Cornelius and Elizabeth Lyon Jacobs

While looking through some of the genealogical files my father has compiled, I learned about one family branch that was particularly interesting.

Cornelius Jacobs, Jr., was born in 1754 in Westchester County, New York (near the Hudson), son of parents who were Dutch and French immigrants. He was a dispatch rider for George Washington for seven years. That means he could have been the guy who brings in the messages to the Continental Congress in the musical 1776, and that it's safe to assume he would have met Alexander Hamilton, since Hamilton was usually the one writing Washington's dispatches. (The two young men were about the same age, as well.)

After the war ended, Cornelius was paid in Continental currency, which was basically worthless, and deeded 160 acres of land near the future town of Geneva in the northern part of the Finger Lakes, which was then Seneca Nation territory. The town wasn't incorporated until 1806, so Cornelius, perhaps wisely, sold those land rights for a horse, saddle, and bridle.

Cornelius had married at some time by 1786 to a woman named Elizabeth Lyon, who was 10 years his junior. Their first child was born in 1786 when she was 22.

They lived in poverty and hardship with 10 children (plus one who died in infancy) somewhere along the Hudson in Duchess County until early 1811, when they decided to move to Oxford, a town in central New York where Elizabeth’s brother David had had a farm for almost 20 years. Cornelius went ahead to make ready the log cabin on David's land, while Elizabeth and the children remained behind to pack up their belongings.

By doing the math on their birth years, I determined that the three oldest children were adults and already married; I believe they did not make the trip. Seven of the children were 17 or younger, having been born at intervals of two–three years, with the youngest just 2.

As Cornelius returned home to help with the move, he was taken sick in the town of Durham (located on Windham Mountain, 35 miles from their home) and died, after sending word to Elizabeth of his situation. Remember, he was 55 years old at this point… no spring chicken in those days.

In April 1811, Elizabeth and the seven children traveled for six days in two wagons to Oxford. They lived in the cabin for two years, then in two others in the area, with the two sons who were 17 and 15 working for farmers in the area. They purchased some uncleared land in an area called "the Deserts"

and there commenced a struggle for a home, clearing the land, purchasing the title and living at the same time. But few can realize the hard times experienced by the pioneers following the war of 1812. The year 1816 was called the year without a summer. The year following was nearly as bad. Mrs. Jacobs and her family were near the famine state and at the same time endeavoring to pay for land at $5.50 per acre. But perseverance and sturdy hearts won the battle and homes for the children, some of whom had grown into rugged men and women.

The youngest child, who was 2 when the family made the trip to Oxford, wrote in 1888 about his childhood:

I wish some artist could reconstruct that old kitchen with the trammel and lug-pole, the bake-kettle on the hearth, the frying pan held by its long handle over the blazing fire, and a lot of hungry boys and girls waiting for the Indian loaf or flapjacks. The artist must not omit the "old wooden rocker." Then in that relic of the by-gone days, clasped in the loving arms and pressed to the warm heart of that best of mothers, my childish tears have often been dried and the rough passages of life made smooth.

Elizabeth died in 1848 at age 84. Another source says she received a widows' pension from the federal government in 1838. I hope it made her final years more comfortable.
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Quotes are from The Annals of Oxford by Henry Judson Galpin (1906). Elizabeth and Cornelius were my grandfather's great-great grandparents.