Caleb Smith we have a math problem

 With the sesquicentennial of the American Revolution underway, I plan to post more often about the untold stories of Bethlehem people impacted by the war.

Down at the Nicoll Sill Cemetery there is a plaque that the women of the DAR installed. It lists those remembered in the cemetery who were veterans of the Revolutionary War. One of those is 

CALEB SMITH
2ND REGT. WESTCHESTER CO. MILITIA

Unlike other names on the plaque (Jolly, Nicoll, Selkirk, Sill and Van Wie), Caleb Smith is not one that I think of as a familiar Bethlehem name. 

What could I find out about him? 

I soon ran into a math problem.  In the cemetery there is defiantly is a stone for Caleb Smith. It reads that he died September 13, 1833 in his 63rd year.  Did you do that math? That means he was born about 1770.  The years of the American Revolution are defined as 1775 to 1783. I don't think litttle Caleb was off fighting the Red Coats, but maybe as a drummer boy late in the war - he would have been 13 in 1783.

Caleb Smith's stone - picture from Find A Grave

The book New York in the Revolution has six entries for Caleb Smith, including Caleb Smith and Caleb Smith, Jr. in the Westchester County Militia Second Regiment under Col. Thomas Thomas. Those two are also found in Westchester County's Fourth Regiment under Col. Thaddeus Crane. 

Is that Caleb Smith Junior our Caleb?  Further research is needed to find out what records the local DAR chapter used to connect the Caleb buried in Bethlehem with the Caleb who served in the militia. All the looking I did on line did not turn up a definitive connection. 

I did turn up some interesting items about our Caleb, at least I think it is our Caleb as the name Caleb Smith is more common than I thought it would be.  

In the 1790 census, there is a Caleb Smith living in Rensselaerwick (the precursor to Bethlehem) and also one living in nearby Coxsackie. (And a Senior and Junior in North Salem in Westchester County which might be those Revolutionary War veterans.) 

Caleb Smith is clearly in Bethlehem in the 1810 and 1830 census.

Church records indicate Caleb Smith and Magdalen Fleman had one son, Bartholomew, baptized in the Dutch Reformed Church of Coeymans on July 30, 1797.  

Two children of Caleb Smith and Magdalen Flemming were baptized at the First Reformed Church of Bethlehem, Francis Nicoll on June 3, 1810 and Catharine Tiny on August 28, 1812. Catharine died December 13, 1829 aged 17 years, 3 months and 18 days and is buried near her father at the Nicoll Sill Cemetery. Daughter Jane Ann is also buried there. She died July 4, 1823, aged 15 years and 8 months. I couldn't find a record of her baptism. 

And just to spice things up, records indicate that Caleb Smith and Magdalen Frothingham  had a son Bartholomew baptized at Albany's First Presbyterian church on July 5, 1801. 

Really, how many Bartholomew Smiths can there be? Maybe the first one died young and they re-used the name? And the spelling of Magdalen's last name is all over the place (Flehman, Flemming, Hemming, probably Frothingham too)

I did turn up an obituary for the Reverend William I. Smith published in 1896 that read he was "the son of Bartholomew Smith of Bethlehem and Margret Witbeck. When yet a boy his parents moved to Castleton".  Reverend Will was born about 1840, so at least that math adds up.

Oh, and Bartholomew Smith is listed as a member of the First Reformed Church of Bethlehem on June 22, 1822. 

And that's all I've got about Caleb Smith of Bethlehem, Revolutionary War veteran, or not, as the case may by.

Zimri Murdock

With the sesquicentennial of the American Revolution underway, I plan to post more often about the untold stories of Bethlehem people impacted by the war.

Today's story is about Revolutionary War veteran Zimri Murdock who is remembered at the Nicoll Sill Cemetery in the Cedar Hill section of Bethlehem. 

In 1778, he served in the 5th Regiment of the Duchess County Militia. 

