Ancestry and descendants of Hannah Mathews Towar

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ANCESTRY AND DESCENDANTS OF

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

THE

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

PRESENTED BY

Ed_g.ar E. Tov.-ar

October 25, 1922.

Fifty Copies of this Book were Printed in

the Month of April. One Thousand

Nine Hundred and Twenty-two

J

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

IN HER NINETIETH YEAR

ANCESTRY
AND DESCENDANTS

OF

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

PRIVATELY PRINTED
1922

! THE nrw Y«'RK
j PUBLIC LIBRARY
U^4 9X>k

FOREWORD

THE genealogical connections of Mrs.
Hannah Mathews Towar, to whose
memory this little book is a tribute, are
very large, and may be traced with much
collateral detail in several family records,
notably those of the Strong and the Sayre
families. Through her mother, Elizabeth
Sayre, she also claims descent from the
Woodhulls, Smiths, and Fordhams of Long
Island, and from the Strongs and Holtons
of Northampton; on her father's side the
Mathews line connects with the colonial set-
tlers of New York and the patroons of
Albany. To any one familiar with the
story of the settlement of the colonies,
the possibilities of family ramification
thus suggested are practically limitless;
most of the information here presented may
be found, if one searches for it, in the
carefully collated family records already
mentioned. Other genealogical studies
have furnished corroborative details; the
main sources in each case have been, of

FOREWORD

course, the colonial documents, the many
histories of towns and counties, and, for
later times, the private papers and per-
sonal notes and sometimes the memories of
the oldest living members of the family. A
great deal that is interesting has not been
included here, for the purpose of this com-
pilation has been simply to put into a form
that those personally interested can follow
without too much distraction, the succes-
sion of the generations since the immigrants
that have gone to make up one woman's an-
cestry; perhaps also to preserve a little
longer some of the traditions that help make
these long-dead forebears seem real to us.
When justified by family prepossessions or
sufficient historical interest, collateral de-
tails have been included, but in general the
facts related here belong to Mrs. Towar's
ancestors in the direct line from the
founders.

In one line the available information
seems very scanty. A glance at the chart,
which is designed only to make clear the
succession of descent, shows a blank where
the ancestors of Mrs. Towar's maternal
grandmother, Mercy, or, as the old letters
have it, Marcy Seely, should be named. If
it were possible to trace that line as fully

FOREWORD

as the others have been traced, the present
study would be more satisfactory to the ear-
nest genealogist; but incomplete as it is, the
chart displays names of such quality and
distinction in colonial times that it should
be a matter of pride to Mrs. Towar's de-
scendants.

The book has been planned and its print-
ing arranged for by Mrs. Towar's son, Mr.
Edgar H. Towar, of Convent, New Jersey.
During the latter part of his mother's long
life of over one hundred years, her home
in Detroit was a Mecca for pilgrims of vary-
ing degrees of kindred. There has always
been a strong tendency seriously to consider
the bonds of relationship as real ties, both
in the Mathews connection and among the
Sayres; the recurrence of certain christian
names in every generation of Colonel Peter
Mathews' descendants, though at times un-
appreciated by the historian, is an evidence
of their clannishness, and Elizabeth Sayre,
Mrs. Towar's mother, was of the third gen-
eration in the old homestead where the
seventh generation still lives. In her
widowhood she went back to her girlhood
home, where her brother Jonas had estab-
lished his wife as mistress, but where the
oldest brother, unmarried and always re-

Cvii]

FOREWORD

spectfully addressed by his youngers as
"Brother James," was exercising the rights
of primogeniture as head of the family in
almost patriarchal fashion. This acknowl-
edgment of relationship as a responsibility
that is at the same time a privilege was
Mrs. Towar's inheritance, and she made it
a pleasure as well. She knew the name of
the smallest twig on every branch of the
family tree, and if one of the younger rel-
atives from a distance appeared at her
threshold, he remained a stranger only so
long as it took him to tell her his name; the
gracious welcome he received then was so
intelligent and so informing that those of
us who were fortunate enough to see
"Cousin Hannah" under such circumstances
have never forgotten it, nor the charming
old lady who gave it, so exquisite in dress
and manner, so interesting in her knowl-
edge of her kith and kin, past and present,
and so cordial in her recognition of the
claims of "the family."

It is such a claim that Mr. Towar is satis-
fying in printing these facts of his mother's
ancestry, and those relatives who have
helped him to fill out the gaps in his own
information have been glad to admit his
right to call upon them for aid. Especially

Cviii]

FOREWORD

is this true of the compiler, who has thor-
oughly enjoyed the privileges of descendant
and chronicler.

August, 1921.

