Benjamin CODDINGTON Jr. ^124,202

  General Notes:

John I. Coddington, in his "Brief Outline of the Descendants of Stockdale Coddington in America (Earlier Generations Only)," commented: "Benjamin⁵ Coddington (Benjamin⁴), b. at Woodbridge, ca 1708, is a very shadowy figure. I have found only two mentions of him in records (in the will of his father Benjamin⁴, 1750, in which he is called "my eldest son" and in the will of his father-in-law, Joseph Martin of Woodbridge, dated 7 July 1750, proved 7 June 1757. Yet I believe that this Benjamin Coddington is the key to a lot of the puzzles in the Coddington family. I think he was the father of Joseph Coddington of New Paltz and of Christopher Coddington of Rochester, Ulster Co., NY; and also the father of a Benjamin Coddington who settled in Greenwich Twp., Cumberland Co., NJ; and finally I think he was the grandfather (perhaps through a son named William) of the brothers William, Benjamin, and Samuel Coddington, who settled in Alleghany Co., Maryland immediately after the Revolution. However, ALL THAT IS POSITIVELY KNOWN OF THIS BENJAMIN CODDINGTON is that he was born about 1708, married CATHERINE MARTIN, daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth (Merritt) Martin of Woodbridge, and that he was living in 1750." This "shadowy" Benjamin 1708 and John Insley Coddington's comments are a convenient place to introduce the problems and hypotheses surrounding the mid-18th century Coddington diaspora from New Jersey.

MARYLAND
Since John Insley Coddington's time, a 1807 letter from Moses Coddington 1769 to his niece's husband, William Robeson, has come to light. It proves that the above brothers William, Benjamin, and Samuel, early immigrants to Alleghany Co., were Moses' brothers and thus sons of David Coddington and Ann Stone, not the above hypothetical (and now superfluous) William. The 1790 Alleghany County census lists four Coddington households: William 1751, Samuel 1766, Benjamin 1759, and John 1777.

NEW JERSEY AND NEW YORK RECORDS
The absence of the first four federal censuses for New Jersey (1790, 1800, 1810, 1820) complicates interpretation of New Jersey Coddingtons. For example, in New York State where Coddingtons were fewer, the 1790 census lists 16 Coddington households containing 81 individuals in three counties, including variant spellings, the 1800 census lists 23 households and 147 individuals in 6 counties, the 1810 census lists 29 households and 190 individuals in 10 counties, and the 1820 census lists 41 households and 164 individuals in 12 counties, for a grand total of 109 household and 582 individual census records. Attributing these to known individuals is often difficult. From 1830 on census records are easier to interpret because people flourishing then often survived until 1850, when the census for the first time listed all names in the household, and not just counts within age brackets. Given that there were far more Coddingtons residing in New Jersey than in New York at that time, and that the origins of New York Coddingtons lie in New Jersey, the loss of the New Jersey records is nearly devastating.

NEW YORK CODDINGTONS
The 18th century New York Coddingtons comprise three unproblematic clusters, New York City (New York Co.), Staten Island (Richmond Co.), and Long Island (Suffolk Co.), and a complex melange involving Orange, Ulster, Delaware, "Tompkins" (variously Cayuga, Seneca, Ontario, and Schuyler), and Sullivan counties.
In New York City, the 18th century Coddingtons were Uzziah 1739, Reuben 1745, and their descendants. Both of them removed to New York City because they were loyalists during the American Revolution; Reuben petitioned the British for food. Reuben's son, John 1774, moved to Orange Co. ca. 1803, and later to Sullivan Co., New York.
On Staten Island a David Coddington appeared in 1800, 1810, and 1820, who had four sons and no daughters. Moses 1769, son of David 1727 and Ann Stone, wrote in 1807, "My Brother David lives on Staten Island opposite Amboy he has four children all Boys living he is in a fine way and doing well..." David 1757, who had four sons and no daughters and lived on Staten Island, was interpreted by John Insley Coddington as a son of James 1725. The 1807 letter proves that he was a son of David 1727 instead.
The various Coddington lines who settled further north in New York apparently stemmed from two families, Benjamin 1708 and Thomas 1712, both sons of the prolific Benjamin 1680. Three sons of Thomas, William 1744, Enoch 1750, and Joseph 1756 settled in Newburgh, Orange Co. A fourth son Benjamin 1763 also lived briefly in Orange Co. but by 1790 had moved permanently to Long Island, where his descendants proliferated. All of these men are listed on the Militia rolls of Ulster and Orange Co. during the Revolutionary War.

BENJAMIN 1708
Benjamin 1708 and his putative children are an intractable problem. As noted above, Benjamin 1708 does not appear in the record with anything like the family assets genealogists have attributed to him. In fact, he barely appears at all. Nevertheless, John Insley Coddington gave him six children, Benjamin 1730, Joseph 1730, Christopher 1731, the hypothetical William 1733 disproved above, Martha 1737 (who married and remained in New Jersey), and Catherine c. 1737 (who married in Albany, New York), presumably all born in Woodbridge. No records document Benjamin and Katharine's marriage date, nor the birth dates of any of their children; all were estimated by John Insley Coddington. The 1730's are certainly plausible, but there seems no reason to burden this scenario with what would appear to be twins in 1730 and twins in 1737.

