The Myth of Captain Shaddock and the Forbidden Fruit

http://www.shaddock.ca/captain-chaddock-and-forbidden-fruit

The Forbidden-Fruit tree. From Hughes, The Natural History of Barbados, 1750 The name "Shaddock" can be found in an unabridged dictionary as the name for a fruit from Barbados, a type of grapefruit. Some have called it the "forbidden fruit." The legend goes that a Captain Philip Shaddock from the East India company in the 17th century left seeds for the plant in Barbados, probably sometime after 1649. It was for a plant (c. Grandis) that was native to Java.  One of the versions of the legend I found was in the Tasmanian newspaper, Hobart Town Courier, June 6, 1834, which attributes the name to a Colonel Shaddock who: "carried the tree to the West-Indies, where it flourished exceedingly, and where its fruit has ever since borne his name." However, nobody searching for the legendary Captain Shaddock could find a record of Captain Shaddock in the archives of the British Admiralty, the Hakluyt Society, or the East India company. Researchers assumed it was folklore fiction invented to explain the name of the shaddock fruit. In 1966 H.W. Lawton discovered a reference to a Captain Chaddock (spelt with a "C," not an "S") in a old letter (Richard Norwood in 1860). The Captain's first name and the name of his ship was omitted. By 1987 the mystery was solved when researchers used "Chaddock" rather than "Shaddock" as their search term. The results are published in the paper: "Mystery of the forbidden fruit: Historical epilogue on the origin of the grapefruit, Citrus paradisi (Rutaceae) by J. Kumamoto et al." Here are two other interesting facts. The fruit has also been known as the shattuck fruit. Captain Philip Chaddock's surname also appears as Chaddocke and Chadock.  I should note in passing that there was a John Shattock, merchant,  who plied his trade between Surinam, on the north east coast of South America, Madeira off the coast of Portugal,  and possibly Southampton in England. (I tell his story in John Shattock Visits Samuel Pepys, Diarist.) Could Captain Shaddock have been a relative of John Shattock? There is no evidence of this. As for the shaddock fruit, the paper by Kumamoto et al. suggests that the original seeds would not have produced the fruit now known as the shaddock. It is actually a cross with a variety called "sweet orange." The cross occurred sometime late in the 17th century. In fact if you compare Chaddock Y-DNA with Shaddock Y-DNA you discover that Chaddocks are totally unrelated to Shaddocks or Shattockes (with an "S"). Chaddocks or Chattocks are northern England people, we Shaddocks or Shattocks are from Somerset. Captain Thomas Chaddocke There was actually another Chaddock or Chaddocke to be found in the trade between Britain and the West Indies in this time period. The governor of Bermuda (or the Somer Islands as it was known then) was Captain Thomas Chaddocke. He was a sheriff (1630-1637) and then became governor between 1637-1641. His reign as governor occurred eight years before Captain Philip Chaddock visited the island. The fact that Captain Thomas Chaddocke was an uncle to the Earl of Warwick, who owned substantial property in the West Indies, probably explains how he became governor. However, a Chaddock family researcher, Carol Todd, provided valuable feedback on my speculation. From our correspondence: I am not at all sure that this is true -- about the relationship, that is -- I have no idea of his qualifications as governor. There seems to be a lot of confusion (documented, in fact) between Thomas Chaddock and Thomas Cammock, Jr. There was also a Capt Sussex Chaddock/Cammock, probably Cammock. While it is always possible that the Chaddocks were related to the Earl, I have found no evidence. Were Thomas and Philip Chaddocke related? In my search for this relationship, I found an interesting piece of legalese. It is found in "Suffolk Deeds, Volume 1" edited by William Blake Trask, Frank Eliot Bradish, Charles A. Drew, and A. Grace Small. The entry is dated 27 June, 1646.  