[The following Dedication is upon the back of the title-page.]
To Jedidiah Farmer, The following Memoir of our Ancestors, collected from various authentic sources, and with considerable enquiry and investigation, is offered to you as a token of fraternal regard and affection, by your affectionate brother,
John Farmer.
Concord, N. H., January 28, 1828.
MEMOIR.
The surname of Farmer is one of considerable antiquity, and is one of those names derived from occupations or professions, which, next to local names, or those derived from the names of places, are the most numerous.[4] It comes from the Saxon term Fearme or Feorme, which signifies food or provision.[5] But some think it derived from Firma, which signifies a place enclosed or shut in; and some contend for its French etymology from the word Ferme.
The Farmers, so far as my researches will enable me to conjecture, were of Saxon origin, and, in the reign of Edward IV., King of England, were seated in Northamptonshire, where they remain to the present day. They resided at Easton-Neston about 1480. Anne, the daughter of Richard Farmer, Esq., of that place, married, before 1545, William Lucy, and their son, Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, knighted by Queen Elizabeth, in 1565, was the knight and magistrate whose name is associated with some of the early events of the life of Shakspeare. William Farmer, created Lord Leinster in 1692, the ancestor of the present earl of Pomfret, resided at Easton-Neston. Jasper Farmer, one of this family, is said to be the ancestor of the Farmers in the State of Pennsylvania.
From Northamptonshire they seem to have spread over several of the contiguous counties before the middle of the sixteenth century; being found in Leicestershire as early as 1490, in Warwickshire in 1545, and in Shropshire at nearly the same period.
Sir William Dugdale, in his Antiquities of Warwickshire, mentions Richard Farmer and his wife, and John their son, and Maud his wife, to whom, and the heirs male of the said John, the place or parish of Merston-Boteler in that county, was granted by the King's Letters Patent, dated November 23, 1545. He also names Rev. Thomas Farmer, minister of the parish of Austrey in 1542, and Rev. John Farmer, incumbent of the church in Bagington, 1552, and Rev. Richard, of the parish of Ashowe.
R. Farmer, Esq., of Kennington Common, near London, informs me,[6] that his ancestors as far back as he had been able to trace them, belonged to Oldbury, near Bridgenorth, in Shropshire, and that their names were Edward. Thomas Farmer, Esq., one of the Managers of the British and Foreign Bible Society, is of this family. Rev. Hugh Farmer, the learned author of the Dissertation on Miracles, and other theological works, was of Shropshire, and was born at a place called Isle Gate, belonging to a small hamlet almost surrounded by the river Severn, a few miles from Shrewsbury.[7]
The branch of the family traced in the following pages was formerly seated in Leicestershire, on the borders of Warwickshire; and, about 1500, were living in the village of Ratcliffe-Cuiley, near Witherly. Of those who resided there at that period, I am unable to speak with any degree of certainty, having the advantage of no records, or family memorials. The late Rev. Richard Farmer, D. D., of Cambridge, England, made some collections of a genealogical nature, and from these it would seem, that the most remote ancestor, whom he had traced, was Edward, who is mentioned by Anthony Wood in his Athenæ Oxonienses, and in his Fasti Oxonienses, as being the Chancellor of the Cathedral church in Salisbury, in 1531; which office he sustained until his death in 1538.