JOSEPH 1730
Extant evidence does suggest that Joseph 1730 and Christopher 1731 were close relatives and probably brothers. Joseph, whose marriage banns say he was born in New Jersey, moved to Rochester (Accord), Ulster Co. by 1752 at the latest because he courted and married there on 18 Feb. 1753 a local girl of Dutch descent, Catarina Van Der Merken. Joseph soon removed to New Paltz where he remained for the rest of his life. He was a schoolteacher and performed various administrative duties for his church: all 11 of his children were baptized in the New Paltz Dutch Reformed Church, and it seems some of them fought along side the sons of Thomas 1712 in the Ulster Co. Militia during the Revolutionary War.

CHRISTOPHER 1731
Joseph's younger brother Christopher was also described as born in New Jersey on his marriage banns, and he also married a Dutch girl in the same village, Maria Oosterhoudt, a few months after his brother's marriage, on 13 Oct. 1753. Christopher 1731 began his family in Rochester but soon moved south to Orange Co. Sometime after 1765 he moved again, to Bald Eagle Twp. on the Susquehanna River in then Northumberland and now Centre Co., Pennsylvania, which was essentially wilderness. Family legend (obviously embellished) says that the hostile Indian population drove the family back to New York State around 1786 and that he, his wife, and all but two of his children perished during their flight from Northumberland Co. During the Revolutionary War the Indian nations sided with the British and it would not be surprising if outlying settlements became untenable. Christopher's first four children were baptized at Rochester (1753-1760), but the next two (1762, 1765) were baptized in Deerpark, Orange Co. Bald Eagle Twp. Northumberland Co. tax records list Christopher from 1778 to 1785 and thereafter he disappears from all records. Although no birth or baptism records are available, in all likelihood Christopher and Maria continued to have children in Pennsylvania. John Insley Coddington speculated that Christopher and Maria may have died in Pennsylvania ca. 1785-1790, whereupon the children returned to Wallkill and Rochester to live with relatives. Certainly no trace of Christopher or Maria postdates 1785.

JOSEPH 1763 OF WARREN CO., OHIO and JOSEPH 1762 OF ROCHESTER, NEW YORK
Christopher is known to have had a son, Joseph, baptized in Deerpark, Orange Co., in 1762. The latter is not otherwise known to have had a family, but a Joseph Coddington with a male under 16 and three females appears in the 1790 Walkill census. Only one known Joseph not otherwise accounted for fits that pattern, Joseph "1763," b. Pennsylvania, who migrated ca. 1792 to Ohio where numerous descendants still live under the name "Corrington." The evidence for a 1763 Pennsylvania birth is a turn of the century county history, which often contain minor factual errors. If his family moved to Pennsylvania when he was three or four and his parents died there while he was still young, he or his descendants might have forgotten the baptism in Rochester. Also he certainly fought in the New Jersey Militia during the Revolutionary War, and was paid three times for his service. Those military records give his birth year as 1762.

ZACHARIAH c. 1771 and JONATHAN c. 1774
The 1790 census of Wallkill, Orange Co. lists four Coddington households on the same page in close proximity: Benjamin, Joseph, Richard, and Zachariah. Christopher 1731 was certainly the father of Benjamin 1758. Joseph 1762 is identified above as another son of Christopher. Zachariah was "over 16" in the 1790 census and therefore born by 1774 at the latest. He could easily be an additional son born in Pennsylvania, in which case he could have been born as early as 1771. His proposed brother, Benjamin 1758, named a son Zachariah, otherwise a rare name among Coddingtons, and Zachariah, like Benjamin, eventually went to Washington Co., Ohio, and raised a family there. Likewise Jonathan 1774, too young to have his own household in the 1790 census but present in the 1800 Wallkill census, may have been yet another son born in Pennsylvania.

RICHARD C. 1752
Richard as a son of Christopher is more problematic because his eldest child Cate was baptized in 1781. Richard's birth date is therefore likely to be prior to 1760. The only possible gap in Christopher's family is between Ida, 29 April 1756 and Benjamin, bef. 28 June, 1758--26 months. If Richard was born in 1757 in Rochester, his baptism went unrecorded as both Ida and Benjamin do appear in the evidently continuous Church records. In sum, Richard parents are unlikely to be Christopher and Maria Oosterhoudt.
Another possibility is Richard 1708, who recorded an earmark in Woodbridge in 1730 (son of John 1677), although that Richard is not known to have had a family. The above Richard's census records in 1790 and 1800 show that his family began around 1784. If Richard 1708 married in the 1730's, Richard of Wallkill is more likely to have been a younger son, although the tradition at that time was to name the first-born, not later sons, after the father. At any rate, this scenario is favored only by the coincidence in names.
On the whole, the most likely father for Richard is Thomas 1712. Assuming roughly biennial births, the sequence of his children has gaps in 1748, 1752-1754, 1761, and from 1765 on. 1752-1754 seems most likely for Richard. Thomas's children, William, Enoch, Joseph, Phoebe, and, for a short time Benjamin, all lived in the Newburgh-Wallkill-Goshen area during the late 18th century. If Richard was born ca. 1752-1754, his appearance in Wallkill along with his siblings would make sense, and is adopted here as a working hypothesis. The Walkill census record, therefore, reflects Richard c. 1752 and three of his first cousins, all sons of Christopher 1731. However, no concrete evidence links Richard to Thomas, and a somewhat disputable bible record for Thomas 1712 omits Richard (see Alfonte letter).
Richard could, of course, be the scion of an otherwise unknown family of Christopher's generation. In fact, only a few 18th New York and New Jersey facts cannot be attributed to known families. As one example, the 1790 census enumerates a Joseph Coddington in Catskill, Albany Co., New York, otherwise unplaced, that could haven been Richard's brother.

