Anne Keith, 11th-great-granddaughter of King Robert the Bruce of Scotland, was the first in this lineage to immigrate to the American Colonies. She arrived in New Jersey in the company of her parents and older sister Elizabeth in 1685 at the age of 11 years old. Her father, Rev. George Keith, had been appointed Surveyor General of New Jersey by his friend and fellow Quaker, Robert Barclay, Governor of New Jersey. Her mother‘s eldest daughter, Anne’s step-sister Margaret Whyte, was 22 years old and did not accompany the family to the colonies. When her parents and sister returned to England in 1696, Anne stayed behind, marrying George Walker of Kecoughtan, a fellow Quaker.
Anne was raised by strong women. Her mother, Elizabeth Johnston, lost her father at a very young age, and was raised by her mother, Barbara Forbes, and older sister Anna. Elizabeth inherited extensive land holdings from her father’s estate as an heir proportioner, because her father had no surviving male heirs. Anne’s father, Rev. George Keith, was not a wealthy man; further, he spent considerable time imprisoned in Aberdeen because of his Quaker beliefs. When he married Elizabeth in 1672, he moved onto her lands. Elizabeth funded the family’s move to New Jersey in 1685, including 2 accompanying servants.
In the 1690s, Rev. Keith developed doctrinal disputes with the colonial Quakers, and decided to defect and rejoin the Anglican church. We suspect that this decision was influenced by the women in his family: wife Elizabeth, daughters Elizabeth and Anne, and step-daughter Margaret.
Anne became a devout and devoted Anglican, leading to friction with her husband George, who remained a true Quaker believer. The 2 came to a difficult impasse over the education of their children: Anne insistent that the children attend Anglican services, and George equally adamant that they not. In 1708, Anne appealed to the Jamestown Council, which struggled over the case but eventually decided in favor of the father, a story told in A Dispute over the Religious Education of the Children.
Although Anne and George continued in their separate faiths, their marriage remained strong. In his journal from 1728, the Quaker Samuel Brownas describes a visit to George and Anne, noting that their relationship seemed loving and peaceful.
George and Anne’s son, George Walker II, is the next of our ancestors in this lineage. Through their daughter, Margaret Walker Wythe, Anne was the grandmother of George Wythe, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Anne’s lineage to King Robert the Bruce of Scotland is documented in her mother’s biography and in the article Details of the Royal Lines of Scotland & France.