Ci-'O

ANCESTRY AND DESCENDANTS

of

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

THE MATHEWS FAMILY

PETER MATHEWS, first of his line in
America, came in 1692 to New York, pre-
sumably from Ireland, where he had served
under Benjamin Fletcher, accompanying
him as a member of his staff when Fletcher
came over to take up his duties as colonial
governor; a tradition that the young man
was the governor's nephew is strengthened
by a mention of him in a report of the Earl
of Bellomont, Fletcher's successor but not
his well-wisher, as "having been bred up
from a child with Governor Fletcher." Al-
though this was apparently no recommen-
dation to Governor Bellomont's favor,
Peter Mathews rose in his service and in
that of later governors from the rank of
lieutenant to that of colonel; at one time he
narrowly escaped being exchanged back to
England because his annoyed superior of-
ficer accused him of frequenting homes of
dissatisfied subjects of the king where "ca-
bals" against the government were origi-
nated, but upon Mathews' promise to use

ANCESTRY AND DESCENDANTS OF

more caution in his visits, the governor
withdrew his request for exchange. As of-
ficer in command of troops he signed many
military reports during the French and In-
dian and Queen Anne's wars, and his name
is often mentioned in colonial documents.
In 1702 he sailed for England in the Advice,
carrying official papers to the king's govern-
ment from Governor Cornbury. In one
laconic despatch he makes deposition that
having gone into Connecticut with the gov-
ernor's warrant for the arrest of two desert-
ers, while returning with them through
Stamford, Sunday morning, he was held up
at the inn by two zealous advocates of strict
Sabbath observance, and was by them re-
strained until sundown from farther travel-
ing on Sunday. There seems to have been
some discrimination in the enforcement of
the blue laws, for during Colonel Peter's
involuntary sojourn in the inn parlor, one
of his prisoners escaped.

But he was not only a man of war. In
1715 he was commissioner of Indian af-
fairs, having been commended for his abil-
ity to gain their confidence, and his name
appears on individual and community
grants of land in Westchester County, in
Orange County, and at Albany as that of a

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

man in some standing in public opinion.
He was also one of the founders of St.
Peter's, in Albany, and its first warden, a
few years before his death in 1719. By his
will his wife, Bridget, of whom nothing else
is known but whom he evidently married
in England before his emigration, inherits
all his rather large property, with no men-
tion of any children. Two years later, how-
ever, at her death, her will names "my only
son Vincent," a grandson Peter, who in-
herits his grandfather's silver watch, and
two daughters, Catherine and Flora. No
further record of the daughters has been
found, but the "only son" carried on his
father's name worthily.

Vincent Mathews was born in 1698 and
died in 1784. He had apparently done mili-
tary service under his father when still very
young, for a Vincent Mathews is mentioned
in several of Colonel Peter's despatches, al-
ways subordinate to and in close connec-
tion with the older officer. Barely twenty-
one when his father died, he was apparently
already a married man — witness the grand-
son Peter, who certainly existed very soon
afterward — and he was before the Revolu-

[:53

ANCESTRY AND DESCENDANTS OF

tion a man of means and affairs. Like his
father, he was a landed proprietor; there is
recorded his purchase of land in Orange
County for the sum of £1,000, a goodly
amount in those days, where he built his
home, calling it Mathewsfield. Until the
last generation portions of that property
have still been in the possession of his
descendants. He held various civil offices,
being at different times clerk of Orange
County, colonel of the county militia,
county judge and assemblyman, and com-
missioner for settling the boundary between
New York and Connecticut. Like his father
again, he was an active supporter of the
Church of England, being warden of St.
David's, at Cornwall, just before the war.
No suspicion of his loyalty to the cause of
the colonies is ever suggested, although one
at least of his sons had a very different rec-
ord, as will presently appear.

Vincent Mathews' first wife was Catalina
Abeel, daughter of Johannes Abeel, leading
citizen and at one time Mayor of Albany by
commission from Governor Fletcher, and
of Catalina Schuyler, daughter of David and
Catalynje Ver Planck. Their six children
were as follows:

l^'2

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

Peter, who inherited the watch in his
Grandmother Bridget's will;

Catalyna, who was baptized on August
18, 1725;

Fletcher;

David, of whom more anon;

James, born in 1742 and dying in 1816,
the son whose line we are following;

Bridget.

A third daughter, Elizabeth, who married
Theophilus Beekman of New York, was the
child of a second wife, mentioned in his will
only by her christian name of Elizabeth,
but who was, previous to her marriage with
him, a widow named Wildman, possessed of
some wealth, which was carefully secured
to her daughter in Vincent Mathews' will.
It was at Mrs. Beekman's house that her
father died, but during the vicissitudes of
the war he seems to have lived at his
Mathewsfield home. Of his two oldest chil-
dren nothing more is known; they are not
named in his will, which disposes of his
property in careful detail to the others, but
family tradition says that Peter "went west."
Bridget married Dr. Evan Jones, a surgeon
of New York, whose sons, also surgeons,
had enviable records during the Revolu-

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ANCESTRY AND DESCENDANTS OF

tion, and her descendants still live in New
York.

