Moses Thomas Sr. (1721 - 1763)

Born 2 Oct 1721 in Somers, Tolland, Connecticut Colony, British Colonial America

Ancestors

Husband of Sarah (Horton) Thomas — married 6 Oct 1742 in East Enfield, Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, British Colonial America

Descendants

Died Nov 1763 at age 42 in Cushtunke, Pennsylvania, British Colonial America

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Biography

Early Historical Events in the Delaware Valley [entries for the Thomas and Calkin families, pages 21-27]^[1][1]

Early Historical Events in the Delaware Valley [entries for the Thomas and Calkin families, pages 21-27]; Published by the Wayne County Citizen [newspaper, defunct in 1952], 1927 - - - [p. 21] Chapter XII (August 16, 1927)

The Thomas Family

Both historical and traditional accounts differ in regard to when and why the Thomases appear in local accounts of the Cushetunk or Cochecton Valley. There is an account that Moses Thomas and Aaron Thomas, brothers, were sent to this section to look after the interests of the Penn brothers but they bought their land under the Connecticut claim. Another statement is that in 1750 Moses came to Cushetunk and located on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware almost directly across from where in modern times the New York Transit Company had a pump station. The farm is yet spoken of as the Thomas farm. As one of the older generations of Rosses married a Thomas, the farm was then called the Ross farm. Moses Thomas 1st was shot by Indians in 1763, which will be taken up later. Moses Thomas 2nd was survived by four children. At the time of his death a son which was named Moses 3rd, was a baby in its mother’s arms. There were three daughters, the oldest of whom married Reuben Decker, Rebecca married Abram Barnes, and Hannah married Oliver Calkin who resided in or near Narrowsburg. After the death of her husband, Mrs. Thomas returned from the Minisink section and took up her residence on the Thomas farm. Later she married Capt. Jesse Drake who came up from the lower waters of the Delaware and became the forebear of the Drakes who later figured prominently in the business of this section. Moses the third grew to be a prominent man in Wayne county, having held office for over twenty-five years. He was commissioner from 1808 to 1815. He was then commissioned by Governor Snyder to fill the vacancy in the associate judgeship of the Wayne county courts made by the resignation of Judge Stanton. He remained as associate judge from 1815 to 1839. On his headstone in the Damascus cemetery, the inscription: Hon. Moses Thomas died March 9, 1857, aged 79 years, and below this – Rebecca Monington, his wife, died Sept. 20, 1841, aged 59 years. The children of the above named couple were William, Jesse, Chauncey, Moses, Sarah, Clara, Susan. Jesse D. married Amanda Skinner and Emma Bunnell; Sarah married Ransom Young; Clara married Bezaleel Ross; and Susan married John Hankins. Chauncey Thomas [son of the Chauncey] mentioned above, was born at Shohola April 28, 1850, entered the Naval Academy in 1867, and graduated in 1871 standing third in the class. For four years he was private secretary to Admiral Porter and was later assigned to the frigate Wabash and later he was sent to Alaska. He navigated the battleship Oregon on its memorable trip around Cape Horn to Portsmouth Navy Yard. He was on the Yorktown in the Philippine insurrection and was in command of the Maryland when it took honors in target practice. He was made captain in 1906. He died May 12, 1918 at Pacific Grove, California. Mrs. Clara Ross remained on the homestead with her family of six sons and two daughters until her death. One of the sons, John R. served in the Civil War and was promoted to a Captaincy. When he returned to private life he served Wayne county as high sheriff for three years.

Although but little is known of Aaron Thomas, he must have filled in his chapter in local affairs. He located below Cochecton Falls, the same farm being in possession of the Hockers for a number of years. Captain Jesse Drake, after marrying the widow Thomas, whose husband Moses 2nd was slain in the Minisink massacre, continued on the homestead helping to raise his step family until Moses 3rd was able to manage matters and at the same time the captain had to care for his own rising family. After Moses 3rd married, [p. 22] Drake bought a farm adjacent that of Aaron Thoms and built an imposing house for those times. The family of Jesse Drake and Abigail Tyler-Thomas were Christina, who became the wife of Jonathan Lillie; Martha, born 1787, married James Mitchell, Charles born Jan. 10, 1789, married Weighty Bush; and Jesse Jr., born 1791, married Abigail Tyler, granddaughter of Capt. Bezaleel Tyler. Capt. Drake survived his wife and remarried and had one son, Benjamin. Capt. Drake died in 1833 aged 83 years. He won his title as captain in the war of the Revolution.

