Dayton Book for Sale at Amazon.com

DFH Volume 1 Issue 24

My brother, Steve, wrote a magnificent history of our Dayton’s early forefathers on American soil.  The book is titled Our Long Island Ancestors: The first six Generations of the Daytons in America, 1639-1807.  Here’s a summary of what Amazon says about the book.: The compilers’ motivations for publishing many years of research is to provide family and researchers a collection of material with which to confront both early scholarship and family legend, and to begin their own discovery.

    ●  For more than 30 years, records and information were gathered and organized by brothers Stephen Dayton and James Dayton, both of whom possess professional backgrounds in analysis.

    ●  The product is a 476 page compilation of all known records, documenting the descent of the authors’ Long Island line, six generations, from Ralph Dayton through Samuel, Abraham, Henry, to David Senior and David Junior (from about 1588 to 1807).

    ●  45  pages introduction and contextual information in England

    ●  Extensive study includes critical, original research and examination of existing claims, with effort to label conjecture and theory as such, and to present alternative interpretation.

    ●  Consultation of primary sources and from professional historians (cited).

    ●  49 images and illustrations including maps, drawings, figures, location photos, original documents and document entries.

    ●  14 pages of Work Cited; 7 pages of Vital statistics for spouses and children, with references; 19 pages of Index; 878 footnotes, most of which are citation.

This book, in hard cover and paperback would make a great Christmas present for children, grandchildren and other loved ones who want to learn about their Dayton heritage.

Click here to view the book on Amazon.

In other exciting news, Steve reported that he is starting a sequel.  Steve says,I just started messing around with organizational ideas for the second book, picking up where I left off a year ago–forming the outline. The process began shortly before being diagnosed with gastric lymphoma in August 2018 and was then just too weak physically and mentally to get inspired.  Since being declared “cancer free” this summer, I am gaining strength and am encouraged again to get more of Jim’s research recorded, continuing from the first book. This one will start with David Jr. to proceed through Henry and Charles to grandpa Wilber. 

Steve, speaking on behalf of your Dayton family, we’re all looking forward to your book and offer our assistance to you.  Feel free to call upon any of us.

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Question Box – Oyster Stew

DFH Volume 1 Issue 13

If you have questions about anything Dayton, or you have Dayton trivia, please write. Can you stump me?

Last week’s quiz… What was the food which was a staple at the yearly Wilber and Jessie family Christmas get together?

Answer:  OYSTER STEW. Gramma made it year after year, except once! Here is what Paul [my dad] had to say about it, “We always had oyster soup back then. In fact one year, Chop was coming from Vermont, he was preaching over there then, he could smell the oyster soup, and it turned out when he got here we had chicken.”  I’d like to think, that it was a centuries – old Dayton tradition to have oyster stew on Christmas Day.  Steve and I discovered that Samuel, Abraham and Henry Dayton* were merchants of sea food products.  They all lived by the sea on Long Island and were whalers.  It would have been natural for them to eat seafood …perhaps a hearty oyster stew.  This tradition would have passed through five generations to get to gramma Jessie Belle.  Improbable, but why else would a back woods couple, far from the sea, be eating oysters?

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*The descendancy from Samuel to Wilber’s children is as follows [Samuel, Abraham, Henry, David Sr., David Jr., Henry, Charles, Wilber Sr, [Wilber and Jessie’s children Flossie, Charles, Chester, Wilber, Jr., Paul].

This week’s quiz: Do you all know who your great-grampa Dayton is/was?  If not, write me and I’ll tell you (tell me who your dad and grampa were and I’ll tell you your Dayton grampas back 8-10 generations (all the way back to the first grampa on American soil in 1639).  You can write privately or for inclusion in the newsletter, whichever you prefer.

Our Long Island Ancestors, the First Six Generations of Daytons in America 1639-1807

DFH Volume 1 Issue 7

Most of you are familiar with the book which Steve and I collaborated on a few years ago.  In case you didn’t get a copy, you can find it on Amazon.com.  The paperback is $19.95.  The book title is the headline above.  We also have a hard cover for sale, although it’s quite expensive ($59.95).

Why Cambridge?

by Jim Dayton

It’s been a mystery to me, for 40 years, why David Dayton Jr passed through Cambridge New York before he finally settled in Hadley in 1796.  David was born in Brookhaven in 1766.  In 1782/3 his dad, David Sr, died since a letter of administration was filed in Surrogate Court in 1783.   He was the last Dayton of our line to live on Long Island.

David Jr first appeared in Cambridge, Albany Co., NY in the 1790 census.  The census indicated that he had a male child under 16, and a free white female in the household.  David had married Chloe Skiff  December 29, 1789 according to Donald Line Jacobus and Arthur Bliss Dayton in their book, The early Daytons and descendants of Henry, jr.   They offer that date without citation.  Joel, David and Ann’s oldest son, was born 29 Aug, 1790, very shortly before the 1790 census was taken.

Why did a youthful David Jr. remove to Cambridge?  I set about doing a study to determine if the youthful David could have relocated to Cambridge with another family sometime before the 1790 census.  My study method was to determine if an older individual could be found first in Brookhaven, NY and then Cambridge, in the appropriate timeframes.  My study yielded one such man…Benjamin Havens.  Benjamin Havens appeared as a signer of the Association in Brookhaven in 1775/6 and the 1776 Brookhaven census.  A Benjamin Havens also appeared in the Cambridge in 1790.  Thus far, I have been unable to prove that the Brookhaven Havens and the Cambridge Havens are the same man.  We do know that David’s younger brother, Telim, appeared in the 1800 Cambridge census.  Since he was younger than David, he would have lived as a boy under 16 in another’s household in 1790.  We also see another brother settling in Middletown, VT, about 40 miles north of Cambridge.

The trail has grown cold at this point.  I challenge a Dayton researcher to consider this hypothesis in more detail, or to develop a hypothesis of your own.  Finding more about David and his brother’s removal may yield information on the whereabouts of his mother Ann and his sisters.