Clan Napier in North America

               Napier is one of the older names in Scotland, recorded in 1243 when a Laird Adam Napier witnessed a deed in Aberdeen. It is possible that he was of Anglo-French origin (the other signers were), one of those knights and clerics that medieval Scots kings invited north to help feudalize and Romanize their realm. Families soon contending for the vacant throne after 1286==those of Bruce, Balliol, Comyn and Stewart--were originally French or Flemish, as were noble houses such as Fraser, Jardine, Lindsay, and Montgomery, among others. They not only wed among themselves but with heiresses of old Gaelic families.

                John Napier, (I have underlined direct ancestors through 13 generations), our first traceable ancestor, held the lands of Kilmahew, Dunbartonshire by 1294 of Malcolm, Celtic fourth Earl of Lennox. After King Edward I of England smashed the Scots host at Dunbar in 1296, Lennox, Napier, and the other Scots nobility, gentry and clergy had to sign fealty to Edward in the so-called Ragman’s Roll. However, Scots soon revolted against Edward and in 1304 John Napier was one of 24 heroic defenders of Stirling Castle that the aged English monarch besieged. After three months the garrison surrendered and our ancestor had to tramp south 400 miles to prison in Shrewsbury Castle, Shropshire on the Welsh border. After 13 months of imprisonment he was released, fined three years of his rents and returned to the Lennox. After King Robert Bruce secured Scottish independence he built a country manor on the banks of the River Leven (Levenax = Lennox = Field of the quiet stream) that flows from Loch Lomond to the River Clyde at Dumbarton. The Hero of Bannockburn’s neighbors were Kilmahew and Lennox. Robert died in 1329, his viscera buried at old Cardross Parish Church-St. Serf’s-also John’s church. He also died about 1329 but is probably buried at his Chapel of St. Mahew, for which his estate was named. He was succeeded by his son, also

                John Napier, second of Kilmahew, who was cited for his service to Matthew, fifth earl of Lennox, slain at Halidon Hill in 1333. King Edward III gained southeast Scotland.   Presumably this John and his son and heir Duncan (note his Celtic first name) were those of that name servicing men at arms in the garrison of Edinburgh Castle between 1335 and 1340. Possibly this John also was laird of Garmyltoun a key point south of Edinburgh on the road to London, and was probably a Burgess of Haddington. He was succeeded by his elder son William (a name of French origin), who was slain and then by his younger son,

                Duncan Napier, fourth of Kilmahew, who also held the lands of Bonhill and Milton in the Vale of Lennox as well as buildings in Edinburgh, of which he was Burgess in 1373. Another son

                John Napier of Kilmahew, became a Burgess of Dumbarton in 1429 and by 1440 was succeeded in Kilmahew and other lands by his namesake son.

                John Napier. About 1457 he was followed as Laird of Kilmahew by his son

                Duncan Napier, who married Elizabeth Musset (originally Montfichet) and in 1467 restored the Chapel of St. Mahew. His crypt may be seen there today. He was succeeded in Kilmahew first by his son James and then by his second son,

                Robert Napier, who married Agnes Maxwell in 1497. He may have been slain at Flodden Field in 1513, as his feudal lord, Matthew Earl of Lennox, was. He was succeeded by his son,

                John Napier, Laird of Kilmahew, who married in 1516 Margaret Sempill, daughter of Sempill of Fulwood. His grandfather was probably Patrick Maxwell, Baron of Newark, across the River Clyde. This John Napier in 1531 received a grant of the island of Inchmoind in Loch Lomond from his kinsman Alexander Napier of Merchiston, grandfather of John Napier of logarithms fame. The two branches continued their connection, although oddly, their coats of arms differed completely. The earliest remaining seals, both 15th century, display Kilmahew arms as three crescents on a bend and those of Merchiston as an engrailed saltire (St. Andrew’s cross) with four roses. Their mottoes also differ: “Virtute Gloria Parta” (Courage Brings Forth Glory) for Kilmahew and “Sans Tache” (Without Stain) for Merchiston and now the Clan Napier motto. This John Napier died in 1548 and his will is the first we have. He was succeeded by his son Robert as 13th Napier Laird of Kilmahew who married Margaret Houston. He died about 1561 and since his eldest son, also Robert, had died before him the title went to the latter’s son, Patrick, a minor. Therefore, his guardian for eight years became his uncle,

