Elizabeth (Zabriskie) Seaman (1741 - 1774)

Born 1741 in New Barbadoes Township, Bergen County, New Jersey, British Colonial America

Ancestors

Wife of Edmond Seaman — married 24 Dec 1768 in Schraalenburg, Bergen, New Jersey, British Colonial America

Died 7 Mar 1774 at about age 33 in New York City, New York, British Colonial America

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Elizabeth (Zabriskie) Seaman is one of twins.

Biography

Elizabeth was born in 1741. She was the daughter of Jan Zabriskie and Annetje Ackerman. She passed away in 1774.

Bergen County Historical Society; Historic New Bridge Landing[1]^[1]

ZABRISKIE INVENTORY: : SHOPPING IN 1793; by Kevin W. Wright

Jan Zabriskie, Senior, miller and wily middle man, had that proverbial "thumb of gold." By quick study (and perhaps by nature), he became profitably conversant with back-country farmers, river boatmen, drovers, teamsters, ironmasters and the polished upper strata of city merchants. His twin children, Jan and Elizabeth, married into Manhattan's mercantile families. Elizabeth married Edmond Seaman, son of Judge Benjamin Seaman and his wife Elizabeth Mott, on Christmas Day, 1768.

Judge Seaman was a successful New York merchant and politician. The young couple produced three sons, John, Benjamin and Edmond Seaman. Childbirth was risky in those times and Elizabeth Zabriskie Seaman, wife of the Clerk of the New York Assembly, died February 26, 1774, aged 30 years, one week after the birth of her youngest son, Edmond.

Jan Zabriskie, Junior, married Jane Goelet in November 1764. Certainly, local wags knew that her brother, Francis, had married the daughter of a respectable Perth Amboy family, set up business in his wife's hometown, only to fall into "unhappy circumstances," as bankruptcy was euphemistically called in those times. Jane's spinster sister, Mary, moved from New York to New Bridge, settling into the former academy, where she kept shop. This property, located on the high bluff above the river, opposite Zabriskie's Mills, was purchased by Edmond Seaman.

John Zabriskie, third generation of that name to inhabit the sandstone mansion at New Bridge, was born September 30, 1767, the son of John and Jane (Goelet) Zabriskie When his grandfather, John the first, died in September 1774, he assumed the title of Junior. We can imagine the wide-eyes of this nine-year-old boy, face pressed against the pane, as he counted the rag tag garrison of Fort Lee, General Washington at their head, passing his threshold and vanishing southward in a cold drizzle. Continental troops used his home as a fort to defend their passage. We don't know what he overheard of his father's political whisperings, but on July 14, 1777, he may have watched approaching bateaux, loaded with soldiers under command of Major Samuel Hayes, as they landed alongside the gristmill. They arrested his father as a "disaffected person" and imprisoned him at Morristown. Once on parole, John, Senior, abandoned the family homestead and trade, fleeing to New York City where his family found refuge with the Seamans. Whatever bitterness the Zabriskies felt at the British evacuation of Manhattan could only have been compounded by confiscation of their properties by the victorious revolutionary officers of the State of New Jersey.

The Zabriskies did not join the fleeing tide of Loyalists to Canada, but returned to New Bridge, leasing their home from its new owner, Baron von Steuben, and operating the mill landing in partnership with the Baron's aide-de-camp, Captain Benjamin Walker. John Zabriskie, Jr., was twenty–one years of age when, on December 12, 1788, he paid 1,200 Pounds to Baron von Steuben for purchase of the Zabriskies' New Bridge estate. On October 13, 1792, John married the girl–next–door, Caty Hoogland. Her father, Cornelius, had acquired the old stone tavern on the east side of New Bridge from Andrew Van Buskirk in 1771. John Zabriskie, Junior, died June 6, 1793, aged 25 years, and was buried in the Old French Burying Ground (New Milford). Tradition says that he died in a mill accident, but no proof has yet been found. His widow married Abraham Collins of New Bridge on February 1, 1795. She released her dower right in the Zabriskie mansion and mills to John, Benjamin and Edmond Seaman on April 21, 1795. Only four months later, Edmond Seaman of New York and New Barbadoes, merchant, sold the premises to John and Dirck Banta.