Whereas a vessell of mine called the Warwick doth now lye at Boston in New England being left there some yeares since by Capt Chaddocke I doe hereby pr & authorise Capt William Jennison to cause the said vessell to be viewed & searched & her tackle & furniture to be inquired & receiued into his charge. And if he find her meete to be repaired & made fitt for sea without contracting too greate a Charge then to cause her to be repaired & fitted for sea accordingly The chardge whereof I am content the said Cap t Jenison shall repay himselfe out of the proceed of the first voyage or voyadges shee shall make to Sea Hereby glueing power to the said Capt Jenison in such case to set her forth to sea on the best termes & to my best advantage that he shalbe able rendring to mee an account for the same And this course to continue till uppon notice of his pceedings I shall give other order he 78 first himselfe the charge which shalbe by him disburst as aforesaid. And if he shall uppon view & search not find her in a Condition fitt to bee repaired Then I doe authorise him to sale of her & of her tackle provision & furniture to my best profit discounting out of the proceed the Necessary charges by him to be expended in this service & returning the remainder to mee by the first convenience. And I do desire the Governor of New England & all others whom this may concerne to be assistant to the said Capt Jenison in all matters conduceing to this Service Given under my hand & seale this 27 of June 1646  Signed Warwicke & sealed w his seale of Armes   Captain Thomas Chaddocke or Chaddock was one of the early settlers in the West Indies. His story is told in a book published in 1958 called "The Adventurers of Bermuda: a History of the Island from its Discovery Until the Dissolution of the Somers Island Company in 1684" by Dr. Henry C. Wilkinson. I found reference to this book on a family history site for the Chaddock family (http://www.chaddock.net/chadhist.htm) written by Herbert Chaddock. Captain Thomas had a son John, who was also a Captain. Herbert Chaddock tells an interesting story about John, found in the Wilkinson book. Captain John Chaddocke had been hired by the French general LaTour, who had hijacked a large sailing ship from another Frenchman, D'Aulnay. His job was  to escort the ship out of danger by sailing it in a convoy from the Boston harbor to a safe haven, Port Royal (in modern day Nova Scotia).  After two months, with D'Aulnay returning to France, he sailed the ship back to the Boston harbor. Herbert Chaddock tells us what happened next: On Jan. 2, 1644 Gov. Winthrop related this incident in his Journal: Capt. Chaddock, having bought from Gen. LaTour the pinnace that had been taken from D'Aulnay originally, prepared to go to Trinidad when an explosion killed five men of eight aboard in Boston Harbor. Winthrop says, "It's observable that the men fell to drinking that very evening that this judgement came upon them, the second ship blown up by such men as despised us." The body of the man who caused the explosion was never found. All the others were found, as well as those lost on the other boat explosion mentioned, the Mary Rose, in 1640. This man was supposed to have skill in magic and had been suspected of murdering his master on a previous voyage. Subsequently a legend developed of "strange lights and ghostly voices off Castle Island", occasionally seen and heard for years after. Captain John was brought into court and fined 20 pounds. Governor Winthrop did much think much of him, complaining he "had formerly misused others of his men and was a very proud and intemperate man." The Earl had acquired Trinidad and Tobago (yes he was that rich) and commissioned the elder Captain Chaddocke to lead a group of Puritan emigrants to settle there. The colony failed, but the Captain is said to have lived on there and died in the early 1640s. Were the Chaddocks involved in the trade of indentured servants? There were mostly white children of poor British agricultural workers whose indenture contracts were purchased by sea merchants in England and sold to colonists. (See the section servants in the Devon Shaddocks page.) But is there a relationship between Captain Philip Chaddocke and Captain Thomas Chaddocke? Maybe. On the chaddock.net family page I found this reference: In the Journal of Gov. John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony another son of Capt. Thomas Chaddock is mentioned as carrying supplies between New England, Bermuda, and Virginia--Capt. Philip Chaddock.                       