Benajah McCall was born at Lebanon, Connecticut on September 12, 1742, the son of James and Eunice (Bates) McCall. The emigrant ancestor of the McCalls was another James, a Scot taken prisoner at Dunbar in 1650 and transported to the New World with 61 others on the ship "Unity" and apprenticed in the ironworks at Saugus. His grandson and Benajah's grandfather, yet another James, moved from Marshfield, Massachusetts to Goshen parish at Lebanon.
Benajah appears to have been a mover. He was his parents' eldest surviving son, but shipped out as a very young man to the West Indies. In 1768 he married Abigail Comstock of Hadlyme and moved to Lebanon Springs, now in Columbia County, New York. The vacant lands between the Hudson River and the New England border attracted a number of settlers, who apparently thought they were still in Massachusetts, as all their contracts and land transactions were recorded at Pittsfield.
Benajah's wife Abigail died about 1776, leaving him with four young children. He probably married again almost immediately, to a widow named Naomi Crampton. Benajah participated in the Saratoga Campaign in 1777 and was eligible for bounty land on account of his service. He was a merchant and a hotel keeper at Lebanon Springs, now a place almost on New York's border with Massachusetts. His second wife died without bearing him any children, probably about 1780.
On February 3, 1783, Benajah married for the third time, to another young widow, Lois Brinsmade. She was the daughter of David Pixley and Mary Cooper of Stockbridge in Berkshire County Massachusetts, who had married Abraham Brinsmade in 1769. He died in 1771, leaving her with two little boys. Benajah sold all his land in Hancock and Lebanon in 1780 for the fabulous sum of 3000 pounds; the following year Lois was appointed guardian of her two. Just as Benajah had married for the first time and left his boyhood home for the New York border, in 1783 he married Lois Brinsmade and left the scene of his first married life. Lois' boys were raised by her father and brothers back in Stockbridge; her new husband's eldest child was about their age.
Benajah and Lois wasted no time in starting a second family. Their first child was another Lois, who was born in Schoharie County in 1784. They stayed in that place long enough to have another child, a boy named John Cooper McCall, in 1786. Benajah's brother Ephraim and his first cousin Mercy, wife of Sluman Wattles, along with many other families of Connecticut origin were pouring into the new lands opeing up in what is now Delaware County. Benajah, Lois and their growing family pulled up stakes again and followed them.
A farm was cleared in what is now the town of Hamden in 1787. Benajah was civic-minded enough to obtain an appointment to town office in April 1788. He cleared another farm in Hamden and then moved by 1790 to another place, where he was the easternmost householder in present-day Walton along the road from Stamford to Bobs Brook. He remained at this place until his death in 1824, but apparently kept his accumulation of real estate to distribute to his heirs.
His will was made less than three weeks before his death and was recorded on August 30, 1833. It left the improved land of his homestead farm to Lois for her lifetime, to be cultivated and occupied by their eldest son John. Other property was divided among all of Benajah's surviving children and their heirs. He seems to have had a knack for acquiring property, perhaps more remarkable in a man who had spent his entire life moving from place to place; judging from the lives of his children, they inherited their father's restless and entrepreneurial spirit.
Benajah McCall [James 4-1] b 12 Sep 1743 Colchester CT; d 18 Dec 1824 Walton NY. He m 1st ca 17 Jan 1768 Abigail Comstock at Hadlyme CT; she d ca 1776 at Lebanon Springs NY. Their children were all born at Lebanon Springs:
1. Levia, b 15 Mar 1769; m 1st Solomon Sherman; m 2nd Samuel Wyborn. She d after 1833, when she was living in Seneca Falls NY. 2. Ansel, b 5 Jul 1770; m 1st 15 Jun 1792 Sarah Weed; m 2nd 10 Aug 1809 Ann Shannon. He d 31 Aug 1815 at Painted Post, NY. 3. Jennett, b 2 Feb 1772; m 5 Aug 1790 James Kidder. She d 1827 at Ovid NY. 4. James, b 5 Jan 1775; m 1st on 1 Jan 1800 Elizabeth Dye; m 2nd 2 Jun 1836 Mrs Lydia Washburn. He d 24 Mar 1856 at Rushford NY.
Benajah m 2nd ca 1777 at Lebanon Springs Mrs Naomi Crampton; no issue. Benajah m 3rd 3 Feb 1783 at Lebanon Springs Mrs Lois Brinsmade. Their children were:
5. Lois, b 23 Mar 1784 in Schoharie Co. NY; m 1st on 1 Nov 1803 Daniel Benedict; m 2nd Jacob Weldon. She died 26 May 1861 in Walton. 6. John Cooper, b 25 Oct 1786 in Schoharie Co.; m Polly Wilson. He d 9 Sep 1861 in Walton. 7. Henry, b 28 Jul 1788 in Delaware Co.; m 3 May 1810 Jane Wyborn. He d 25 Jan 1839 in Clarkson NY. 8. Eunice Bates, b 17 May 1790 in Delaware Co; m 28 May 1812 Dr Alvin Dibble. She d 9 Sep 1870.
