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.