Elizabeth (White) Tompkins (abt. 1655)

Born about 1655 in Fairfield, Fairfield, Connecticut Colony

Ancestors

Wife of Nathaniel Tompkins — married about 1672 in Fairfield, Fairfield, Connecticut colony [uncertain]

Descendants

Died [date unknown] in Eastchester, Westchester County, New York Province

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Halsey Bullen [send private message], Timothy Wilder [send private message], and Rebecca Keene [send private message]

Research Note

Nathaniel Tompkins-325 (1633-1684) married a woman named Elizabeth, which is supported by numerous sources including his will. But what was her last name at birth?? Previous profiles Unknown-376925, Hayden-1746, and White-5349) offered three possibilities:

Hayden? - The previous profile Hayden-1746 stated that her name was Hayden, but cited no source other than an Odell Family Tree ged.com, which was imported by Beryl Jacobs but is not accessible except by the person who loaded it. William Hayden was the second husband of Nathaniel's mother Elizabeth ____ Tompkins, and thus what we now call the stepfather of Nathaniel; Nathaniel was his son-in-law in the 17th century terminology, used in the 1687 transfer of Eastchester land between them cited in the passage in "Families of Old Fairfield", p. 612, cited by White-5349. Perhaps that connection led to the assumption that Elizabeth was William Hayden's daughter by an earlier marriage or other relative, reported but rejected for lack of any evidence in the profile William Hayden-788. And no other potenital progenitor of a daughter ____ Hayden who might have married Nathaniel is apparent. In summary, the suggestion that Elizabeth was a Hayden is sufficiently unlikely that it is rejected.

Unknown? - - Torrey gives no last name at birth for Elizabeth in his record of the marriage.[1] - Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Worcester County Massachusetts with a History of Worcester Society of Antiquity, by Ellery Bicknell Crane (New York, Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1907) , p.139, cited on White-3549 gives no LNAB in its exhaustive treatment.

White? - White-5349 noted that some say her name was White, citing (1) The Ancestry of Henry James Lawless, Jr. Book Two: Maternal Ancestry by Ethan J. Kennedy (2010) p. 192 and (2) Clan of Tomkyns, Vol. I, Robert A Tompkins (Manuscript in the Los Angeles Library) Url: http://www.lapl.org/central/tomkyns.html , Vol. I, p. 23. the profile also cites Crane. White-18564 was created by Rebecca Keene by import of audrey focus group.ged. That profile cites as a source "Joseph N. Brown.FTW". As noted in a comment by Timothy Wilder, recent work by David Tompkins states that she was Elizabeth White, sister of Nathaniel White. Nathaniel Tompkins appointed Nathaniel White as co-executor with his wife Elizabeth and his brother John Tompkins of his will of 2 September 1684.^[1]

Conclusion: The sources favoring White, particularly David Tompkins, are persuasive. White seem to be the right answer for Elizabeth's LNAB. Therefore, the alternative profiles have been merged into this profile White-18564, which has the right LNAB.

Biography

Elizabeth White was likely born about 1656 in Fairfield, Connecticut Colony, where she was part of the household of Dr. Thomas Pell, the Fairfield man who purchased from the Indians Pelham Manor, Eastchester, and Westchester and who in his will set up his nephew as the First Lord of Pelham Manor. Her mother Elizabeth was the daughter of Lucretia and the late Francis Brewster and therefore became Thomas Pell's step-daughter when Lucretia married him. Elizabeth lived in Pell's Fairfield establishment with Mary and Nathaniel White, presumably her younger siblings.

Elizabeth and her siblings received legacies from Dr.Pell's will dated 21 Sep 1669.^[2]

So what is their relationship to Dr. Pell? That section of his will is offers some insight. It reads:

Item - I give to my sonne (his wife's son) Francis French, all my tobacco, growing or not growing, in casks, or otherways made up in tools or twist. Item - I give to Nathaniel French two young cowes and one young bull. Item - To Elizabeth White I give the worst feather bed and boulster, one iron pott, six porringers, six spoons of alcamy, six pewter platters, one brass skellet, and fifteen poiunds more in goods or cattle, current pay, and two comely suits of apparel, one for working days, another for Sabbath dayes, with two paire of shoes. Item - to Mary White I give six pounds and one suite of aparell of serge, with two shifts, and wool for stockings. I give to Nathaniell White, an apprentice in some handicraft trade; and if it be for his advantage, to give tenne pounds with him out of my estate, not diminishing his twenty pounds, which is to be improved for his use. I give to Barbary my servant - I set her at liberty to be a free woman . . . and one flock bed and boulster, and two blancoats, a pair of sheets, and cotton rug, one iron pott, an iron skellett, six trays and chest . . . six porringers, two pewter platters, six pewter spoons or ye value of them, two cowes or the value of them.^[3]

That wording suggests that Nathaniel, Mary, and Elizabeth White were in some way Dr. Pell's dependents. Subsequent activities in Eastchester support the explanation that the three were the children of Elizabeth Brewster, daughter of Dr. Pell's second wife Lucretia, and therefore his step-grandchildren

The timing of the will, which refers to Elizabeth by her maiden name, establishes that she married after 1669. If she was born after 1654, as suggested by the testimony her mother gave under her maiden name in the slander trial in that year, that suggests she was married about 1672, when she might have been 17.