Vincent Mathews' sons, Fletcher and
David, were loyalists, and were both ar-
rested by the Provincial Congress in 1776 on
suspicion of complicity in the plot against
the person and papers of Washington, with
which Governor Tryon's name is associated.
David had been appointed Mayor of New
York by Tryon earlier in the year, and was
one of the first to be brought before the
committee of investigation when the plans
of the Tories were betrayed. He protested
his innocence, and it is to be said in his
behalf that no documentary' proof of his
guilt has survived, but he failed to convince
his judges, and although he was not put to
death, he was first imprisoned and then
paroled under surveillance. Later, when
the British regained possession of the city,
he returned and continued to exercise his
authority under royal warrant until the end
of the struggle, when he left the country,
never to return. His property was confis-
cated, and he spent the rest of his life in
the colony of Cape Breton, where he held
office under the king. He had married
Sarah Seymour, whose family was appar-
ently not in sympathy with his political

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

views, for he was consigned to the care of
one of his wife's relatives, an officer in the
Revolutionary army, during most of his
difficulties with the Provincial Congress.
Fletcher Mathews, implicated in his broth-
er's alleged treason, was saved from David's
fate by Governor Clinton, his friend from
boyhood, and in the status of an exchanged
prisoner sent back to his father's home at
Mathewsfield, which very soon afterward
became his. His death followed that of his
father very closely, and his wife, who was
Sarah, daughter of Nathaniel Woodhull and
Sarah Smith of Smithtown, Long Island,
survived him for only a year. Mathewsfield
became the property of his five daughters,
for he left no son to carry on the name.

James Mathews, the other brother, was also
suspected, but he came promptly forward
and made public pledge of his loyalty to the
colonial cause; he was fortunate in the fact
that he had married the daughter of Selah
Strong, of Long Island, Hannah Strong,
whose brother. Major Nathaniel, was mak-
ing a record for himself by his activities
against the Tories. With his wife's father
and brother as well as his own father
offering security for his good faith, he had

Clin

ANCESTRY AND DESCENDANTS OF

no difficult}^ in impressing his judges with
his innocence of any share in the plot, and
he further displayed his devotion to the
Revolutionary government by losing all his
property in its service. He was acting as
sub-contractor for supplies for the troops
at West Point, and because of the failure of
his principal in the contract was forced to
sign away most of his land — and, like all
the Mathewses, he was a large landholder —
to meet his obligations to the government.
Whether this had anything to do with his
change of home is not known, but not long
after, he moved into the "Far West," so
called then, to a farm near what is now
Elmira, New York, in 1816.

A glance at the chart (see pages 8 and 9)
will show the sturdy, patriotic Long Island
heredity that James Mathews added to his
own New York and patroon descent for his
children when he married Hannah Strong;
there were twelve of these children, six sons
and six daughters, and as a matter of mere
statistical interest it might be added here
that James and Hannah Mathews had
seventy-seven grandchildren. Also, there
is still quoted in one branch of the family
the comment handed down from some
spectator at their "coming-out" Sunday,

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

their first appearance at church after their
marriage, that they were the handsomest
couple that ever walked into the Blooming
Grove meeting-house. While hardly sus-
ceptible of proof at this late day, it is rather
a pleasing bit of contemporary criticism.

The names of the numerous family fol-
low; the order is not necessarily that of their
birth.

Selah, who married his cousin Mary
Strong, daughter of Major Nathaniel;

Vincent, who married her sister Juli-
anna;

Peter, w^ho went as a pioneer to Michi-
gan, w^here nobody kept records, ap-
parently;

Fletcher, who married Elizabeth Sayre;

James, who married Hannah Ham-
mond and whose descendants still
live near Elmira;

Nathaniel, who died at nineteen;

Catherine, who married General Mat-
thew Carpenter, and who evidently
inherited some of her parents' good
looks, for she is remembered in the
family as a very handsome woman;

Hannah, who married Lebbeus Tubbs;

Elizabeth, who married John Garrison

ni33

ANCESTRY AND DESCENDANTS OF

Christopher and lived to be ninety-
one years old, dying in 1864;

Julianna, who married Lazarus Ham-
mond of Hammondsport;

Sarah, who married General Samuel S.
Haight;

Bridget, who married William Lowe.