Herbert Chaddock wrote his family history in 1976 and was unaware that the legendary Johnny Appleseed of the family was Captain Philip Shaddock. Is Philip, the son of Captain Thomas Chaddocke, the same Philip Chaddock who dropped forbidden fruit seeds off in Barbados, collected in Java? The story awaits further evidence. In the book of Early Bermuda Records by Hallett, we find the following Chaddock names: CHADDOCK, Philip - 1651 attests to will of Henry LONG CHADDOCK, Philip = 1655 - deceased, admin of his estate to widow Rebecca. CHADDOCK, Thomas - 1642 - supervisor of estate of Hugh WENTWORTH of Wk. CHADDOCK, Thomas - 1640 - Dv/Hm wife Mary In "Bermuda Settlers of the 17th Century: Genealogical Notes from Bermuda" by Julia E. Mercer, we actually have the will of Captain Chaddock that provides names of his family (p. 29): Will of Capt. Thomas Chaddock, Feb 8, 1640 Land in Devonshire to eldest son, John. Land in Hamilton Parish to 2nd son, Philip. Grandchildren: Bethsheba & Thomas & John, a silver tankard each. Other grandchildren: John, Elizabeth, Ruth, Mary, Elizabeth and Mary. Daughter Elizabeth Waylett, 40 Pounds for life and then to her 4 children. Wife Marie Chaddock whole estate for life and she to be sole Executrix. Friends Capt. William Sayle and Daniel Wright, Overseers. Thomas had a wife named "Marie." "Marie" can be a Czech, French, or German version of Mary. But I think she was English. In a book called "The Original Lists of Persons of Quality: Emigrants; Religious Exiles", by  John Camden Hotten, we find that Marie Chaddock, aged 20, is provided passage from London, England to the Island of Providence aboard the ship Expectation (owned by Cornelius Billinge). Expectation shows up in other records as carrying cargo between England and the West Indies. The voyage was made 16 April 1635. Is this the Marie Chaddock a daughter of Captain Thomas Chaddock? A relative? On the same passenger list is a Mary Baker, Marie Harrowigg, Marie Goodwynn, Marie Howes, Marie Milward and a Marie Griffinn. You have to assume that Marie was a common variation of Mary. There was a large group of single women on the passenger list. It is probable they were indentured servants destined to for servitude in colonist homes or as wives for young settlers. The will mentions land in Devonshire. I am told by Carol that the reference is most probably to land in Bermuda rather than land in Bermuda. A search for Chaddocks in Devon, England produced no Chaddock births, marriages or other documents. Chaddock's daughter Elizabeth was married four times! The first husband was William Seymour, yielding three children. The second marriage was to Richard Waylett, yielding four children. The third was Rev. Goulding yielding one child. The fourth marriage was to Burrows. She must have been very attractive...in some sense of the word! From the Wilkinson book ("Adventurers of Bermuda"), the death of Captain Thomas Chaddock. p.400: Capt Thomas Chaddock, Esq., Bermuda Councillor, reappointed 1628; sheriff 1630-1637; Governor of Bermuda 1637-1640. Made his will and went to Trinidad with a group of Bermudians in 1640 and died there. In the Mercer book quoted from earlier, on page 176, we find a letter from his daughter Elizabeth, carried by hand by a Lt. Col. Hooth, regarding the disposition of Captain Thomas's possessions. It is dated Oct. 13, 1662. Captain Thomas must have died at some time before that.   There is a small discrepancy in dates from other sources which have him as Governor in 1841. And there is no exact date of his death. So what does all this mean to us Shaddocks or Chaddocks, Shaddicks or Shattucks? Cliff Shaddock, who has been a trove of Shaddock family lore, told me that there is a family story of a Shaddock being a pirate. Apparently Captain Thomas Chaddocke had a brother Sussex who was hired as a privateer by the Earl of Warwick during the war with Spain. So the pirate may not have been Captain Philip Chaddocke, but rather the brother of Thomas Chaddocke. Indeed it turns out that the ship the Earl of Warwick wrote about in the passage I quoted above was commanded by none other than Captain Susses Chaddock. There is a letter written to Governor Bell in 1631: "Capt. Chaddock with 30 men was left on a Western Caribbean island called San Andreas, which is a very fertile and hopeful place and.....will give the adventurers good satisfaction." In the book "Adventurers of Bermuda" he is said to master of the ship "Earl of Warwick" in 1628. There is also a grandson named Thomas Chaddock.  