Zimri was born in 1760, the son of John Murdock and Jerusha Hatch. John and Jerusha married in Preston, Connecticut on Janaury 20, 1757. We know Zimri's parentage because, conveniently, there is a book entitled Murdock Genealogy: Robert Murdock of Roxbury Massachusetts and Some of his Descendants compiled by Joseph P. Murdock in 1925. While it not for certain that Zimri is a direct descendant of said Robert, he is listed in a section called Other Lines.

The book also lists his siblings, all 12 of them, including brothers Zerah and Seymour who both served in Dutchess County militia regiments during the Revolution. 

I couldn't find any documentation that Zimri had a wife or children, or even how he ended up in Bethlehem. Sadly the early censuses do not provide that level of detail.  In the 1790 census he is living at Pawling, New York in a house hold of five including 3 males over 16 and 2 females. In 1800 he is in Brooklyn, Windham County, Connecticut, in a household of 6 people. 

In 1810 he is in Bethlehem in a household of 13 as follows: 3 males under 10, 2 males ages 16-25, 1 male 26-44, 2 males over age 45, 1 female under age 10, 2 females aged 16-25, 1 female aged 26-44 and 1 female over 45.  Since Zimri is listed individually, we know he is the head of household, but how all of these people are related is a mystery.  

At the cemetery in Cedar Hill, Zimri is the only Murdock buried there. His stone is very nice and inscribed "In Memory of Zimri Murdock who departed this life February 15, 1813 in his 53rd year of age" followed by a poem. I did find his brother Zerah (thank you distinctive names!).  He died in 1822 and is now interred at Albany Rural Cemetery in the First Universal Church Plot. 

A few more tidbits about Zimri. 

He ran the Union Store at Poughkeepsie in 1794 that had a large load of rock salt to sell.

In 1802,  he was enough in debt that his creditors ran ads in the Poughkeepsie newspapers.

In 1803 he was an investor in the Norwich and Woodstock Turnpike Company (Connecticut)

In the book Records of the People of the Town of Bethlehem there is an entry recording the December 31, 1812 marriage of Ebenezer Murdock [Moordock] to Polly Dobbs at the First Reformed Church of Bethlehem.  The name Ebenezer turns up often in the Murdock genealogy book.  I am thinking he must be related to either Zimri or Zerah. 

Zimri's name and death date is listed in  a record of New York Wills and Probate Records. A trip to the Albany County Hall of Records should turn up more details on that, plus maybe land records.

 

Those Z names,  Zimri and Zerah had a sister named Zerviah, are old Hebrew names. 

And finally, Zimri and his family are very very distant cousins of mine - really!

In that same Murdock genealogy book, there is an entry for Elisha Murdock (1765-1826) and Martha Perkins (1767-1835) of Carver, Massachusetts.  These good folks are my 5th great grand parents.

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The Revolutionary War story of Elizabeth Becker Soop

 With the sesquicentennial of the American Revolution underway, I hope to post more often about the untold stories of Bethlehem people impacted by the war.  

Which brings me to Elizabeth Becker Soop (born about 1754, died 1842) and her husband Conradt Soop (1745 to1847 - and yes you read that right - he was 102 when he died).

Both Elizabeth and Conradt's ancestors were part of the German Palatine movement of immigrants from Germany to the Schoharie Valley in the early 1700s.  It is there that they met and married in May of 1774. Not long after the wedding, the couple acquired land in Bethlehem and began to establish the family farm.  While the Schoharie Valley was practically "wilderness" back then, Bethlehem at least had close proximity to Albany so was a bit more "settled", but farmsteads were still few and far between in 1774. (Bethlehem itself would not become a town until 1793.)

And then, in 1776, as one biography put it, Conradt "and his young wife had scarcely become settled here [Bethlehem] when he was called to shoulder his musket to fight in that war which “tried men’s souls.”

There is a good bit of information out there about Conrad's Revolutionary War service.   He served several tours as a private between 1776 and 1780 in the New York Militia under various officers including Capt. Jurian Hogan and Colonel Vandenburgh. 

