Church Genealogy

of Petersburgh, N.Y.
at http://churchtree.tripod.com

Petersburgh, NY, looking northeast (prior to overpass construction of about 1931 - Rt. 22 south of town in lower right corner) (photo from DJB archives)

The assembling of the Church Genealogy of Petersburgh, N.Y. has been a diligent long-term extended effort on the part of many family members who have contributed oral and written records of the family's relationships. But the bulk of the initial tedious research and field trips to cemeteries and depositories of vital statistics was accomplished by several ladies in particular, who have now passed: Marion Church Powers, Esther Church Bierwirth, Eudella Weeden O'dell, and Estella Grogan Shaw. Beginning in the 1960's, in an attempt to establish Revolutionary roots to obtain admission into the D.A.R., (which was indeed established through the Revolutionary war record of Lemuel Stewart and entitles all female Church descendants from the Lemuel Stewart connection to join that organization) these ladies provided the foundations for the genealogy's present (though incomplete) form as shown in the Family Tree through the descendants of Nathaniel Church.

Today, however, the research continues on with the next generations, now scattered across the nation but united through the internet in their efforts to produce the most accurate genealogies possible of the pioneering Petersburgh and Grafton families. Carlton Church in NY has provided his research of the Church Family line back to its New England roots and the descendant line of John Church, Peter Church's brother. Gloria Jones Parker has provided exhaustive investigation into the early Petersburgh families, (and whose records have provided the basis for large portions of our main genealogy), Tom Jones in Virginia has provided the very complete Jones/Church genealogy, Roger Steward in Iowa has produced a voluminous work on the descendants of Lt. William Steward, and the late Eve Grogan in Hawaii worked on the Grogan family tree. The author of this website continues writing on the historical background and settings of the 18th century emigrations from New England toward the West. Of late, Laurie Stevens - Schoewe contributes her intensive research into Church and Moon families with photos, old newspaper articles, letters, and conversation through the Church-Moon Family of Petersburgh NY Facebook page.

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Church Family
of Petersburgh History

Settlement in Rensselaer County

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THE CHURCH FAMILY: 18th CENTURY BEGINNINGS IN RENSSELAER COUNTY, N.Y.

by Daniel J. Bornt

One can only wonder why sometime around 1780 the 49-year-old John Church and his wife Hannah chose to leave their settled existence in the bustling seaport village of Stonington, Connecticut, and make an arduous overland journey with their four children to carve a new home out of the mountainous wildnerness of eastern New York State.

Was there that great a lack of opportunity for Church in the busy and growing communities of the New England colonies? The War of Independence was coming to a close in this year of 1780. The surrender of the British to General Washington and his French allies, led by the boy general Marquis de Lafayette, would bring peace and a return to normalcy in the war-torn land and give the colonists the independence that they so desired.

Soon, hopefully, the industrious Yankee merchants would resume their prosperous trading ventures from their bases at the various New England seaports, across the Atlantic in the merchant fleets to the mother countries. Fortunes had been made in the famous pre-war triangle of trade: furs, lumber, and tobacco to England in barter for staples and manufactured goods; on to the West Indies to pick up slaves and rum; and then the final leg back to the colonies with the holds of the square-riggers brimming with profits.

And, by now, the Church name was well-known throughout the New England countryside. Richard Church, the family patriarch who landed on the New World's shores from his native England in 1632, had built the first church edifice in Plymouth, Mass. Soon after, another Richard Church, perhaps a cousin or distant relative, co-founded the new city of Hartford, Connecticut. Captain Benjamin Church, son of Richard of Plymouth, commanded the Massachusetts militia in its defeat of the Indian tribes under "King Philip" freeing the territory of the Indian terror and opening up the country for further expansion. John's own great-grandfather Garret Church had been a prominent and noteworthy citizen of Watertown, Mass.

But the desire to push on westward and settle the virgin lands was strong in the young nation; and no doubt the Van Rensselaer family of Dutch patroons in the Hudson River valley of upstate New York were aware of that urge. Settlers were needed to fill the empty tracts of their vast manorial grant, who as tenant farmers could provide a steady income from the working of the land.

More than likely the patroons, like Stephen Van Rensselaer with his huge holdings on the east side of the Hudson River to the Massachusetts state line, at war's end printed up handbills advertising the opportunities awaiting the emigrant to their properties. Handbills like that spread hand to hand from land to sea up and down the Atlantic seaboard.

And the war had been costly. Not only in ravaged countrysides and lost and interrupted and displaced lives, but in the massive debt that saddled Congress and the states in financing the war.

It could be that John Church was bankrupt at the war's end.

The records of Stonington, CT* tell of militia captain Nathan Palmer and Nathaniel Miner ordered in 1777 to seize or buy at legal price 30,000 pounds of cheese for the Connecticut troops. Palmer commandeered 11,618 pounds of cheese from a Stonington borough firm, Church & Hakes, at 6 pence per pound. We can only speculate whether this storehouse was ever paid for this requisition, or whether it was John Church who was a partner in the firm. But it is telling that his grandson John married an Amy Hakes. And the 1876 map of Petersburgh shows a Hakes farm within a couple miles of the original Church holdings. (Look for the S.H. Hakes farm just below the "D" in the pink school district of "Dist. No. 7." See the Church farms located in the northwest of yellow "Dist. No. 9.")

In any event, the Churches left their ancestral home by the coast to establish the rudest of farms in the Taconic Mountain range of the northern Appalachians. To a penniless family, or to anyone, it must have sounded like a good deal that Van Rensselaer was offering: Choose your parcel, farm it free for seven years, and then come back and negotiate a permanent lease. Here, at the nascent community of Petersburgh, the rich, tillable alluvial soil of the Hoosic River valley on the eastern edge of the Van Rensselaer tracts could easily produce a bountiful crop of maize and wheat. However, those fertile and farmable sections were already claimed.

Instead, John and his family, accompanied by their fellow villagers from Stonington, the Scottish clan of Eliphalet Stewart, would have to choose their lands in the timber above the narrow valley atop the Rensselaer Plateau and alongside its steep hollows.

There, at elevations over the 1000 foot line, the frosts come early, and spring comes late - and the thin topsoil that barely covers the granite caprock, along with the boulders and rocks left by the long past retreated glaciers, makes farming a more difficult enterprise. Here the Church and Stewart families set about to clearing the virgin forest for cabins and pasture and planting ground. And here, for the next two centuries, they were destined to intertwine with other pioneering families of the hills and valley - the Jones, O'dells, Babcocks, Weedons, Moons and others - their descendants becoming an integral part of the Petersburgh community for generations to come.

-DJB, 7/10/1999 Revised 7/9/2002
copyright 2002 by Daniel J. Bornt
(unlimited reprinting granted)

*The Stonington Chronology:

Pg. 42 / 1777 / Mar. 20 / Nathl.. MINER and Capt. Nathan PALMER ordered to
buy or seize at legal price 30,000 lbs. of cheese for Conn. troops. PALMER
commandeered 11,618 lbs. from Borough firm, CHURCH & HAKES, at 6d per pound.

"The Church Family of Petersburgh, NY featuring descendants of Frank and Myrtle Church" website
at http://churchtree.tripod.com
©2002 by Daniel J. Bornt, e-mail to: vanatalan@yahoo.com