from Preserve Suffern added by Carolyn Suffern: To me, the bottom line in this and the reason I posted it in Preserve Suffern, is the Village of Suffern has as important if not a more important heritage/history as any place in America. Heritage like this can be marketed to bring in tourists/visitors who will spend money in the village! Ka-ching! shared from status from Carolyn Suffern: Today I visited the baronial home of Sir William Johnson, in Johnstown, NY, where I grew up. On display there is a magnificent early deed that has attached a large circular wax seal that is about 5 in diameter. A similar deed has been loaned to the Suffern Village Museum by a distant Suffern cousin. The deed in Suffern is for hundreds (if not thousands) of acres of land granted to Revolutionary War soldiers as land bounty rights in Tioga (Chemung) County that John Suffern acquired at Wars end. He eventually owned over 6,000 acres there. I would like to have this deed framed so it can be displayed in Suffern. This land in Chemung County is important to me. I wrote this article last December that explains why: The winter of 1780 is reported to have been the worst winter of the Revolutionary War. General Washington had established headquarters at the Ford mansion in Morristown, NJ. His Continental Army was encamped at nearby Jockey Hollow in the 1,000 log huts they had built for shelter, but conditions were miserable. Congress and the Army were broke. Private Joseph Plumb Martin wrote We are absolutely, literally starved. I do solemnly declare that I did not put a single morsel of victuals into my mouth for four days and as many nights, except for a little black birch bark which I gnawed off a stick of wood. I saw several men roast their old shoes and eat them, and I was afterward informed by one of the officers waiters, that some of the officers killed a favorite little dog that belonged to one of them. He then wrote that he wore what laughingly could be called a uniform, and possessed a blanket thin enough to have straws shoot through it without discommoding the threads. revolutionarywararchives.org/coldwinter.html In an 1906 article, J. Bogart Suffern wrote, “It has been inferred that our valley was a principal line of communication between the section north of the Highlands and the south even so far as Virginia. This was indeed true and therefore, it will not be surprising to be told that post riders or messengers were waylaid and shot.” But in the winter of 1780, communication between West Point and General Washington in Morristown was essential. General Washington had visited the home of John Suffern for several days twice, once in 1777; the other in 1779, so he was familiar with the Suffern household, including John and Mary Suffern’s children. Elizabeth/Betsy Suffern was born on January 15, 1772, the third child and second daughter; she was eight in 1780. My great-grandfather Edward Lee Suffern wrote of his grandmother in 1922, when he was 77, “There is a tradition about her that was told me when I was a little boy while some of her own brothers and sisters were living and I have heard it from several of the next generations, so that I am inclined to think there is truth in it. It is to this effect – that when she was a little girl, it was necessary on several occasions to forward despatches which came down from West Point over to the Army operating in New Jersey, and because she was a child was less likely to be disturbed in that part of the country which was very much upset anyway as there were many British sympathizers about, these despatches were quilted in her petticoat and she was put on a horse and sent to get saddle bags full of nails and at the same time deliver the despatches to the proper people. I doubt if any little girls of nine or ten would be set to do that now, but children in those days were brought up to do many things that now would seem most unusual.” In the version published in the New York Tribune on January 9,1914, the details are changed or perhaps there were several rides – After being sent to New Jersey to get nails for the new barn her father was building, little Betsy is summonsed to Morristown by General Washington who asks her if she is brave enough to carry a message hidden in her shoe home to her father. The version in Rosa Livingson’s1963 book, Turkey Feather,s is that little Betsy was interrupted from her job of knitting socks for her brother by her mother’s coming into the room, “Betsy, Betsy, …Betsy, child, your father wishes you to ride to our cousin’s in the settlement over the mountain…. You understand, child?” There is danger on the roads and the way is far for a girl of your age. But of course you know that your father’s forge was destroyed when the enemy burned so many other buildings. Your father is building a new barn and he needs iron things and nails. Will you ride to our cousin’s and ask him to help us?” Betsy nodded, and her serious blue eyes looked into her mother’s as she answered, “I understand. My brother cannot go because he is a patriot, and the Tories are hunting patriots who are against the King and want freedom. I am ready to go.” “We knew you would go. Your father has sent Ben (a family slave) to saddle Molly. She is your own horse, swift, sure-footed and trustworthy, as you know well. (Family slave) Kate is packing a bite for you both to eat. Kate will ride with you.” Mrs. Livingston then recounts that when at her cousin’s, Betsy was summonsed to Morristown by General Washington who asked her to carry a message home to her father. Little Betsy grew up and on September 29th, 1797, was married to her distant cousin from Ireland, John S. Suffern, at the 1st & 2nd Presbyterian Church, by the Rev. Doctor Rogers. John S. and Elizabeth’s first child was Samuel, born on September 19th, 1799. In the winter of 1801 or 1802, Elizabeth showed her bravery again as she and John left the family fold in Ramapo with baby Samuel to move to the wilderness of Tioga County, now Chemung County, New York. They were to manage the over 6,000 acres her father had acquired there by buying from Revolutionary War soldiers, the land bounty rights that had been granted them as inducement to enlist in the Continental Army. Elizabeth’s first cousin, John McCann, son of her father’s sister Elizabeth who stayed in Ireland, and her husband John McCann, went with them. Their fifth child was Edward Suffern, my great-great-grandfather. Some have said this legend is only apocryphal, but so too, are many legends of the Revolutionary War including the legends of Betsy Ross and Nathan Hale, among others. Through connection by Facebook and ancestry, I have become friends with my distant cousin Tom Suffern, also a descendant of Elizabeth and John, who grew up in Illinois. When I mentioned this legend to Tom, he said he had grown up hearing this same legend, “Only I didn’t hear about any nails.” Elizabeth and John lived out their lives there and are buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Elmira.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 14:50:31 +0000
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