A Prominent Pioneer

Moses Thomas 1st was one of the foremost leading men of the Cushetunk (Cochecton Valley) settlement. It was through his wise counsel that the fort or Block house was built. The building was composed of square timbers, made square by hewing them with an ax, and laid one upon another until the required height of the walls was reached. As the building was erected by Moses Thomas and Simeon Calkin. If the square sticks of timber were of large dimensions two men could not have hoisted them into place. Perhaps they made a “hoe” to put up the building. No matter how the different sticks were assembled the whole plan showed splendid forethought from the well inside to the finish of the apex and it accomplished its mission. It saved lives. It is said that at this day the well shows in evidence – and nature, seemingly to mark the spot raised three giant sycamore trees near the spot, silent guardians to its memory.

A Remarkable Girl

We rehearse the siege of this fort mainly for one purpose, the presence of an eight year old girl, Hannah, the daughter of Moses Thomas. You will note later how she became a power in shaping the destiny of the succeeding generations of her progeny. At her tender age she actually trained a musket against the attacking band of Indians who held her and her kin prisoners within this strong hold built upon her father’s farm for protection for just such an emergency. This siege happened in the fall of 1863. The boys of Nelkick Willis, who lived near to what is now called Narrowsburg, while raking buckwheat saw some Indians dodging around in the nearby woods. They were different in appearance from the Cushetunk Indians and it aroused the suspicions of the boys. They at once started for the Cushetunk settlement to give the alarm. The boys soon covered the intervening distance and told what they had observed. The men thought the boys were mistaken but as a precautionary measure ordered the women and children to the fort while they went to reconnoiter. For some reason there were but three men in the settlement at that time. These three, Moses Thomas, Willis, and a man named Whittier, went in the direction whence the Indians would appear. On reaching the top of a steep river bank perhaps a quarter of a mile from the fort they saw Indians eating turnips in a field, later the property of Colonel Skinner. The discovery by both parties was simultaneous. The Indians fired. Thomas fell dead and Willis was mortally wounded. Whittier was unhurt and sped back to the fort. He at once dispatched Elias Thomas and Jacob Dana to Minisink for aid and sent Moses Thomas, 2nd to warn the settlers further up river of the conditions at Cushetunk. The oldest of these boys was not yet eleven years and they were obliged to thread their way through an unknown forest liable at any moment to fall into the hands of Indians or fall prey to wild beasts. But an unseen hand guided them and when the boys reached Minisink they found that the alarm had preceded them. Whittier was the only man in the fort but he was something of a ventriloquist as well as a commanding general. He made it appear to the Red Devils outside that the fort was full of men and it made them cautious. The fiends outside tried several times to get near enough to the fort to fire it but were driven back by firing from within. The continued their fiendishness all night long. When daylight came they applied the torch to every building, dwellings and mills, and left the whole settlement devastated, excepting the fort. The next day brought relief from Minisink but the Indians had gone. Relieved from their harassing vigil the people abandoned the fort and made hasty departure from what had once been their home. Before going the men found the bodies of the two men slain and hastily committed them to the earth. The spark of life left in Willis had been finished with the tomahawk and both had been scalped. The little band then embarked in canoes for the Minisink settlement glad to get away form such barbaric scenes. [p. 23] In later years when peace was restored they returned and began life anew. In after years it was found that the bones of Thomas and Willis had been uncovered by the erosions of the river into the bank, and Moses 3rd gathered them together and gave them a resting place in the Milanville cemetery. Moses 1st, the man slain by Indians, left five children: Elias; Moses; Huldah, who became wife of Abraham Ross; Sarah, who became the wife of Nathaniel Evans; and Hannah, who became the wife of Oliver Calkin, son of Dr. John Calkin who in 1754 settled on the New York side of the Delaware nearly directly across from the fort. Hannah was the little eight year old girl who figured conspicuously and courageously in the defense of the fort. Moses Thomas 2nd was the boy who went to alarm the settlers farther up the Delaware. When peace was restored among the natives and the settlers in the Cushetunk Valley, he returned to the settlement and the farm. He married Abigail Tyler, sister of Bezaleel Tyler, who was captain of the militia in the Minisink battle and was killed in that massacre falling near Tyler [Thomas?]