ed at Head of Elk (Cecil Co.), in Maryland in August of that year.  By
the way, that was where Henry2 Hollingsworth had lived, and died in
1721, and we are told by Stewart and others that the Brits made off with
much of his surviving surveyor's equipment and books, probably because 
his descendants were very prominent among the rebel.
    A guard was put on the New Castle records, and then they were put
on a boat heading, it is said, for safety. But that vessel was captured 
by the English. Then came the splitting up of, or destruction of, these
records. That was on 13 Sept 1777. Thomas McKean, in his report to the 
General Assembly on Oct. 22nd says "... I found, that all the records 
and public papers of Newcastle County, ... had been captured in a schooner
at Wilmington at the same time the President (John McKinly, President 
of the Delaware State-HH) was taken by the enemy."
    The article goes on to show how painstaking officials were to recover
the valuable records.  Some were in Philadelphia, others in the South 
Carolina area, found in the office of the Secretary of State there. 
However, it was shown that many of them were lost or destroyed at 
Philadelphia.
    An inventory of what existed before the capture shows that there
were ten books of wills, 1676-1777, turned over in March, 1777, by
Theodore Maurice, a Loyalist Register of Wills, to his successor. The
film roll # 006,539, of the Mormons contains Volumes A-K, covering  
1682-1777, which gives 10 books, there being no Vol. J. There is also,
as stated before, a volume called Miscellaneous No. One.
    So what conclusions do you draw? Can Valentine Hollingsworth, Sr.
have actually penned a last will, which was duly probated, only to be 
burnt before 1735, or lost or destroyed in 1777? A very tedious study
of surviving data, and inventories, etc., may actually supply an answer, 
one way or the other.

    Madelyn Clark brought our attention once more to the 2 volume work 
The Welcome Claimants, published by the Welcome Society.  Vol. 2 was a 
veritable tome, the product of the late George E. McCracken, who probably
laid to rest most of the false claims of many passengers to America, false
claims made by their descendants, that they came with William Penn on his
flagship, The Welcome.  Dr. McCracken enlisted our help with 
Valentine Hollingsworth, and he used one of our manuscripts, as well as
other data (see pp. 250-253 and 608 of Vol 2 of said work), using our
"old name" of Henry Hollingsworth.  But we never owned a copy and now, 
perusal, mainly of Vol. One, the majority of which was the work of Marion
R. Balderston, reprinted by permission from a Huntington Library publica-
tion of 1962, prompts this discussion.
    
    Therein is a virtually complete list of the ships which Penn's Quakers
used to emigrate from the British Is1es to his new colony in 1681-83.
The Antelope of Belfast, Edward Cooke, master, is the only vessel in the 
list In 1682 which had any Irish connections, insofar as the records show.
Nearly all the ships loaded in English ports, and Marion Balderston 
examined these records (call or class series E 109/) at the Public Record
Office, Chancery Lane, London. Port books do not list passengers per se,
but do list names of those who loaded taxable goods aboard any outbound 
shipping.  Again, and very sadly, the collection of Port Books doesn't
come down to the 19th century, as searched for your editor recently by 
Mr. Frank Phillips of London. (My ances-