Le Montage de Famille

1790-1799

The year 1790 finds some of the known vector families living in Europe.

• The Page family was still in England, though their exact whereabouts in England at that time is currently not known for sure. Our first known Page ancestor, William Henry, was born there during this decade. (A FAMILY RECORD page in an 1873 Page family bible claims William was born in Essex 19 Feb 1797. However, William’s son Ebenezer was listed as having been born in Sussex, England, in New York’s “Town Clerks’ Registers of Men Who Served in the Civil War, ca 1861-1865.” This begs the question:  “Might someone have confused Essex for Sussex?”) There were plenty of Pages living in both counties.

William’s future first wife Martha Sanders or Hudson was born in England earlier in the decade as was his American-born second wife Chloe Thayer. Chloe was born in Braintree, Norfolk County, Massachusetts to parents William and Chloe (Preston) Thayer. This Thayer branch was descended from two Tayer brothers Thomas and Richard, had been in America since 1641, and had originally settled in Braintree. William was descended from Richard Tayer and Chloe was descended from Thomas Tayer, making William and Chloe T(h)ayer 6^th cousins. This William and Chloe took their family to New York state during the latter half of this decade, buying land in Macedon, Wayne County, and Webster, Monroe County.

Some of William Page’s very distant Page cousins had already been in America for about a hundred and fifty years according to Y-DNA evidence, having settled in Isle of Wight, Virginia, about 1680. Distant cousin Thomas Page had been born in America but returned to England to marry Alice Garrett. The couple then returned to America and settled at Isle of Wight. Y-DNA evidence points to the town of Walsham le Willows in County Suffolk, England, near Bury St. Edmunds, as having been a Page family center at one time or another. Nearby was a school for heraldic pages. [Currently there is no known paper trail establishing a connection with this early Page immigrant.]

• The Garretts were probably in Scotland.
• The Lindstroms were in Sweden or possibly Germany.
• The Westurlunds were in Finland or possibly Sweden.

In USA:

• Keyes:  The Henry and Elizabeth (Olds) Key(e)s family was living in Pownal, Bennington County, Vermont. Their son Lyman and his future wife Hannah Francis were born during this decade. By the end of the decade the family had moved to East Bloomfield, Ontario County, New York. Henry and Elizabeth’s seven children included:  Charles, Mahala, Olive, Polly, William, Nathaniel and Lyman.
• Shook: The Shooks were living in Pennsylvania, presumably in the Berks and/or Northumberland counties area. Phillip Shook and his future wife Mary Lilly had been born early the previous decade.
• Castner:  The Castners were in New York state but would soon move to Morris County, New Jersey.
• Hood:  The Hoods were in Turbot Twp., Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, during the early part of the decade. After the death of the patriarch John Hood, the whole family resettled in an area of Cayuga County, New York, that would later become part of Seneca County, New York. John, Sr.’s seven children included:  George, who married Margaret Meharg; Andrew; William; John, who married Lucinda Moody, and later, Nancy Wilson; Robert, who married Jane; Elizabeth; and Mary, who married James Haynes. James Hood, John’s grandson, was born to parents Robert and Jane at the time of the move. Years later James’ sister Elizabeth (Mrs. Joseph McDuffie) called the area in Pennsylvania from where the family moved “Muddy Run.”
• Bliss:  Samuel and Anna (Mason) Bliss began the decade by being married in the Second Baptist Church of Cheshire, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, by Elder Nathan Mason, who may have been Anna’s uncle by that name. Samuel Bliss was a son of Capt. Samuel and Keziah (Wilmarth) Bliss of Rehoboth, Bristol County, Massachusetts, a religious colony where most of his ancestors had lived since Thomas and Dorothy (Wheatlie) Blysse/Bliss brought their family to America from England in 1636 to escape religious persecution for being Puritans. Anna Mason was a daughter of Brooks and Anne (Eddy) Mason of Lanesborough, Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Anna was a descendant of Sampson and Mary (Butterworth) Mason, who brought their family to America at the completion of the English Civil War, also settling at Rehoboth. Sampson had been a participant in Cromwell’s struggle against King Charles I and had lost his father Robert at the Battle of Bolton.

Samuel and Capt. Samuel had fought in the American Revolutionary War as had Brooks. Some of Brooks Mason’s life artifacts have survived through the centuries and are still in the possession of a Bliss/Mason descendant on the Kelsey side. They are a silver spoon and a rolling pin. According to Lois (Kelsey) Mirabito, “Spoon was made from Brooks Mason’s knee buckles worn during Rev. War. The silversmith’s logo is on the back side: B Bement (Butler Bement), a prominent silversmith in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in the early 1800’s.... the wooden rolling pin made by an Oneida Indian companion to Brooks Mason.”

