More on John
Newberry and Jemima Benedict 1771-1843
There is not a lot of information regarding the
Newberry's in Warwick. What does survive is contained in miscellaneous
records in Warwick. What follows are a few of those that have
survived.
When John Newbery II. died in 1818, he left a
will that is witnessed by James and Phoebe Burt. John Newberry�s
will
leaves his property to his sons and �a room in the house for my
wife.�
The sons eventually end up either losing the property
or selling it. It appears that Daniel Durand son-in-law to John
Newberry may have been owner for awhile.
After John died, Jemima was devastated and set
out to read the Bible for her husband forty-nine times before her own
death. She cut a notch in the Bible each time she finished.
She was close to being through her fiftieth reading at the time
of her own death. This
Bible was in the hands of Mildred Durand Gordy in the 1920�s and
perhaps in the 1940's was
taken care of by Fannie Benedict.
Its current location is unknown.
Mildred was the grand daughter of Arcenith Newberry
Durand and Daniel Durand. We are looking for the Bible's current
location.
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Entries in a ledger of Stephen A. Burt,
who owned a store at Bellvale 1823 to 1826 show that Anna Newbery,
John
Newbery, carpenter, (probably son) Mrs. John Newbery, Widow of John
Newbery and Joshua Newbery were all
customers. Bellvale is a hamlet within the town of Warwick about four
miles from the village of Warwick. The
Newberry
homestead was in the neighborhood of Bellvale on the current Bellvale
Rd.
Entries in the Day Book of Francis Baird from
December 1773 to May 1774 show that John Newbury was a patron.
Francis Baird owned the tavern and general store in the
village. There is also a signed ledger showing 'a' Samuel Smith
did business there. New information about Baird's Day Book will be
available from Albert Wisner Library soon.
Provided by
Warwick Town Historian, Florence P. Tate P.O. Box 176, Warwick, N.Y.
10990-0176.
Assessment Rolls, Town of Warwick
1775 Assessment Roll
John Newberry, property estimated at �3 / 0 / 0
Edwin Newberry, property estimated at �2 /
17 / 0
This information comes from History
of Orange County, by Ruttenber & Clark page 567
Warwick Town
Assessment Rolls
Florence P. Tate, Warwick Town Historian in June 2000 spot-checked
the assessment rolls and the following is what
she discovered.
John Newberry was a witness in 1820 to the will
of John S. Holley of the Town of Warwick
Jane Stephen's mother's maiden name was Holley. There was also
a John Holley who was
the first Orange County man to die in the Revolutionary War in 1776 at
the battle of White
Plains.
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There is recent information to suggest that Jane Stephens'
mother was not a woman named
Elizabeth Holly. Recently information seems to indicate that
Jane's mother was Elizabeth Lydia
Scofield and her father was Obadiah Stevens Jr. They were married
August 9, 1761. Their
children were Edward b. March 11, 1765, Sarah b.
February 22, 1767, Jane b. June 9, 1771,
Lydia Stevens b. July 23, 1773, Obadiah b. January
8 1776, William b. May 10, 1778, and
Seth b. March 4, 1781. We are still working on finding
more matches on this information.
Jane was known to have brothers William and Issac, so there may be one
name missing in this
list.
My thanks to Robert Acoveno for
finding this information as compiled by Mrs. Susannah Stevens
Whitcomb,
whose work resides in the OCGS in Goshen, N.Y. The information
had a notation indicating the information
came from the Stamford, Connecticut Registration. She states that she
didn't know where this particular family
connected within her own. In
the late summer of 2002, Larue Olson spent considerable time and
effort looking
into the documentation for this family and was unable to corroborate
the information presented in the ancestral
file. She has also engaged Barbara DiMunno in looking for this
information in Orange County. There are no
Holly's mentioned in the Newberry Journal ca 1841.
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First Baptist Pastor in Warwick
Jemima Benedict Newberry's father James
Benedict was the first
pastor in Warwick. �James Benedict was ordained
November 7, 1765 and installed as Elder and pastor of the Baptist
Church of Warwick.� The people of Warwick knew
him as a traveling pastor and invited him to build a new parish for
the city. He was an assistant pastor for the church in
Ridgefield, Conn. He built the first Baptist church building in
Warwick. The footings for that building supposedly still exist
next to the cemetery where he and his wife Mary Blackman Benedict are
buried. He married Mary Blackman in 1740.
He died in Warwick in 1792. Mary died early in life. He had two other
wives, Jemima (no surname known) and Sarah
Bross, widow of Peter Bross - a parishioner.
Sarah was supposedly a resident of the Ramapo Valley. Warwick
town
historian, Florence Tate was instrumental in finding a full name for
Sarah in June of 2000.
�On June 29, 1786 Elder Benedict was discharged at his request.�
- note from church record. In
1787 Elder Thomas
Montanye is listed as pastor.
The Old School Baptist Church has an interesting
history. In trying to find information about James Benedict's training
as a pastor it came to my attention that there was none for the Old
School Baptists merely took it upon themselves when
they felt that they were called by God to preach the gospel. Old
School or Primitive Baptists.
This link will take you to a paper on the Centennial
Celebration of the Old School Baptist Church and gives a short
history of the founding of the church up through the Civil War.
It is written by the former pastor Elder Cox.
Sometime, in the 1770�s James Benedict had
moved from Warwick to Wyoming, Pennsylvania [also know then as
Westmoreland]
to establish a new parish for the Old School Baptists. This was during
a time of terrible war. Benedict
and his family along with other Benedict�s and Blackman�s who came
to settle, were trapped by the conflict.
See extended history written by Elder Leonard Cox. coming soon.
The story goes that Iroquois Chief
Joseph Brant came to Benedict the night before the planned attack
and gave him
warning and safe passage away from Wyoming. Brant supported the
English cause and rode with the English army
and a contingent of Mohawk warriors. The next day the remaining people
were attacked and massacred. After the
attack Benedict returned to Warwick and took up the congregation he
had earlier established, living there for the remainder
of his life. It is
unclear why Brant chose to warn Benedict.
There are two historical theories written, one was that
Benedict
was a Mason as was Brant and they recognized each other as such. The second, was that Brant revered men of the cloth.
Since Brant himself was trained as a pastor, I submit a third theory
without proof � Benedict�s family was affiliated in some
way with the Iroquois nation - possibly he or his wife was native.
The War of the Revolution!
1 Calloway,
Colin G., The American Revolution in Indian Country, Crisis and Diversity in
Native American
Communities, Cambridge University Press
1995
2 Kraft,
Herbert C. The
Lenape Archeaology, History and Ethnography New Jersey Historical
Society 1986
Other Sources:
1. The
Horton Papers, Orange County Genealogical Society.
2. Van
Duzer, Elizabeth C. Elder
James Benedict - The Pioneer Preacher of the Warwick and Wyoming
Valleys Warwick, New York
Reprinted from Volume XVIII, Proceedings of the Wyoming
Historical Society.)
Copied from the original records of the Baptist Church
in Warwick, N.Y.
Wilkes-Barre, PA. 1923
3. Mrs. Susannah Stevens Whitcomb Genealogy, Orange
County Genealogical Society.
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