The names of the six sons are significant
of the habit of the Mathewses in the christ-
ening of their children. Two of them are
called for their mother's father and brother,
men who had achieved honor and distinc-
tion in the struggle of the colonies for lib-
erty; the remaining four bear names al-
ready familiar in the Mathews line. This
tribal loyalty is evident all through their
history; it does not always make for ease
in keeping the succession of the genera-
tions clear in the memory of the historian,
but it is an illustration of their perhaps
unconscious strong family sympathy. The
name of David, the loyalist mayor, signif-
icantly enough, does not appear with any
such frequency. The most prominent of
the six was General Vincent Mathews, who
was born in 1776 and died in 1849, having
carried on the traditions of his fathers as
militia officer and as state assemblyman and

1:143

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

senator, in his case adding the more mod-
ern legal honors belonging to a man who
was several times district attorney in west-
ern New York, and was known as an able
lawyer with a conspicuous prejudice
against clients whose cases were not en-
tirely above suspicion.

Fletcher Mathews, according to the list
given above the fourth son of James and
Hannah Mathews, was the father of Hannah
Mathews Towar. The date of his birth is
not certain, but in 1806 he married Eliza-
beth, daughter of James Sayre and Marcy
Seely Sayre, of Chemung County. He lived
at Baileytown, on Seneca Lake, and his
daughter Hannah was born there on No-
vember 30, 1812, only fourteen months be-
fore his death, in February, 1814. Except
that he was a merchant, very little has been
remembered of him; dying before his
father, he apparently lacked his father's
personality. A further reason for the faint-
ness of the shadow he has cast may be found
in the fact that ten years after his death
his widow, born Elizabeth Sayre, married
Henry Towar, an old friend and a widower
with several children, and in the minds of
some of the relatives who were familiar

ANCESTRY AND DESCENDANTS OF

with "Aunt Betty's" home in Horseheads,
near Elmira, in their early years, the iden-
tities of her own children, named Mathews,
and her stepchildren, named Towar, are in-
extricably entangled. When later her
daughter Hannah married Mr. Towar's son
George, it was usually easier to accept
rather than to explain the resulting tangle
of relationship. Mr. Towar's home was at
Alloway, near Lyons, but "Aunt Betty's"
connection with her own old home was al-
ways very close.

The children of Fletcher Mathews and
Elizabeth Sayre were five in number:

Selah, born in 1807 and married in
1829 to Mary Pitkin Hinsdale;

Susan, born in 1808 and married in
1827 to Alexander Hays;

James, born in 1810 and dying unmar-
ried in 1873;

Hannah, born in 1812 and married,
November 6, 1832, to George Wash-
ington Towar;

Fletcher, born in 1814 and married in
1836 to Caroline Conkling.

The Mathews name as a surname dies in
this branch of the family with this genera-
tion, for Selah and Fletcher left each only

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

one daughter, and James never married.
Susan Mathews Hays left three daughters,
the eldest of whom was married to Horace
Boardman Smith, of Elmira, congressman
and justice of the Supreme Court of New
York, and for many years a leader of public
opinion in the western part of the State.
Perhaps the most prominent representa-
tives in the next generation of the Mathews-
Sayre line are the twin sons of Judge Board-
man and Ellen Hays Smith, great-grandsons
of Fletcher and Elizabeth Sayre Mathews,
Walter Lloyd Smith, who was his father's
successor as Supreme Court Justice, the
youngest man ever so appointed, and
Wilton Merle-Smith, for many years until
his retirement in 1920 the much admired
and beloved pastor of the Central Presby-
terian Church in New York City.

The names of Hannah Mathews Towar's
children and grandchildren will be found
later in their own place.

[17]

THE SAYRE FAMILY

THOMAS SAYRE was the founder of the
family to which Mrs. Towar's mother,
Elizabeth Sayre, belonged; its history in this
country is two generations longer, and even
more honorable from the point of view of
unquestioned patriotism, than that of her
father, Fletcher Mathews. The date of
Thomas Sayre's baptism may be found in
the church records at Leighton Ruzzard, in
Bedfordshire, England, for the year 1597,
and in 1648 he built a house in Southamp-
ton, Long Island, where he and his immi-
grant brothers settled on their arrival in
this country, after a brief hesitation at
Lynn. This house for some time previous
to its destruction, about 1915, had been the
oldest English-built house in New York, and
except for the last few years of its exist-
ence had remained in the possession of the
builder's descendants, a familiar sight to
Southamptonites. Frequent mention of
Thomas Sayre in the early town records
shows that he held various positions of

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

authority in the village hierarchy; one or
two references would seem to imply that
he was a person of quick temper, for he is
fined for "contemptuous carriage" toward
a magistrate, and for "unseemly words
concerning the Court," hardly diplomatic
behavior on the part of an ex-magistrate.
His generosity toward an unfortunate
neighbor receives on one occasion favor-
able official comment, and he appears to
have been a favorite candidate for jury
duty, despite his habit of contempt of court.
His will, with autograph signature, may still
be seen in the office of the Surrogate in
New York, with its quaint opening bequest,
not so uncommon even in later years, of
"my Soule unto God that gave it and my
Body unto earth from whence it was first
taken." The Sayre Book, with its many
interesting reprints of early documents,
gives no information concerning his wife;
his children were four sons:

Francis;

Daniel;

Joseph;

Job, who was the ancestor of Mrs.