                Patrick Napier of Blackthird, Tutor of Kilmahew. He was born about 1522 and married Katherine Noble, daughter of the Sheriff Depute of Dunbartonshire. His namesake nephew Patrick succeeded as 14th Lord Napier Laird of Kilmahew and was later killed at Glenfruin when the MacGregors ambushed the Colquohouns and their adherents in 1603. Patrick the Tutor died in 1586 and we have his will. One of his executors was his kinsman John Napier, Fiar of Merchiston, the future inventor of logarithms. By 1560 Scotland had embraced the Protestant Reformation and the altar lamp at St. Mahew’s Chapel went out for 400 years, as the Napiers embraced the reformed religion. The Tutor’s third son was

                Mungo Napier, Burgess of Dumbarton before 1600 (St. Mungo, aka Kentigern, was the first Bishop of Glasgow and its patron saint). I don’t now know whom he married. He sold property in Dumbarton to a brother in 1603 and disappears from Scottish records. The year is significant because that was when King James VI of Scotland succeeded his cousin Queen Elizabeth and went down to London as James I of England. He was accompanied by many Scots seeking advancement, including Mungo Napier’s kinsman Archibald Napier of Merchiston, son of “John o’ Logs” as a gentleman of the royal bedchamber and later, in 1629, first Laird Napier. I suspect that Mungo went down with him. He was listed there in the parish of St. Andrew’s, Holborn in 1618. One son was

Patrick Napier, born about 1608, presumably in London, and apprenticed there to a barber surgeon in 1623. In 1628 he married Joan Wallis and in 1631 was admitted to the Barber and Surgeons Company of London. He must have entered the service of King Charles I because there is record of him in three royal parishes--Cheshunt Parish, Hertfordshire near the royal hunting lodge of Theobald, in St. Margaret’s, Westminster and St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London. Also, when King Charles belatedly went to Scotland in 1633 for his coronation as King of Scots accompanied by Archibald Laird Napier, Patrick Napier was also up there being invested as Burgess of Dumbarton by right of his father Mungo, hardly a coincidence.   By 1649, the year that King Charles I was beheaded by the Puritans, Patrick Napier was on record as his barber, a trusted post. He survived Cromwell’s dictatorship and was buried from St. Martin-in-the-Fields on November 24, 1659 just before the Restoration of King Charles II. Note that our Napiers as royalists adhered to the Church of England and would so remain until the American War of Independence. The records refer to him as “Patrick Napier, Gentleman,” which was then a distinction. One of his younger sons was also

                   *Patrick Napier (circa 1643-1669), who was apprenticed to Alexander Pennycuik of Edinburgh in 1649. The latter was surgeon-general of the Scots Army that Cromwell smashed at Dunbar in September 1650 and a year later down at Worcester. It is likely that Patrick took part as a surgeon’s mate and was one of the POWs transported to the New World. Certainly he, our first American Napier ancestor, was in Virginia by 1655 and became a chirurgeon in York country. There he married well--Elizabeth Booth was a daughter of Robert and Frances Booth of a leading Virginia family. Patrick lived on Queen’s Creek, York County, Virginia, near the later Williamsburg and also had a 1500 acre plantation in neighboring New Kent County. He died in 1669, leaving a young son.

                 Captain Robert Napier, Sr. born before 1668. He was a planter who owned more than 2,700 acres of land, an attorney and commander of a company of Virginia Rangers guarding the Indian frontier, as well as being a vestryman of St. Peter’s, New Kent, where George and Martha Washington were later married. He married Mary Perrin in 1688/9 and they had seven children. Their four sons Booth, Robert, Jr., Rene’ and Patrick would become the ancestors of most, not all, American Napiers.

*first Kilmahew Napier in America

(CNNA has available two descent charts showing the above generations from the
first John Napier of Kilmahew down through these four sons, please contact: email name here ).