President Theodore Roosevelt Address at Dedication of Underhill Monument, July 11, 1908

“I have known any number of Underhills in every walk of life, men who made their living in many different ways - men belonging to the professions, men who followed the sea, men who tilled the soil, men of means, men who made each day’s living by that days work with their hands - and all of them decent citizens. I won’t say that there are not some Underhills who are not decent, but fortunately I have not met them.”

-          Theodore Roosevelt, address on dedication of Underhill monument at the Underhill Burying Ground in Lattingtown, New York

President Theodore Roosevelt Address at Dedication of Underhill Monument, July 11, 1908

Colonel Underhill, Friends, and Neighbours. It gives me real pleasure to accept this invitation, because I thought it a good thing that the founder of what has become one of the distinctive Long Island families should have a monument erected to him here. I shall not try to speak to you of the career of Captain Underhill - a man who left his mark deep on the history of New England as well as New Holland; one of the men who in the colonial times helped lay the foundations for the nation that was to be  for others will address you upon his life. I want to say just a word or two in greeting you on what his career and the career of his descendants should mean in our American life of to-day. I have known Underhills all my life, on land and on water - bankers, lawyers, storekeepers, farmers, carpenters, blacksmiths, captains of oyster boats, fisherman, pilots - men of every calling and occupation. They have served well in the army; they have served well in times of peace.

The founder of the family here was a good soldier and a good citizen, and the Underhills of to-day have furnished their full quota of good soldiers and good citizens in their turn. If they had not, I would not have been here,  I have no use whatever for the man with nothing but a pedigree, the man the best part of whom is under ground. I believe in the pride of ancestry, but only if it takes the form of making the man or woman try to carry himself or herself well as regards the duties of to-day. If at the time of the Civil War you, Mr. Chairman, had felt that the fact that the original Captain Underhill was a fighter excused you from fighting, I should have thought mighty little of you. The thing to do is to feel (and I guess you, comrade, over there  I mean the man with the Grand Army button  you will agree with me) that if you had ancestors who did their duty it is doubly incumbent upon you to do your duty. I have known any number of Underhills in every walk of life, men who made their living in many different ways  men belonging to the professions, men who followed the sea, men who tilled the soil, men of means, men who made each day’s living by that days work with their hands  and all of them decent citizens. I won’t say that there are not some Underhills who are not decent, but fortunately I have not met them. 

Now if there is one lesson that we here in America ought continually to keep before us, it is our substantial oneness, our substantial unity as a people; and one of the best ways to exemplify that is by just such a family gathering as this. If the family has been long enough in the land, why you will find its representatives in every walk of life; you will find them filling all kinds of occupations; you will find them as capitalists and wage-workers, farmers, mechanics, professional men, everything; and the essential point to remember is that each one is entitled to the fullest and heartiest respect if he does his duty well in the position in life in which he happens to find himself. That is sound American doctrine. I should not much care to attend an Underhill gathering that was limited to capitalist Underhills, nor yet one limited to Underhill wage-workers; but I am glad to attend one where every one comes in on the basis of decent American citizenship, each standing ruggedly on his own feet as a man should.

The same thing that applies to you Underhills here applies to the rest of us who are not Underhills in the country at large.  We have made this country what it is partly because we have measurably succeeded in securing in the past equality of opportunity here. That is very different from equality of reward. I believe emphatically in doing everything that can be done by law or otherwise to keep the avenues of occupation, of employment, of work, of interest, so open that there shall be, so far as is humanly possible to achieve it, a measurable equality of opportunity  equality of opportunity for each man to show the stuff that is in him. But when it comes to reward, let him get what by his energy, foresight, intelligence, thrift, courage, he is able to get with the opportunity open. I don’t believe in coddling anyone. I would no more permit the strong to oppress the weak than tell a weak or a vicious man that he ought by rights to have the reward due only to the man who actually earns it. Very properly we in this country set our faces against privilege.

There can be no grosser example of privilege than that set before us as an ideal by certain Socialist writers - the ideal that every man shall put into the common fund what he can, which would mean what he chose, and should take out whatever he wanted; in other words, this theory is that the man who is vicious, foolish, a drag on the whole community, who contributes less than his share to the common good. Should take out what is not his, what he has not earned; that he shall rob his neighbour of what that neighbour has earned. This particular Socialistic ideal would be to enthrone privilege as one of its grossest, crudest, most dishonest, most harmful, and most unjust forms. Equality of opportunity to render service,  yes, I will do everything I can to bring it about. Equality of reward,  no, unless there is also equality if service. If the service is equal, let the reward be equal, but let the reward depend on the service. And mankind being composed as it is, there will be inequality of service for a long time to come, no matter how great the equality of opportunity may be, and just so long as there is inequality of service, it is eminently desirable that there should be inequality of reward.

But in securing a measurable equality of opportunity, let us no more be led astray by the doctrinaire advocates of a lawless and destructive Individualism than by the doctrinaire advocates of a deadening Socialism. As society progresses and becomes more complex, it becomes desirable to do many things for the common good by common effort. No empirical line can be laid down as to where and when such common effort by the whole community should supplant or supplement private and individual effort. Each case must be judged on its own merits. Similarly, when a private or corporate fortune of vast size is turned to a business use which jeopardizes the welfare of all the small men, then in the interest of everybody, in the interest of true individualism, the collective or common power of the community must be exercised to control and regulate for the common good this business use of vast wealth; and while doing this we must make it evident that we frown upon arrogance and oppression.

You see, Dominie, you let yourself in for a little sermon when you came here. I did not intend to speak as much. I want to thank you for having given me the chance to come over and meet my fellow-Long Islanders, my neighbours, my fellow-citizens.

