In keeping with this time of year, this week’s theme is Taxes. Back in 1938, the president of the Dutchess County Historical Society, William Willis Reese, compiled public documents from the Fishkill area of Dutchess County that included deeds, mortgages, and lists of tax-payers from the eighteenth century. This publication was titled Eighteenth century records of the portion of Dutchess County, New York, that was included in Rombout precinct and the original town of Fishkill and is available online at HathiTrust.org.
When William Seward moved his family to Fishkill, NY in Dutchess County in 1795, most of his children were still young. The area where they lived had been settled by many people from the Netherlands, so it is not surprising that at least two of his children married spouses of Dutch lineage. Son Philander Seward married Susan Monfort in 1826 in the Reformed Dutch Church of New Hackensack. Susan’s parents were Henry Monfort and Maria Phillips. I have been able to trace the Phillips line back to my 7th great-grandfather, Hendrick Phillips.
The first official mention of Hendrick Phillips was in the baptismal records of the Poughkeepsie 1st Dutch Reformed Church. In February 1720, Hendrick, along with his wife Marretje Oosteroom were recorded as parents of daughter Magtel . His birth date and birth place are unknown at this time, but estimated to be circa 1698. According to an article on the Dutcher family published in the NYB&G Record in 1909, Hendrick and Marretje had nine children. From other records I know that Hendrick served as a deacon in the Dutch Reformed Church of Fishkill.
Records filed in the eighteenth century by the Board of Supervisors of Dutchess County, New York, included lists of the tax-payers of the county. The lists started in 1717/1718 and ended in 1780, with the volume containing years 1749, 1750, 1751, and 1752 reportedly lost. Hendrick/Henry Phillips (sometimes spelled Flelephs) appears in the tax-payer lists of the following years: 1720-1748, 1753-1763, 1765-1775, 1777-1779. Though I don’t have death information for Hendrick yet, the last tax-payer list shows he was living in 1779.
Even though documented sources for Hendrick’s birth and death have not been found, other official documents, like tax lists, can provide information about his life. My next step to research this ancestor could be to review the tax lists themselves (or a copy of them) to see what information they may hold.
Sources:
A. P. Van Gieson, Anniversary Discourse and History of the First Reformed Church of Poughkeepsie (Poughkeepsie, NY: A. V. Haight, 1893), 20; digital images, Ancestry.com, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 13 April 2018).
Walter Kenneth Griffin, “The Dutcher Family: To the births of the 5th generation, with a few notes as to subsequent members, and as to the ancestors of allied families.,” New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, 40 (October 1909), Find My Past (http://www.findmypast.com : accessed 16 April 2018).
William Willis Reese, compiler, Eighteenth century records of the portion of Dutchess County, New York, that was included in Rombout precinct and the original town of Fishkill (Albany, NY: J. B. Lyon Company, 1938), 33; digital images, HathiTrust, Hathi Trust Digital Library (www.hathitrust.org : accessed 15 April 2018; Appears in list of tax-payers.
Newtown Genealogy 