 Church
Family of Petersburgh NY Reminiscences
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The Legend of the Church/Stewart Origins
(excerpts from Descendants of William
Steward of North Stonington, Connecticut by Roger Steward)
...Also provided by Beverly Skalisky from Sharon Patchett is this
uncertain but interesting account of the Steward family's American
beginnings:
"Two British sailors who had been pressed
into service jumped ship along the New England coast in the 1660's
and lived with the Indians for a time to avoid being caught. According
to Frank Church (Petersburg, NY) the two sailors, Church and Stewart,
formed a bond of friendship and swore the two families would always
be closely associated. No hard evidence but Frank's mother
lived to a ripe old age and his grandmother lived to be 103, so
the stories may have been handed down." (Ed. note: Frank
Church's mother Fidelia Glines died at 39. See story below.)
Frank Church...is also mentioned elsewhere in
this work. His mother was Fidelia M. Glines, and his grandmother
was Patience Ann Stewart, who lived to be 103 years, daughter of
John Steward, who lived nearly 85 years. Given that Patience's grandfather
Lemuel Steward moved his family from Petersburgh, NY to Grafton,
NY in 1796, while his first born, John Steward, did not make that
move until about 1805, it may be that John Steward was raised by
his grandparents, Eliphalet Steward and Elizabeth (Church?) or at
least remained very close to them. This tradition could easily have
first been handed down to Frank Church.
The second of the Dutch and English wars from
1663-1667, in which England took possession of New Amsterdam (now
New York) in 1664, provides an historical foundation for the Steward/Church
family legend of the two impressed seamen. The fact that Scotland
took no part in this war imples the Scottish sailors, who willlingly
served in the Dutch fleet, had first been impressed by the British,
so there may have been both impressed Scottish and British seamen
deserting along the New England coast. - Roger Steward, page
1-5
...Among the hand-written papers provided at the
North Stonington Historical Society on Sept, 26, 2000, was further
reference to to Elizabeth "Church" wife of Eliphalet Steward:
"Eliphalet Stewart's wife is only known as Elizabeth
- thought by Frank Church that she was Elizabeth "Church"
-- From footnote on page 2 of Lt. William Stewart's group sheet,
Oct. 4, 1979, written by Mrs. Morgan (Dorothy) Stewart.
Believing this name to be correct, Frank Church
of Petersburgh, New York may have been the original source of this
assessment. - Roger Steward, p. 2-3
The Church "Indian," the Tragic Deaths
of Fidelia Glynes and Eddie Jay Babcock (and Other Stories)
The story: John
Stewart (1780-1865) was the first-born son of Lemuel Stewart
and an "Indian" maiden prior to Lemuel Stewart's
marriage to Rebecca Rose in Preston, CT in 1782. Supposedly upon
Rebecca's arrival in Grafton as Lemuel's new bride she was handed
the young child. This anecdote by Esther Church Bierwirth, daughter
of Frank Church, and told to the author of this website personally,
has a strong possibilty of a factual origin. John Stewart's daughter
Patience Ann Stewart may have related the tale to her great-granddaughter
Esther herself. Esther remembered attending Patience Ann's 100th
birthday party in 1916 when she was eleven years old, and Patience
Ann lived three years after that. For the purposes of this genealogy
we will assume that this relationship is factual. It could also
provide a basis for Roger Steward's suppostion above that John Steward
may have been raised by his grandparents Eliphalet and Elizabeth
Steward: being a half-Indian child, it could be that he was never
totally accepted by his new step-mother Rebecca Rose Stewart. (See
the "Church Family Indian" for
an expanded essay on this subject.)
The story: Fidelia Glynes
Church, Schuyler Church's first wife, and mother of his
seven children ranging in age from 1-1/2 to 18, contracted a case
of measles at the age of 38 just 15 days shy of her 39th birthday.
A doctor was called to treat the worsening illness. Her mother,
wanting clean bedding for the doctor's visit, replaced her bedsheets
with fresh, but cold linen. Fidelia caught a chill from the cold
bedding and the measles "turned inward", becoming the
dreaded "black" measles from which she was unable to recover.
(Ed. Note: Fidelia is buried at the "Kenyon" cemetery
northwards off Potter Hill Rd. just to the east of the Grafton/Petersburgh
Town Line.)
The story: Thomas Glynes, father of Fidelia, had a been
a French sailor who came to this country with Lafayette, deserted
his ship, and made his way to Petersburgh where he married and started
a family. However, the authorities found him out, arrested him and
handed him over to the French who returned him to France where he
was hung for desertion.
Ed. note: This is an intriguing tale, but more than likely considerably
mixed up with some contemperaneous event, may be referring to perhaps
Glynes' father or grandfather, or might be a distortion of the Stewart/Church
"Origins" story above. Historically and chronologically,
the facts don't add up for this anecdote about Thomas Glynes. Anyone
with any info on this mystery?
The story: Eddie Jay Babcock
in the summer of 1882 had only been married to Harriet Church for
nineteen months; their infant daughter Myrtle was nearly nine months
old that July day. Eddie Jay, in the process of tending the crops
at the family farm on the outskirts of Petersburgh village, had
covered their potato plants with a sprinkling of the insecticide
"Paris green," a bright-green powder derived from acetate
of copper to keep potato bugs at bay.
The powder somehow came in contact with a sore on Eddie Jay's
foot. When he came in from the field, he felt ill and noticed a
red streak running up his leg. A doctor summoned for the emergency
diagnosed his condition as incurable (for that era) "blood
poisoning." Within 24 hours he was dead at the age of 21.
The story goes that his aunt and mother ignored his deathbed pleas
to see his wife. The two older women somehow blamed Harriet for
the misfortune, refusing her admittance into the sick room.
The
Story: Elsie Grogan Church, wife of Nathan
Church, lost an arm in an wagon accident. Coming home
from a trip to Hoosick Falls, Nathan and Elsie had imbibed a little
too heavily in the 'hard cider', so to speak, and at one point during
the trip home over the rough roads in a horse-drawn wagon, she fell
off; one of the large wooden spoked wheels rolled over her arm and
it had to be amputated. Think about what an operation like this
must have been like in those days - on a kitchen or trestle table
no doubt, with a tough, old country doctor wielding a saw, and hopefully
a handkerchief sprinkled with chloroform or ether for the patient.
- (All stories from the recollections of Esther Church Bierwirth
handed down to her through the family.)
"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
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