Tompkins County - Day 5

Thursday, 3 July 2008


We traveled to Danby in the morning and stopped at the Court House there for directions. Danby is tiny and there were only two women working in a rather worn down building. They were very helpful and friendly and gave us copies of maps of Danby including the 1853, 1866, water shed and current maps. Wid. Strong is on the 1853 map and a Hayward in her spot on the 1866 map. The ladies gave us directions on how to get to these spots and we wound our way down a single lane road, through the forest, up and down hills, onto a gravel road and then a dirt road back to a paved road and finally to a dirt road that was an old road that had been closed with the onset of the railroad. The property is just off this road and is now re-forested. We went up a driveway and found a gentleman that turned out to be a professor at Cornell who had received his PhD at the University of Washington in Seattle, where I am still faculty. He had built a home on this ground near a small pond, surrounded by forest and told us that it had obviously been farmland before. He had found an old well and remnants of a silo at the corner of where his driveway started. There was also barbed wire fencing out in the woods. We went back down his driveway and onto an old grassy road in our son's SUV and drove up a few hundred yards into the forest where we found old rusted parts to cars and an old bed spring in an indentation in the earth that appeared to have been the site of a farmhouse. It is impossible to know if this was the right place but it is certainly within a few hundred yards if it is not. It is interesting to picture this family living here and where my g grandfather Philip was born. The picture is taken in approximately what would have been their land. In 1850 Jasper, Mary and Reuben's son and my gg grandfather, is listed as head of the household at the age of 21. Mary is with him along with Reuben Jr who was 18. The land was sold in 1853 to Electa Hayward and they move shortly thereafter to Elgin, Ontario, Canada.
We drove on to the town of Owego on the Susquehanna River where the settlers came at the beginning of 19th century. This is the county seat for Tioga County of which Spencer, Danby and Newfield once belonged prior to division of the area into new counties and townships. We thought we might find records of John Abbott here since he was in the 1810 Spencer census of Tioga. Unfortunately, we were unable to find any records.
We drove back to Ithaca and spent a couple of hours in the Library where there were a number of old books on New York, including Revolutionary War records. It was here that we found evidence for John Abbot. Note the spelling of his last name varies from record to record which has complicated the search. It is spelled with either Abbot or Abbott. From various documents we have found: from the 1835 Pensioners Book; Revolutionary war veteran. John Abbot; rank: Pvt; annual allowance: $23.33; received: $58.32; Description of Service: NY MIlitia; When placed on pension role: 2 Aug 1833; Commencement of pension: 4 Mar, 1831; age: 71. From the New Jersey Pensioner rolls: pension commenced 1831, died 26 Jul 1840.
John and Anna Abbott deeded to School District No. 8 in the town of Newfield, Tompkins Co, NY, for the sum of $10, Northwest corner of twenty acres of land, corner of the highway.
From Jeff Hayward: John Abbott, S11929, NJ line, 28 May 1833 Tompkins Cty NY aged 70 on 29 Mar
last, b 1763 in Oxford in Sussex Cty NJ, enl at Oxford NJ thence to
Northumberland Cty PA about 4 yrs after the war thence to Luzerne Cty PA 8
yrs later thence to Cayuga Cty NY 4 yrs later thence to Newfield NY 4 yrs
later, sol served as a sub for John Williams.
We are still not certain that John and Anna are Mary's parents since I had noted in the past that he was an uncle and William was her father. At least we now have the New Jersey connection.
At least we've added a few more pieces to the puzzle and have a PA route of entry. If only we could now trace Reuben.