. It is said a Tory named Cornelius Cole was the man who fired the fatal bullet. Trouble and jealousy arose between the Connecticut colonies and the Pennsylvania colonies, also between the Indians and the colonies, so that little peace of mind for the settlers prevailed. The Indians by their chief of the Delawares, Teedyuscung , who disapproved of the encroachments of the whites upon their possessions, in a conference April 1751 with Lieutenant Governor Hamilton and Richard Peters this chief set forth the claim of his people. Soon after this meeting Lt. Gov. sent James Hindshaw to Cushetunk to see what was being done and learn the intention of the venturesome settlers. He made his trip in the same month the conference was held and reported to his superior on April 29, 1761. This report stated that at Cushetunk he was hospitably entertained at the house of Moses Thomas, an Englishmen, and one of the leading men of the settlement; saw over the door a placard by Moses Thomas notifying all the settlers to meet at the Thomas house on the following Monday to choose a magistrate and other officers for the ensuing year to hold consultation on matters concerning the settlement. This was the first election of officers or town meetings held in the settlement, and in Wayne County. Hindshaw found Moses Thomas working in a new gristmill and grinding corn. When Hindshaw explained his mission Thomas expressed amusement that Lord Penn should send a proclamation threatening them with Indians. He said he had settled there under the Connecticut right which was considered right, but if it was not he would hold his land under Lord Penn, which was all the same to him. This land or farm of 125 acres was not secured until Moses the third secured a warrantee for the same. This warrantee was No. 179. Hindshaw reported that he saw a good sized blockhouse for protection against Indians and the settlers intended to procure some swivel guns to mount upon it to use in case of an invasion. This same year William Allen, Chief Justice of the province, commanded the sheriff of Northampton county to arrest Daniel Skinner, Timothy Skinner, Simeon Calkin,, John Smith, Jedediah Willis, James Adams, Erwin Evans, and others for intruding upon the territory of the Indians without permission. The following year, 1762, John Jennings, high sheriff of Northampton county contemplating the Cushetunk people sent John Williamson to gain what information he could relative to the settlement, and his report to his chief read as follows: Sixteen families are settled along the river there. The settlement extends 7 miles. There head man is named Moses Thomas and his brother Aaron Thomas, one and a half miles from him. There are besides these - Isaac Tracy, Christopher Tracy, Jonathan Tracy, Reuben Jones, Moses Kimball, Levi Kimball, James Penmin, Daniel Cash, Nathan Parks, Tyler and Cummings. In all there are forty men. They told me they had their right under New England; said their land held good for 50 miles up the river and that they would fight for it to the bitter end. The settlement is prosperous, some have four or five acres of Indian corn, some have three, some two. No wheat. They live in good log houses covered with white pine shingles, or boards. There are vast quantities of that kind of timber there and very fine. There is a scarcity of wheat bread. They get corn in canoes from Minisink. None of the settlers were arrested and the matter was dropped. But in 1763 as was seen in this chapter the Indians changed the whole aspect for a time. [p. 24] . . . [p. 26]

[Chapter XIV] September 20, 1927

Bezaleel Tyler who came it the Cochecton valley, married a sister of Dr. John Calkin. These brothers-in-law came here at the solicitation of Joseph Griswold, who purchased an unusually large tract of land extending eastward from the Delaware, the date of their coming being around 1754. Dr. Calkin and wife had a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters. John the oldest son settled in Earlville; Oliver, the second son settled on the Cochecton Flats; Moses the third son settled somewhere along the Cheming river; and Abner, the fourth son, settled along the Mohawk river.

