We who are the descendants of Amos Gallup
and Eliza Dingman have roots on the island of Nantucket through Eliza's mother, Rebecca
Macy. Rebecca was born in 1789 and by the time she was 24 years old she had met and
married Henry Dingman, a man of Dutch ancestry whose ancestors had pioneered the area
around Hudson, NY. Her marriage to Henry is recorded in the Nantucket Vital Records
without specific details but in a manner suggesting it was an off-island marriage.
The people of Nantucket were not typical of the aggressive
pioneers living elsewhere in the new nation; they were seafaring people and tended to stay
on their Island, that comfortable home port isolated from the vicissitudes and
difficulties of pioneering a wild country. Accordingly, I have been very curious to learn
why Rebecca left the Island.
We don't know the specific circumstances of Rebecca's
meeting with Henry but it occurred during the period covered by the following old article
I found during a visit to Nantucket in 1999. It provides not only a historical reason for
her emigration from Nantucket but gives us an explanation for the subsequent removal of
Rebecca and Henry to the town of Jefferson in the western part of New York state.
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HISTORIC NANTUCKET
Emigration from Nantucket to
Hudson, N.Y.
By CHARLES S. CLARK
From the Proceedings of the Nantucket Historical Association
Thirty-fourth Annual Meeting, August 1, 1928
DURING A VISIT to Nantucket in 1919, 1 was very much
surprised to find that very little seemed to be known regarding the emigration to Hudson,
N. Y., from 1783 to 1800. Histories of Nantucket contain but scant mention of the event,
and the Island seems to have forgotten it, on the theory perhaps that if anyone chooses to
become an off-islander, he is not worth remembrance.
As a descendant of five proprietors of Nantucket, and of
more than five proprietors of Hudson, it is a pleasure to respond to the invitation of
President Macy, and to endeavor to supply a few missing links in the chain which binds
together Nantucket and Hudson.
It is to be presumed that the Sons and Daughters know of
the terrible distress on the Island, after the Revolution. So great was the need for money
that I have been told (at Nantucket) that some of the old houses now worth thousands of
dollars were then sold for fifty pounds apiece. If this seems incredible let us remember
that the whole upper West Side of New York from 59th Street to about 86th Street was sold
at about the same time for fifty pounds. So poor were the Nantucket emigrants to Hudson
that they had no money to buy or build homes, and so they took with them to Hudson their
houses, taken apart and shipped, piece by piece, in the fishing vessels.
Urged by the pressing necessities of their families and
friends, two noble men, Seth and Thomas Jenkins, who had gone to Providence, and there
accumulated a fortune, proceeded to New York, in 1783, with a hundred thousand dollars in
their possession. Their purpose was to seek a site for a new Nantucket, in a fertile
country, but near navigable waters.
They first visited Colonel Henry Rutgers, a business
friend, who owned a large farm on the lower east side of New York City; approximately the
area now enclosed within Market, Division, Grand and Corlears Streets, and the East River,
and containing about fifty blocks.
Driving a close and hard bargain cost the descendants of
the emigrants at least one hundred millions. Rutgers was a stubborn old Dutchman; the
Jenkins brothers keen Yankee business men. Only a difference of $200.00 separated the
parties when they agreed to disagree.
So the envoys went on to Claverack Landing on the Hudson
River and were enchanted by what they saw. The land was cheap and fertile, the view of the
Catskill Mountains and the River was magnificent. A deep river swarming with fish promised
ready access to the sea, and the site was the natural port of a rich country.
The few Dutch settlers were hospitable and reasonable, and
a bargain was soon struck. Word was sent to Nantucket, and in the autumn two families came
with their belongings; the family of Seth Jenkins, consisting of his wife, Dinah Folger,
and four children, Dinal Coffin, and John Alsop and his family. In the spring of 1784 the
other proprietors arrived in several vessels, with their families. Their leader was
Stephen Paddock, who at once, with Thomas Jenkins became prominent in the settlement.
The other proprietors were: Joseph Barnard, Benjamin
Folger, Seth Jenkins, William Hall, Hezekiah Dayton, David Lawrence, Titus Morgan, Reuben
Macy, Cotton Gelston, John Alsop, Charles Jenkins, Ezra Reed, Gideon Gardner, John
Thurston, Nathaniel Greene.
The original eighteen proprietors subsequently increased
their number to thirty; and in the Hudson records of the next few years appear these names
of first settlers: David Bunker, Redwood Easton, Nathan Folger, Alexander Coffin, Peter
Barnard, Daniel Paddock, Obed Sears, John Hathaway, Solomon Bunker, Laban Paddock, Robert
Barnard, Elihu Bunker, Daniel Clark, Zephaniah Coffin, Judah Coffin, George Clark, Shubael
Worth.
On November 14, 1784, it was unanimously resolved to call
the settlement Hudson, in spite of the wishes expressed by the Governor and by many
settlers that it be called "Clinton," or "New Nantucket." At the same
time the site of the present city was purchased from Colonel Van Alen and Lendert Hardick,
Colonel Van Alen being given a thirtieth share as proprietor.
As in Nantucket, the land was divided into house lots and
water, or fishing lots; the water lots being laid out on the Harbor.
A large majority of the settlers were Quakers, and these
erected a meeting house during the first year of settlement. Their meeting house on Union
Street, which existed until recent years, was almost a copy of the meeting house now owned
by the Nantucket Historical Association. The Hudson Quakers to the second and third
generation were charming people, gentlemen and gentlewomen to their finger tips, the men
merchant princes, the women sweet and lovely with the peace of God. A little poem by
Stephen Miller well describes them.
