Content Titus
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Content Titus (1643 - 1730)

Capt. Content Titus
Born in Weymouth, Norfolk, Massachusetts, Colonial Americamap
Ancestors ancestors
Son of and
Brother of , , , , and [half]
Husband of — married 1672 in Newtown, Queens, New Yorkmap
Descendants descendants
Father of , , , , , and
Died at age 86 in Long Island, New York Colonymap [uncertain]
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Profile last modified | Created 24 Apr 2011
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Biography

Content Titus was born 28 Mar 1643, in Weymouth, Norfolk County, Massachusetts; [1] the son of Robert Titus and his wife Hannah. The family moved to Oyster Bay, Long Island about 1650. By 1666, he was a landholder at the Long Island town of Huntington, Suffolk County, New York. [2]

About 1672, he married Elizabeth and built the house they lived in the remainder of their lives at Newtown, Queens County, Long Island. [3] [4] [5] That his wife was a daughter of the Rev John Moore is disputed. (See Barry Smith in comments)

In 1686, he was one of three designated ‘inhabitants and freeholders’ to draft a patent which Governor Thomas Dongan subsequently endorsed to confirm land ownership for the many English families at Newtown whom Director-General Peter Stuyvesant had long refused to recognize. In 1689, he accepted a commission as a militia captain, allegedly from the Crown [6] [7] at Newtown via Lieutenant Governor Jacob Leisler; [8] in 1693, he led Newtown’s militia in a fight against Indians [9] and in 1700, he was again recorded as captain of a company of foot soldiers. [10] [11] [12]

In 1689, he was appointed one of the Commissioners of the town court at Newtown. [13] In 1694, he traveled to Boston where he recruited John Morse, a recent graduate of Harvard College, to be a minister at Newtown after the death of the much revered pastor, Reverend William Leveretch. In 1724, at the age of 80, he was named one of the first ruling elders of the newly established local Presbyterian Church. [14] He passed away 17 Jan 1730, in Newtown. [15] [16]

1702 Lord Cornbury ordered the church wardens of Jamaica (non-conformists) to appear before him; Content was one. [17]

His gravestone is in the southwest corner of the First Presbyterian Church at Newtown Cemetery in Elmhurst, Queens County. [18] [19] [20]

Will, Abstract of: In the name of God, Amen. This 24th day of February, 1727/8 I, CONTENT TITUS, of Newtown, in Queens County on Nassau Island, being old and crazy, but of sound mind. I leave to my son Robert all my real estate in Newtown, he paying out the legacie and allowing grass and hay for 2 cows for Hannah. And all my wearing apparell and all my tools for building, turning, and husbandry. Also 3 horses, 4 cows and a negro man, Jack. I leave to my sons, Silas, John, and Timothy 5 shillings each. I leave to my daughter Hannah the use and whole command of my newest house during her single state, and then to my son Robert. Also 2 negro girls, and all household furniture, belonging to the Great room, in the new house, and the rest of the movable estate. And she is to have 1/3 of the crop of every sort, and grass and hay for her cows, and if she dies unmarried, then to my daughters, Phebe and Abigail. I leave to my daughters, [21] Phebe and Abigail, each a negro girl and boy and œ20, having heretofore dealt out household goods to them. I make my son Robert, and my daughter Hannah, executors. [22]