According to Cliff Shaddock there are Shaddock families in the West Indies that are black. Slaves often took their names from their masters, which makes Captain Thomas Chaddocke the possible culprit. In a list of ships crossing between Bermuda and England (ancestry.com rootsweb) we find this entry: 10 April 1637, The "Expectation", Giles Musson master, is at Bermuda, when two negros Sambo and Lucretia are sold to Governor Chaddocke. In the letter from his daughter that I quoted from earlier we find this among the list of Thomas Chaddocke's effects. Captain John Chaddock the son saw to the distribution of the estate and recovered six negroes out of the hands of Daniel Wright and gave a bond to and gave a bond to Capt. Philip Bell, then Gov. of Barbados. How sad I feel in writing these words now. I am going to quote in full Carol Todd, the Chaddock family researcher's comments on the evidence I have marshaled above: Thomas Chaddock and Thomas Cammock Both The Rich Papers and The Adventurers of Bermuda say that Gov. Thomas Chaddock was a relative/uncle of the Earl of Warwick, but there are contradictions. The family tree of Richard Riche says that Frances Riche, sister of the 1st Earl, married Thomas Cammock, and inserts the name Chaddock with a question mark. Cammock documents indicate that there were two Thomas Cammocks: Thomas, Sr. (who m. Frances Rich and d. about 1602) and Thomas, Jr., who d. 1643 without issue. Although the two younger Thomases (Cammock, Jr. and Chaddock) seem to be about the same age, and both were associated with the Rich/Riche family, the information on Thomas Cammock, below, is contrary to information in the will of Thomas Chaddock, which mentions wife, Marie, two sons, and several grandchildren. It is possible that Thomas Chaddock was indeed a relative, but, given the contradictions, unlikely that he and Thomas Cammock are one and the same. It seems likely, though, that Sussex Chaddock was indeed Sussex Cammock. I would also add that The Rich Papers consist mainly of letters from Bermuda to Sir Nathaniel Rich, a first cousin to the 2nd Earl of Warwick, and one who would definitely know about any relatives. However, the reference to Thomas Chaddock as an uncle-by-marriage to the earl is a footnote by the twentieth-century editor, not a reference contained in the letters, themselves. The same is true of the reference in The Adventurers. In fact, I would venture to say that the reference in one book was taken from the reference in the other. There is no account that I can find indicating that Thomas Cammock, Jr. had children.  To Carol's research, I now add the comments of David Jones, who is another Chaddock researcher. In his correspondence with me he adds some interesting Chaddock family oral history: My thinking is that the Chaddocks and Shaddocks are probably one and the same and both originate from the village of Chaddock near Manchester. I think until the mid C19th spelling was a lot less disciplined and often depended on a phonetic interpretation when recording names. With my Chaddocks on Portland ‘Shaddock’ is often used as a misspelling of Chaddock. I’ve found this misspelling of names in documents common with other family lines which I’ve researched. It is however interesting to know that with emigrants the variant names were retained. This must make it slightly easier to track down who’s who. My theory about my Chaddocks is that they originated in the village of Chaddock either as descendants of the manorial family Chaddock or from villagers who had adopted the name. As their descends gradually dispersed to other region of the country the name may have been corrupted to its many variants. By the late C16th they may have been seafarers living in Dorset. My Aunt had told me that family legends had Chaddocks involved in harassing the Spanish Armada off the Dorset Coast. Therefore they may have been recruited as part of Capt. George Somers muster of men and ships sent out from Weymouth Dorset on 23 July 1588 to join Lord Howards Fleet and participate in the sea Battle off Portland against the Armada. These Chaddock mariners may also have been