Oliver Calkin was born in 1750. In 1775 he married Hannah Thomas, daughter of Moses Thomas and she was the eight year old girl who so heroically wielded a musket in the blockhouse in the Cushetunk settlement on that memorable fight with the Indians in 1763. Four years following his marriage, Oliver took part in the battle of the Minisink, July 22, 1779. Oliver escaped injury in the battle. The year following the massacre, Dr. Calkins, his son Oliver, and their families returned to their homes in the Cochecton valley whence they had in 1778 fled to Goshen for safety. The Doctor and his wife, upon their return, made their home with their son Oliver until after the latter’s death. Both were laid to rest in Salem where they were born. They saw many hardships and privations in frontier life in what is now the peaceful valley of the Delaware. The Hardenburgh Patent.

In 1783, four years preceding his death by drowning in the summer of 1787 while fording the Delaware river at the head of Pine Flats, near Hankins, Oliver Calkin purchased lot #63 of the Hardenburgh Patent containing more than 3000 acres. We should say he contracted for this land for he did not have the purchase price to put down. The Hardenburgh Patent was granted to Johannes Hardenburgh and eight others in 1708 but not surveyed nor divided until 1749. At that time nearly all the original patentees were dead. It was surveyed into large lots and then these subdivided that the heirs might receive equal shares. This 3000 acre purchase included all the upper end of the Cochecton Flats taking in where the village of Cochecton now stands and miles of timbered lands back east on the river hills. Just prior to his death he had built a large, and for those days, imposing dwelling house in what is now Cochecton, which for many years was occupied by the widow, her son Moses and his son Ezra, the latter razing it in 1875 and replacing it with a more modern structure. So many of these heirs lived in what was then Cochecton, the settlement on the first terrace from the river eastward along the turnpike, that the place was called Heirsville, but Cochecton was the name used when a post office was established in 1810 with Ebenezer Taylor as postmaster.

The Calkin Family

When Oliver Calkin died he was survived by his wife and six children. The oldest child, a daughter, Eleanor, born in 1776, became the wife of Ebenezer Taylor. One of her daughters married James Curtis; this made her the great-grandmother of the Curtises and Drakes and other descendants. Sarah, born in 1773, married Nathan Skinner, a man who had been educated in Conn., was a surveyor. He kept an historical record of the happenings in the Cochecton Valley in regard to the early settlers. In 1815 he removed his family from Cochecton to Milanville, where he had purchased of his brother-in-law, John Land, a tract of 400 acres paying for the same $10,000. Bezaleel Calkin born in 1780 married Polly Ross. Weighty born in 1783 became the wife of Charles Irvine, a man of great learning who came from Ireland to Cochecton Valley and established the first school taught there. This was prior to 1800. Moses Calkin, born in 1785 married Elizabeth Mitchell; Oliver H. Born in 1787 married Maria Theresa Smith of Litchfield, Conn., whose father was a teacher at that place. Moses and Oliver H. had attended the school. After their marriage they settled near Earlville, N.Y.

A Woman Pioneer

At the death of our former subject, Oliver Calkin, his wife found she had a heavy debt to bear – an unpaid-for estate and six small children, but she had not lost all the bravery shown by her as an eight year old handling a gun when the Indians besieged the fort in 1763. To prove this, as soon as she [p. 27] could become strong enough for a long journey she took her babe, then only three months old, in her arms and went by horseback to Kingston via Port Jervis, following a path through the wilderness. Kingston was at that time the county seat and the trip approached 100 miles. At Kingston she took out letters of administration on the estate of her husband, and returned to her home in Cochecton without mishap in so long a trip. Her good business ability and sound judgment in the management of the affairs of the estate [was such] that she soon had it cleared of all indebtedness.