One can even read Conradt's own words in his war pension application. In his initial tour in 1776 he wrote "I was enrolled as a private in a militia Company in whereof Albert VanDerZee was Captain and Gerrit Vandenburgh was Colonel of the regiment, at Bethlehem and in the year 1776 I marched under Capt. VanDerZee from Bethlehem to Saratoga, where I was employed in assisting to erect barracks for the troops that were there." He then describes other terms of service including time in Schenectady and  Schoharie.

While Conradt was serving his deployments, away for weeks and months at a time, Elizabeth was home in Bethlehem keeping up the farm. 

Conradt's biography in Landmarks of Albany County (published by Amasa Parker in 1897) was written by a grandson. He wrote glowingly about the couple's life summing up with "They lived eventful and Christian lives, and died honored and respected by their neighbors." The grandson heard many reminiscences , but the one he chose to publish was about his grandmother and her time in Bethlehem during the Revolution, home on an isolated farm. Let me just quote him.

"When he [Conradt] was away in the army his wife [Elizabeth], wishing to visit her parents in Schoharie, saddled her horse with a sheep-skin, and made the journey through an almost unbroken wilderness, where Brant and Butler, with their band of Tories and Indians were on the warpath, pillaging, burning and often murdering. She quite frequently made this journey of over eighty miles, unprotected and was never harmed. Who is the dame of the present day who would undertake a similar journey?"

Riding alone to visit her parents, or perhaps even her husband during one of his assignments to the garrison at Schoharie, shows an admirable determination on Elizabeth's part.  While sounding exaggerated in the writer's late 19th century tone (was it really 80 miles???), it was a dangerous journey.

Indeed, who is the dame?   

+++

You can read more about the loyalist regiment of Butler's Rangers on their wiki page. They were certainly known for their violent raids in the Schoharie and Mohawk Valleys.

Other information we know about Elizabeth is that she had at least four children beginning with Mary (1782-1861), then Jacob (1786-1868), Frederick (1790-1876) and John (1793-1874) all of whom lived in and around Bethlehem. She is part of the Becker family known for the naming of Becker's Corners. The Soop family was long connected to Bethlehem history turning up in all sorts of documentary evidence including census reports, tax rolls and newspaper clippings. 

Above is the 1866 Beers map with Soop family properties circled.  We believe that the one on left, F. Soop, is Elizabeth and Conradt's original farm. A farm house, barn and various outbuildings are still there.

Her name is Mary!

 We are going to dive deep into the archives of this blog for today's post.  

I'm freshening up my walk at Bethlehem Cemetery and decided to include this row of tombstones. "The McHargs," I thought. "I know them!"

That is husband John Peter McHarg on the right and to his left is wife Catherine Campbell. To the left of Catherine are stones for three of their children, Andrew, Margaret and Elizabeth (l to r).  And I'm pretty sure the one laying down to the left is James.  James and Andrew were twins who died with days of each other, just shy of their first birth day.

The McHargs lived over on Feura Bush Road. Pop over to my 2016 blog post now to read more. Then come back.  I'll wait.

https://bethlehemnyhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=McHarg

So today's research answered my question from 2016 - John Peter McHarg's mother's name is Mary McKie!  And I know that because someone has put a ton of information about the McHarg's up on Findagrave. It wasn't there 8 years ago, I swear!  

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/111786354/john-peter-mcharg

A history mystery answered!

Thinking about Mary Selkirk Frederick

Yesterday while walking about Elmwood Cemetery, this stone caught my eye. First the lovely clasped hands.  Then the inscription - Mary Selkirck. Can that be right? What is that extra "c" doing in there. I had to do some research.
 

A clearer picture I took back in 2018.

The Coeymans Herald, December 21, 1887

The death notice from the Coeymans Herald reads: 

Frederick - At Selkirk, Dec. 15. Mary Selkirk, wife of Barney Frederick, ages 43 years.  

The stone says Died Dec. 15, 1887 Aged  42 years, 2 months, 6 days. 

