Sowing the Quaker Oats

My first cousins number over forty. Quite a lot and with a big age range. Not too unexpected though, in this traditional and mostly Roman Catholic extended family.
And, it could have been even a greater number had not my parents been a pair of a "sisters that married brothers" foursome.
Family gatherings and reunions on both sides were always well populated.

In today's ramble, I am returning to one heavy limb of the ancestral family tree that I share together with my two sisters and twenty-nine of my many first cousins.
Disclaimer: this is by no means a scholarly treatise but rather, a casual sum of results from my bouncing around on the internet.

Born a Protestant, my ancestor Thomas Wynne most likely converted to Quakerism at the time he married his first wife, Martha Buttall. He embraced the Quaker faith with full enthusiasm, authoring pamphlets, being persecuted and even imprisoned, according to that fountain of global information, Wikipedia.
His daughter, Sidney Wynne married William Chew, also a Quaker.
William and Sidney Wynne's daughter, also Sydney, married Charles Pierpont the senior. Charles was a Quaker.
William and Sidney's daughter Ann married Christopher Randall, maybe not a Quaker.
Charles Pierpont, Jr., son of Charles and Sidney Chew, married Johanna Randall, daughter of Christopher Randall and Ann Chew.
So, Charles the second married his first cousin, Johanna!

Charles Pierpont number two was apparently expelled from the Quaker meeting. My guess is it could be because when he married Johanna, he may have married outside of the Quaker faith, which I learned was a big no-no. While Johanna's mother was born a Quaker, her father Christopher Randall may have had Anglican (Episcopalian) roots since a later Christopher, was a prominent member of St. Thomas, a chapel of ease in Garrison, an extension of St. Paul's parish of Baltimore, gleaned from an online source.
But, not to worry. Charles, jr., in a letter, asked for acceptance for himself and his family back into the Quaker fold. All was forgiven apparently, since some of his children's weddings were witnessed at meetings some years after the date of his expulsion. The Quakers kept some detailed records of their early meetings.

The Quaker tradition continues somewhat with the marriage of Charles and Johanna's daughter, Mary Pierpont to Felix McCurley of Baltimore. Felix was the son of Patrick McCurley and Sarah Webb. Sarah appears to have roots with the Fawn Grove Quaker meeting, near York, PA, (according to another website) but I'm not sure what Felix's affiliation was.
Felix and Sarah were parents of a second Felix whose daughter Felixena, married my Phelps great great grandfather. By the time of this union, the Quaker influence maybe had come to its definite end.

My Quaker forebears were quite prolific.
Thomas Wynne, Sidney's father, had nine children.
William Chew, son of Samuel, was one of eleven.
There was a bit of a dry spell when Anne Chew and the possible non-Quaker Christopher Randall were blessed with just three heirs.
Anne's sister Sidney and her husband Charles produced fourteen little Pierponts.
The family of their son Charles and his cousin Johanna numbered nine more Pierponts. Not a bad number considering that the Quaker Chews may have been shorted a few more descendants when these two first cousins united in marriage.
Their daughter Mary, together with Felix the first, were parents of eight.
My great-great-grandfather, William Clagett Phelps, was just one of two, possibly because his mother, Felixena had died at a young age but she was one of seven born to the second Felix and wife Ann Rebecca.

I am one of many, added to the tiers of second, third, fourth and more cousins, together with those mysterious 'times removed' people, all too numerous to count.
And, while the original Quakers may have been diluted over hundreds of years, their descendent family pot continues to bubble with a porridge of progeny.