Page:Genealogical Memoir of the Chase Family.djvu/12

6 and who,—while unable to tell even the names of their grandfathers,—are, or till quite recently were, ready to subscribe money to test the claims of ancestors from whom they cannot and never have undertaken to prove descent. The late Mr. Theodore Chase, of Boston, as the possessor by inheritance of some of the family papers of Aquila Chase, who was one of the first settlers and grantees of Hampton, in 1639 or 1640, was often applied to by persons of the name when the periodic excitement relative to these fancied claims arose. Yet, while he possessed and carefully preserved many records and papers relating to each generation of his family in this country, proving his descent from Aquila of Hampton, he had never himself Instituted any search for traces of his family in England, and was unable to give any information beyond the simple but essential fact,—which, wearied at last by the calls for information that were made upon. him, he caused Messrs. Baring Brothers & Co. to obtain from their legal advisers,—that there were no estates awaiting heirs of the names of Chase or Townley in Chancery at all.

A short time after his death in 1859, the story was revived and inquiries were made of Mr. George B. Chase, by several respectable people of Essex County, who had agreed to raise funds for a new investigation in England;— a scheme, however, which fell at once to the ground on their learning from him that their first course, even if they believed in the existence of the Estates in Chancery, was to find out the names and dates of birth of their grandfathers, of which, all but one of their number were ignorant.

In 1861, Mr Theodore Chase's voluminous Collection