Captain John Underhill of Warwickshire

Captain John Underhill, son of John Edward Underhill, was born in 1597 in Warwickshire, he fled along with his family to the fortified city of Bergen op Zoom in Holland. His father John Edward Underhill served as Sergeant in the company of Captain Roger Orme. Following his fathers death in October 1608, John Underhill, his mother and siblings lived with a group of Puritan exiles. He received military training as a cadet in service of Philip William, the Prince of Orange. Underhill married Helena de Hooch on December 12, 1628, in the Kloosterkerk, The Hague, Holland. John Underhill was hired to accompany a group of Puritans to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. There in New England, a new chapter in the story in the distinguished history of the Underhill family began.

The Underhill Family and the Making of America

Relatively few families have had a greater influence in forming our American character than that of the Underhills, and still fewer families yet have individuals like Captain John Underhill.

Underhill found himself among the first and earliest wave of a trans-Atlantic progression, immigrating to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. His first purpose was to form the militia for the Bay Colony. Trained in the arts of war under William of Orange, Underhill provided leadership at a time this was needed most. Unfortunately, by doing so this set him at odds with the Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Underhill was outspoken in his defense of Anne Hutchinson, being the first to sign a petition for her defense when she was being persecuted. Neither Hutchinson nor Underhill fared well, for in a short period thereafter both were exiled from Massachusetts Bay Colony.

This began a period of wandering that took Underhill to Stamford, New Hampshire, and ultimately to New Amsterdam where he played an instrumental role in the defense of the later in the Indian Wars. After his distinguished service his reward was land on the parcel of Trinity Church. Underhill developed the reputation of being a “strong man” and posed a threat by his presence to the Dutch authorities of the New Netherlands. As such, his time on Manhattan was brief, before being relocated to Flushing.

There, once again, Underhill found himself in league with other religious dissenters, this time Quakers, who simply sought the freedom to practice their faith in their own home. The Quakers of Flushing were repressed by then Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant. The Flushing Remonstrance was signed by offended by infringement on their freedom of religion by Dutch authorities. Later, Bowne was sent to The Netherlands by the Dutch, only to be returned with the orders to allow the Quakers of Flushing to peaceably worship. What happened to Underhill was a different matter. He struggled with the Dutch authorities, raising the English parliamentary colors three times upon which he was arrested.

Eventually Underhill found his freedom and settled in Oyster Bay on Long Island. From that vantage he played an important role of the overthrow of the same Dutch authorities that persecuted him. There he found himself surrounded by Quaker dissenters, including Elizabeth Feake who was sister of Hannah Bowne, and influenced Underhill to convert to Quakerism. Underhill’s efforts to negotiate on behalf of the local Matinecock Native-Americans led to him being given 150 acres in the present-day area of Lattingtown. There he lived the final years of an active and tumultuous life, dying in 1672 at the ripe age of 75.

Generations that followed used Underhill and his epic story for varying purposes. The first generation of historians including John Winthrop and Jeremy Belknap sought to cast Underhill as a threat to the religious purity of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, heaping various forms of condemnation upon him, including that of being an adulterer. Still, later, in the Revolutionary War era Underhill was recognized as a leader in the defense of liberty, freedom of expression, and freedom of worship.

To our modern sensibilities a figure like Captain John Underhill, while a character with some notoriety in his time, might fit in quite well his fellow Americans as an exemplar of the freewheeling American spirit. Walking the streets of Manhattan today, just as he did over 350 years ago, Captain Underhill might fit right in. This is the legacy of Underhill that is most profound. For by relying on his conscience, and by following through on his beliefs, he made a contribution to the American character and spirit before we even knew what to call it.

To fully understand Underhill, one must take a broader view than merely since the time of his arrival in America in 1630. Underhill was the recipient of a family heritage and story in England unlike almost any other. Members of the Underhill family in England rose to positions of prominence several generations even before John Underhill was born in 1597.

Almost a century earlier in 1509, a moment of great importance occurred for the Underhill family. This was when an ancestor of Captain John Underhill, also by the name of John Underhill (1450-1518), gained the lease to Ettington Manor.

The Underhill family in Europe and America rose to prominence in England during the 16^th century, and found themselves at the cross-roads of important political, social, and economic movements in Europe and America from that time onwards. This brought them into contact with the English court, and leading political, military, and literary figures of their day. Through these connections members of the Underhill family have served as witness to some of the great people and events that have helped to bring our modern world about as we know it today.

The Underhill family finds itself at the intersection of some of the greatest mysteries of the time too, including the supposed relationship between Queen Elizabeth I and Sir Robert Dudley, the emergence of a country writer by the name of Shakespeare, and the mysterious death of Sir Francis Bacon. For one family to be associated with just one of these great issues would be a distinction, but for one family to be associated with all of them goes to show the central role the Underhill family played in important issues in 16^th and 17^th century England.

The Underhill family provides a single string which connects together the stories of Henry VIII, Lady Jane Grey, Queen Elizabeth I, Robert Dudley, Francis Bacon, and Shakespeare. When the family moves to America in 1630, here too they find themselves with leading personalities and leaders including Anne Hutchinson, John Winthrop, and Peter Stuyvesant. As such they may be seen as unifying figures during a time of great turmoil as religious conflict gripped Europe, and as a new American colony was being established.

One of the most fascinating questions is how one family dating back to the 1200’s in the Staffordshire area could rise from relative obscurity to become associated with some of the most important personalities and to be at the crux of important events defining England and later America in the 16^th and 17^th centuries?