Tag: New Jersey

January 28, 2013 Dennis No comments exist

Now I will turn to stories about the DEPEW branch of our family tree which follows my father’s mother’s maiden name ancestors. As might be expected just from the sound of it, the origin of Depew is French, and the name was apparently derived from those who dwelt near or on a hill. Sometimes the P is capitalized as well as the D in the spelling (i.e, DePew). However, there are numerous spelling variations including Depue, Depuy, Depui, Depuis, Dupew and many more. None of the variations are very common in the United States. For example there are only about 6000 persons named Depew as of the 2000 census. Most Depew families today live in New York state. Most Depew families in Canada live in the Ontario Province across the border from New York. As you will see later on, however, our line of Depews in America migrated from New Jersey to Virginia and then on to Tennessee.

By the way, also as of the 2000 U.S. Census, only 8.3 million Americans claimed French ancestry. That’s only about 3% of the total population, much less than those who claim ancestry from other European countries.

January 4, 2012 Dennis Ayers No comments exist

RW HeroAbout the time the Derryberrys were obtaining land grants in North Carolina, the Revolutionary War (1775 – 1783) was being fought in the colonies and eventually it affected their area.  From available records, it seems that the only Derryberry to have actually fought as a Patriot in North Carolina was Andrew Derryberry, who was likely the second youngest son of Hans Michael, born around 1765. Perhaps the others were too old to take up arms, or didn’t speak English well enough, or perhaps they remained neutral or loyal to the English crown. The actual reasons are unknown.

 

It is known that some of the Terryberrys and relations back in New Jersey remained loyal to England, and eventually migrated to Canada through New York by the early 1800s. On the other hand, there was a John Terryberry who applied for a pension from New York state who said he fought for the colonies in New Jersey.  So it was a mixed story for the descendants of Peter Dürrenberger, as it was for all the colonists. Historians have estimated that approximately 40 to 45 percent of the colonists supported the rebellion, while 15 to 20 percent remained loyal to the British Crown. The rest attempted to remain neutral and kept a low profile.

 

According to Andrew Derryberry’s pension application filed in 1832 from Tennessee, he first volunteered his services to the Burke County, NC militia at the age of 16 in the winter of 1781. He spent several months guarding forts in the area, and occasionally fighting Indians, before returning home. Then in August of 1782 he joined the Continental Army. This time he was sent to Charleston, but never saw any major action and was finally discharged in July 1783.  Subsequently, much later when living in Tennessee, Andrew received a pension of $39.27 per year for his services, and after his death his wife, Sarah, also received a widow’s pension.

 

December 13, 2011 Dennis Ayers 3 comments

The British encouraged Protestant groups to settle in their American colonies, and in particular, Pennsylvania and North Carolina actively sought German and Swiss Palatines who were eager to become colonists.

 

Three Dürrenberger brothers, Hans Stephan, Hans Jacob and Hans Michael arrived in America on the ship Robert and Alice which sailed from Rotterdam, Holland making a call at Dover, England and arriving at Philadelphia on 11 September 1738. On board were 159 German and Swiss Palatines. Upon disembarkation, they were required to take the Oath of Allegiance to the Crown.

 

Passenger records of that time were not very complete or accurate. There is no record proof, but it is believed that the three brother’s father, Johann Peter Dürrenberger, along with his wife, Eva Catharina, and five of his other children probably also immigrated to the colonies at the same time, since they all disappear from Alsatian records after that. Therefore, this suggests that Johann Peter Dürrenberger was perhaps the first, or “The Immigrant”, of our Derrie ancestors to come to America.

 

In old records the German naming convention was for sons to precede the given name with either Hans or Johann (both of which translate to John), and for girls to precede the given name with the mother’s name. So, Johann Peter would most likely have been called Peter. The family was from a region were the pronunciation (i.e.: D = T, and ü = erh, with silent r’s) makes “Dürrenberger” sound strangely close to “Terryberry.” Subsequently, as was common of the period, a wide variation in spelling ensued. Both family surnames, Dürrenberger and Terryberry are thus reported in colonial documents in a variety of spellings. Soon Derryberry was added to the mix. Thanks to recent DNA test data, a bloodline connection has been proven, and Derryberry, Derreberry, etc. are considered to be derivatives of Dürrenberger. Furthermore, as you will see in later posts, Derry and Derrie are also known derivatives of the bloodline.

