In addition, the two public notices of Earl’s work proved to be full of statements that did not hold up to careful scrutiny of the historical record. A 1986 advertisement in The Magazine Antiques for Earl’s 1740–41 copybook identified the artist as having been born in Little Compton, Rhode Island, on January 17, 1704, and further notes that “Family tradition maintained he was a descendant of Ralph Earle, one of the founders of Providence [actually Portsmouth], Rhode Island, and a relative of the New England portrait painters Ralph Earl and his son R. E. W. Earl. In the 1720s, he had moved to Western New Jersey and died in New Hanover, Burlington Township, on November 2, 1751.”1

In a 2010 advertisement for the “Thomas Earl Copy Book” in Antiques and Fine Art, the identification of the schoolmaster as Thomas Earl, born in Rhode Island, was further expanded. “Thomas Earl was listed in a register of freeholders as ‘School Master’ and was a highly specialized ‘writing master,’ traveling from place to place, conducting classes at the local elementary schools and classical academies. Although he found students scattered within New Jersey, by far the most profitable region for practicing his profession must have been over the border of Pennsylvania.”2 No sources were cited for any of this intriguing but largely speculative information.

While there is a Thomas Earl whose birth is recorded in the Rhode Island vital records in 1703 or 1704, he was not the Thomas Earl who died in New Hanover in 1751.3 In his will, dated August 31, 1775, and proved on January 3, 1778, this Rhode Island-born Thomas Earl is cited as a yeoman with a plantation in New Hanover. In addition to making bequests to his children, he stated he was “heir-at-law to a valuable estate in New England, by my grandfather William Earl, which lies about fifteen miles from Rhoad [sic] Island.4”

Nor are there any references to this Thomas Earl serving as a schoolmaster. On November 6, 1727, he married Marcy Crispin (1705–1778) in a Quaker ceremony in Burlington, New Jersey.5 On the 1774 New Hanover tax list, this Thomas Earl is listed as owning 150 acres of land in New Hanover.6 The couple had six children, including Tanton (born c. 1731) and another son called Thomas (c. 1745/46–1811). In the 1779 tax lists for New Hanover, Tanton is cited as the owner of forty acres of land given to him by his father, while Thomas Earl, Jr. had inherited his father’s 150 acres.7

To further complicate matters, some descendants of the Rhode Island-born Thomas Earl erroneously claimed descent from Thomas Earl the schoolmaster. This idea was undoubtedly perpetuated by family historian Geneva Mattis Earl Schafer (d. 1994), who also maintained that the latter was the father of a Thomas Earl who died in Cumberland County in 1811.8

Much of the confusion comes from the fact that, in addition to the Rhode Island-born Thomas Earl, a second person by that name appears on the 1739 election returns for Burlington County. The latter is listed twice as a schoolmaster in New Jersey records—in a 1745 listing of freeholders (landowners entitled to vote) for the Township of New Hanover and in a 1751 inventory of his estate—convincing evidence that he was the creator of the copybooks.9

An important fact distinguishing this Thomas Earl from the other is that the schoolmaster was not a Quaker. His marriage bond, which is not from a Quaker meeting, is evidence of this: “On the 30th Day of September 1736 a license of marriage was granted by the Honorable John Hamilton Esq. President unto Thomas Earl of New Hanover in County of Burlington Husbandman of one part and Judith Bostedo of Upper Freehold in County of Monmouth spinster of other part.”10 How the two met is not known. Perhaps Earl had earlier spent some time teaching in Freehold. Judith (c. 1711–1793), whose surname is also spelled Bastedo and Bastido, was probably the daughter of tavern owner Joseph Bastedo, who was born on Staten Island, New York, in 1657, and his wife, Judith Ryke, also spelled Rycker, born in Port Richmond, Staten Island, in 1680. He was a surveyor and had a license to retail strong liquor before relocating his family to Freehold sometime before 1722 (Fig. 2).

