Re: Catherine Croghan wife of Joseph Brant
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In reply to:
Catherine Croghan wife of Joseph Brant
Linda Bernard 9/24/00
Researching Joseph Brant, I came across this website with a lot of information about Catherine & Joseph's decendents, text following link.Further info about Brant is also available on the website:
http://www.american-revolution-online.com/People/44/joseph-branthttp://www.american-revolution-online.com/People/44/joseph-brant
Joseph Brant was married three times, the first to Christine on 25 July 1765, and had two children, Isaac and Christine. Christine (wife) died probably in March, 1771 of consumption. His second wife, Susanna (Christine’s half-sister) also died of consumption shortly after the marriage without issue. In 1780, he married Catherine Adonwentishon Croghan, the daughter of the prominent American colonist, Indian agent, fur trader, and New York-Pennsylvania-Ohio landowner/speculator George Croghan and a Mohawk mother, Catharine Tekarihoga. They had seven children: Joseph, Jacob, John, Margaret, Catharine, Mary and Elizabeth. Through her mother, Catharine Adonwentishon was head of the Turtle clan, the first in rank in the Mohawk Nation. Her birthright was to name the Tekarihoga, the principal sachem of the Mohawk nation. She named her brother, Henry; through Henry and Catharine, Joseph was able to wield considerable power. After Joseph and Henry’s deaths, she then named her youngest son John, who died unmarried. Elizabeth, a daughter of his 3rd marriage, was married to William Johnson Kerr, grandson of Sir William Johnson and Molly Brant, and their child subsequently became Chief. United Empire Loyalists, Thayendanegea’s surviving sons, Joseph, Jacob, and John fought in the War of 1812.
Generations 2-4. Jacob (1786-1847), was the second son from the marriage to Catharine Adonwentishon Croghan, and is said to have looked like his grandfather Croghan (Kelsay, p.528). Both Jacob and his brother Joseph attended Dartmouth College under the aegis of President John Wheelock, the son of Joseph Brant’s early mentor, Eleazar Wheelock. Jacob married Lucy McCoy, a Mohawk, in 1804 and had six children: John, Jacob, Squire, Christrina, Charlotte, and Peter. John Brant (Gen. 3, 1811-1870) was married (1) to a Chippewa and had four children: i. Jacob, ii. John R., iii. Henry, and iv. Joseph; (2) to Mary Cameron (b. in Scotland) and had four children: i. Lucy (m. James Walton, son of a Mississauga mother, Polly Tahwah, and English father, Jacob Walton); ii. Robert D. (m. Lydia Lewis, descended from JB through his daughter, Margaret); iii. John Sidney (m. Ida Maracle); and Margaret (m. William Crane).
Lieutenant Cameron D. Brant, son of Robert D. Brant and Lydia Lewis, was the first of thirty members of the Six Nations, as well as the first Native North American, to die in WWI. He was killed in the 2nd Battle of Ypres on 23 April 1915 after leading his men “over the top.” His commanding officer had said of him the month before that “the boys will follow him anywhere.” He was due to receive his captaincy the following week.
Jacob Shelby Brant (1924-1944), son of Austin Brant and Bessie Battice (Gen. 5) and grandson of John Sidney and Ida Maracle (above), enlisted in the Canadian army after high school. Wounded in August, 1944, he recovered and rejoined his regiment, the Lincoln and Welland, only to be killed in Belgium on 11 September 1944. Like his cousin Cameron, a generation earlier, he died in a “Flanders Field.”
Another Joseph Brant descendant (4th great-grandson), Terence M. Walton, was the youngest veteran of the Korean War era, having enlisted in the U.S. Army at age 14. He was the great-grandson of Lucy Brant and James Walton (Gen. 4 above), the grandson of John Jacob Walton (1875-1932), and the son of Charles Cameron Walton (1912-1997). He later attended the University of California, Berkeley, and graduated from Arizona State University and the University of Hawaii.
Joseph Brant died in his house at the head of Lake Ontario (site of what would become the city of Burlington, Ontario) on November 24, 1807. His last words, spoken to his adopted nephew John Norton, reflect his life-long commitment to his people: “Have pity on the poor Indians. If you have any influence with the great, endeavour to use it for their good.” The house was owned by descendants until the late 19th century, and is now the Joseph Brant Museum. In 1850, his remains were carried 34 miles (55 km) in relays on the shoulders of young men of Grand River to a tomb at Her Majesty’s Chapel of the Mohawks in Brantford. The City of Brantford and the County of Brant, Ontario, located on part of his land grant, is named for him as is the Erie County, New York Town of Brant. A statue of Brant, located in Victoria Square, Brantford, was dedicated in 1886. The township of Tyendinaga and the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory Indian reserve are also named for Brant, taking their name from an alternate spelling of his traditional Mohawk name. The neighborhood of Tyandaga in Burlington is also named after Brant, using a simplified spelling of his Mohawk name.
Thayendanegea is one of the 14 leading Canadian military figures commemorated at the Valiants Memorial in Ottawa.