THE SONS of BENJAMIN 1730
John Insley Coddington also placed Benjamin 1730 as a child of Benjamin 1708. Several of Benjamin 1730's sons continued on to 18th century frontiers: Benjamin bef 1765 went to Kentucky, and Moses 1768 and William 1769 (who married the sisters Amy and Dorcas Girton) went to Indiana in about 1816-1817. In this scenario, Moses and William would have followed their first cousin Joseph 1762 west, who by 1816 was well-established in Ohio. Benjamin 1730 left a will naming Benjamin as his "eldest son" which argues strongly against assigning Joseph 1762 to Benjamin 1730, for Benjamin 1765 would not then have been the eldest.

JOHN 1778
The remaining unplaced Coddington line is that of John 1778, who migrated to Tompkins Co. There seem to be only two possibilities, of which the first is Benjamin 1730. Assuming that Phoebe was some years younger than her husband, she would have been at most in her mid 30's by John's birth. Certainly John's early move to Tompkins Co, where a number of other Coddington descendants of the people discussed here also moved, argues that he belongs among the descendants of Benjamin 1708. The concerted movement and settlement patterns of these individuals argues for a close relation. Benjamin 1730's will, unfortunately, does not mention John.
The other possibility is as another Pennsylvania son of Christopher 1731. Christopher left no will, so assigning John 1778 to Christopher solves the above problem that Benjamin's will omits John. Christopher's children grew up in the Pennsylvania wilderness, and, as reconstructed here, many of Christopher's children preferred less settled regions than Ulster Co. (Benjamin, Joseph, Christopher, and Jonathan). The counter evidence to a direct relation between John 1778 and Christopher is that Christopher certainly had already named one son John, who was very much alive. Also, Alvah 1808 and Mary Ann 1818, the only two of John 1778's children to be enumerated in the 1880 census, agreed that their father was born in New York, not Pennsylvania, and their mother in Ireland. Of the two scenarios, omission in a will seems less incredible than two sons named John, so John 1778 is here regarded as a son of Benjamin, 1730. Christopher's grandson, John Merlin 1786, also removed to Hector ca. 1806. John 1778's birth in New York is still problematic, because Benjamin 1730 is not otherwise known to have left New Jersey.
John 1778 is not likely to have been a son of Joseph 1730. As noted above, Joseph 1730's children, none named John, were born, baptized, and recorded in Rochester and New Paltz. Catarina would have been 46 at his birth. But there was a connection between John 1778 and Joseph's family. Joseph's sons Joseph Jr. 1762 and David 1765 and his grandson Jacob 1785 (through Jacob 1760) all removed to Ulysses/Hector by 1810. John 1778 had settled there ten years earlier. Presumably these several moves were not mere coincidence.
John 1778 married Mary Ann Robinson ca. 1797 and had eight well-documented children. Although "Johns" are thick in late 18th and early 19th century Coddington records, the 1800, 1810, 1820, 1830 and 1840 census records of "John Coddington" first in Ulysses and then Hector, Tompkins Co., probably belong to this individual. He left a will in 1845 naming his many children, and many of those subsequently appear in the 1850 census in the surrounding area.

TOMPKINS CO. NEW YORK
Coddingtons that colonized Tompkins Co., therefore, were led first by John 1778 and his substantial family who had arrived by 1800. Joseph 1762, David 1765, Jacob 1785, and John Merlin 1786 arrived within a decade. John Merlin's son Aaron 1810 later married John's daughter Mary Ann 1818. If the relationships depicted here are correct, they were second cousins.
Given the utter absence of New Jersey census records, one cannot exclude other explanations of the facts that rely on unknown, hypothetical families, but the above scenario attempts to maximize conformity to wills, reasonable birth intervals, church. census, and military records, and migratory patterns along family lines.
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  Noted events in his life were:

• Fact: mentioned in the will of Benjamin Coddington as one of his children, 26 May 1750, Woodbridge, Middlesex Co., New Jersey, USA. ²⁰⁷

Benjamin married Katherine MARTIN, daughter of Joseph MARTIN and Elizabeth MERRITT, about 1728. (Katherine MARTIN was born in 1710 in Woodbridge, Middlesex Co., New Jersey, USA and died in Woodbridge, Middlesex Co., New Jersey, USA.)