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?   

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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.