The family name of Wade is derived from the Dutch, "weide," signifying a pasture or meadow. The Wade Arms: Shield: Azure, a saltire argent between three escallops, or, Crest: An arm embowed in armor, proper, holding a sword. Motto: Pro fide et patria — For faith and country.
One of the oldest of the Anglo-Saxon families is the Wade. Before the Norman conqueror was victorious at Hastings, Wades occupied positions of honor and trust in the primitive polity of the Saxon heptarchy. Chaucer alludes to the name and record shows the deeds and valorous achievements of the early ones bearing the name. Before the Jamestown settlement was thought of, and ages before the Pilgrim Fathers sailed for this country, Amigel Wade, secretary of the privy council of King Henry VIII. of England, had explored the coast of Newfoundland, and as his monument proudly boasts, "he was the first Englishman to land on the shores of the New World." One of Cromwell's most trusted men was Major-General Wade; his son, Colonel Wade, followed the ill-fated Monmouth to the madness of Sedgmoor. A monument far more enduring than bronze exists to-day in the roads of the Scotch Highlands to the wisdom and generous policy of Field Marshal General George Wade, who was a man of lofty character.
(I) Though the little "Mayflower" bore none of the name, early in the day of settlement of the Massachusetts colony, 1632, came Jonathan and Nicholas Wade, solid yeomen of Norfolk, England, and they settled in the vicinity of the site of Boston. Jonathan Wade had a son named Nathaniel. The father, who was the progenitor of the family in America, died in 1683.
(II) Nathaniel, second son of Jonathan Wade, was a major. He married Mercy, daughter of Governor Simon Bradstreet, of Massachusetts colony, October 31, 1672. They had a son named Samuel.
(III) Samuel, son of Major Nathaniel and Mercy (Bradstreet) Wade, was born March 5, 1681. He married, October 17, 1706, Lydia Newhall. They had a son named Samuel.
(IV) Samuel (2), son of Samuel (1) and Lydia (Newhall) Wade, was born April 21, 1715. He married, 1741, Martha, daughter of James and Dorothy (Wigglesworth) Upham. They had a son named James.
(V) James, son of Samuel (2) and Martha (Upham) Wade, was born at Medford, Massachusetts, July 8, 1750. He married his cousin, Mary, daughter of the Rev. Edward Upham, in West Springfield, Massachusetts, January 15, 1781. He died in Andover, Ashtabula county, Ohio, May 9, 1826. His wife, Mary, was born in Newport, Rhode Island, June 16, 1762, died in Andover, Massachusetts, April 10, 1826. James Wade's grandmother, Dorothy Wigglesworth, was the daughter of Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, who was born in Yorkshire, England, October 28, 1631. He was brought to this country in 1638; graduated from Harvard College in 1651; soon after became a professor there, and was ordained to the ministry in 1656. He died June 10, 1705. Dorothy Wigglesworth was his second daughter, and was born February 22, 1687. She married James Upham, father of Rev. Edward Upham, who was born March 26, 1710; married Sarah Leonard, April 10, 1740. He graduated from Harvard College in 1734; became a Baptist minister, and settled at Newport, Rhode Island, where he preached for many years. He was one of the first trustees of Brown University, and was offered the first presidency; but declined. He preached, leaning upon his staff, until ninety years of age. Children:
- Martha, born August 24, 1782;
- Nancy, born July 2, 1784, died February 7, 1786;
- Nancy, born February 25, 1786;
- Mary, born September 2, 1787;
- James, born June 5, 1789, see forward;
- Charles, born April 22, 1791, died April 17, 1798;
- Samuel Sidney, born May 11, 1793, died November 27, 1847;
- Theodore Leonard, born March 13, 1797, died January 13, 1863;
- Charles H., born December 8, 1798, died June 27, 1885;
- Benjamin Franklin, born October 27, 1800, died March 2, 1878;
- Edward, born November 22, 1802, died August, 1866.
(VI) Dr. James (2), son of James (1) and Mary (Upham) Wade, was born in Friedinghills, Hampton county, Massachusetts, June 5, 1789. He resided and followed his profession in Watervliet, Albany county, and died there February, 1868. He married, in Watervliet, September 16, 1813, Sally, daughter of Ezekiel and Sally Mulford. She was born in Pittstown, Rensselaer county, New York, June 12, 1794, died in Watervliet, July 28, 1834. Children:
- Ezekiel Mulford, born November 14, 1814; married (first) June 26, 1838, Sarah Ann Saunders; (second) February 23, 1853, Elizabeth Hughes, no children.
- Mary Wood, born January 15, 1819, died February 16, 1819.
- James, born January 28, 1824; married, July 14, 1852, Margaret Gillis Uhl.
- Edward, born October 26, 1829, see forward.
- Sally, born February 16, 1837.