Samuel and Anna spent part of the decade in Gilboa, Schoharie County, New York, and part in Lanesborough. Amongst the two locales they had their first five children:  Susan H., Harvey Carpenter, Lydia, Anna and Samuel III.

• Hubbart/Hubbard:  Thomas Hubbart and wife, the former Silence Bartlett, had their second child at the beginning and two more later in this decade. By decade’s end their children consisted of:  Joseph, Belinda, Sarah, and Levi Bartlett. Though both Thomas and Silence had been born and raised in Litchfield County, Connecticut, Thomas in Woodbury and Silence in Sharon, they would marry at Kinderhook, Columbia County, New York, and have their nine children in that state—settling at Newport, Herkimer County, by decade’s end. As recent as Thomas’ parents John and Mary, the surname spelling had been Hobart, a surname the common pronunciation of which, according to author Charles Dickens in one of his books, was “Hubbart.”

Thomas and his brother-in-law Levi Bartlett had fought in the Revolutionary War. During that war the home of one of Thomas’ brothers was attacked by Indians led into the area by Tories. The brother was killed and his entire family taken by the Indians to be adopted into their tribe. One of the children later tried returning but soon decided to remain with the Indians. As a soldier Thomas had been wounded in his right leg and suffered with “fever sores” in later years. The pain from his leg was attributed as a probable reason for his taking to drink.

• Zitzer/Sitzer/Sittser:  David and Sarah (Mills) Sittser were married near the beginning of this decade at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Albany, Albany County, New York by Thomas Ellison, Pastor. David was one of at least four children of Andreas/Andrew and Sarah (Allen) Sitzer/Sittser. His known siblings were:  Marya; Elizabeth, who married Samuel Chapin; and Peter Allen. David’s wife Sarah was a daughter of Samuel and Sarah Mills, who purportedly had twelve children. David and Sarah initially settled in Bern, Albany County.

During this decade David Sittser took part in lease transactions at Bern(e) for a sawmill, and later a farm, involving Rensselaerwyck Manor, a large area located on both sides of the Hudson River and differentiated as the East Manor and the West Manor. Sarah's brother Samuel Mills, Jr. was partners with David in the sawmill ventures. David and Sarah had the first four of their seven children:  Andrew, Samuel, Matthew and David.

The immigrating Zitzer families were living at Poppenweiler, a town in the Ludwigsburg District not far from Backnang and Stuttgart, Germany, when they immigrated to America in 1738. In the group were brothers Johann Martin and Andreas Zitzer, both linen weavers by profession. With Johann were his second wife, the former Salome Kreiner, and their daughter Maria Catharina. They would have four more children in America. Johann’s first wife Maria Catharina (nee ?) Knoll Zitzer, who, along with Johann, was David’s ancestor, had died shortly before. All five of Johann and Maria’s children were born in Poppenweiler and were members of the immigrating party.

With brother Andreas Zitzer was his wife, the former Elisabetha Graf/Grav, Elisabetha ‘s son Johannes Berner by her deceased first husband Johannes Joseph Berner/Boerner, and daughter Veronica by her deceased second husband Johann Claus/Closs. Andreas and Johann Martin were sons of Johannes Zitzer a.k.a. Hans Zitzer of Mundingen in Herrschaft Durlach, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany—part of the Black Forest. In America they settled in the Rhinebeck and Red Hook areas of Dutchess County, New York.

• Barnes:  The Thomas and Sarah Barn(e)s family was living in Sharon, Litchfield County, Connecticut, where all but the first of their nine children were born. Their children included:  John, Eleanor, Reuben, Aaron (died young), Statira, Aaron, Elizabeth, Ester and Thomas. John died young, Eleanor married Ephraim Seley, Reuben married Sarah Gray, Statira never married and followed her brothers Aaron and Thomas to Cayuga County, New York. Aaron, the surviving son by that name, married Martha Eggleston, a daughter of Samuel and Hester (Buck) Eggleston of Northeast Town, Dutchess County, New York, and two of their seven children were born during this decade:  Eleanor and Julia Anna. It is not known for certain who Elizabeth and Ester married, but Elizabeth may have married John Sleight of Pleasant Valley, Dutchess County, New York, who married an Eleanor Barnes. Thomas married Mary Tyler, and they were probably the first of the Barnes family to settle in Cayuga County, New York, which likely occurred when Mary’s father Gideon Tyler and family settled there in the middle of this decade.

