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Powers-Banks Ancestry
TRACED IN ALL LINES TO THE
REMOTEST DATE OBTAINABLE
CHARLES POWERS 1819-1871
AND HIS WIFE
LYDIA ANN BANKS 1829-1919 Powers-Banks Ancestry PREPARED BY THEIR SON
WM. H. POWERS
AMES IOWA JOHN LESLIE POWERS
1921 _______________________________ THE LYON CONNECTION The wife of the first Benjamin Banks was Elizabeth, or Betty as she is called in her father's will, daughter of Richard Lyon. There were in Fairfield two Lyons, probably brothers, Richard and Thomas, both well-to-do landholders. Richard was probably the elder. The Lyons were known in Dorchester, Roxbury, and Salem as early as 1635. Richard bought a house and lot of two acres in Fairfield in January, 1654, though he was there as early as 1649. He was made a freeman in 1664. In 1673 is recorded another land purchase. His will is dated 12 April, 1678, about which time he probably died. He mentions sons, Moses, Richard, William, Samuel, and Joseph, the last two being minors; daughters, Hester, married to Nathaniel Perry, Betty, Hannah, and Abigail, each of the last three to receive 40œ when nineteen years of age. Betty married Benjamin Banks, 29 January, 1679. It is thought that Richard Lyon had still other sons, John and Henry. Henry was householder in Fairfield in 1652. Richard must have been born early in the century. He may have been married more than once; his widow was Margaret. Richard was commissioner in 1669. The family seems to have originated in Brabant. For faithful service one of the family was granted lands in Petshire, Scotland, in 1091, to which he gave the name Glen Lyon. Sidney Elizabeth Lyon, in The Lyon Memorial, records the following legend:
"Henry, Thomas and Richard Lyon, Lyons of Glen Lyon in Perthshire, soldiers in Cromwell's army, were on guard before the Banqueting House at Whitehall on January 30th, 1648(9), and they witnessed the execution of Charles I. A tremendous reaction followed the regicide, and many a Puritan and Covenanter patriot of the insurgent army dissapeared from London. "The three Lyon brothers took advantage of a national privilege. They had kinsmen in Middlesex and Norfolk counties who may have kept them in concealment pending a departure of a ship for the Colonies. It is a rational supposition that Henry, Thomas and Richard Lyon landed at New Haven. As there lived John Lyne of Badby, Northamptonshire, England, a supposed kinsman, who had come in 1638, with Eaton and Hopkins, as directors and John Davenport, as spiritual guide, to plant an independent colony on the Connecticut coast. To their hospitable protection came the Regicides, Goffe and Whalley, in later troublous times." Improbable, even the date being against it. Richard Lyon was probably in this country some time before 30 January, 1649.
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