 

After arrival in Philadelphia, the Dürrenbergers made their way up the Delaware and Musconetcong Rivers of West Jersey to the German Valley, now Morris County, New Jersey, where they settled rather than in Pennsylvania. As mentioned before for the Ayers line, records in northern New Jersey from that time period are scarce. From information available it appears that Peter probably died in Morris County sometime after 1749. Research has accounted for his son Stephen’s death in Morris County and all his descendants. Peter’s son Jacob died in New Jersey in 1794 with no children mentioned in his will. The whereabouts of the third son, Michael, after 1749 are unknown due to lack of records.

 

Other Gemans who immigrated with the Dürrenbergers in 1738 on the ship Robert and Alice, landing in Philadelphia, are known to have made their way south to western North Carolina. It is now thought by some family historians, that Michael also later made his way to western North Carolina perhaps by way of the Carolina Road (see post dated 31 March 2011), or the Great Wagon Road through the Shenandoah Valley to become the originator of the Derryberry families of Burke County.

 

Burke County, North Carolina 

March 29, 2011 Dennis 1 comment

John Ayers of New Jersey died in 1732.  He left no will but did record the births of his nine children, including a son named Nathaniel born in 1700.  Unfortunately, no other records are available to help define Nathaniel’s life in NJ.

 

Instead, in 1723, a young man by the name of Nathaniel Ayers appears in Maryland where he is named in Baltimore County court records.  He is about the right age to have been the Nathaniel born in NJ, but is he in fact the same person?  The DNA test results previously mentioned indicate this is highly probable.  Although Nathaniel is listed as an immigrant in one reference book, I believe it was because he came to Maryland by sailing ship from NJ. He probably sailed up the Chesapeake Bay into the Patapsco River and disembarked at Elk Ridge Landing.  At that time, the Maryland colony had about 70 thousand residents, but Baltimore City would not be founded at the mouth of the Patapsco until 1729.

 

By about 1729, Nathaniel Ayers is married to Rhoda, last name unknown, and by 1733 they have three children, Ruth, John and Thomas who are registered in St. Paul’s Parish, one of 30 such territorial units established in colonial Maryland associated with the Anglican (later Episcopal) Church.

 

In the new colony of Maryland, all land was originally owned by Lord Baltimore and only at his discretion or his representatives could it be assigned to any tenant. Between 1663 and 1683, every adventurer who could claim to have brought five persons to settle in Maryland became entitled to a grant of 2000 acres.  After 1683, however, land patents (titles) were issued only against payment of money or tobacco.  At first the rate charged was 200 lbs. of tobacco for every 100 acres granted, but that rate increased with time.

 

Three separate documentary processes were required to authenticate new grants of land: (1) warrants, which were instructions to lay out a specified number of acres for a named person, (2) certificates of survey, which stated the exact location and boundaries of the new tract, and (3) patents, or essentially titles of ownership.

 

It appears that Nathaniel was actually in Baltimore County several years before he initiated the process for obtaining land.  Perhaps he didn’t have enough money when he first arrived.  Then between 1727 and 1745, Nathaniel obtained 4 separate grants of land on the north side of the Patapsco River in Baltimore County, and he is listed as a farmer and a carpenter in the records.  Since tobacco was the primary medium of exchange, it appears Nathaniel was farming successfully on his early land acquisitions and using his extra tobacco to add to his land holdings.  It is not known if he employed the use of slaves or not.

 

In those days, it was customary to name tracts of land after the owner or with whimsical names.  Nathaniel’s purchases, two of which are shown in the map below, were called:

Ayers Lott – 100 acres – 1727                    Ayers Desire – 28 acres – 1734
Bucks Range – 45 acres – 1745                 Nathaniel’s Hope – 15 acres – 1745

Nathaniel Ayers’ Land in Baltimore County

As can be seen, the land purchases of Nathaniel in Baltimore County were all near the Patapsco River not far from where the Ellicott brothers would later establish the new town of Ellicott Mills in 1772.

 

My father, Ira Ayers, knew nothing about his ancestors beyond his grandfather.  It is an ironic twist that in 1950 he purchased land only 4 miles upriver from where Nathaniel, his 6th great grandfather, purchased and farmed land 200 years earlier!!

 

March 24, 2011 Dennis Ayers No comments exist

The Mayflower
The Mayflower

Rightfully or not, many people like to claim they have an ancestral connection to one of the families that came aboard the Mayflower.  Well, we AYERS that descend from John AYRE in New Jersey may have a rightful claim, but there is controversy about the true identity of a key individual. I’ll explain.

 

First some background is needed. George SOULE was a signer of the Mayflower Compact, and one of the original 102 Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower to Plymouth, Massachusetts Colony in 1620.  SOULE was among the one half of the population that survived the first winter in Plymouth and was present at the time of the “First Thanksgiving” in 1621.  About 1626 he married Mary BECKET.  Their youngest daughter, Elizabeth was born in 1645.  Unfortunately, Elizabeth had some scandalous troubles in her early life.