The immigrating Barnes ancestor of this line was Thomas Barnes of Marlborough, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, who arrived in Boston from England in 1656. In America he married Abigail Goodenow, a daughter of Thomas and Jane (Ruddick) Goodenow, who had arrived from England in 1639 and originally settled in Sudbury. Thomas Goodenow became one of the founders of Marlborough, where Thomas and Abigail were married, lived, and had all but one of their seven children. Their son William James married Mary Smith and they settled at East Haddam, Middlesex County, Connecticut, where they had most of their nine children. William died before all the children had fully come of age, so there were some guardianships assigned, including one for son Thomas, then about nine years old. This Thomas later married Rebecca Hungerford Cone [variously spelled MacCone, Kohn, and Coan], and they had all eight of their children before moving to Sharon, Litchfield County, in the mid-18^th century. (Rebecca’s sister Mary married Thomas’ brother William Barnes, Jr. Other Barnes siblings also married Cones:  Mary to Daniel Cone, Abigail to Stephen Cone, and Samuel to Lucy Cone.)

The Barnes Arrival in Sharon

“General History of the Town of Sharon, Litchfield County, Conn., from Its First Settlement,” by Charles F. Sedgwick, A. M., Second Edition, Amenia, N. Y. 1877

From: Chapter IV:  Indians in Sharon, & Chapter VI:  The History of the Moravian Missions in Sharon

The following bracketed paragraphs are paraphrases by C. W. Paige, a descendant of the below-mentioned Thomas Barn(e)s, of several pages of text found in the above-referenced History of the Town of Sharon. Material from additional sources is also included for a more complete picture. The remainder of the text is directly from the historical account.

[Thomas Lamb purchased land in Litchfield County, Connecticut, in about 1727 from the Mohican language-speaking Sharon Indians living in an area they called Wequagnock along Indian Pond (to the Moravian missionaries it was known as “ Gnadensee,” the Lake of Grace, and is now called Wequagnock Lake). Thanks to Lamb this Indian settlement would soon be overlapped by the town of Sharon, causing future conflict. Lamb represented that the deed of purchase was only for a certain, agreed-upon part of the Indian land. However, he misrepresented the deed, and in fact he would claim all of their land in the area. Lamb subsequently sold the land to the government which, in turn, sold it to white settlers, who began moving in and moving the Indians out. On May 2, 1742, the Indians and new proprietors petitioned the government to investigate the Indian claim and work out some form of settlement. Another petition was presented in 1745.]

[The government acted on the petitions, called memorials, but not very effectively. The Indians ended up only getting back 50 acres of the disputed land. The Indians weren’t happy with the settlement and most of them left the area, with some returning now and again to cause mischief for proprietors who purchased land still claimed by the Indians. Two years after Thomas Barnes arrived in the area he purchased from chiefs Nequitimaugh (also sometimes spelled Nequitimaug and Nequitimauk) and Bartholomew the only land the Indians had received back. The land happened to abut property Barnes had already purchased from Joseph Skinner.]

From Chapter IV:  Indians in Sharon, P. 35

About the year 1750, Thomas Barnes moved into the town from New Fairfield, in Fairfield county, and purchased a large tract of land in the neighborhood of the Indian territory. In the course of a year or two, he persuaded the Indians to sell out their lands to him, and took a formal deed of their possessions from two of their chiefs, Nequitimaugh and Bartholomew. It was contrary to law to take deeds of the Indian proprietors in that way, but the Legislature, on the petition of Barnes, confirmed his title, and he took possession of the disputed territory, the Indians having gone to other parts....

[Bartholomous alias Bartholomew was a son of Apowakenaut—a chief of the Wampanoag]

According to Thomas’ will, part of the Barnes’ lands were along The Oblong—a tract of land nearly two miles wide and between 50 and 60 miles long containing more than 61,000 acres that extended from Ridgefield, CT, north to the Massachusetts Line. It was initially ceded to New York to offset Connecticut’s 20-mile Southern extension east of the Hudson River but was never confirmed by the two colonies. The Oblong was already in existence when Thomas moved to Sharon. It wasn’t until more than a century later that Connecticut’s western border was permanently established.

• Shaw:  The Shaw family was probably in Rhode Island.
• Rice:  The Rice family was probably in New York.
• Tuttle:  The Tuttle family was probably in New York.

© 2014 Charles W. Paige.

Last updated: Tuesday August 12, 2014

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