Gates
Families and Persons of Ridgefield, Fairfield County from the
Connecticut State Library, Barbour Collection: Samuel (i) and Sarah
authored
January, 2020
If you are fortunate
enough to have ancestors from Colonial Connecticut and post the
American Revolution the Barbour Collection1
is a genealogical treasure. As early as the 1640s as areas were
settled and politically organized, the Town Clerks were expected to
record marriage, birth, and death vital records. Independently the
various ecclesiastical societies frequently kept similar records.
Land records, probates and wills further supplement sorting things
out.
Ridgefield is one such
town of interest since my Gates family was in that town by 1732 and
probably shortly after 1722. The earliest entry is dated March 26th,
1732 and records the death of Mary2
wife of Samuel Gates. Of the forty-five Gates entries, ten are post
18003.
The Mary Gates that died
in 1732 is my sixth great grandmother. The question becomes is her
spouse Samuel in Ridgefield and still alive or is she a widow.
Usually widows are noted as such. If Samuel died in Ridgefield he
most likely would be recorded, of course he could have moved away.
One other possibility is that he could remarry, as he was about
forty-seven and continue to have children (or not). It seems
unlikely that a 'new' Samuel and wife, Sarah would suddenly appear in
Ridgefield shortly after Mary's death.
I favor this possibility
of remarriage with children and suggest the Ridgefield vital records
strongly support the conclusion. There are four direct entries under
Samuel Gates : 1) Samuel (ii) marries Rachel4,
April 1st, 1734, 2) Samuel (iii) as son of Samuel and
Rachel, b. September 3rd, 17365,
3) Samuel (other) as son of Jonathan and Sarah, b. May 2nd,
1783, 4) Samuel (ii) deceased September 30th, 1793, ae
84.6
7
For purposes of keeping
all the Samuels straight I have started using roman numerals to
identify them. Samuel (i) is Mary's Samuel with Sarah as second
wife, Samuel (ii) is Rachel's Samuel, my fifth great-grandmother.
Not yet introduced are Samuel (iii) and Ruth Olmsted8,
my fourth great-grandparents and Samuel9
(iv) and Hannah Manning, son of Samuel (iii). These four are father,
son, grandson and great-grandson.
Now one needs to examine
all the entries where Samuel is a secondary entry as father and
examine who is his spouse. There are four birth entries all
associated with a spouse just identified as Sarah. There is no
record of Samuel and Sarah being married in Ridgefield. It appears
they have four children born in Ridgefield.
This is when the
Ridgefield records become unusual and contain some clues in plain
sight, along with a slight irregularity. Samuel (ii) and Rachel are
married April 1st, 1734. So the theory is that Samuel (i)
remarried to Sarah and the marriage was not recorded or recorded
elsewhere.
There is a bit more to
the puzzle. The vital records are 'sometimes' kept organized by the
various town clerks. It is possible the organization might depend on
the clerk and their familiarity with the families of those entries
being recorded. In Ridgefield the 'land record volumes' seems to be
where the vital records were recorded.
The four children born to
Samuel (i) and Sarah: Sarah, (b. September 10, 1733, LR1 218-19),
Stephen (b.1737, LR1 233), Phebe (b. 1739, LR1 236) to Samuel Sr. &
Sarah and Daniel (b. 1741, LR1 236) to Samuel Sr. & Sarah.
When daughter Sarah is
born to Samuel (i) and Sarah there are no other Samuel couples and
the 'Senior' designation is not needed. Only the last two children
in the land record entries for Samuel (i) and Sarah are recorded on
the same page of LR1 236 and the 'Senior' designation is used in both
cases. When Stephen is born (1737) after Sarah and before Phebe and
Daniel the 'Senior' designation is appropriate but not used. Why?
The Stephen entry is made on 'land record' page LR1 233 which is
separate from the other three children entries. Perhaps examining
the original records (or microfilm) would suggest something. It
seems more significant that three out of the four entries support
that, the widower, Samuel (i) 'Senior' and Sarah have a growing new
family with no other possibility except to distinguish them from
Samuel (ii) and Rachel.
Which is to say this all
begs the question, 'If there is a Samuel Sr. then who is Samuel Jr.'.
