Elias Buel Jr. (1768 - 1808)

Born 17 Apr 1768 in Coventry, Connecticut

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 17 Sep 1808 at age 40 in Waterbury, Washington, Vermont, United States

Biography

Elias Buel Jr. moved up to Vermont with his father and his mother, Sarah Turner, and married some time around or before 1795 a girl reported to be a Catharine(sic) Thompson (Catharine as spelled on her gravestone in Huntington Center, Vermont) in the Buells of America by Albert Welles (1881), which work has many mistakes and appears hastily edited before a major family reunion many years later. Much research by several family descendants has failed to locate any Thompson family in Rutland area, however. I personally have assumed other surnames for Catharine, and pursued these to no avail.

When she died she left Dutch Delft dishes, which would have been unusual possessions for a girl in New England at that time I am told. However, Jesse Buel, the youngest brother of Elias Jr, a former NY state printer at Troy and a resident of Albany, had a Dutch-descended wife, and in fact Elias Senior and Sarah Turner were originally buried at the Dutch Reformed Church in downtown Albany, the ground of which was later usurped for the domeless state capitol building; their graves, along with Jesse's family were moved to Troy Rural Cemetery up the Hudson across from Troy. Obelisk with names in and to the left.

When he first removed to Vermont, Elias Sr. was cheated by Ira Allen, the less than honest brother of Ethan Allen, who gave him title to land owned and occupied by a Col. Beach. Elias became enraged, and was planning to physically evict Beach until he learned that Col Beach had not put his land up for sale. Elias operated a tavern in Rutland where he planned his land purchases and development to the north, known as "Buel's Gore". He was an early land developer not prepared for all the federal land to come on the market (almost the whole West) with the Louisiana Purchase.

Elias, Jr. seems to have studied law by the simpler means of his day by sitting in with a practicing lawyer in New Haven, Connecticut, and he worked with his father in land purchasing and development in Rutland. He is later reported to have been a "sheriff's deputy" in Waterbury Vermont. So far we have been unable to locate details of his early death in 1808, which may have been related to his duties.

Elias, Jr. is buried behind the Congregational Church in downtown Waterbury, Vermont, on the left of the lane back of the church, and in several stones, about 120 feet from the church corner.

Maj. Elias Sr. and wife Sarah by now elderly, went to live with youngest son Jesse, by now a resident of Albany, formerly judge in Kingston, a Dutch town half way between Albany and NYC, (with a Dutch-descended wife) where his youngest children died young. He was state printer after learning trade in NYC (Nieu Amsterdam), also a famed agronomist and travelling lecturer and publisher of "The Cultivator" which later matriculated into the "Country Gentleman". Moving to Albany he had a part of the track for the DeWitt Clinton loco across his land and was an honorary first passenger on the opening. R. Palmer 9/23

Sources

• Robert Palmer, firsthand knowledge.
• Buells of America, Albert Welles (NY: 1881)

• Daughters of the American Revolution, DAR Genealogical Research Databases, database online, (http://www.dar.org/ : accessed March 4, 2020), "Record of BUELL, ELIAS", Ancestor # A016637. Meehan-411