John Zabriskie's administrators, in preparing an inventory of his stock in trade, have bequeathed to posterity a valuable insight into the material culture of the late eighteenth century, carefully listing everything from mouse traps to fiddle strings. Of particular interest to our docent group, now studying the clothing of that era, is the variety of cloth mentioned. One looming perplexity, however, remains the location of this stock of merchandise. A few items of household furniture appear near the beginning of the inventory - was the store room located in the Steuben House? If so, where are the beds, andirons, personal clothing, et cetera, that would confirm occupancy? Were these few items of furniture used to warehouse bolts of cloth and other commodities? Perhaps cabinet-work (possibly imported from New York or England) was included in the Zabriskie's range of merchandise? Maybe the entire house was a store - but then where did the Zabriskies reside? If the store was kept in a separate building (or an appendage to the main house), then why didn't the appraisers include more of John Zabriskie's personal possessions in the inventory? They certainly visited his carriage house and barn, mentioning the family cow. Did his moveable estate perish with him - in a fire???

An Inventory of all and Singular the goods and Chattels, rights and Credits which were of John Zabriskie, Junior, deceased, at the time of his death, who died intestate, made the seventeenth day of July 1793 in the presence of Albert Zabriskie, Administrator, made by John Earle and Christian Zabriskie, appraisers..

The Seaman family in America as descended from Captain John Seaman of Hempstead, Long Island; by Seaman, Mary Thomas, 1879-Publication date 1928; page 102^[2]

Describe The Record (Notes) Page 103

308 . Edmund Seaman (Benjamin, 4 Benjamin, 3 Benjamin, 2 Captain John 1 ), born at Staten Island, N. Y., 1745; died 1828; married, first, December 24, 1768, Elizabeth Zabriskie, daughter of John and Anna Zabriskie. (She died January 27, 1774). Married, second, November 7, 1775, at Hempstead, L. I., Hester Van Ranst, daughter of Cornelius and Catherine (Cannon) Van Ranst, who died on the day of her marriage. Edmund Seaman was Clerk of the 30th Colonial Assembly, October 27, 1768 to February 2, 1769, and of the 31st Colonial Assembly, April 4, 1769 to April 3, 1775. From the Proceedings of the Provincial Congress of New York, 1776:

“Early in 1776, the Patriot Army was in sore distress for lack of ammunition, when a happy thought was submitted to the Congress, and the Patriotic citizens of New York City were invited to contribute their window leads for the manufacture of bullets. . . . Among those who responded were Edmund Seaman.”

He and Elizabeth Zabriskie Seaman had four children:—

523. Benjamin Seaman, died.

524. Edmund Seaman, died.

525. John Seaman, died.

526. Catherine Seaman, died about 1859; married, first, May 2, 1793, Captain John Kortright, son of Lawrence and Hannah (A.spinwall) Kortright. (He died May 23, 1810. He was an only son and had four sisters, of whom his sister, Elizabeth Kortright, married in 1786 the Honorable James Monroe, who was later President of the United States. Captain John Kortright’s farm was on Harlem Lane, with the new mansion built west of the Lane, which descended to his children.) They had six children:—

John L. Kortright, married Freelove McCoun.

Edmund Kortright, married Sarah Barretto.

Dr. Robert Kortright, married Eliza Kortright.

Nicholas Gouveneur Kortright, died 1874; married Sarah Allaire, and had one child.

Eliza Kortright, married Nicholas Cruger.

Hester Mary Kortright, married Billopp B. Seaman ( 544 )

Catherine Seaman Kortright married, second, Judge Henry Brockholst Livingston, son of Governor William and Susan (Brockholst) Livingston. (He was born November 25, 1759, in New York City; died March 18, 1838, in Washington, D. C. Colonel in Revolutionary War; Judge of Supreme Court of United States, 1806-1823.) They had three children:—

Henry Brockholst Livingston, Jr., resident of Florence, Italy; married-Valentine. Jasper Hall Livingston, resident of Ryde, Isle of Wight, England; married twice; married, second Matilda Anne Cecilia Bait, daughter of Sir John Morris Bait of Sketty Park, Glamorganshire, England.

Catherine Louise Livingston, born March 23, 1815, in New York City; died July 13, 1890, at Spandon, Prussia; married at New York, July 15, 1832, Maurice Powers, and had ten children.

Sources

1. ↑ https://www.bergencountyhistory.org/zabriskie-inventory
2. ↑ https://archive.org/details/seamanfamilyinam00seam/page/n101/mode/2up

• https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/M5XV-G6S