Birth

Elizabeth was born perhaps 1655, and likely in Connecticut, likely Fairfield, possibly New Haven. This was unlikely to have been Eastchester, Westchester County, New York, as suggested by Source: #S93 , since Eastchester was not settled by Europeans until 1666.

Marriage

Elizabeth White married Nathaniel Tompkins, perhaps in 1672, rather than 1670 as suggested by Brown^[4]

Children

Nathaniel and Elizabeth had, in Eastchester:^[5]

• Anne, b. 1672, married Isaac Odell
• Elizabeth, b. 1674
• Mary, b. 1676, married Jonathan Odell, the couple living in the family house headed by her brother Nathaniel in 1698 per the census
• Nathaniel, b. 20 Sep 1678
• Rebecca, b. 1680, living in the house of Moses Hoit in 1698 per the census
• Deborah, b. 1684 or 1685, apparently born after her father signed his will, which does not mention her, in September 1684. Living in the house of Isaac and Anna Tompkins Odell in 1698 per the census.

Sources

1. ↑ Tompkins, David A., Eastchester Village, colonial New York 1666-1698: Maps and Inhabitants, (Eastchester Historical Society, 1997), p. 31 & 33, citing Grenville McKenzie's Families of Colonial Phillipsburg,
2. ↑ Pelletreau, William S., Early Wills of Westchester County , New York, from 1664 to 1784 . . . a careful abstract . . ., (New York, 1898, Francis P Harper), pp. 1, 379-380, 390
3. ↑ Bolton, Robert, History of the County of Westchester, from its first settlement to the present time, (New York, 1848, Alexander S. Gould), Vol. 1, pp. 523-524
4. ↑ Source: #S93
5. ↑ Will, 1698 census, and other sources listed below

• Tompkins, David A., Eastchester Village, colonial New York 1666-1698: Maps and Inhabitants, (Eastchester Historical Society, 1997), p. 31 & 33, citing Grenville McKenzie's Families of Colonial Phillipsburg and the 1698 census of Eastchester.
• The Ancestry of Henry James Lawless, Jr. Book Two: Maternal Ancestry by Ethan J. Kennedy (2010) p. 192
• Clan of Tomkyns, Vol. I, Robert A Tompkins (Manuscript in the Los Angeles Library) Url: http://www.lapl.org/central/tomkyns.html , Vol. I, p. 23.
• Source: S521 Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Worcester County Massachusetts with a History of Worcester Society of Antiquity, by Ellery Bicknell Crane (New York, Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1907) Internet Archive
• Source: S587New England Marriages Prior to 1700, by Clarence Almon Torrey (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2011) Vol. III, p. 1528. "TOMPKINS, Nathaniel (-1684/5) & Elizabeth ____; ca 1672?; Eastchester, NY {Fairfield Fam. 1:612; Cornell 384; NYGBR 54:279}"
• Source: S497 History and Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield Compiled and Edited, by Donald Lines Jacobus (Fairfield, Connecticut: Daughters of the American Revolution, 1930) Vol. I, p. 612.
• Westchester Patriarchs. A Genealogical Dictionary Of Westchester County, New York, Families Prior to 1755. Norman Davis. 1988. pp. 238-239.
• History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the county of Westchester From Its Foundation, A.D. 1693, to A.D. 1853 by Robert Bolton (New York: Stanford & Swords, 1855) Internet Archive
• Source: S93 Abbreviation: Joseph N. Brown. FTW Title: Joseph N. Brown. FTW Note: 3
• Van Tasel family history- The Tompkins family
• Find a Grave, database and images (www.findagrave.com/memorial/143548452/elizabeth-clark : accessed 12 July 2021), memorial page for Elizabeth White Clark (6 Mar 1654–25 Dec 1711), Find a Grave Memorial ID 143548452, citing Old Burying Ground, Cromwell, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA ; Maintained by Lynne Ream (contributor 47484531) .

Acknowledgement

White-18564 was created by Rebecca Keene through the import of audrey focusgroup.ged on Aug 10, 2014.