Towar; and three daughters:
Damaris;

[19]

ANCESTRY AND DESCENDANTS OF

Mary;
Hannah.

Of their descendants the compiler of the
Sayre Book in 1901 took cognizance of
nearly twelve thousand, barely a thousand
of them being descended from Job Sayre,
the fourth son. The available information
about the family is so fully presented in the
Sayre Book that it seems unnecessary to
include anything here except the merest
facts about any one but the individuals who
are in Job Sayre's direct line.

Not very much is known of Job Sayre him-
self. He was apparently the first of Thomas
Sayre's children born after the migration
to America; he was his father's executor;
he was at different times constable, com-
missioner and trustee of Southampton, and
for years was its recorder; he gave to the
town the highway still called Job's Lane;
he married twice, and he died in 1694. His
first wife, the mother of his six children,
was named Sarah; their oldest son was an-
other Job.

Job Sayre, Second, was born in 1672 and
died in 1755, living his entire life in South-

1:20]

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

ampton, and bequeathing sufficiently large
lots of property to his children to prove it
a not unsuccessful life, however unevent-
ful it appears to have been. He married
Susannah Howell, daughter of John Howell,
of another prominent pioneer family of
Long Island; she died some time between
1740, when the will of her son Ezekiel is
dated, which gives half of his "moveable
estate" to his "honored Mother Susannah
Sayre," and 1754, the date of her husband's
will, where no mention is made of her in a
document which is full of references to his
family. Ezekiel was a blacksmith, prosper-
ous and unmarried; his brother Joseph
seems to have been at that time a cord-
wainer.

If families are like countries, happiest
when they have no history, the Sayres were
probably a contented lot during two or three
generations. James Sayre, son of Job, Jr.,
and Susannah Howell Sayre, was born in
1719, left Southampton for Goshen, a town
in Orange County, where he married, and
died there before 1790. That is all we know
about him; his wife was Susannah, the
daughter of Ebenezer Seely and Mercy
Dean, of Goshen, and after her husband's

1:213

ANCESTRY AND DESCENDANTS OF

death she moved with three of her sons and
a daughter to Horseheads, near Elmira, New
York, settling there upon a farm which is
now, in 1921, owned and occupied by her
great-great-great-grandson. Her shears,
made by the village blacksmith of Goshen,
and her blue china tea-pot and sugar-bowl,
survivors of the dishes imported for her
from England, are in the possession of her
great-great-granddaughter.

James Sayre, Second, her oldest son, was
born at Goshen in 1750. He was a soldier
in an Orange County regiment, and married
Mercy, daughter of Jonas Seely, of Goshen,
some years before he moved to Horseheads
with his mother. His wedding coat, of
rough reddish homespun, with its brass
buttons and long tails, and his bell-crowned
beaver hat were treasured in the family
garret for a long time; during the Civil War
they were being exhibited at a Sanitary
Fair — ancestor of the bazaars of the Great
War times, apparently — in Elmira, and were
destroyed in a fire that unfortunately broke
out one night, a calamity that his great-
great-grandchildren, who had often dressed
up in them, deplore to this day. He died
in Horseheads, in 1826, having been a well-

C223

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

to-do farmer, with large dairies and a flock
of sheep numerous enough to require the
watching of three shepherds; old letters tell
of the women hired for the winter to spin
and weave the flax and wool into garments
and blankets for his family. He had his
own sawmills and grist-mills, and at his
death he left a considerable estate to be
divided among his children. The share of
each daughter was three hundred dollars in
money, which at first glance does not look
bewilderingly generous, but in those days
a farmer, even a wealthy one, counted his
wealth in possessions rather than in cur-
rency.

Elizabeth was his second daughter. Born
in 1778 and dying in 1870, she is well re-
membered by her grandchildren and her
grandnieces and grandnephews, who often
speak of the strong resemblance in counte-
nance and character between her and her
daughter, Mrs. Towar. Her marriages, to
Fletcher Mathews in 1806, and after ten years
of widowhood to Henry Towar in 1824, have
already been chronicled. She was fourteen
when, with her grandmother Susannah,
her father James and mother Mercy, her
uncles Ebenezer and John and their fam-