In about 1790 Job Jones a school teacher, came from Dutchess county, N.Y., to the Cochecton [valley] to engage in his profession. He met the widow Calkin, a brief courtship followed, a subsequent marriage. Jones was a Justice of the Peace, a man of strict business integrity and very ably aided his wife in the management of the property. How long they lived together is not recorded but he left home one day saying he was going to visit his relatives. Strange to say he never returned nor could any trace of him be found afterward. Being a woman of good common sense and having seen through much hardship, the loss even of a second husband did not discourage her. She possessed strong religious convictions and always befriended preachers who came to preach to the settlers along the Delaware. When a church was organized in 1812 she became a member. In 1820 [?] she divided the estate amongst her children reserving a living room only in the homestead with provision and clothing for her. This remarkable and good woman entered into eternal rest in the old home built by her first husband then occupied by her son Moses in May 1832 and was buried beside her husband, Oliver Calkin, in the Milanville cemetery adjoining the farm upon which she was born. All her children were church members and all but one Presbyterians. Moses Calkin the fifth child born to Oliver Calkin and his wife Hannah Thomas, born in 1775, married Elizabeth Mitchell, December 11, 1811. To them eight children were born, viz: James Morris, in 1813, married Fidelia Harris; Abijah Mitchell in 1815, married Augusta Hedden; Ruth M. in 1818, died in 1847; Ellery Timothy, born in 1821, married Hannah Page; Hannah J. born in 1823 married John P. Roosa; Jerusha J. Born in 1826 married Schuyber Durea; Ezra Fiske born in 1829 married Mary A. Roosa in 1857; Samuel Newell born in 1832 died in 1833.

Bezaleel Calkin, son of Oliver and brother of Moses just mentioned above moved from the old homestead in Cochecton to Big Island and later to a section above Callicoon thus forming another branch on the family tree. He was a grandson of the pioneer Dr. John Calkin.

Bezaleel married Polly Ross and to them were born several sons of whom were William T. and Alfred. The former fought in the rebellion. After the war and his marriage to a Binghampton woman he migrated to Missouri where he died in 1903. He was born in Cochecton on Dec. 3, 1822. Alfred was born on Cochecton June 15, 1809. In 1830 he married Sarah Ross. The them were born six children three of whom died in infancy. Those attaining maturity were James R., Bezaleel and Maria S. James never married. He died in 1909. Bezaleel was born Jan. 22, 1837, and died in 1914. The latter married Ida King in 1874 and their offspring were Minnie, who married J. A. Biedekapp, of Hamden, N.Y., Jennie L., who married Henry Randale of Callicoon, and Grover C. of Hampstead, L.I.. Oliver H. brother of William T. was born in Cochecton July 1, 1815 and died Feb. 27, 1892. He married Olive Bennett. Five sons and six daughters were born to them. Freeman Calkin born June 15, 1809 was also a native of Cochecton a brother of Alfred and of Bezaleel. He married Kathryn Sprague. He died in 1875 and his wife in 1906. Three children were born to them, Roscoe D., Rosetta wife of W. V. Ross, and Maria C. Bezaleel Calkin, a son of Bezaleel was born Dec. 8, 1819. He married Amanda Bennett, sister of Olive who married his brother Oliver H. Calkin. Both Mr. and Mrs, Calkin died in Michigan. Ellery T. Calkin and brother Ezra F. both stayed in Cochecton and died there. Both were men of integrity active in business and progressive community builders, exemplary citizens. The former left no progeny; the latter left two sons and three daughters, only one of whom is now a resident of Cochecton: Mrs. Etta Calkin Burr who resides in the parental home built by her father in 1875 on the same site her grandfather, Moses Calkin, built when he contracted for lot 63. [p. 28]

Moses was the son of Benjamin & Dorothy (Kibbe) Thomas

He married Sarah Horton, daughter of Nathaniel & Hannah (Parsons) Horton, on 6 Oct 1742 at Somers, Tolland, CT - parents of Sarah & Moses II Thomas

Sources

1. ↑ https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/29203446?p=43186501&returnLabel=Hannah%20Thomas%20(LV9P-K5N)&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.familysearch.org%2Ftree%2Fperson%2Fmemories%2FLV9P-K5N

• https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LC3F-2X9
• https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/29203446?p=43186501&returnLabel=Hannah%20Thomas%20(LV9P-K5N)&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.familysearch.org%2Ftree%2Fperson%2Fmemories%2FLV9P-K5N
• Info from personal family data base.
• CT Town Birth Records, pre-1870 (Barbour Collection)
• CT Town Marriage Records, pre-1870 (Barbour Collection)
• www.genealogyofnewengland.com