associated with Somers and served with him on his privateering adventures. Whatever the lineage or circumstances the next generation of the Chaddocks as you mention had made good connections within the merchant maritime establishment. Capt. Thomas Chaddock and his brother Sussex who both served under Earl of Warwick certainly did well for themselves in the Caribbean colonies. With their privateering and association with piracy they are certainly candidates for our Chaddock legends. However, the buccaneering Chaddock family may not have been as well looked upon after 1660 when the Parliamentary English Republic failed and Charles II was restored as Monarch. The Earl of Warwick had been a friend and ally of Cromwell, securing the English Navy on the side of Parliament and although he died before the Restoration his family and his associates would have paid a price for their allegiance to Parliament. After the Chaddock family possible fall from grace they may not have enjoyed such high status and had to rebuild there reputation. The will and family of Capt. Thomas Chaddock are also of great interest. Thank you for researching them. The grandchildren are of particular interest as I see there is a Thomas & John Chaddock amongst them who would both be candidates to father the brothers born on Portland circa 1700. One of which was my Ancestor. These grandsons may have continued the maritime tradition. They may have sworn allegiance to the crown and served in the Royal Navy. They may have been attached to the Naval Docks in Portland and one of them ended up in Portland either retired from the Navy or establishing a family. I’m aware this is all a big ‘May Have’ and the theory would need a lot more research, but until my retirement it will suffice to support the family legends. Lemuel Shattuck and the Chaddocks The genealogist of the Shattuck family in his 1855 book "Memorials of the Descendants of William Shattuck" provides a useful index to the use of the Chaddock name in early New England (p.9): Chaddock, or Chadduck, as a distinct name, has been occasionally, though rarely borne, by persons from the first settlement of New England. Winthrop, in 1643, makes mention of "one Captain John Chaddock, son of him that was governor of Bermuda, a godly gentleman." There was a Thomas Chaddock of Newbury, who married Sarah Walcott in 1674. Elias Chaddock (sometimes written Shaddock and Shadock) died in Windsor, Conn., in 1676, leaving a daughter Hannah, and a widow Hannah who married, in 1678, Benjamin Egelson. James Chadduck was paid, in 1676, by the governor at Hartford, £5 "for his services as commissioner, besides his soldier's pay." Samuel and John Shaddock were taxed in Boston in 1695. What the true name in these cases was, whether Chaddock, Shattuck, or Chadwick, or whether they were, or were not, all one name, is uncertain. Rev. Calvin Chadduck, who was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1791, and afterwards lived in Rochester and Hanover, and died in Virginia, (see Barry's History of Hanover, pp. 70, 93, 263,) was father of E. N. Chaddock, once of New Bedford, and now of Boston. His mother, Malatiah, died in the latter place, October 5, 1854, aged 84. The father of Rev. Calvin was Joseph Chadduck of Brookfield, and his grandfather is said to have been of Reading, and his original name is supposed to have been Chadwick. David " Shaddock," probably a descendant of this Joseph, now of Buffalo, was the son of Isaac Shaddock, and born in Boston. Is there a connection between the Shaddocks and the Chaddocks? Probably the only way to find out is through DNA testing. The earliest reference to a Chaddock I have been able to find using "Chaddock" and its variants as my search term is Philip Chaddock born in 1537 in Northampton All Saints (Northampton), England in the Northamptonshire and Rutland Probate Index. The earliest Shattocke and its variants reference is a court case in London involving a Shattocke in Berkshire. They are 160 miles (or 260 km) apart. Unlikely family members, but not impossible. No Chaddock tested so far has shown to be related to Shattockes. Although the two names are often confused as the legend of Captain Shaddock and the Forbidden Fruit proves, Chaddocks who trace their ancestry back to northern England have so far been tested to be unrelated.