Sources of information
It is always great when the volunteers in the History Research Group find new sources of information and evidence about the families who lived on the Middleton Estate.
As well as looking in published sources and on-line we have also taken a trip to the National Library in Aberystwyth, but this time we only had to go down the road to Llanarthne Church to find out more about Edward Adams and his family.
Memorials in Llanarthne church
In Llanarthne church, on the wall opposite Sir William Paxton’s memorial, there is another memorial linked with Middleton Hall. This one is to the memory of Edward Hamlin Adams who bought the estate in 1825 following Paxton’s death. The memorial provides a wonderful potted history of the family and their roots.
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Edward Hamlin Adams was a merchant and banker, said to have “made his own fortune from a variety of business ventures, some of a questionable nature”. While his family had been settled in Barbados since the 17th century his wife Amelia Sophia’s family, although she was born in the U.S.A., had Scottish roots. Her father Captain John Mac Pherson has been described as a privateer or perhaps a pirate. According to John Adams, the second president of the United States and as far as we know so far no relation, Macpherson had had “an arm twice shot off”. Macpherson’s family had left Scotland during the Jacobite rebellions during the 17th century.