And according to a nifty tombstone birthday calculator on the internet, she was born October 9, 1845.

But the book Records of the People of the Town of Bethlehem has a slightly different story to tell. 

First, Mary is clearly identified in a 1869 listing of members of the First Reformed Church of Bethlehem, and I quote, James Mull Selkirk (and wife) Maria Selkirk (nee Wolfe) Mary Selkirk (their daughter) Mrs. Fredericks.  She is also listed as member in 1873. Going back some pages brings one to to an entry about baptisms at the church. There we have Mary and her brother John being baptized in 1848.  Her birthday is listed as September 21, 1845. Which is not what is on her tombstone, at least according to the calculator.  Her death is recorded in the listing for Elmwood Cemetery with the dates from her tombstone. Barney Frederick (or Fredericks) is only listed in the book as Mary's husband. 

I first find Barney in Guilderland in the 1850 US census when he is two years old living with his widowed mother Barbara who is just 21. 1855 and 1860 he is still in Guilderland, but in 1865 he turns up in Bethlehem in the household of Henry and Sarah Westfall as a servant. 

Mary Selkirk, clearly turns up in her parents household in the 1870 census in Bethlehem. In 1875, Mary and Barney are married and living with her parents in Bethlehem. Same in 1880. Then Mary dies in 1887 and I can't find anything else about Barney. (There is one promising death notice for a Barney in Ohio but probably not our guy) Where did he go? What did he do? No idea. 

Which brings me back to the tombstone with the miss-spelled Selkirck (and maybe the wrong age and birthday too).  What happened there?  Who actually purchased the stone? Barney or maybe Mary's parents? Didn't they notice the typo and couldn't they send it back? Was it already paid for? Were they just stuck with it to they put it up anyway.  I have questions!!!! 

Turnips and Judge Leonard/Learned

 Google “record breaking turnip” and you turn up plenty of references to Canadian Damien Allard’s 29-kilogram monster that he grew in 2021. That’s 63.9 pounds and the heaviest turnip according to Guinness World Records. Meanwhile, according to Guinness, the longest turnip is just over 15 feet, a record growth achieved by Joe Atherton of the UK in 2022.

Those are some big turnips. But why, you ask, are you writing about turnips?

It all goes back to why I haven’t posted much here lately. Not to worry, I am still doing plenty of history stuff with the Bethlehem Historical Association. But what’s really got me going lately is writing short stories that are inspired by strange little newspaper clippings, like this one about Judge Leonard’s turnip.

“Large Turnip – We have had brought to our office a turnip raised on the farm of Judge Leonard, of Bethlehem, which we think, for size, will be difficult to beat at this time. It measured 17 inches in circumference, and weighed 5 lbs. 6 oz. The seed was sown May 10^th. Who can turn-up a larger turnip that this?” The Coeymans Herald, August 11, 1875

Clips like this often catch my eye while I am researching completely unrelated topics (this time it happened to be Nellie Bly.)

Now, I know who Judge Leonard was. I know where his house and farm were. I know all kinds of interesting tidbits about him and his family, and even some of the tenant farmers that worked his land. Because you know the Judge himself is not out there tilling the fields.*

But I don’t know anything about this turnip situation. And I have questions that will never be answered factually.

Why did someone show up at the newspaper office with a really big vegetable? Was it a dare? A challenge? Was this someone just passing by with said turnip, maybe on the way to market or something, and they thought the editor would like to look at it?

Can you imagine a rustic farmer marching in and plunking a big turnip down on the editor’s desk? I’m thinking about a grumpy Lou Grant character sitting at a plain wooden desk that has lots of handwritten papers all over the top of it. There’s an ink well and a steel nibbed pen on the desk. Maybe there’s a printing press clunking in the background and another desk where a clerk is hunched over a tray of type setting individual letters for the next day’s newspaper.

