Excerpt from The Lusk Family, A Record of the
Ancestors and Descendants of Willard Clayton Lusk, 1938 by Alma Victoria
Davies Lusk and Martin Willard Lusk, pp. 7 and 8, card catalogue number 929.7
L975L.
THE
LUSK FAMILY
THE ORIGIN of the name and family of Lusk is largely a matter of legend and
conjecture. That the family came
from the British Isles there is no doubt, but no actual record of their Old
World home or history prior to their immigration to America has been found.
The legend that persists in our branch of the family tells that the Norman
Knight John came to England with William the Conqueror in 1066.
After the conquest, in recognition of his service to the new king, he was
given a grant of land on the River Usk in Western England and Wales. He
adopted the name John Le Usk, which was later shortened to Lusk.
A
letter from the Honorable Hugh Lusk, East Orange, N.J. (a relative of Sir Andrew
Lusk, M.P., of London, England), in the Flora Ward Lusk Collection, says:
"Originally,
there can be no doubt, the Lusks were DANES, who came to the West of Scotland
not less than six centuries ago and settled in Ayrshire, where they owned landed
property until the death of my grandfather in the year 1846, when the last of it
was sold....
"In
the time of the Cromwellian conquest and settlement of the north of Ireland in
the year 1656, a younger branch of the family
took part in the settlement of the confiscated territory and recovered part of
the land. You may find marked on
and good map of the north of Ireland the town of LUSK which still marks the site
of this original grant or settlement.
"The
legend in the family
is that the original Lusk came as a soldier of King Haco of Denmark when he
invaded Scotland in the thirteenth century and was defeated at the battle of
Largs, on the Ayrshire Coast. There
is, however, no documentary evidence in support of this.
The name is still well known
and not uncommon in Denmark."
In
the letters of Reverend Davis Lusk, of New Jersey, a Presbyterian minister of
note, Flora Ward Lusk finds this quotation: "Lusk, a native of County
Antrim, Ireland, fled from that Country on account of religious Persecution . .
. Protestants."
Stiles,
in his "Genealogies and Biographies of ancient Wethersfield,
Connecticut," says: "They (the Lusks) were of Scotch-Irish origin,
known as 'North of Ireland men,' that is, men who - or their progenitors -
driven from Scotland by religious and civil persecution, had found refuge for a
while in the northern counties of Ireland.
They were of the stalwart, energetic, liberty-loving and God-fearing race
which, by successive immigrations, contributed so greatly to the formation of
our national character during the Colonial period preceding the revolutionary
war."
THE
LUSK FAMILY
Stephen Lusk was at Newington, Connecticut, according to church records, by 1715. Mrs. William D. Spalding, now deceased, Brooklyn, New York, felt almost certain, from her accurate and extensive research, that he was the father of all the known Lusks in Connecticut. To date no other record has been found to prove it. ...
This page was last updated on 06/30/2005