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Previous:     Section 11: ???. Chapter X xxxx

Section 12
The Great American Mystery
1610-1700

Chapter x

The children of Thomas and Richard Brush
of Huntington, Long Island

This section really does not fit in the scope of the BFBI but I have spent so much time reading about Thomas, Richard and the Huntington community, and questioning some of the material I read about their children, that I have decided to record the story of their children and grandchildren as I see it. 'Descendants', the source book (1) produced by Stuart and Russell Brush, lists Thomas as having five children and Richard as having seven. The sources for this are said to be 'Mann', Conklin Mann's 1935 article (2), 'Mead', Spencer Mead's History of Greenwich (3) and 'LI wills', Pelletreau's Early Long Island Wills (4). In this section the numbers in brackets following names are the numbers allocated to each individual in Descendants rather than the similar number used by Mann.

The children of Thomas(2)

Descendants, drawing it seems on Mann, identifies Thomas as having five children; Thomas, John, Rebecca, Edward and Jacob. There is no birth record for any of them.

Thomas(4)

Thomas(4) is identified as the oldest by virtue of him being the administrator of his father's estate and receiving the 'double portion' defined by law(see below). This one fact seems to knock on the head any residual suggestion that Richard(3) was a son of Thomas(2), as discussed in Chapter 12.C.

It is suggested by Mann that Thomas(4)'s birth year was 1651/2. As discussed below, I believe it may have been May or June 1650. The first record of him in the Huntington Town Record ("HTR") is on 3 July 1671 when at the town meeting:

This was not part of a general granting of land; he allocation was just to Thomas. At a town meeting a few months earlier, on 12th April:

This is an interesting illustration of the principle described in chapter 12.A that the acquistion of 'new' land had two steps - consent from the 'English' authorites followed by a purchase from the local Indian tribe with sovereignty over the area.

Thomas(4)'s father, Thomas(2), had died at some time between 26 April 1670 and 12 April 1671 (5). The normal rules, under English law, at this time were that land could not be owned directly by those under 21. By 1671 the 'Dukes Laws' had already come into force (in 1665) and these provided…..???. If Thomas was 21 by July 1671 then he was born in or before June 1650. A possible interpretation of what happened is that Thomas was unable to take land in April because he was, just, too young but that as soon as he reached his majority he was allocated land. Which narrows his birth down to May/June 1650. This is slightly earlier than is generally stated to be the marriage of his father to Rebecca Conklin but the dating of that marriage is conjectural as discussed in chapter 12.B .

In 1672 he receives a share of land as part of the 'Ten Farms' ballot(6) . His brother John does not. Which is consistent with the view that John was born about 1654, so was not yet old enough. There is a small oddity in the Ten Farms document. It is shown in the HTR in two parts. The first part is expressed to be made by "we the inhabitants of Huntington" and is signed by 30 men. But the allocation of land is made to 39 men and two widows. So not everyone who gets land signs. Thomas Brush (and Richard) do sign. The second part of the document makes regulations about how the land is to be dealt with. This appears to be signed by just 12 men one of whom is Thomas Brush. But there is a note that "the mark of George Baldwin is instead of Thomas Brush". This record is from the printed HTR and the original may deserve study.

The following passage is taken directly from Mann:

The following record seems to indicate that the Court of Session allowed the application and recommended to the authorities in New York that letters of administration be granted.

Next:     Section 12: Chapter X ???

(1) back to text    The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record Vol LXVI No 3 July 1935 from p201

(2) back to text    The Descendants of Thomas and Richard Brush of Huntington, Long Island. A Source Book. Compiled by Stuart C. Brush with the collaboration of Russell B.Brush. Gateway Press 1982. There are now 4 supplements to the original work. Supplements I & II published Gateway Press in a single volume 1995 , Supplements III ( by Stuart Brush) and IV (by David McDonald) published Gateway Press in a single volume 2005.

(3) back to text    American Colonies, The Settlement of North America to 1800. by Alan Taylor, Penguin Books 2001

(4) back to text    The Mayflower's trip to Plymouth had only been in 1620, Boston dates from 1630.

(5) back to text    This piece of detail, and others about New Haven comes from a History of the Colony of New Haven to it's absorption into Connecticut by Edward E. Atwater published in 1881 and available online at http://sites.rootsweb.com/~ctcderby/books/honhct00.html and https://archive.org/stream/historyofcolonyo00atwa_0/historyofcolonyo00atwa_0_djvu.txt
This detail was at p163 New Haven 1881