BENJAMIN KNIFFEN and GERTRUDE (PURDY) and FAMILY

The Shepard history is moving right along! Today we begin to learn about our fifth great grandparents. I counted about 12 fifth great grandparent couples and their families who I can tell you about, starting with Benjamin Kniffen who was born in 1705 in Rye, Westchester, New York and his wife Gertrude Purdy, also born in Rye, seven years later. 

Rye is the oldest permanent settlement in Westchester County. It began in 1660 when a few Connecticut people from Greenwich settled there. Their first treaty with the Mohegan Indians gave them the land between Milton Point and the Byram River (Peningoe Neck); then the mile-long “Manussing” Island. Within several years their combined purchases comprised all of what is now the City of Rye, Town of Rye, Harrison, White Plains, parts of Greenwich, North Castle, and Mamaroneck. In 1665, Connecticut merged these settlements under the name of Rye after ancestors in Rye, England. In 1683, Rye was ceded unwillingly to the Province of New York by King Charles II as a gift to his brother, the Duke of York. But when a New York court severed the Harrison area from the settlement in 1695, the Rye colonists rejoined Connecticut in protest. In 1700, Rye again became part of New York by royal decree, this time permanently. The New York State Legislature officially established the Town of Rye boundaries in 1788.

For two centuries, Rye remained a secluded community. Land was cleared for farming and cattle grazing. Docks were built on Long Island Sound, and oystering was an important occupation. Homes along Mill Town Road, now Milton, led to grist mills on Blind Brook.

Communication with the outside world came slowly. The Rye-Oyster Bay ferry, which began service in 1739, was a great community event. The New York-Boston stagecoach made its first run in 1772 using the Square House, then an Inn, as a stopping place. 

The young lives of Gertrude and Benjamin were while Rye was quite an isolated place. They married ten years before the Bay Ferry began running, on the 13th of June in 1729. Their ten children were all born in Rye, as follows:

1729 Benjamin, our ancestor
1730 Elizabeth
1731 Roger
1733 Gertrude
1734 Phoebe
1737 Andrew
1738 Sarah
1742 Mary
1746 Elizabeth
1749 Jemima

Gertrude evidently died soon after giving birth to her last child in 1749, at the age of 37. Benjamin named all of his sons and daughters in his will. He died on the 4th of April in 1783, at age 78.

BENJAMIN KNIFFEN
BORN: Jan 1705 in Rye, Westchester, NY
MARRIED: 14 Jun 1729 in Rye, Westchester, NY
DIED: 4 Apr 1783 in Rye, Westchester, NY
GERTRUDE PURDY
BORN:       1712 in Rye, Westchester, NY
DIED:         1749 in Rye, Westchester, NY
SOURCES:Family Group Record of the Kniffen Family at Ancestral File, FamilySearch.org; Wills 1787-1905 of Westchester, NY. 

SAMUEL AND HANNAH (CLARK) CRANDALL AND FAMILY

This family lived in Westerly, Rhode Island for a number of years. Westerly is a town on the southwestern shoreline of Washington County, Rhode Island, first settled by English colonists in 1661 and incorporated as a municipality in 1669. It is a beachfront community on the south shore of the state.

Samuel and Hannah were married in 1747 and reared eleven children, listed below:

1747 Katherine
1749 Samuel
1752 Festus
1755 Hannah Clark, our ancestor
1755 Tamar
1757 Ethan Allen
1759 Susannah
1762 Fanny
unk   Delight
unk  Jane
unk   Mary

In the 1747 Colonial Census Index of Westerly, Washington County,  Rhode Island,  Samuel, head of his family, is 23 years old. [The year of his marriage.]

SAMUEL CRANDALL
BORN: 16 Jul 1724 in Westerly, Washington, RI
MARRIED:     1747  in Westerly
DIED:              1813   in Providence, Providence, RI

HANNAH CLARK
BORN: abt. 1727 in Westerly, Washington, RI
DIED: abt.  1821 at age 94
SOURCES: World Family Tree CD #1276, Vol. 2 about the family's vital records; Rhode Island Births 1636-1930; Elda Esch, "Benoni Dickinson and His Descendants"; John Cortland Crandall, "Elder John Crandall of Rhode Island and His Descendants, New Woodstock, NY, 1949; Family History Library Temple Records; Nellie Willard Johnson, 1937, "The Descendants of Robert Burdick of Rhode Island", the Goodwin-Burdick Family Association, page 21; and the Rhode Island Births and Christenings 1600-1914 on microfilm 936,814.

