Delaware County, NY Genealogy and History Site
DAVENPORT, FACT AND FANCY
by Mary S. Briggs
Editor and Co-contributor, Alan M. Strout
Map and Photo Editor, David M. Griswold
CD-ROM Editor, Nathan Preston
CD-ROM Supplement, 'The Davenport Story', Jeffrey C. Griswold
Davenport Historical Society, 2004
Many thanks to the Davenport Historical Society for allowing us to include their incredibly well done book "Davenport, Fact and Fancy" on the dcnyhistory.org website.
A newly revised CD-ROM designed as an accompaniment to "Davenport, Fact and Fancy" has just been released (July 2005) and is available through the Davenport Historical Society. The CD-ROM contains additional materials omitted from the book such as full size images of thumbnail photos, a number of old Davenport newspaper pages, town officers and PO officials, WWI and II enlistees, a couple of research papers on early Davenport population, the complete 1865 Davenport farm census, and a fine supplement containing the John Davenport genealogy and documents about John Davenport's sole (but illegitimate) child and heir.
The CD also contains the book in HTML and PDF format along with four Adobe readers.
While it is fantastic to have the book online, there is nothing like having the hardcopy book in hand along with the CD-ROM to enjoy fast access to the massive amount of materials, photos, maps, and the 'additional materials' section of the CD.
Orders can be placed with the Davenport Historical Society. A price list for the CD and/or the Book along with other publications and an address to which checks may be sent are given on the 'About Us' page.
In this online version of the book, "Davenport, Fact and Fancy", the links 'back', 'home' and 'next' will work, however, the 'up' link has been rendered non-functional. --Joyce Riedinger, August 12, 2005
IMPORTANT CORRECTION BELOW for information "In Search of Christopher Servoss" contained in the box in Chapter 2 – Settling the Land
With the help of correspondent Steve Mabie, a number of corrections can be made to the sidebar on page 12, “In Search of Christopher Servoss.” The “sworn testimony of 1778” did not mention Christopher Servos by name but only “Captain Servis.” In fact there where two Seros/Servis/Servoss brothers who were Captains, and the one in question was most likely the older brother, Capt. Peter Servos. The “Sir John Johnson” mentioned in the testimony was not the son of Sir William Johnson. Rather, it is now generally believed that the testimony mistakenly included “Sir” and that it referred to a different John Johnson altogether.
The reference later in the sidebar is wrong that it was “another Christopher” Servos who migrated from to America in 1726. The name of the earlier Servos was Christian.
Mr. Mabie also believes that four rather than six Servos children accompanied their father, Christian, to America in 1726 and that only one of the sons—not ”two or more”—served in the French and Indian war.
Mr. Mabie, finally, writes that “no Servoss family member owned land on the Charlotte River before 1750.” This may be technically correct but it does not change the fact that on a 1750 map of the area a Servoss is shown as living in the area. Local Historian Howson Hartley firmly believes that Christopher Servos settled in the Charlotte valley in what is now South Worcester, NY, “about 1740,” and Christopher Servos’ third child, Lt. Daniel Servos is reported to have been born there in 1738. His sixth child, Lt. Jacob Servos, is also reported to have been born there “about 1751.”
With this new information on with which Servos it was who was shown on the 1750 map, it now appears that there in fact was no “earlier” Christopher Servos as speculated in “A Search of Christopher Servoss” and that the “before 1750” Christopher was the same Christopher who formally acquired 1500 acres in 1772 on the newly created Charlotte Patent of Sir William Johnson. The earlier, 1740 or earlier Servos holding there could (but not necessarily “would”) have been a part of his later 1500 acres.
While many details remain unknown about Christopher’s movements over these years, one can now say that with Steve Mabie’s assistance the search for Christopher Servos has ended.
--Alan Strout, September 2012
may want to note the following corrections that have been made in this online html version:
- Leo Lomangino's name is even more embarrassingly misspelled "Lomongino" (pp. 78 & 78 sidebar) or "Lomagino" (pp. 218 &a,[; 221 caption for DHS #16.01. Double ouch).
- Caption for photo #1.02, chapter 1, should read "Charlotte valley looking west toward [not 'east from'] the vicinity of High Point from Hebbard's upper pasture above what became County Route 9 [not 'Route 23'], p. 3.
- Caption for thumbnail photo #7l at the end of chapter 7, should have "(Burr Riffenburg, owner)" inserted directly after "'Dayton's Store'", p. 100. The full caption under Additional Materials should correct spelling from "Rifenburg" to "Riffenburg" [double "f", not single].
- Fourth line of caption for photo #9.02 should read "Joyce McMullen" [not 'Carol McMullen'], p. 124. Caption for #10.06 (p. 150): Myrtle Dent's middle name is Barber, not Brown.
- Caption for photo DHS #12.03, 3rd line from bottom in text version, should read 'Bob Eckland' [not 'Gerald Butts'], p. 167.
- Caption for #16f, p. 228: The house that burned was of George Mars Hillis and not that of Lacell Hillis. The caption on the same photo found under Additional Materials on the CD should of course also be corrected.
- Owner of the property on which the Davenport transfer station now rests was not Charlotte Lamphere (sidebar, p. 211) but Blanche Looney. The spelling of "Blanche" should also be corrected on page 154 and in the Index, under Looney.
- Caption for photo #16f: The house that burned was that of George Mars Hillis and not that of Lacell Hillis, p. 228.
Dent, Myrtle Brown -> Dent, Myrtle Barber
Hillis, Lacel -> Hillis, George Mars
Lamphere, Charlotte -> Looney, Blanche
Lomongino -> Lomangino
McMullen: Carol -> McMullen: Joyce
Store: Dayton's -> Store: Riffenburg
All of the above changes have been made in the Web version of the book's text, but not the page-by-page (PDF) version, in the newly revised (July 2005) CD-ROM.