A comment on Caleb/Joshua-2 from the old list
Packet: LIFEBBS
Date: 12-26-95 (16:51) Number: 385062
From: HELEN SILVEY Refer#: NONE
To: CARMAN COUSINS Recvd: NO
Subj: CARMAN, JOHN 1643 2/2 Conf: (1053) Genealogy
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[ Personal information <snip> ]
[Additional subjects
John, Florence, John, Caleb, Abigail, Joshua, Hicks, Coe,
George Coombes]
Subject: CARMAN, JOHN 1643
]George D. A. Combes' article 'THE FIRST WHITE CHILD IN HEMPSTEAD
Nassau County Historical Journal, Volume III, No 1 for the
Fall-Winter, 1939-1940] gives the following argument that Caleb was
of age in 1661, and therefore supports the 1639 date of birth for Caleb.
"...In Thompson's collected genealogies, however, also published by
Werner from manuscripts compliled by Thompson in his lifetime,
the CARMAN family shows in the list of children of John (1),
the following: 1. John *(2) b. July 8, 1633, md. his wife
Hannah in 1660 and d. 1684; 2. Benjamin (2) d. 1694; 3.
Abigail (2) b. 1635, md. Benjamin COE; 4. Caleb (2) b. January
9, 1645, was the first white child born at Hempstead and was
blind from birth."
These dates of birth of John (2) 1633, Abigail (2) 1635, and Caleb (2)
1639 are from John ELIOT's Roxubury Church records.The actual
date of Caleb's birth is recorded there as July (fifth month)
1, 1639, and not August 6 as given by Thompson. the birth of
only these three is recorded at Roxbury. In this article we are
concerned only with the statement that John CARMAN had a son
Caleb born at Hempstead Jan. 9 1644/5=45 being the first white
child born here, and blind from birth. This statement seems to
appear first in Thompson. Silas Wood, in his History of Long
Island in 1828 makes no such
statement, and it would seem that the story was not known to him.
Presumably Thompson did not have it at the time he compiled his
first edition in 1838. The date cannot be checked against any
public record now known to be in existence, and therefore must
be assumed to be obtained from some family record...Thompson
gives it its first publicaton in 1843." "It will be noted that
Thompson and Bunker both realized that if the child born 1645
were named Caleb, that fact would reasonably require the
supposition that the first Caleb had died, and they so state
it. Bunker evidently was aware of the Court action of April 7,
1661, in which the children of John (1) CARMAN, namely John (2)
CARMAN and Caleb (2) CARMAN, and Benjamin COE as the husband of
Abigail COE, for themselves and in behalf ot heir minor brother
Joshua CARMAN, sued John HICKS, who had married their widowed
mother, for their portion of their father's estate, their
mother being dead at that time. She (Bunker) did not, however,
realize that, by direct inference John and Caleb appear both to
have been of full legal age in 1661, while Joshua alone
definitly was stated to be a minor. If Caleb of this suit were
born in 1644/45 he would not be of full age in 1661, he would be
only 17 years old, but if he were the one recorded by John
ELIOT in the church records of Roxbury, Mass., as having been
born 1639, he would be just of age. The lawsuit gives us
probably the best evidence available as to who were the children
of John (1) CARMAN surviving in 1661, and, in doing so, shows
quite definitely that Joshua CARMAN, being a minor at that
time, must have been the child born Jan. 9, 1644/45. If there
was such a birth on that date, as no other chilren of John (1)
CARMAN and [are ?] known."
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** My family tree has dry rot.**
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