Why the couple chose to marry by license rather than banns is not known.11 Perhaps they had yet to establish a place of worship in New Hanover and did not want to wait. At the time of their marriage, Earl was described as a husbandman, suggesting he was either a free tenant farmer or a small landowner. Having his own plot of land, even a small one, meant he could provide sustenance for a family. With income from seasonal employment as a schoolteacher and other freelance work, the couple probably lived comfortably (Fig. 3).12

Unfortunately, there does not appear to be any record of where he might have been employed as a schoolmaster. Before the establishment of public schools, schools in the province were either privately run or operated under the patronage of a religious denomination. As Quakers placed tremendous emphasis on education and literacy in particular, they may well have been the first to engage Earl’s services as a teacher. In order to meet the educational needs of their network, which reached across towns, counties, and colonies all along the Delaware River, Earl probably traveled far and wide (Fig. 4).

In September of 1740, Earl began assembling his lessons to create a single copybook that he carefully numbered up to page 910. At the time, he was probably away teaching and, not being burdened with chores at home, felt inspired to perfect his lesson book for his students. Given the high-quality King George paper he used, his stipend for teaching may well have included paper, which he often signed and dated (Figs. 5, 6).

That the pages of the copybook were not arranged in the order that he created them in is confirmed by the fact that both page 565 and page 880 are inscribed “Thomas Earl April 1741.” After that year’s term ended, Earl probably returned home to plant crops and to wait for the arrival of his son John, who was born shortly thereafter (Figs. 7, 8).13

As the latest addition to his copybook, page 781, is dated December 10, 1741, he was probably by then teaching full-time in his own neighborhood. This would explain why he is cited as the schoolmaster on the 1745 listing of freeholders for New Hanover.

On October 4, 1751, Earl died intestate (without a will) in New Hanover. On November 2, an inventory of his “money, goods, and chattels [personal property]” was conducted by his neighbors John Steward and John Bullock. In addition to a horse and colt, three cows, two hogs, and a plow, his estate inventory included “the new room with bed, looking glass and table, desk, the parlor with bed furniture and other things, the chamber with bed, the study with books, kitchen with pots and pans and cellor [sic] with cider tubs.” As the inventory suggests, Earl was a man of extremely modest means; his estate was valued at just over £181. His most valuable possessions were his purse and clothing, valued at twenty-one pounds, and the books and other items contained in his study, valued at eighteen pounds.14

On January 2, 1752, local landowners Thomas Emley (who owned 270 acres), Joseph Steward (210 acres), Abraham Brown (170 acres), along with Samuel Woodward, esquire of Crosswicks and the local magistrate, posted a bond of five hundred pounds so his widow “Judeth [sic] Earl” could settle his estate.15

Two years later, Judith married Quaker widower Joseph Norcross (1725–1766). He was a shopkeeper in Hampton, Hanover Township, in Burlington County. Judith served as executor for his estate in 1766.16 She reportedly died in New Hanover in 1793.

But where did her Earl hail from? The first clue to his origins is found in Pliny Earle’s The Earle Family, Ralph Earle and His Descendants, published in 1888. The book mentions a Thomas Earl, “who arrived from England and settled in Burlington, New Jersey or its vicinity sometime between 1720 and 1740. Earl had a son John and a grandson named Samuel W. Earl who was still living in Burlington in 1878 [he actually died in 1875] and had another son Gibtersharp [or Gibterthorpe] who died in Ohio in 1850 [or 1851].”17

In 1791, John moved from New Hanover to Burlington, where he kept a tavern, as had his maternal grandfather, Joseph Bastedo, in Staten Island. In his will, dated February 5, 1805, he names his second wife, Hannah, and sons Gilberthorp, William Norcross (probably named in honor of his stepfather Joseph Norcross), and Samuel Woodward (named for his father’s estate administrator).18 Someone from this family had clearly been in communication with Pliny Earle before his book’s 1888 publication to inform him of their circumstances and that their patriarch’s place of birth was England. However, they were too many generations removed to know exactly when he had arrived, other than to know it was before the birth of his son John in 1741.