Maybe the turnip lands hard and spills the ink all over the papers obliterating something important. Maybe the rustic farmer and the Lou Grant editor get into a big argument. Maybe they have a big laugh. Maybe the encounter starts a big turnip growing competition that all the local farmers get in on. Maybe the farmer is a woman who had been told she didn’t know anything about turnip farming. Maybe she’s an aspiring journalist and her name is Mary Tyler Moore.

Ok, you see how this goes. It is so much fun to imagine the “real story.”

Here are a couple of examples of ones I’ve tackled so far.

“A female blacksmith arrived last week. Charley Brust is responsible and happy.”

This clip was published November 29, 1884 in the Altamont Enterprise under the Guilderland Center section. A female blacksmith! In my story, I named her Maisie Baxter.

“Mr. Garrett Hotaling is having hard luck, having recently lost a horse and a hog. Its an old saying, “Those that have must lose.” Blessed be nothing, Garry.”

This one was published in the November 18, 1892 issue of the Altamont Enterprise in the Voorheesville Section. “Blessed be nothing.” That’s harsh. What does it even mean? Poor Garry! My Garry encounters a lady reporter who shouts that at him after getting knocked down by Garry’s runaway horse.

Maybe one of these days I’ll get these stories together and share them with all of you.

This picture of William Law Learned is from Howell & Tenny's Bicentennial History of
Albany County by way of the Find a Grave website.

* The article refers to Judge Leonard. I am very confident that this is actually Judge William Law Learned. Spelling was not anyone’s specialty in the 1800s.

While there are plenty of references to the Leonard family in Bethlehem, none of them, as far as I can tell, were judges. In an 1870 gazetteer (basically a phone directory without the phone) for Bethlehem, Southwick Leonard was the proprietor of the Bethlehem Hotel at Adams Station. Isaac was a farmer, also at Adams Station. And William L. Learned of Cedar Hill was a lawyer and farmer.

Now, pop over here and take a look at a very long and flowery biography of Judge Learned.

https://accessgenealogy.com/connecticut/biography-of-william-l-learned.htm

Buried in there, you can see where he was first appointed, then elected for a 14 year term, as a Justice of the Supreme Court in 1870. This bio specifically references the case of a Mr. Lowenstein who murdered a Mr. Weston. Well, there is an article in the February 26, 1874 Coeymans Herald detailing the Verdict handed down by Judge Leonard in the Lowenstein case. It’s got to be the same judge.

One little tidbit, while looking at the 1870 Agriculture Census, Ancestry interpreted the handwriting as W. L. Leonard. When you go to the actual page, the handwriting clearly says Learned. Learned (Leonard) by the way, had 200 acres and reported on his Irish potatoes, butter and hay. No turnips listed.

And after all this writing about turnips, and as your reward for reading this far down on the blog, as a kid, I found it hilarious when mom would joke that her New Hampshire farming ancestors grew “lettuce, turnip and pea.” 

Hessburg Estate - Update to an update

 Wow - it is not often I have an update to an update - how fun!

 I first wrote about the Hessburg Estate in connection with the house's architect Marcus Reynolds way back in 2016.

Pop over here and give it a read:

https://bethlehemnyhistory.blogspot.com/2016/10/architect-marcus-t-reynolds-work-in.html

Then read the follow up where I literally say there is a photo but I don't have it.

https://bethlehemnyhistory.blogspot.com/2016/11/marcus-reynolds-hessberg-house-mystery.html

And now, 7+ years later, the photos!

Many thanks to Town Historian Bill Ketzer who recently did an oral history with Bill and Doug Weisheit.  And many many thanks to Bill and Doug for sharing their family's history and memorabilia.

Now to the pictures!

And briefly if you don't want to read the other blog posts, the grand house was torn down to make way for the Our Lady of Angels Seminary (now the Job Corps property on River Road.)

And if you want to know more about Reynolds, here's a link to an event coming up in a couple of weeks put on by the Historic Albany Foundation.

https://www.historic-albany.org/calendar/2024/2/15/decrypting-marcus-an-intimate-evening-with-marcus-t-reynolds