Re: Elizabeth Skidmore Ketcham (b.c. 1770) d/o Solomon
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In reply to:
Elizabeth Skidmore Ketcham (b.c. 1770) d/o Solomon
Leslie Potter 2/08/02
Below is an extract from the book "Thomas Skidmore (Scudamore), 1605-1684, of Westerleigh, Gloucestershire, and Fairfield, Connecticut, his ancestors and descendants to the ninth generation, by Warren Skidmore,” (3rd edition, 1997), 788 p.
The book is included on our Skidmore/Scudamore Genealogy CD. For a description of the CD see www.skidmoregenealogy.com
Wm Frank Skidmore
267 Golf Course Lane,
Winchester, TN 37398
Tel 931-967-2589
www.skidmoregenealogy.com
[email protected]
The extract:
23.SAMUEL5 SCIDMORE, the son Joseph (no. 11) and Elizabeth (Tooker) Skidmore, was born about 1722 at Huntington, Suffolk County, Long Island, and died there in March 1782.He appears to have married (1) Sarah ________, who was living in 1751 (and presumably as late as 1770), and (2) Ruth, the daughter of Hezekiah and Ruth (Scudder) Rogers on 3 April 1771.She was previously the widow of Silas Sammis, and married Timothy Conklin as her third husband on 7 June 1787.She was born 15 June 1735 at Huntington, and died there 8 April 1788.She is buried in the Old Cemetery at Huntington.
The earmark on the livestock of Samuel Scidmore (who is noticed as a son of Joseph Scidmore) was recorded on 7 April 1747. Frequently these marks became hereditary, and the same mark was carried forward to his son Samuel Scidmore, Junior (no. 59), in the next generation. .
Sarah Scidmore, not otherwise identified but probably the wife of this Samuel, was the plaintiff in a suit against Zephaniah Platt on 26 March 1751 at the Suffolk Court of Sessions.Samuel Scidmore was an Overseer of the Highway at Fresh Pond in 1763 (and for many years thereafter).He was appointed a Viewer of Fences at a town meeting on 3 May 1768.
In May 1775 he signed the Association Oath to support the Continental Congress, but despite this he was well-known as a Tory on Long Island after the British army occupied Long Island. Once the inhabitants decided to submit to the British they were subject to their demands for both labor and provisions. Later they were subject to raids from the rebel forces. The irony of American submission was that it guaranteed no protection and very little freedom.
Samuel Scidmore and Isaac Ketcham of Huntington were captured in 1776 by Captain Rogers and taken to Fairfield, Connecticut, where they were jailed.The complaint against Samuel Scidmore was that he possessed himself of the farm of Dr. Zephaniah Platt’s brother while Platt was a refugee from Long Island during the British occupation.
On 27 September 1776 Thaddeus Burr, Sheriff of Fairfield County, wrote to the President of the New York State Convention asking for some direction from them.He states that he jailed Scidmore and Ketcham on the complaint of Thomas Treadwell and some other gentlemen of Long Island, but the prisoners are not being held by any legal process.Burr was directed to hold the men in their reply; “Samuel Skidmore is accused of treasonable practices against this state.”Burr was authorized to draw money from the Convention for his charges and expenses.Nothing more is heard of the matter.
On 3 March 1779 a whaleboat party of seven men led by Captain William Smith Scudder (under a commission issued by Governor Clinton of New York) raided Samuel Scidmore’s home at Huntington.The whaleboaters were American patriots, many of them refugees from the British occupation of Long Island.They had fled to the Connecticut coast and had commissions to cruise Long Island Sound in pursuit of British ships.It required no great breach of conscience on their part to land on Long Island and plunder the wealthy Tories there even although it exceeded their instructions. Samuel Scidmore’s nephew Joseph (no. 69) was one of the crew who served under Captain Scudder in December 1778; whether he was one of those who plundered his uncle in the following March is unknown.
Captain Scudder and his crew got a considerable cargo from Samuel Scidmore’s cider mill and forced his negro to get up his team and cart it down to the shore.Later in the same year General Rufus Putnam at Reading, Connecticut, wrote to Scudder protesting his robberies on Long Island and informing him that General Washington had ordered that no property was to be taken “under pretense of its belonging to the Tories.”
Samuel Scidmore’s will is dated 14 March 1782 and was probated 11 days later on March 25th.His wife was to have the use of one third of his lands but all of it was to be hired out until his son Samuel arrived at the age of 21.Then it was to be divided as his will directed between Samuel and his older brother John.His son John was given two-thirds of the movable estate and the other third was to go to his daughter Elizabeth.Jonathan Sammis and David Ketcham were named the executors.
Ruth Scidmore, a widow of Huntington, entered a claim on 8 May 1783 for 620 1/4 lbs of fresh beef at 1sh the pound (due in New York money, £31 0sh 9d) furnished to the British troops at Lloyd’s Neck.Her claim was supported by a certificate from Ebenezer Punderson of the Commissary General’s Department who was authorized to grant it, but the claim was never paid.
John Scidmore probably died soon after his father.He was seemingly living on 24 June 1784 when a John and a Samuel Scidmore were baptized at the same time at Huntington.The young Samuel Scidmore seems to have had the whole of his father’s lands, and there is no evidence that they were ever divided as the will directed.John was probably dead by 19 June 1787 when a road was laid out and altered “through the land of Samuel Skidmore” to Skidmore’s Landing to included good easy swinging gates.The same road was regulated on 28 March 1828 with the same description; this was just previous to the death of Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Scidmore.
It also seems likely that Samuel Scidmore had a daughter Sarah by his first wife of that name.On 25 August 1774 Ruth Scidmore and Sarah Scidmore (presumably her step-daughter) were witnesses to the will of Joshua Arthur of Smithtown; Sarah can not be identified with any certainty.If she was a daughter of Samuel Skidmore she was presumably dead in 1782.
Children: (by first wife)
i. Sarah, probably dead in 1782.
ii. John, probably dead in 1787.He does not seem to have been the head of a family in the 1790 census at Huntington or elsewhere.
iii. Elizabeth. She married Oliver Ketcham (1763-1801), a mariner, on 19 January 1792 at Huntington and was living his widow at Brookhaven, Long Island, on 5 December 1801. She is said to have had two daughters by Ketcham, but nothing more had been learned of this family.
59. iv. Lieutenant Colonel Samuel, born 1770.
More Replies:
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Re: Elizabeth Skidmore Ketcham (b.c. 1770) d/o Solomon
Leslie Potter 2/11/02