Much has
been written about Mary and Tabitha Jones. Mary married Francis
King and
Tabitha married James Banfield.
Online sources
have material on both branches of this family. This article is to
support
my theory that Moses Jones is the brother to Mary and Tabitha.
I have worked
with other
researchers on both Tabitha Banfield's and
Mary
King's lines and wish to acknowledge their support and
encouragement.
Thanks both to Roger Howland and Susan Austin (who kept her sense of
humor and
remained a romantic).
While
researching the
Jones Girls in New Jersey, I became
fascinated
with the NJ Militia List of 1793 for Wantage Township, Sussex
County. On page 297 one can find James Banfield,
Francis King, William Jones and Moses Jones. Almost everyone in
the last
half of the second column on that page is related to the Jones family
in one
way or another. I became very interested in Moses Jones.
Both Tabitha and
Mary named
one of their sons Moses.
On the Seneca
County 1810
census list for Ulysses (which became part of Tompkins County in 1817)
found on
the same page are Benjamin Quick (who married Hannah Joons/Jones),
Francis King and his son John, Moses Jones and Edward Banfield
(son of James and Tabitha). It appears that many of the same men
and
their families found on page 297 in the NJ Militia List are found on
the same
page in the 1810 Federal Census.
Moses Jones
can be found
on the New York Pensioner's List of 1835 as follows:
County: Tompkins
Co.
Name: Moses Jones
Rank: Private
Description of
service: 23rd
regiment infantry
Time of decease:
August 28,
1813
Names of the
heirs: Anna,
Jacob, Mary, Tabathy, and Peter Jones
Annual
Allowance: 48 00
Sums Received:
240 00
When placed on
the pension
roll: March 16, 1819
Commencement of
pension:
February 17, 1815
Ending of
pension: February
17, 1820
Moses has
minor children
at the time of his death whose names are reflective of naming patterns
in his
sisters' families. On record in the Tompkins County Courthouse are
records of
letters of administration granted to Edward Banfield
in the estates of Moses Jones and John Jones. They are dated 11th
day of
August, 1818. I returned to New
Jersey in search of Moses and found the
following
church records:
Found in the
New Jersey
Genealogical Magazine, Vol 18, No. 1 are the Records of the Presbyterian Church at New Providence, New Jersey, Kept by Rev. Jonathan
Elmer, 1763-1793.
These records include the following entries: 1765, Jones, Tabitha,
daughter of Agnus, June 9 and Moses, John
and Betty Jones, children of
John Jones on 5 September 1773.
Clove Dutch
Reformed
Church of Clove Valley, Wantage,
Sussex County, NJ, published in NYG&B Publication Volume
VIII: Clove
Dutch Reformed Church Records, of Clove
Valley, Wantage, N.J.
(1928) provides the following:
Francis King
and Mary Joans; Jacob, b. Feb 9, 1786.
Francis King and
Mary Jones;
Moses, b. May 25, 1790.
Francis King and
Mary Jones;
Solomon, b. May 23, 1792
Francis King and
Mary Janes; Catharine Walker, b. Feb. 4,
1795
Francis King and
Mary Jones;
Agnes, b. March 17, 178?
As well as
the following:
Moses Young
and Elizabeth VanSickle; John, b. Oct. 17.
1792;
new column: John
Jones
Moses Jones and Bethsy Vn Sickel; Sary, b.
Nov. 2, 1795
Moses Jones and
Elizabeth
Van Sickle; Cornelius, b. Jan. 25, 1797.
Moses Jones and
Elizabeth VanSickle; Anny,
b. Jan. 6, 1799.
The History
of the First
Baptist Church of Wantage, Sussex, New
Jersey,
Revised by Rev. Geo. F. Love in 1874 and by Rev. James Bristow in 1903
has
lists of church members. Found in the lists for 1783 and 1797 is
James Banfield.
The New Jersey records, including Tax Rateables
for Sussex
County, the
Militia List of 1793 and
church records, all establish these families as living in the same
community
and being closely connected one with the other.
It seemed
likely to me
that if Moses had minor children at the time of his death, there might
be
guardianship papers to be found. Again, the Tompkins County
Courthouse
provided me with the proof I was looking for. Guardianship had
been
granted to William Roe, Jr. for: Anna, Jacob, Mary and Peter Jones on
11th day
of August 1818. In the guardianship file is a deposition from Tabathy Jones (signed by mark) attesting to the
children's
ages. She gives the following information:
Anna Jones as
nineteen
years of age the sixth day of July last ( b.
6 July
1799)
Jacob Jones was
sixteen
years of age the 19th February last (b. 19 February 1802)
Mary Jones was
fourteen
years of age on the first of June last (b. 1 June 1804)
Tabathy Jones was twelve years
of age the
4th of March last (b. 4 March 1806)
Peter Jones was
nine years
of age the second of November last (b. 2 November 1808)
I could now
put together
a family group for Moses:
Moses Jones
married
Elizabeth Van Sickle before October 17, 1792 in Sussex County, NJ.
They had the
following
children (it is supposition that all children were the children of Elizabeth; I
have no
record of her death):
John, Sary,
Cornelius, Anny, Jacob, Mary, Tabathy,
and Peter. There are no children born after 1808 and Moses is
deceased by
1813.