1:233

ANCESTRY AND DESCENDANTS OF

ilies, her aunt Julianna and the latter's
husband Jonathan Conkling, and several
brothers and sisters of her own, she mi-
grated in carts drawn by oxen half-way
across the State of New York, from Orange
County to Chemung County. When in their
deliberate progress they came to a river,
they constructed rafts and ferried them-
selves and their household belongings to
the other side; it must have been a caravan
of magnitude, for although the Sayre broth-
ers were at that time in financial difficulties,
due in part to post-war depreciation of
currency and in part to aid given two
unbusinesslike and unfortunate Seely
brothers-in-law in Goshen, they had plenty
of household furnishing as well as plenty
of household. Specimens of Grandmother
Susannah's blue china and of Grandmother
Mercy's brown still survive; the former's
four-post bedstead, wedding furnishing in
Goshen before 1750, after a hundred and
fifty years in the old house in Chemung
County to which she brought it, is at present
rather a problem in a New York apartment
bedroom. If it is ever possible to stretch
the apartment, the old cherry dresser that
held Grandmother Susannah's homespun
wedding sheets and blankets, and later the

1:24]

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

fruit of her son James' flocks of sheep and
his spinning-women's wheels, will be
brought to rejoin the bedstead. The Sayre
furniture was evidently as strong as the
Sayre family feeling; both have outlasted
the name as a surname in this branch of
the family, for with the marriage of Mrs.
Towar's mother, Elizabeth, the name Sayre
disappears from the family records.

1:25]

THE STRONG FAMILY

THE third distinctive line of descent in
Mrs. Towar's ancestry is that of the
Strongs. Practically all available informa-
tion about this family, as in the case of the
Sayres, has already been put into shape.
The story of their doings, from the arrival
of the founder in 1630 to the marriage of
his great-great-great-granddaughter Han-
nah to James Mathews in 1742, can be found
in the "History of the Strong Family," pre-
pared by Benjamin Dwight and published
by Munsell, fifty years ago. Little has been
added since to the facts about the earlier
generations, except corroborative incidents.
It is a bulky book, and to undertake the dis-
entanglement of one thread of family his-
tory from the formidable array of similar
threads that make up the whole fabric
requires patience, although the toil is not
without its compensations; but in this brief
outline most of the numerous children of
the successive ancestors have been ignored
for the sake of clearness. Only the direct

[26:]

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

succession has been named, from father to
son, and finally to daughter, until it merges
into the Mathews line.

With John Strong, the founder, begins Mrs.
Towar's line of New England ancestry. As
a young man, with a young wife who died
either during or immediately after the long
voyage of more than seventy days, he sailed
from Plymouth, in 1630, on the good ship
Mary and John, bound for Boston. The
captain's rather unpleasant name was
Squeb; other unpleasantnesses resulted in
the premature and enforced debarkation
of several of the passengers at a spot a lit-
tle short of their destination, which was
the Charles River. Captain Squeb put them
ashore at what is now Nantasket; among
the pioneers thus summarily landed in the
wilderness was young John Strong, barely
twenty-five years old, with two small chil-
dren, very soon if not even then motherless.
Nothing daunted, apparently, he was active
in the settlement of a town at a spot near by,
which, with the almost pathetic habit of the
early settlers to remind themselves daily of
the comfortable homes they had left in
England, they named Dorchester. Here he
married Abigail Ford, the daughter of

1:273

ANCESTRY AND DESCENDANTS OF

Thomas Ford, who had been of the party
objected to by Captain Squeb; slie seems
to have been of more enduring qualities
than his short-lived first wife, for she sur-
vived a good many other adventures in
pioneering in her long life with her enter-
prising husband, and found time and en-
ergy as well to bear and bring up sixteen
more children for John Strong.

Theirs was the very essence of the pioneer
life; they left the infant settlement of Dor-
chester to help found Hingham, and later
Taunton; still later they were among the
settlers of New Windsor, and finally John
Strong's restless spirit found enough to keep
it occupied in Northampton. There he
owned land, and was a prosperous tanner
by trade, but he is best known by his con-
nection wdth the old First Church there,
which he helped to start and of which he
was for the rest of his life ruling elder, a
position of great honor in the deeply re-
ligious little town. Although Northampton
did not undergo the horrors of Indian war-
fare as her neighbors Hadley and Deerfield
did, there was no lack of excitement of that
kind; a good deal later than this the inhabit-
ants found it convenient to protect town
and meeting house by palisades, and indi-

128-2

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

vidual kidnappings and outrages were re-
ported. Until after John Strong's death, in
1699, tlie journey to Boston was a matter
of a week's traveling through the forest
over a path distinguishable only by the
blazed trees, but the adventurous English-
men were never discouraged, and during
the last half of the century Northampton
in her turn sent out colonies of her own into
the country around, infested with hostile
Indians and wolves and other wild beasts
as it was; Southampton, Easthampton, and
Westhampton, all loyally named for their
mother-town, offered John Strong further
opportunities for founding and settling,
which, contrary to his habit, he seems not
to have improved.