The Family of Thomas Dickinson

Thomas Dickinson and his wife, Mary Crandall , were married on the 20th of May in 1748. Soon after their marriage they had a son, Samuel, our ancestor, who was born on the 20th of December in 1748. This family lived in North Stonington, New London, Connecticut.

For most of the 18th century, this town's inhabitants focused on carving out homesteads and farms from virgin forests. This was a slow, generations-long process, as pioneers girdled massive, centuries-old trees until they rotted and fell to the ground, and then began the difficult work of clearing ground and moving boulders. Roads began to be forged through the receding wilderness, beyond just cattle paths and old Pequot trails. Colonial surveyors in 1753 marked out the future route of the Pawcatuck-Voluntown Road (today known as Route 49). In 1768, a weekly stagecoach was opened between Norwich, Connecticut and Providence, Rhode Island via North Stonington and Pawcatuck; this road became the Norwich-Westerly Road, today known as Route 2.

The paragraph above, from Wikipedia, gives us a brief idea of how Thomas and his neighbors spent their days in the 1700s. 

THOMAS DICKINSON
BORN: 1726 in Kingston, Rhode Island
MARRIED: 20 May 1748 in North Stonington, New London, CT
DIED: 1790 in Rhode Island

MARY CRANDALL
BORN: 1726 in Naragansett, RI
DIED: 1813 
SOURCES: (I am unable to cite my sources here today because my genealogy database has disappeared from my computer all of a sudden. I apologize and will add the sources when I am able to restore my database from backup copies ASAP)

John McKinnon and Jean Paterson and son

These fourth great grandparents  lived in Kilcalmonell, Mull Island, Argyllshire, Scotland when their son, our ancestor, was born:

1740 John McKinnon, our ancestor

KILCALMONELL and KILBERRY, a parish, in the county of Argyll, contains the village of Tarbert. The former of these two ancient parishes, now united, derives its name from the Gaelic term signifying "the burial-place of Malcolm O'Neill." The church of Kilcalmonell was built about the year 1763 and it seats 600 people.

The land was primarily used for potatoes and herring fishing.  The population in 1843 was about 1200. Tarbert was anciently part of the Gaelic overkingdom of Dál Riata and protected by three castles – in the village centre, at the head of the West Loch, and on the south side of the East Loch. The ruin of the last of these castles, Tarbert Castle, still exists and dominates Tarbert's skyline. 

Here is a photograph of Tarbert as it looks today:

Despite its distinction as a strategic stronghold during the Middle Ages, Tarbert's socioeconomic prosperity came during the Early Modern period, as the port developed into a fishing town. At its height, the Loch Fyne herring fishery attracted hundreds of vessels to Tarbert.

The parish records were not kept until the year 1780. 
Therefore, we need to depend on the above bit of history of Kilcalmonell [from FamilySearch.org] and Tarbert [from Wikipedia] to satisfy us for now.

DANIEL UNDERHILL AND ABIAH CONKLING FAMILY

All of the members of today's family were born and lived in New Castle, Westchester, New York. Daniel and Abiah were married around 1770 and I know of three of their children, listed below:

Sarah 28 Nov 1770, our ancestor
Amy      abt.   1773
Benjamin       1775

In the 1790 Federal census of Salem Town in Westchester County there is a Daniel Underhill listed with one son over the age of 16 and three females and spouse. This may be our Daniel but I'm not certain.


The first European settlers in the area where this family lived were Quakers, who settled in present-day Chappaqua (a neighborhood of New Castle) in 1753, and constructed a meeting house,which still stands today on Quaker Street. [See the photo at the left.] Several Underhill researchers believe that many Underhill folks were members of this old meeting house. Perhaps we will one day find marriage records of our Daniel and Abiah among any possible Quaker records available at the New Castle Historical Society there. I have contacted the society for assistance with this.

DANIEL UNDERHILL
BORN: 1730 in New Castle, Long Island, NY*
Married: c. 1770 in New Castle, Long Island, NY
DIED:   1824 (age 94)  in New Castle, Long Island, NY

ABIAH CONKLING
BORN: 1751 in New Castle, Long Island, NY
DIED: 4 May 1857 place unknown (age 106!!!)

*All of my records name Long Island, NY as the place where these events occurred. Evidently, however, New Castle is today considered to be in Westchester County which is at the northern "neck" before entering Long Island. Perhaps that neck territory included all or part of Long Island in their configurations in the 1700s. I wasn't able to find any history that mentioned my supposition, however.

SOURCES: 1790 Federal census; Family Group Record, Anc. File (www.familysearch.org).