 

On 3 March 1663 Elizabeth SOULE, daughter of Mayflower passenger George Soule, and Nathaniel CHURCH, grandson of Mayflower passenger Richard WARREN, to whom she was engaged to be married, were each fined 5 pounds for fornication by the Puritan community. By late 1663, Nathaniel still had not fulfilled his promise of marriage, and on 5 October 1663 Elizabeth sued Nathaniel CHURCH for breach of promise, with betrayal, for 200 Pounds but only recovered 10 Pounds. On 2 July 1667, Elizabeth was in court again “for committing fornication for the second time,” and this time she was sentenced to suffer corporal punishment by being whipped at the post. No male partner was named in this action. If no male partner was named, she was therefore not caught in the act, as the first charge proves that the court had no problem fining and punishing both parties.  Most likely, a growing belly in her unmarried state was the evidence of fornication this second time.

 

By March 1668, Elizabeth SOULE has married a man named Francis WALKER based on the recorded land transaction “George SOULE to daughter Elizabeth WALKER, wife of Francis.”  Speculation is that George SOULE gave land to Francis WALKER as payment for marrying his daughter. This would also seem to reinforce the notion that Elizabeth had been expecting a child. Sometime after their marriage, Francis and Elizabeth moved to Woodbridge, New Jersey, like many others from Newbury, Massachusetts, and appear to have lived quietly there for the remainder of their lives.

 

Now getting to the controversy. As mentioned once before, there is a lack of records that far back in time in northern New Jersey.  As a result there is much uncertainty of exactly how many children Francis WALKER and Elizabeth SOULE had including their names and dates of birth. However, it is a known fact that a woman named Mary WALKER married John AYERS, in Woodbridge about 1688, and it is from this union that our AYERS line of descendancy is based. Some researchers strongly believe that Mary was a daughter born to Elizabeth probably around 1668, while others just as strongly believe that there is not enough evidence to support that conclusion.  The venerable Mayflower Society itself has wavered over the matter, but it currently is not convinced that Mary WALKER was Elizabeth’s daughter and thus not a Mayflower descendant from George SOULE.

 

So, do we descendants of John AYERS of New Jersey have a Mayflower connection?  We may never know unless new evidence is found that convinces all parties that Mary WALKER was herself a true descendant.

 

March 21, 2011 Dennis No comments exist

The youngest son of John AYRE, the immigrant, was Obadiah, born about 1635.  In 1659 Obadiah married Hannah PIKE, the daughter of John Pike who had also come over from England on the same ship as John AYRE.  “Obadiah and his brothers Robert and Thomas received from their father land and they were to maintain the fences and pay all rates on this land. He also received two oxe and two cow.”  However, land in the area was rocky and farming must have been difficult.

 

In 1664, the English claimed the area settled by the Dutch further south.  As they pushed out the Dutch they renamed New Amsterdam as New York, and New Netherlands as New Jersey. The English governor of the New Jersey colony began attracting people to the area by offering land and guaranteeing religious freedom.  In return for the land, the settlers were supposed to pay a yearly tax called a quitrent.

 

As a result, about 1667, a number of persons from Newbury, Massachusetts sailed southward and settled Woodbridge, Middlesex County, in northeast New Jersey. John Pike was one of the leaders, and Obadiah AYER and his family joined his father-in-law as one of the migrating group.  Obadiah received several parcels of land for a total of 171 acres.  Woodbridge was so called in honor of the Rev. John Woodbridge, of Newbury, Massachusetts. It is presumed that this distinction was conferred upon him by his friends and admirers, who came from New England.

 

Basking Ridge Church with original Oak Tree

Obadiah and Hannah had a large family with about half born in Massachusetts and half born in New Jersey.  Their oldest son, John, born about 1662, married Mary WALKER about 1689 in Woodbridge.  The area prospered and attracted many others who occupied the land so completely that many of the young generations sought other locations.  So, in 1710, John and his family moved to Basking Ridge, NJ in Somerset County about 20 miles to the northwest of Woodbridge, where he was one of the founders of the First Presbyterian church and a principal donor of the land for church use.

 

John AYERS and Mary also had a large family.  However, records of their deaths and marriages, etc., simply don’t exist.  No doubt this is due to courthouse fires and other mishaps over the centuries.  Some of their offspring went off to seek opportunity in other colonies, but most remained in the Basking Ridge, NJ area.  Many of the original AYERS of New Jersey are buried in the cemetery at the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church.