Thomas Strong, oldest of Abigail Ford's
many children, was born in Dorchester
about 1631, before the westward peregrina-
tions of his parents began. In 1671, he was
about forty years old; he was farming in
Northampton, probably plowing with his
musket slung across his shoulder, and he
was married to Rachel Holton. Her father,
William Holton, must have been a man
after Elder John's own heart; after helping
to found Hartford he had journeyed along

n293

ANCESTRY AND DESCENDANTS OF

the valley of the Connecticut, lending an
assisting hand toward the building of vari-
ous little settlements on the way, until he
joined the band of Northamptonites, where
he had been associated with the Strongs in
the growth of that town and its center of
activity, the church. He is always referred
to as Deacon, just as John Strong is called
Elder, with the prideful insistence on re-
ligious hierarchical rank characteristic of
New England, which was settled by men
who had for reasons of conscience re-
nounced bishops and deans.

Their common grandchildren were many.
The eleventh child of Thomas and Rachel
was a son, Selah, who reverted to the type
of his grandfathers and moved on. In his
case, however, "on" meant back, and not
forward. We find him in Long Island, own-
ing a farm at Setauket, near Brookhaven;
he is usually called Selah Strong of Setauket
in the records, to distinguish him perhaps
from his son, Selah Strong, Jr. He married
Abigail Terry, daughter of Thomas Terry,
of Southold, and identified himself as thor-
oughly with Long Island interests as the
Sayres were doing at the same time.

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

Selah Strong, Second, also married into a
Long Island family; his wife was Hannah
Woodhull, daughter of Nathaniel Woodhull
and Sarah Smith. The latter's father was
Richard Smith, Jr., of Smithtown, and her
mother Temperance Fordham, daughter of
the Reverend Jonah of that name. An in-
teresting example of the bewildering inter-
marriages among these colonial families is
furnished here. The wife of Selah Strong,
Jr., was the sister of Sarah Woodhull, wife
of Fletcher Mathews, who was sent back by
Governor Clinton to the Mathewsfield estate
when his loyalty to the colonial cause was
in question. Apparently James Mathews,
Fletcher's brother, in marrying Selah
Strong's daughter Hannah, married the
niece of his brother's wife. The Woodhull
family was a good one to marry into, how-
ever, and Richard Smith was not a bad
choice for a grandfather, considering his
position as a wealthy proprietor, while the
Reverend Jonah Fordham was one of those
w^ho immigrated into this land of liberty
for freedom of conscience.

It was Selah Strong, Jr., and his son, Major
Nathaniel, who by the way had married
Amy Brewster, of the Mayflower Brewsters,
who helped James Mathews in the time of

1:313

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

the Tryon plot, already referred to. No one
for whose loyalty these two vouched could
continue to be suspected; the father, sturdy
and solid and practical in his patriotism,
and the son, fiery and aggressive in his at-
tacks on his Tory neighbors, gave a very
satisfactory backing to James Mathews' less
spectacular kind of loyalty. The difference
in the family histories explains this differ-
ence; the Mathewses, until the necessity
arose to make a choice of allegiance, had
been king's officers, holders of royal grants;
the Strongs had made their ways from the
beginning through the New England wilder-
nesses, geographically much farther from
St. James' than the Albany patroons, and
in spirit even more remote.

Selah Strong's daughter, Hannah, the wife
of James and mother of Fletcher Mathews,
was Mrs. Towar's grandmother; the con-
nection and whatever knowledge her de-
scendants have of her have already been
stated in the story of the Mathews line.

n323

HANNAH MATHEWS

AND

GEORGE WASHINGTON TOWAR

TAKEN IN 1852

MRS. TO WAR'S FAMILY

ON November 6, 1832, Hannah Mathews
was married to George Washington
Towar, the son of her stepfather, Henry
Towar. Her own father, Fletcher Mathews,
had died in her infancy, and she had spent
her little girlhood at her mother's old home
in Horseheads; when Elizabeth Sayre mar-
ried again, the combined families, consist-
ing of her own five children and the even
more numerous offspring of Captain
Towar, set up a joint establishment on the
Captain's farm at Alloway, in Wayne
County, New York, a settlement that owed
its name to the little Scotch village near
Edinburgh where the Captain had been
born. He was a prosperous man and Han-
nah had the education considered fitting for
a girl at that time, "finishing" at Mrs.
Ricard's select Seminary for Young Ladies
at Geneva. She was twenty and George was
twenty-two at the time of their marriage,
and within a year or two their father re-
tired to his farm, giving over the manage-

133-2

ANCESTRY AND DESCENDANTS OF

ment of his grist-mills and other interests
to his three sons. Business flourished until
the panic of 1837 brought disaster; but
George Towar was undaunted by bank-
ruptcy, and after a few lean years became
interested in timber, and moved his family
west, first to Canada and then to Michigan,
into the lumber regions, where his sagacity
and ingenuity in meeting the problems of
transporting the manufactured lumber
from mills to market brought him success
and reputation.

