Kathy:
I did not give your e-mail of 9/11/99 much of an answer.
Your apparent preoccupation with the notion that Patric Cavitt was a
progenitor of the Moses Cavitt (1794-1853) from whom trace your line is
difficult for me to fathom. I thought I had made it clear that based
upon information now available, Richard, not his younger brother Patric,
was your ancestor.
But before I explain why I believe this is so, let me say that I do not
know whether the story of the arrival in Pennsylvania of the seven Cavitt
brothers (Alexander, Sheridan, John, Richard, Michael, Moses and Patric)
and their aged father Moses (1684-1750+) is true or not. The only place
I've read it is in Ellen Burnett Cavitt's book, "Some
Tracings........etc..." This information must have come from somewhere,
but since Mrs. Cavitt doesn't tell us where she got it, her statements
about the seven sons and their father are, genealogically speaking, only
hearsay.
There are bits and pieces of information in various public records which
prove that various Cavitts bearing the names of some of the seven sons of
the legendary first Moses did live in western Pennsylvania in a time
frame consistent with Mrs. Cavitt's allegations. But although this makes
her statements more plausible, it proves nothing.
A Richard Cavitt who came to Pennsylvania from Ireland is discussed on
pages 90-91, Vol. VI, of W. H. Egle's "Notes and Queries, Historical &
Genealogical." Egle gives Catherine Whitley as this man's wife and his
list of their children is almost identical to that given by Mrs. Cavitt
for her Richard Cavitt and wife Catherine (page 8, "Some
Tracings..........").
Although there are a few differences, such as arrival date in America,
I'm quite certain that E. B. Cavitt and W. H. Egle are talking about the
same Richard Cavitt. This man was your ancestor. I have not seen Egle's
publication, but I am told that the author does not cite his information
sources either, thus his statements about Richard and Catherine Whitley
Cavitt must also be regarded as hearsay. But because Egle was a
recognized historian/genealogist and Mrs. Cavitt was not, I'd much
prefer his unsubstantiated allegations to hers.
While Egle says nothing about this Richard Cavitt's descent, Mrs. Cavitt
inexplicably shows him as the eleventh child of Patric Cavitt - youngest
of the seven immigrant brothers. Arithmetic alone shows that this could
not be so.
Starting with the contention that Patric was born in 1735, and assuming
that he was 21 when first married and that after the first child the
others came at two-year intervals, the eighth and last child by his first
wife (ignoring possible miscarriages and infant deaths) would have been
born c1771. Next, assuming that Patric remarried the following year,
Richard, listed as the third and last child of Patric's second wife,
would have been born c1777.
A few lines later, Mrs. Cavitt blithely tells us that Richard's first
child was born in 1776. She never bothered to make the quick
calculation I just described. Incidentally I have proof that 1776 was,
indeed the birth year of Joseph, first child of your ancestor, Richard
Cavitt.
Further, there is ample documentation of the fact that your ancestor and
his brothers Moses, Alexander and Michael Whitley moved from western
Pennsylvania to southwestern Virginia to eastern Tennessee more or less
together. The four brothers were closely associated up until Alexander's
death in 1793 and the three survivors shared his estate. Mrs. Cavitt
lists only a Richard, a Michael, and a Moses among Patric's sons.....no
Alexander.
There are many other equally gross errors in Mrs. Cavitt's book. She has
the Moses Cavitt who fought at King's Mountain and the Alexander who was
killed by Indians in 1793 as two of the seven immigrant brothers. They
were, of course, of the succeeding generation - brothers of your
ancestor, Richard.
As to your question about the identity of the first American-born
Cavitt, considering the fact that the seven Cavitt brothers may have been
preceded to these shores by other Cavitts - related or unrelated - and
that the legendary seven are said to have arrived over a period of some
25 years, and that we have no knowledge of which of the seven married
when (much less, to whom), and that the lists we have of the children of
some of the seven are incomplete and without birth dates, we will never
know which Cavitt was born here first.
You asked also about the Irish origins of Papa Moses and his seven sons.
Mrs. Cavitt tells us on page 2 of her book that the first three sons of
Moses I had already settled in Pennsylvania when their father and four
younger sons moved in 1738 from Scotland to Ulster County, northern
Ireland, and came from there to America in 1750. This implies that the
family was living in Scotland when the first three boys left for America.
Considering the utter unreliability of Mrs. Cavitt's undocumented
allegations and the fact that the Cavitt name may not even be of Scottish
origin, the chances of finding the European roots of this bunch is
probably less than nil.
JKB