Submitted April 27, 1997 by Fran Dumas
Thaddeus Benedict was the second and only surviving son of Daniel and Esther Seymour Benedict of Fairfield County, Connecticut. He was born at New Canaan on September 2, 1758, so he was not quite 18 when his dying father made his will in August 1776.
Daniel Benedict was the son of an early New Canaan settler, and owned a considerable amount of property there and in the family's former seat at Norwalk. At the time of his death, the inventory of his estate included such items of apparel as striped trousers, blue and white hose, gold lace button loops, brown and gray wigs, and a silver-headed sword with belt. Besides these perhaps somewhat dandy accoutrements he owned a long list of tools, livestock, harness, books, bedding and furniture; and real estate including a dwelling house in Norwalk, a barn, a gristmill, a half-share in a sawmill and eleven other parcels. He was, in short, a rich man with a rich man's tastes.
There is no known record of where Daniel Benedict's sympathies lay during the Revolution. His elder son and namesake, Daniel Jr., was, however, with Washington's army at Bergen, New Jersey in the summer of 1776. Word came that the young man was ill and Daniel Sr. went to visit his ailing son in the Continental Army camp. Young Daniel died despite his father's nursing, and when the elder Daniel returned home he very soon became ill himself and died at the age of 46. His will devolves a brown mare and a woman's saddle upon his wife, a third of his moveables to be her own property "forever," and the income of a third of the real estate during her widowhood. Upon her remarriage or death the property was to be divided into 11 shares, 3 of which were to go to Thaddeus, and one each to his eight sisters. Since Esther was pregnant at the time of her husband's death, provision was made for the child, depending on its gender. Daniel's two elder daughters, children of his first wife Anna Hoyt, had already received 30 pounds each, and this was to be deducted from their share.
The distribution was made in 1785, presumably at the time of Esther's remarriage. Thaddeus' two elder sisters Rachel and Anna did in fact have 30 pounds deducted from their shares of a little more than 60 pounds each. His younger sisters Mary and Esther, and the heirs of his deceased sisters Sarah, Jemima, Katherine and Abigail, all received undiminished shares. His was a triple share, and worth more than 180 pounds. Daniel was long since in his grave at Pine Island in Norwalk, with his grandparents nearby. Esther died many years later, in 1837 at the age of 96, and was buried next to him. She had of course acquired the surname of her second husband, and she was buried as Mrs. Esther Close.
Thaddeus married Ruth Lockwood in New Canaan in 1778 and sold off all his inherited real estate before the end of 1785, almost as soon as he acquired it. He was engaged in a sheep and wool-raising deal at New Canaan in the fall of 1790 and was then described as a resident of Norwalk. He was at Norwalk for the 1790 census, at which time he and his wife had four sons. He moved to Delaware County, near Delhi, in May 1791. The first log schoolhouse is said to have been erected in the area about 1790, and Thaddeus Benedict was one of the early teachers there.
In 1809 Ruth Lockwood Benedict and her husband, of Delhi, signed a quitclaim deed yielding their share of her father Isaac Lockwood's estate back in Norwalk to her brother Hezekiah. The same year, the couple's eldest son Thaddeus Benedict Jr. bought a lot in Deposit. Thaddeus Sr. died in Delhi in 1812 and Ruth died in Deposit in 1840 at her son's house. She is buried in the old cemetery at Laurel Bank.
Thaddeus Benedict [Thomas 1-3, Samuel 4, Daniel 5] was born at New Canaan CT on 2 September 1758; he married Ruth, daughter of Isaac and Ruth (Whitney) Lockwood on 3 September 1778. He died August 1812 at Delhi, Delaware Co., NY. Their children were: 1. Daniel, b 20 February 1783 at Norwalk; m 1 November 1803 Lois McCall. He d 18 May 1818 at Walton. 2. Thaddeus Jr., b 4 May 1785 at Norwalk; m 2 September 1807 Polly Hulse. He d East Lansing 3 February 1868. 3. Josiah, b 1 September 1787 at Norwalk. 4. Isaac, b 28 March 1790 at Norwalk; m (1) 24 Oct 1813 Sophia Larrabee; m (2) 20 September 1833 Polly McKeever; m (3) 8 September 1846 Lydia French Goodrich. 5. Esther, 23 April 1793 at Delhi; m William Hawley. She died before 1836. 6. Jeremiah, b 3 August 1795 at Delhi; m Elizabeth Herbert. He died 12 January 1852 at Covington KY. 7. Sally, b 11 December 1797 at Delhi. She died in June, 1812. 8. David, b 12 September 1800 at Delhi; m 1827 Sarah Knapp.
Submitted May 2, 1997 by Fran Dumas