(VII) Edward, son of Dr. James (2) and Sally (Mulford) Wade, was born in Watervliet, New York, in the residence on the Troy and Schenectady turnpike, October 26, 1829, died July 10, 1890. He received his education at the Exeter Academy; studied law at the Albany Law School of Union University, and in the law office of Dean & Newland. He was one of the compilers of the well-known fifth edition of the Revised Statutes of New York State. Mr. Wade, although rarely appearing in court in person, did an enormous amount of office business. He was most exact in everything he did, methodical to a degree, scrupulously honest and always thoroughly in earnest. Withal, he was a man of kind heart and most generous impulses, doing much good in a quiet, unostentatious manner in the way of charity. In politics he was a strong and consistent Republican. He was a nephew of Hon. Benjamin Wade, who for many years was United States senator from Ohio, and acting vice-president of the United States. Mr. Wade's practise included the charge of a number of estates of importance in Albany and conducted these trusts with a fidelity even greater than he would have exerted in his own interests, for such was the estimate of the bar on his death. Mr. Wade married, October 27, 1863, Ellen Wilson, born February 5, 1838, daughter of Dr. Sylvester and Ellen Montgomery (Wilson) Carr. Children:
- Edward Upham, born July 3, 1867, see forward.
- Ellen, born January 30, 1873; graduate of the Albany high school, class of 1892; admitted to the State Normal College and graduated in 1895; died of scarlet fever, May 8, 1895.
- Dudley Bradstreet, born July 7, 1880, see forward.
(VIII) Edward Upham, son of Edward and Ellen Wilson (Carr) Wade, was born in Albany, July 3, 1867. He received his education at the Albany Academy, and following in the footsteps of his father took up the law as his profession. He married, March 3, 1892, Anna Bergen, of Fargo, North Dakota, daughter of Theodore Bergen. Children:
- Edward Bergen, born December 28, 1892, died March 14, 1895;
- Dudley Bradstreet, born December 27, 1894, died September, 1897;
- Edward, born March, 1897;
- Dudley B., born September, 1899;
- Richard, born October 30, 1902;
- Ellen Annan, born November 18, 1905.
(VIII) Dudley Bradstreet, son of Edward and Ellen Wilson (Carr) Wade, was born July 7, 1880, in Albany. He received his education in Albany high school and graduated at the Albany Law School; he followed his profession in Albany, where he has a fine clientage. Mr. Wade married, June 27, 1906, Lela Maude Countryman, of Little Falls, New York. They have one son, Dudley Bradstreet Wade Jr., born in Albany, June 17, 1907.
Benjamin Wilson, the great-grandfather of Edward Upham and Dudley Bradstreet Wade, was born in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, November 28, 1763. He married Sarah Montgomery Henderson, born at Castle Montgomery, Ireland, died in Albany, about 1844. He died September, 1849, of cholera. Benjamin, and his brother, Joseph, were coopers by trade, and for many years were engaged in the wholesale grocery business. James, son of Joseph Wilson, established the first grocery business of any importance in Albany, and was styled the father of merchants in that city. He had a daughter, Ellen Montgomery, born in 1803, married, May 29, 1831, her cousin, Dr. Sylvester Carr. She died November 29, 1838. Children:
- James Wilson, born May 13, 1832; resided in Detroit, Michigan, in 1909; married (second) Harriet K. Cobb.
- Benjamin, born 1834; died in San Francisco, 1863.
- Ellen, born February 5, 1838; married, October 27, 1863, Edward Wade (see Wade VII).
The following is a verbatim copy of the data furnished by Mrs. Edward Wade:
"Simon Bradstreet, once Governor of Massachusetts, married Ann Dudley, a daughter of Governor Thomas Dudley. Mercy Bradstreet, a daughter of Governor Simon Bradstreet and Ann Dudley Bradstreet, his wife, married Nathaniel Wade, hereinbefore mentioned, October 31, 1672, and died October 5, 1715. Ann Dudley, the wife of said Governor Simon Bradstreet, and mother of the said Mercy Bradstreet Wade, was the author of the Anne Bradstreet poems.
"Thomas Dudley was born in Northampton, England, in 1576. In 1630, he was sent to Massachusetts as deputy governor; was chosen governor in 1634-40 and 1645; died in Roxbury; was a man of the sternest Puritan integrity. He had a son, Joseph, who was successively chief justice of Massachusetts and New York, governor of the Isle of Wight, and governor of Massachusetts from 1702 to 1715. Joseph Dudley's son, Paul, was chief justice of Massachusetts.
"Anne Dudley, daughter of Governor Thomas Dudley, and the sister of Governor Joseph Dudley, was born in 1612. Her father was attached to the service of the Earl of Lincoln, and she spent much of her girlhood in his castle of Sempsingham. When sixteen years old, in 1628, she married Simon Bradstreet. In 1638, they were of the wealthy and wellborn party who undertook the colonization of Massachusetts. She died September 16, 1672.
"Mercy Bradstreet, daughter of Anne, and Major Nathaniel Wade were married October 31, 1672. To these, with other children, was born Bradstreet Wade, in 1681, in Medford, Mass.
"Bradstreet Wade became the husband of Lydia Newhall, October 17, 1706, and died December 9, 1738. His son, Samuel, was born April 21, 1715; married Martha Upham, daughter of James Upham and Dorothy Wigglesworth, December 2, 1741. These were the parents of James Wade, father of Dr. James Wade of Albany (or Watervliet) and Benjamin F., Edward, Theodore, Charles, and others."