of the members of the expedition under William of Normandy bore the surname of Du Litell or de Dolieta (meaning "of Dolieta," a place on the Norman coast), and various modification of it appear in the old English records of succeeding centuries. "Abraham Dowlittell," who transferred the name to New England about 1640, used the spelling here indicated, and the colonial records also show a wide variety in the spelling of our name. Only three or four instances where the name has been changed have come to my notice, and but one or two families employ other than the usual spelling, "Doolittle." On the contrary they take great pride in the family, and in all sections of the Union have brought honor to our name by enterprise and good citizenship. Many have attained to enviable positions distinguished as divines, physicians, judges, lawyers, members of congress and other prominent officers of trust, as well as patriots in the war of the Revolution and the late Rebellion.

Lippincott gives the pronunciation as Doo'-lit-tel.