Full fourscore years and ten ago
From those lone and seagert places,
Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket,
Came the Folgers, Jenkins, Macys,
And the Paddocks, Worths, And Daytons,
And there were Coffins, full a score,
With many more, a home to find
On North River's quiet shore.
They are all gone, and in our streets
Of those plain days there scarce a trace is
Little save the names are left us
Of the Bunkers, Barnards, Macys,
Simple in heart, peace-loving men,
With sober-minded worthy dames,
All sweet within, and drab without,
And all with good old Scripture names.
For their livelihood, the settlers turned to the pursuits
of their forefathers, whaling, fishing, sealing, shipbuilding and its attendant
industries. Twentyfive vessels were brought from Nantucket by 1786, and shipbuilding
commenced at once. Jenkins and Gelston launched the first ship, called the
"Hudson," in 1786, and Robert Folger took command. In the days of its
prosperity, Hudson outranked Nantucket as a whaling port, having from first to last over
100 vessels in the business of sealing and whaling. It was a Hudson ship commanded by a
Nantucket skipper, the "American Hero," Captain Solomon Bunker, which brought
home the largest cargo of sperm oil ever brought to America, in 1797; and it was the
"Ajax," Captain Zephaniah Coffin, which broke the record in sealing. These
ships, on the outward and inward voyage, invariably stopped at Nantucket, to visit the old
home.
The prosperity of Hudson in the first twenty years of its
existence was amazing. Nantucket men at Hudson were now able to use to the fullest extent
their native shrewdness and enterprise. On March 1st, 1802, it is recorded, no less than
2800 sleighs loaded with freight and produce entered the city. Fifteen vessels a day
cleared from South Bay, a better record than that of New York; and so crowded at times was
the Bay with vessels waiting to come up to the wharves that people walked across the Bay
on the decks of vessels. Fishing, in the river, was unbelievably successful. A hundred-ton
ship was filled with herring on one tide at Rogers Island. The river swarmed, in the
season, with the delicious North River shad, and with gigantic sturgeon. Sturgeon was
usually known along the river as "Albany Beef," and herring as "Hudson
pork." Hudson sausage was famous far and wide, and to this day a gourmet will have no
other sort, if he is an old-timer in New York.
It is saddening to record that all this prosperity was
swept away, first by British Orden in Council, French decrees and the embargo; and
secondly by the War of 1812 and the decline of the whaling industry. The birth of the
steamboat, which destroyed the Hudson packet trade of the Paddocks and Clarks, was also
severely felt.
Banks failed in Hudson, millions were lost, and many people
emigrated west, to the Lake County of New York, to Rochester, and to Ohio and to Indiana.
Hudson was surrounded by feudal manors, the owners of which would not sell land - only
rent it. Consequently those who wished to take up Government land were obliged to go west.
Hudson from 1783 to 1860 produced many great men, nearly
all of whom were of Nantucket ancestry. Among them were Major General William Jenkins
Worth, the hero of the War of 1812 and Mexican War, whose monument stands in Madison
Square, New York; Lieut. William Allen, after whom Allen Street in New York is named;
Chief Justice Ambrose Spencer and Charles J. Folger, Secretary of Treasury of the United
States; John C. Spencer, Judges Edmonds, Cowles, Sutherland and Edwards; the great
Captains Robert Folger, Alexander Coffin, Zephaniah Coffin, Laban Paddock, Robert Barnard
and Judah Paddock; the shipbuilders, Seth Jenkins, Thomas Jenkins, Cotton Gelston, Obed
Sears, and Charles Clark. The celebrated People's Line on the Hudson owes its origin to
Hudson men, and Hudson, before the days of steamboats, was the first to build packets
(that is to say - sloops) carrying passengers only.
As might have been expected, the settlers of Hudson took
Nantucket as their model in almost every conceivable way. The lean-to houses, many with
whale-walks or lookouts on the roof, were replicas of the houses of Nantucket; and the
mansions of the wealthy were copies of the mansions of Main Street, Nantucket.
The news at Nantucket, as I have been told by my
grandfather and great grandmother, who was born in Nantucket, was always a subject of keen
interest. It was news from Nantucket which gave rise to the famous joke of David Lawrence.
When told the Bank of Nantucket had been robbed, he said, "They must have left their
latch string outside."
There was an Academy and an Academy Hill, a Main Street, a
Federal Street, and others named after the Nantucket streets. The arrival -of famous ships
created as great an excitment as in the early days of Nantucket, and a story is told of a
famous preacher who said on Sunday morning: "I am glad to see so many at service,
even though the 'American Hero' has arrived." The next moment he was alone in the
church, for he had innocently brought the great news.
On the occasion of my first visit to Hudson in boyhood I
strolled out on the parade, as it is called, the park facing the Hudson. I met a few boys,
who, seeing a stranger, began to ask questions. One of the first was, "Have you been
around the Horn?" Every boy in the group had except myself, and not one was over
fifteen.
The time limit will not permit me to tell you more of this
eldest daughter of Nantucket. But may I express the hope that an effort will be made to
bring into closer connection with the Societies of Nantucket descendants, the descendants
of the Hudson emigrants. There are now thousands of these, who are direct descendants of
the original families and pioneers of the Island. And hence there is no apparent reason
why New York should not have a branch of the parent society of Sons and Daughters of
Nantucket.
(end)
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