Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 196, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1910 — A Corner in Ancestors [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A Corner in Ancestors

By ELEANOR LEXINGTON

Witherspoon Family (Copyright by McClure .Syndicate,

Cosmos Innes, the eminent authority on Scottish surnames, believes that Witherspoon is a name derived from a locality in Scotland. Variations of the name, found in records, are Wodderspoon, Wotherspoon, Weitherspoon, and Widderson seems to be a name rather closely related. If one go back to the old Gothic word vidus, perhaps we get at the origin of the name. From vidus comes the old German witu, and the AngloSaxon wudu—all these —vidus, witu, wudu, mean a grove. “With” is the Danish for grove, or forest, and Wither or Wyther was a tenant whose name is recorded in Domesday book. One who lived in or near a grove would be designated as Wyther or

Wither, or using the word wood for forest, wooder or wodder. Then again, in trying to find an origin for the first syllable of the name Witherspoon—wither is old German for army; or wit is a word meaning knowledge, from which we may have wither. As to the last part of the name—spoon—it may come from an old Roman word sponsus, meaning promised, or a bond. Still again, if we may theorize further, regarding the origin of the name —or the last syllable, in one of the stories of the day, “The Post Girl,”

we find the word spawer, meaning one who goes to the country, or to a summer resort. It seems that this is a word in use in some parts of England, particularly Yorkshire. It comes from the word Spa or Spaa, a town in Belgium, noted for its mineral springs, one of the oldest in Europe, and mentioned by Pliny. A spa then became a place of springs, and is thus used in some verses by Beaumont and Fletcher. We have imported the word, for we often see “Ballston Spa.” or “Saratoga Spa.” Spaw is an old spelling. Is it not possible that what it now “spoon” was once spa, or spaw, and Witherspoon was originally wuduspa, or witherspa—“a spring in a grove.” One who lived near such a locality was designed accordingly, and —well, enough said, the writer merely suggets that this is her theory. One immigrant ancestor, John Witherspoon, born in Scotland, came to South Carolina in 1734 on the ship Good Intent. Dr. John Witherspoon, "signer,” was a lineal descendant of John Knox, and through this line the lineage in traced to Robert the Bruce. A statue of John Witherspoon stands on Landsdowne drive, Fairmount park, Philadelphia, and there is a handsome, modern building bearing his name in the city. His grave is with those of the other presidents of Princeton, in Princeton cemetery. Witherspoon hall at the university, 19 named in his honor. Heitman’s “Officers of the American Revolution” gives the name of Maj. James Witherspoon, son of Rev. Johni of Princeton. He was killed at Germantown, October 4, 1777. Another James —Capt. James of South Carolina—received his commission from Gen. Marlon, April 4, 1782. Strongholds of the Witherspoons in South Carolina have been Wiliamsburg, Kingstree, Abbeville, Sumterville, and in North Carolina, Newbern, among other places. The family have been pioneers in Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida. The coat-of-arms illustrated is blazoned: or, on a cross engrailed, between four crescents, gules, a mascle, argent. A hand holding a laurel wreath, proper (in natural coloring). Motto: Deo JuvantS—God helping, or assisting. The cross and crescents of the arms point to Crusader ancestry: "engrailed” denotes possession of land.