Sources

  1. ↑ Lee, Francis Bazley “Genealogical and Personal Memorial of Mercer County, New Jersey” : Lewis Publishing Company; Chicago, New York 1907 Vol II pp 106, 819 https://archive.org/details/genealogicalpers02leef/page/819/mode/1up?view=theater
  2. ↑ Titus, Anson “Titus Family in America” : New York Genealogical Society, New York 1881 p 4 https://archive.org/details/titusfamilyiname00titurich/page/4/mode/1up?view=theater
  3. ↑ Moore, James W “Rev John Moore of Newtown, Long Island and Some of His Descendants" : Chemical Publishing Company; Easton, Pennsylvania 1902 pp 32, 35, 375, 376 https://archive.org/details/revjohnmooreofne00moor/page/375/mode/1up?view=theater
  4. ↑ Riker, James “Annals of Newtown in Queens County, New York” : D Fanshaw, New York 1852 p 327 https://archive.org/details/annalsofnewtowni00rike/page/327/mode/1up?view=theater
  5. ↑ Cornell, Thomas Clapp “Adam and Anne Mott: Ancestors and Descendants” : A V Haight, Poughkeepsie 1890 p 294 https://archive.org/details/adamandannemott00corngoog/page/294/mode/1up? view=theater
  6. ↑ Lee, Francis Bazley “Genealogical and Personal Memorial of Mercer County, New Jersey” : Lewis Publishing Company, New York 1907 Vol II p 819 https://archive.org/details/genealogicalpers02leef/page/819/mode/1up?view=theater
  7. ↑ Ege, Ralph “Pioneers of Old Hopewell” : Race & Savidge, Hopewell 1908 p 72 https://archive.org/details/pioneersoldhope00egegoog/page/n83/mode/1up?view=theater
  8. ↑ Riker, James “Annals of Newtown in Queens County, New York” : D Fanshaw, New York 1852 p 118 https://archive.org/details/annalsofnewtowni00rike/page/118/mode/1up?view=theater
  9. ↑ Moore, James W “Rev John Moore of Newtown, Long Island and Some of His Descendants" : Chemical Publishing Company; Easton, Pennsylvania 1902 p 375 https://archive.org/details/revjohnmooreofne00moor/page/375/mode/1up?view=theater
  10. ↑ Ross, Peter “History of Long Island, from Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time” : Lewis Publishing Company, New York & Chicago 1902 Vol I p 878 https://archive.org/details/historyoflongisl01ross/page/878/mode/1up?view=theater
  11. ↑ Moore, James W “Rev John Moore of Newtown, N Long Island and Some of His Descendants" : Chemical Publishing Company; Easton, Pennsylvania 1902 pp 15, 250 https://archive.org/details/revjohnmooreofne00moor/page/15/mode/1up?view=theater
  12. ↑ O'Callaghan, Edmund Bailey “Documentary History of the State of New York” : Weed, Parsons & Company, Albany 1850 Vol I p 230 https://archive.org/details/cihm_42682/page/n254/mode/1up
  13. ↑ Moore, James W “Rev John Moore of Newtown, Long Island and Some of His Descendants" : Chemical Publishing Company; Easton, Pennsylvania 1902 p 48 https://archive.org/details/revjohnmooreofne00moor/page/48/mode/1up?view=theater
  14. ↑ Cooley, Eli Field, William Scudder Cooley, Hannah Louisa Cooley “Genealogy of Early Settlers in Trenton and Ewing, ‘Old Hunterdon County, New Jersey’” : W S Sharp Printing Company, Trenton 1883 p 270 https://archive.org/details/genealogyearlys00coolgoog/page/n276/mode/1up?view=theater
  15. ↑ Riker, James “Annals of Newtown in Queens County, New York” : D Fanshaw, New York 1852 pp 125, 126, 225, 226 https://archive.org/details/annalsofnewtowni00rike/page/226/mode/1up?view=theater
  16. ↑ Moore, James W “Rev John Moore of Newtown, Long Island and Some of His Descendants" : Chemical Publishing Company; Easton, Pennsylvania 1902 pp 9, 35, 375, 376 https://archive.org/details/revjohnmooreofne00moor/page/375/mode/1up?view=theater
  17. ↑ Moore, James W “Rev John. Moore of Newtown, Long Island and Some of His Descendants” : Chemical Publishing Company; Easton, PA 1902 p 9 https://archive.org/details/revjohnmooreofne00moor/page/9/mode/1up
  18. ↑ Titus, Anson “Titus Family in America” : New York Genealogical Society, New York 1881 p 4 https://archive.org/details/titusfamilyiname00titurich/page/4/mode/1up?view=theater
  19. ↑ Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/39700199/content-titus
  20. ↑ Lee, Francis Bazley “Genealogical and Personal Memorial of Mercer County, New Jersey” : Lewis Publishing Company, New York and Chicago 1907 Vol I p 106 https://archive.org/details/genealogicalpers01leef/page/n133/mode/1up?view=theater
  21. ↑ https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/
  22. ↑ Rootsweb http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nynassau/wills3.html
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estate settlement naming son Content Titus
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Comments: 2

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John Smith MD
If anyone has convincing documentation that the Content Titus-Elizabeth Moore marriage is valid, please submit it; otherwise, after January 2024, I will recommend Elizabeth be disconnected from the Moore lineage.
posted by John Smith MD
edited by John Smith MD
Smith-116348 Barry Smith
Copying this comment over from Elizabeth Moore's profile so more people will see it:

For the sake of sharing potentially relevant information, there are now a number of genealogists who believe that a marriage between Elizabeth Moore, daughter of Rev John Moore, and Content Titus, has been DISPROVED. See [Elizabeth Moore, Daughter of John Moore of Newtown, Long Island: Wife of Content Titus, William Osborne, or Both?] Volume: 137 Issue: 4 Page: 253; The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, October 2006. The article provides a reasonable explanation for why so many historical genealogy records assert a marriage between Content Titus and Elizabeth Moore, but also provides a substantial amount of contextual evidence for why that marriage now seems more unlikely than likely. Proceed as you will.

The evidence is clear that she was married to William Osborne at the time she was supposedly married to Content Titus, and it is unlikely that there was a divorce since at that time it would need to be publically approved. Content's wife's forename is not in any document linking him to the Moores. The article goes through several possible scenarios, and settles on the most likely being that he had purchased Elizabeth's share of her inheritance and that is why he is named in the deed when the Moore children sold their inheritance. The article says that it doesn't seem Content could have married a different, unknown daughter of John Moore because John's estate was split into five pieces, matching the five children known to be living. One possibility the article overlooks is if Elizabeth Moore, being the eldest child by Margaret Howell, were actually illegitimate, then she couldn't have inherited, and then it would seem Content had married a different daughter of John Moore.

posted by Barry Smith
edited by Barry Smith

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