I wondered
who William
Roe, Jr. was and why he would have been granted guardianship instead of
Edward Banfield, who was a cousin and
closely connected. I
searched the Tompkins
County website
and found
the work of Carl Beam. I quickly found that William Roe, Jr. was
married
to Sarah Jones. Her birthdate was
1795.
It was the same year as the daughter of Moses and Elizabeth who was baptised at the Clove Valley DRC. I
searched further
and found that William's brother Gamaliel
married
Sarah Bates (*see Barpo notes).
They had a son
Phillips Roe
who married Mary Jones, b. in NJ and given as May 20, 1804. This
date was
close enough to make me believe that Phillips married his uncle's
ward.
There are other Jones connections in the Roe family, but I have not
connected
them to Moses. I have not found spouses for any of the other
children. There is a Peter Jones found in Candor, married to
Sarah, whose
father was born in NJ and whose birth date according to the census is
one year
off from Moses' son.
I haven't
eliminated
him. I just don't have any proof. Cornelius disappears
after the
1820 census for Dryden,
Tompkins County. I haven't yet
found
Jacob. It is possible that the other administration papers for
John Jones
signed for at the same time as those for Moses, were concerning the
estate of
his son John and that is why I haven't found him either.
CONCLUSION
REGARDING THE
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MOSES, TABITHA AND MARY JONES,
with additional
notes
regarding Moses Barpo:
Moses, John
and Betty
Jones were baptized at the New Providence Church
on 5 September 1773. They were all
baptized at
the same time and were the children of John Jones.
Tabitha was
baptized on 9
June 1765. Only her mother Agnes is named.
Mary's
application for
pension names her father John Jones. The pension file (provided
through
the courtesy of Roger Howland) establishes that Moses Barpo
is cousin to Mary.
Moses,
Tabitha and Mary
all have children named John. Moses and
Mary name their first born sons John. It is the custom in the
Dutch
church to name the first born son after the husband's father.
John Jones
appears as witness at the baptism for John s/o Moses and Elizabeth Van
Sickle. Other names appear in all three lines: Peter, Anny, Jacob. Moses names his daughters
Tabitha and
Mary after his sisters.
In the
guardianship file, Tabathy Banfield
attests to
the ages of the children. She gives the birth dates. She
had to be
closely connected to the family to be able to provide the dates.
She is
Edward Banfield's mother (the
administrator to Moses
"estate").
I believe
that the above
facts and documents found indicate that Moses Jones was the brother of
Tabitha
Jones Banfield and thus also brother to
Mary Jones
wife of Francis King.
While
pursuing this
family riddle, I also became interested in Moses Barpo.
Roger Howland first brought him to my attention and indicated that he
was a
cousin to Mary Jones. I began to search for him. He was
very
difficult to locate. The only published fact I could locate was
also
through the Tompkins County GenWeb
Site. I
found the following:
Landmarks of Tompkins County, New York
by John H. Selkreg, 1894; D. Mason & Co.,
Publisher
FAMILY SKETCHES
BOS thru BR
"BRUCE,
Mathias D...
In 1847, he moved to the town of Danby
and bought the farm known as the Moses BARPO farm of fifty-six acres..."
If Moses Barpo owned land, there had to be deeds.
Back to the
Courthouse I go. There are lots of deeds, not just in Tompkins,
but in
Tioga also. One deed in Tioga has Francis King grantor and Moses Barpo grantee. That was most
interesting. But
the best find of all, was a deed from the HEIRS of Moses Barpo
to the above mentioned Mathias. The heirs named were: Julius
Puffer,
Experience Puffer,
Moses Puffer, Benjamin Puffer, Enos
Puffer, Mary Ann
Puffer, Isaac Bates, Betsy Bates, Jacob Bates and Rufus Bates.
I went
walking in Kings
Cemetery
where I knew Ann Barpo, Moses' wife was
buried.
Buried immediately next to her is Sally Puffer, wife of William and
immediately
next to her is Julius Puffer, her son. Julius had married
Experience Truesdell, daughter of
John. John is named as an
executor to Julius' will. I find Experience in 1850 living with
William
Puffer.
I found the
graves of
Jacob Bates' first two wives, one of whom was Laura and the mother of
the Barpo heir, Rufus. Jacob
outlived his son Rufus,
married a third time and died a well respected man in Ithaca in 1887.
I have not as yet established
the relationships of the named heirs to Moses and Anna Barpo
and would welcome any input anyone would care to
give. I
suspect that Sally Puffer, wife of William and mother of Julius (and
also Enos, Moses and Benjamin) was the
daughter of Moses and
Anna. I haven't sorted out the Bates family. Perhaps Betsy
Bates,
wife of Isaac, is also a daughter. Or
perhaps Laura,
Jacob's first wife? Jacob names an unmarried sister in his
will,
Sarah Ann. Sarah Ann is not named in the deeds as an heir to
Moses Barpo.
It has been my
hope for the
longest time to establish Moses Barpo's
family and
hopefully follow it backward to John Jones to solve the mystery of the
Jones
Girls...and now Moses too.