About 1860 the family was established in
Detroit, where Mrs. Towar spent most of
the rest of her long life. At one time, her
husband leased a farm not far away, and
retired to spend the rest of his days in less
strenuous business than that of rafting logs
across the Great Lakes, but gradually his
herd of cows and consequent supply of
milk so increased that he found himself in-
volved in a new enterprise, and moving
back into the city, built up a creamery busi-
ness which is a successful concern to-day,
twenty-five years after his death. He was
eighty-five when he died, in 1895; his wife
survived him for twenty years, dying in
1916, a few weeks after she had completed
her one hundred and third year.

n343

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

Five of their nine sons also survived him;
the brief record that follows gives the
salient facts of their lives and families.

George Washington Towar, Jr., was born
in 1835. He held the degree of M.D, from
Harvard, and served as surgeon in the
Army of thePotomac andlater in army posts.
After retiring from the army he went into
his father's business in Detroit and became
its head after his father's death; he patented
the rapid process of testing milk for butter-
fat that is known as the Babcock test. He
died in 1913. His wdfe was Maria Webb
Cook, granddaughter of the first governor
of Ohio, Edward Tiffin, and their six chil-
dren were as follows:

Eleanor Withington, born in 1879, was
married in 1909 to Robert J. McCol-
lum, and is living in Detroit. Their
children:

Maria Webb and Eleanor Tifiin,

born in 1913;

Gertrude Lyon, born in 1915.

Henry Mathews, born in 1881, married

in 1906 Myrtle Ballance at Peoria,

Illinois, and lives now at Niles,

Michigan, the vice-president of the

CSS]

ANCESTRY AND DESCENDANTS OF

Towar Cotton Mills, Inc. Their chil-
dren :
Henry Mathews, Jr., born in 1907;
Shirley Jane, born in 1915;
Julia Ballance, born in 1917.

Scott Cook, born in 1882, married in
1911 Jeannette Driscoll, and is now
living at Toledo, president of the
Towar Cotton Mills, Inc.

George Seely, born in 1885, married in
1916 Frances Swift in Middlebury,
Vermont; he also lives at Toledo and
is connected with the Towar Cotton
Mills, Inc. Their child:
Louise May, born in 1920.

Mary Porter, born in 1892, was married
in 1917 to Robert Lee Ballard, Jr., in
Detroit, where they now live.

Mathew Sayre, born in 1896. He served
in the naval aviation during the war,
and lives in Niles, like his brothers
connected with the Towar Mills.

Edgar Henry, born in 1840 and admitted to
the bar in Michigan in 1862, was in the pay-
master's department during the Civil War.
He became a banker, first in Hancock and
then in Marquette, and is now living in Con-
vent, New Jersey. In 1866 he married

n363

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

Isabel Cardell, at Houghton, Michigan; their
two daughters:

Isabel Cardell, born in 1868;

Margaret Coulter, born in 1870.

Fletcher Mathews, born in 1842, was also
connected with the army, being a civil en-
gineer in service of the U. S. A. Engineer
Corps, and died in camp in 1899. He mar-
ried Kate Warren Wartz at Ypsilanti in
1880, and had one daughter:
Ethel, born in 1880.

Albert Selah, born in 1845, was a pay-
master in the army, retiring after thirty-
two years of service, with the rank of Colo-
nel. In 1873 he married Katie Gambell in
Adrian, Michigan, and they now live in De-
troit. Their children:

Charles Gambell, born in 1874, prac-
ticed medicine in Detroit and later
in New York, where he died in 1906.
He married in 1901 Florence Sinclair
of New York; their daughter:
Katharine, born in 1902.
Lila, born in 1880, was married in 1904
to William Taylor Irons, and has one
daughter:
Virginia, born in 1905.

[373

HANNAH MATHEWS TOWAR

Three daughters, Laura, Helen, and

Grace, who died in infancy;
Benjamin Alvord, born in 1888.

Frank Jonas, born in 1852, married Eliz-
abeth Sherwood in 1882. He lived in De-
troit, and at the time of his death in 1921
was president of Towar's Wayne County
Creamery Company. His children:

Edgar Ten Eyck, born in 1883, mar-
ried Jane Elizabeth Sandburg of
Jamestown, New York, in 1911, and
has one daughter:

Elizabeth Sherwood, born in 1918.
Edith Vanderhoef, born in 1884, was
married in 1910 to Walter L. Hill of
Tennessee, and died in 1912;
Margaret Grace, born in 1887;
Albert Jelly, born in 1889;
Frank Jonas, Jr., born in 1891;
Marion Hayes, born in 1895.

CSS]

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