To reiterate in terms of families there was no vital record entry
for 'Senior' until after Samuel (ii) married Rachel in 1734 and their
family; Samuel (i) is logically 'Senior'.
One final question in
this exercise. What happened to Samuel (i) and his family and/or
where did they go? After 1741 there is no record in Ridgefield 'land
records' of subsequent events regarding any of the six. I will save
my speculation for a sequel. Similarly a prequel needs to be
provided to underline where Samuel (i) and Mary were prior to
Ridgefield. The prequel is as much a story about Mary (Richards)
Gates as Samuel (i).
Postscript
The
day after I published the above entry in the blog I decided to go the
Wisconsin State Historical Society and see if I could establish a
better record for the prequel and sequel mentioned above. I decided
to get a complete copy of the Stephen
Gates of Hingham, Lancaster and Cambridge, Massachusetts and some of
his descendants by
Clarence Almon Torrey, Ph.B. for my personal use. This genealogy
was published after the author's death in NEHGR in 1966 and 1967.
I
have used parts of it for years but not looked at it in quite awhile.
To my surprise Torrey rather directly asserts that Samuel (i) had a
second wife Sarah and four children.10
I guess I had forgotten and began to think I had wasted my time.
On
second thought, I was reassured and now more confident in my own
assertions. Torrey offers no supporting evidence nor references but
I am sure it is again the Barbour Collection just as I used it. It
will be interesting to know the surname of Sarah.
1[Barbour1994]
The Barbour collection of Connecticut town vital records. Editor,
Lorraine Cook White. 55 Volumes. Also available at
AncestryLibrary.com (Ridgefield, CT records seem to be missing).
2[Barbour1994]
Ridgefield Volume. pp178-179. Generally accepted as Mary (Richards)
(Fairbanks) (Truesdell) Gates, ten years senior to Samuel.
3The
number of unique individuals is probably best estimated by counting
the number of births, ~32.
4Generally
accepted as Rachel Hayes; she is named in her father's will, as
Rachel Gates. (James Hayes, Norwalk - Fairfield Probate District
#2799)
5Samuel
(iii) b. 1736 died 1816 in Malta, Saratoga County, NY. The
Stillwater, Saratoga, Surrogate Court has proceedings, 1820, with
Coleman Gates as administrator, handling the sale of Samuel's real
estate in order to pay debts of the deceased. Coleman is the
brother of, Noah (deceased), and his minor children (hardly minor in
1820?) as grandchildren of Samuel (iii) are named in this proceeding
('Hiram Gates, Ashbell Gates, William Gates, and Angelina Gates').
New York Wills, Saratoga County, 1816-1826 begins about page 239.
In person view at Surrogate Court (2008) and also LDS microfilm
#555718. As an aside is William really Ashbell William representing
a transcription/copy error.
6[Barbour1994]
Ridgefield Volume. pp178-179. All.
7Samuel
(ii) – Probate Docket #1920 Administrators: Jonathan Gates, of
Ridgefield, Samuel Gates of Norwalk, Thomas St. John, Ridgefield–
also died in fall of 1793, Ridgefield. Samuel (iii) lost his father
(fall) and his son (summer) in 1793.
8Samuel
(iii) and Ruth (Olmsted) Gates. (Have the will/distribution from
her father James Olmsted ?)– Wilton/Norwalk, Fairfield County,
Connecticut. Ruth is buried in Dunning Street Cemetery, Saratoga
County, New York. There are numerous land transactions by Samuel
(which one is not always clear) in Fairfield, Connecticut and by
1800 Samuel and Ruth appear to along with sons, Moses, Noah, Coleman
to have completed a migration to Saratoga County, New York. They
are recorded in the 1800 Saratoga, New York Census. 1790 in
Greenwich for Census?
9Samuel
(iv) died in Norwalk, Fairfield County, Connecticut, July 25th,
1793; Probate #2305. Norwalk is south of Ridgefield with present day
Wilton taken from it in 1804 (in between the two). Private
communications (email) with Elmer Gates suggest this Samuel was in
Saratoga County, New York at the start of the Revolutionary War.
10Stephen
Gates of Hingham, Lancaster and Cambridge, Massachusetts and some of
his descendants - NEHGR v120, p162
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