On Christmas Day, 1920, you wrote to the chairman of the
Urban District Council of
Stone (there is no mayor as the town has never received a charter) asking for information about the hamlet of
Meaford near
Stone which you thought was the origin of your town name of
Medford.
Mr. Davis, the chairman, handed on your letter to me.
I have made extensive inquiries about the
Matthew Craddock who (your brochure says) founded the Colony of
Medford in 1628.
There were two
Matthew Craddocks living at the same time, Members of Parliament.
They were first cousins; one was Member of Parliament for
Stafford, the other for
London.
It was the
London [p. 42] M. P. who undoubtedly founded the colony in
Massachusetts.
There is so far no difficulty.
But the real difficulty is that no possible connection can be traced between the Craddocks and the seat of
Meaford at the time the colony was founded, nor indeed until a hundred years later.
I have not seen the birth of this
Matthew Craddock (he died in 1641, just before the beginning of the
Civil War) but if he called his colony on the Mistick River ‘Metford’ I do not think he could have called it after his country seat in
Staffordshire for the simple reason that the Craddocks there cannot be proved to have been associated with
Meaford at all.
Perhaps they were, but most
Staffordshire historians think not. Perhaps
Matthew Craddock was a friend of the man who lived at
Meaford—he himself lived at
Caverswall about ten miles off and he named his colony after his friend's estate.
But the name
Meaford is such a common one that it is difficult to say which
Medford,
England, M. C. named his colony after.
In the
English Colonial Papers, there are copies of letters about the founding of his colony, hut no name is given to the colony.
He was a bigoted Roundhead and a stiff-necked antagonist of Charles I; he had the true spirit of many of the ‘
Pilgrim Fathers,’ I should think.
I admire him for opposing Charles I. I enclose you letters from the proprietors at
Meaford now, the lineal descendants of
Matthew Craddock.
The connection with
Meaford before 1735 can not be proved.
Perhaps you could give me some more information on that subject.
With very kind regards,
Ever yours,