Assuming this lineage is accurate, this man may well have been the Thomas Earl born about 1712 in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, twelve miles west from central London. He was the son of joiner John Earle and Elizabeth Hind and the grandson of Thomas Earl, a waterman licensed to navigate boats on the Thames.19 On July 30, 1713, Thomas was christened in the church of St. Saviour in Southwark, now known as Southwark Cathedral.20

He probably attended a parish or local school, where he may well have created the copybook now in the collection of the Winterthur Library. In contrast to the 1740 sheet inscribed “Thomas Earl, Schoolmaster” (Fig. 5), the cover of his earlier copybook is simply inscribed “TE’s book,” as befitting a student. One folio sheet, “The Fundamental Diagram for Astronomy,” is signed “TE” and dated November 24, 1727 (Fig. 9). Other dates that appear in the book are March 19, 1726, February 1, 1727, August 15, 1727, and November 11–27, 1727.

Earl would have been at least fifteen years old when the book was created and living in a place where navigational and astronomical instruction would have been emphasized. As described earlier, this copybook consists of 176 pages on paper watermarked King George II and draws heavily on published English teaching manuals of its time. It is executed in a limited palette. Earl’s relative youth would also be consistent with the simpler lessons and more restrained embellishments contained within its pages (Fig. 10).

On June 21, 1731, at the age of nineteen, Earl signed indenture papers committing to four years of service as a gardener in the colonies, probably in exchange for his passage to Philadelphia. This may have been prompted by worsening economic conditions in Britain.21 As his 1727 map of the “English Empire” (Fig. 11) is based on Nathaniel Crouch’s 1685 map (Fig. 12), one wonders how much knowledge he actually had of his destination.

Earl would have sailed on the London-Hope, the same ship that Benjamin Franklin had sailed to London on in 1724. Captained by John Howell, it departed from London on July 26, 1731, and arrived in Philadelphia on September 30.27 On arrival, Earl’s specialized skills would have appealed to a range of people seeking such services. This was not necessarily a timely business; auctioneer Solomon Goard was still advertising “a parcel of very likely young Men and Women servants” right up until the London-Hope’s departure on November 4 (Figs. 14, 15).28

Although it is not known who procured Earl’s services, given the scope of lessons in his later copybook, it would appear that he stayed in the vicinity of Philadelphia, where there was a major emphasis on self-betterment. In 1731, publisher Benjamin Franklin founded the Library Company of Philadelphia, which was America’s first lending library. From the 1730s onwards, a number of teachers in Philadelphia were giving lessons in the advanced subject matter that Earl chose to include in his copybook.29

Lessons could also be had at the Free School in Strawberry Lane, established by the Quakers as early as 1728.30 As his copybook compares so well to the quality of penmanship, calligraphy, art work, and mathematics demonstrated by pupils at Royal Mathematical School within Christ’s Hospital in London, Earl may well have begun his later copybook after being inspired by seeing a manuscript by someone who had attended that esteemed school.31

That Earl came here as an indentured servant would also explain why the family’s knowledge of his time of arrival—sometime between 1720 and 1740—was so vague. Having to stand on the deck of a boat as bids were placed for one’s labor may not have been an experience Earl chose to share with his wife and child.

Although it cannot be proved definitively that it was the Thomas Earl who arrived from London in 1731 who created the two copybooks, the modest holdings of Thomas Earl the schoolmaster’s 1751 estate, whose wife simply signed his estate papers with her mark, are consistent with someone who first arrived in this country as an indentured servant. Given his premature death and his widow’s subsequent remarriage, it is not surprising that details concerning who created these two copybooks would have been garbled and their history of ownership remains unknown.

Regardless of his incredible artistic talents and devotion to his profession, Earl clearly led a marginal existence. There is not even a record of where he is buried.