Anna Margaretha (Schoolcraft) Wall (1734 - 1805)

Born 7 Nov 1734 in Schoharie, Albany, New York Colony

Ancestors

Wife of Crean Brush — married about 1762 in New York

Wife of Patrick Wall — married 1 Jun 1780 in New York City, New York County, New York Colony

Descendants

Died Aug 1805 at age 70 in Westminster, Windham, Vermont, United States

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Anna (Schoolcraft) Wall has German Roots.

Biography

Margaret had an exciting life in F&I and Revolutionary War-era New York, Nova Scotia, and Vermont. Born in Schoharie, New York to immigrant parents--a Lancashireman father and Palatine German mother--she became a single mother about 1760, but managed to land Irish-born New York land speculator Crean Brush by 1765. He had large land interests, held by New York patents, in eastern Vermont where they lived in the 1770s. When the Revolution came, Brush obtained a customs post in Boston and, after the British evacuated the city, was captured by Patriot forces in a ship stuffed with confiscated American goods. He was held in Boston gaol until 1777, being rescued by his daring wife, who exchanged clothing with him on a conjugal visit. Not until dinnertime, when a dainty hand reached through prison bars for the tray of swill on offer, was the ruse discovered. At some point, meanwhile, Brush disguised himself as an Indian in which guise, according to other stories, he managed to reach New York City. But in May 1778 he was dead by suicide somewhere in Manhattan, having failed to obtain favor from the British administration in New York, and seeing the ruin of his fortunes.

Brush's will, drawn while in Boston gaol, was proved at Newfane, Vermont, the then seat of government covering his estate in Westminster. He left one-third of his estate to his daughter, so identified, Elizabeth Martha Brush; one third to his wife; and one-third to her daughter Frances. Given the substantial proportion of the estate left to Brush's wife's daughter it is completely possible that she was a biological daughter born before his marriage to Margaret and perhaps while his first wife (in Ireland?) was still living, and that the wording of his will was a workaround to avoid embarrassment to Margaret or Fanny. In any case, confiscation of Brush's lands and property by the Patriots, and the conflicting claims of Vermont and New York, meant that little or none of his wealth reached his heirs.

After Brush's death, Margaret married at New York, 1 June 1780, Patrick Wall, a merchant tailor formerly of Boston, who is seen witnessing baptisms at Kings Chapel there in the years leading up to the Revolution. By 1783 they were in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, where as a Loyalist he filed claims for damages suffered in the war. After the war they settled at Westminster, where both died. Mr. and Mrs. Wall are buried under elegant table graves, the most expensive then available, but 200+ years of acid rain have pooled on the surfaces and worn away the inscriptions. When my parents and I visited in 1983 we noticed that the vertical tombstones of Westminster's ordinary people had worn much better than the Walls' horizontal table tombs, whose inscriptions were eroding by the 1930s according to a WPA-era transcript of Westminster cemeteries then housed at the town library which, against all odds, was open at the time of our visit. Sic transit gloria mundi.

James Jacobus Schoolcraft

Spouse Kemmer-16 '"Anna Christina Kemmer'"] ]

Children:

1. Christian Schoolcraft
2. James Schoolcraft (1728 - )
3. William Schoolcraft (1730 - 1761)
4. John Schoolcraft (1731 - 1795)
5. Lawrence Schoolcraft (1732 - 1808)
6. Margaret Schoolcraft (1734 - 1805)
7. Mary Magdalena Schoolcraft (1735 - )
8. Elizabeth Schoolcraft (1738 - 1822)
9. Catherine Helen Schoolcraft (1741 - )

Research Notes

Some records claim Margaret Schoolcraft was married to John Montresor, however, there is no marriage record, Montresor, who was not celibate before his 1764 marriage to Frances Tucker, is not known to have mentioned Margaret's daughter and certainly never acknowledged her as his. Margaret's daughter Frances 'Fannie' Montresor, whoever her father, was illegitimate. Fannie married Col. Ethan Allen, war hero of the Green Mountain Boys from the Revolutionary War. During the last five years of his life (the period of his marriage to Fanny), he too was trying to settle Brush's snarled land titles, and Fanny's (thus his) inheritance, in Westminster and environs.

https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/6961/images/43103_356289-01402?ssrc=pt&treeid=51152285&personid=13190671517&hintid=&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true&_ga=2.62503532.1717063005.1616434893-852181297.1615427464&pId=2581045 for image of the marriage of Crean Brush and Margaret Colecraft 10 August 1765 at Collegiate Church, New York City. In a column to the left of parties' names is written "9" and in one to the right, "10" which suggests they may have filed intentions one day and married the next? The numeral "1" is written with a curl to make the marriage date the 30th of the month, but just below is a "17" with the same form of numeral "1." There is no 37th day of any month.

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Sources

• Source: S-2136308406 Repository: #R-2146964566 Title: Ancestry Family Trees Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. Note: This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. Page: Ancestry Family Trees Note: Data: Text: http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=9472044&pid=180
• Repository: R-2146964566 Name: Ancestry.com Address: http://www.Ancestry.com Note:

1. Source: Ancestor Links - Hayes and related families. Seventh Generation. Google's cache of http://www.ancestor-links.com/data/ancestor-links-hayes/a7.html It is taken from a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Jul 22, 2015
2. Source: Talcott, S. V. (Sebastian Visscher), b. 1812. ‘’Genealogical notes of New York and New England families (1883).pdf.’’ Albany., pg 706 Ref. #373. Publisher Albany, N.Y. : Weed, Parsons and Co. Pages 832. Not_In_Copyright. Book Contributor Library of Congress URL: https://archive.org/details/genealogicalnote00talc
3. Source: ‘’’David J. Ellis’’’, ‘’The SCHOOLCRAFT Families of Schoharie, NY and Missisquoi County, QC’’ (2007 (Edition 2)), Page 203. .... Beate Busch-Schirm, ‘’Evangelische Gemeinde Niederbieber (Neuwied) mit Segendorf und Oberbieber von 1655 bis 1839’’ [‘’Protestant Community Niederbieber (Neuwied) with Segendorf and Oberbieber 1655-1839’’] (Koln, Germany: Westdeutschen Gesellschaft für Familienkunde WGfF [West German Genealogical Society], 2008), Pages 269-270 (and West German Genealogy Website - alphabetical index). .... Henry Z. Jones Jr., ‘’The Palatine families of New York: a study of the German immigrants who arrived in colonial New York in 1710’’, 2 Volumes (Camden, Main: Picton Press, 1985), Volume 1: Pages 430-431.

• Find A Grave: Memorial #116899647 Margaret T Wall