John Skidmore - An Early Settler of Long Island

 When I decided to apply for membership in the National Society of New England Women (NSNEW), I went searching for an ancestor to join under.   It's a small society and a small section of the colonies to pick an ancestor from.  And for this Southern Girl you would think that would be impossible. but lucky  Mama's family, thru her mother, goes back to New England.  

My application for membership was approved in October 2025. In April of 2026, I was elected to be Vice President of the Cape Henry Colony of Virginia and will be installed in October, 2026.  

John Skidmore (1643–1680) 

John Skidmore was born on April 11, 1643 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the youngest child of Thomas and Ellen Skidmore and the only child born in British Colonial America.  

By 1662, he had settled in Jamaica, Long Island, where the town granted him the first lot by the highway on the condition that he serve the community as its blacksmith. Around that same time, he married Susanna Davis and they would eventually have 5 children.  Susanna was  the daughter of Fulk Davis.

pg 18

In January 1663/4, Skidmore’s name appeared among the Jamaica proprietors who signed a declaration of loyalty to King Charles II. At a time when Long Island remained under Dutch authority, these English settlers asserted their rights and vowed to defend the colony as loyal subjects of the Crown.

Skidmore became an active and visible member of the community: his name appears often in Jamaica’s town records, and in 1668 he was paid for his service as town clerk. He also served as clerk of the First Presbyterian Church of Jamaica.   In addition to his blacksmithing, Skidmore worked as a tobacco planter.

Records of the town of Jamaica, Long Island, NY 1656-1751

Got excited there for a few minutes thinking John Skidmore was performing some kind of witchcraft... Took me a minute to figure it out - apparently he was an Overseer of the Roads

( Hyghe Wayes- Highways).

In February 1678, while ill with smallpox and shortly after the death of his wife Susanna—likely from the same disease—he drafted his will, leaving his estate to their children. Though he recovered from the illness, he died a few years later at Jamaica.  He died before  July 7 1680 at the age of 37. An inventory of his estate valued his property, including land, at £127. "The three eldest children were to have leave to choose their own masters with the approval of the overseers of his will. The two youngest children, Joseph and Abigail, were to have £20 above their equal share of the estate towards their bringing up. The white calf given to Abigail and the black horse given to the boys by his wife before her death were confirmed to them."  This marked the close of his brief but industrious life as one of the early English settlers of Long Island.

I am descended from his daughter Abagail Skidmore who married Francis Muncy II.  They would eventually move from Long Island to Delaware. 

Here is the lineage for this family. The lineage goes through the first person listed.

• Thomas Skidmore - Ellen X (England/CT)
• John Skidmore - Susanna Davis  (MA/Long Island)
• Abagail Skidmore - Francis Muncy II (Long Island /Delaware)
• Nathaniel Muncy - Mary Bush (Long Island/ NC)
• Ruth Muncy - Daniel Rash (Delaware/NC)   Daniel is a Revolutionary War Patriot
• Asa Rash - Nancy Coleman (NC)
• Charles Rash - Lydia Cass (NC)
• Elizabeth "Betsy" Rash - Richmond Speaks (NC)
• Richmond Speaks - Bartha Malinda Rash (NC)
• Sarah Speaks - George Washington Doolittle (NC/NY)
• Irene Doolittle - Albert Holland East (VA/NC)
• Alice Pauline East - William Garnett Holt (NC/VA)
• Cathy Ann Holt - William Edward Sampson  (VA/CT)

As always, a quick Thank you to those who researched this ancestor before me and God Bless the programmer of ChatGPT which AI helped me write this in a more readable format.  

Letters from the Past - finding Caty Sage (part 2)

(For my Holt Family)

Read part 2 of the Letters from the Past - finding Caty Sage

Letter #6 dated February 18, 1850

Letter #7 dated May 29, 1851

Letter #8 dated March 8 1852

Letter # 9 dated

Letter #10 Dated April 14, 1853

No, I haven't forgotten to give you the last page.  This is all there is; sadly the last pages of this letter have been lost.

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The below is courtesy of the Grayson County Historical Society

"Yourowquains A Wyandot Indian Queen"

"The Story of Caty Sage"
By Bill Bland

"Caty Sage, a five-year old white girl, was stolen in 1792 from her home in Elk Creek, Grayson County, Virginia, and carried on horseback to a Cherokee Indian camp at Trade, Tennessee. Four days after her capture she was taken by the Cherokees on a grueling 60 mile trek north which included a wild canoe ride down the New and Kanawha Rivers. In Ohio she was adopted by Wyandot Indians and named Yourowquanins. At seventeen she married Tarhe, Chief of the Wyandots. At age twenty-eight she became Tarhe's widow. Under an 1817 treaty with the Americans, Caty received a large track of Ohio land. She later married Tauyaurontoyou, a noble Wyandot warrior and leader who too became a Chief. Being Christianized herself, in a wilderness missionary effort in 1820; she gave encouragement to Tauyaurontoyou as he became a licensed Methodist minister and famous preacher under his translated name "Between-The-Logs". Following the death of Between-The-Logs, Caty married an Indian warrior named Frost. Two years later she was again widowed. In 1843 Caty and her Wyandot Tribe were driven out of Ohio by relentless U.S. Government pressure urged on by land-hungry whites. She and her fellow Wyandots traveled in wagons across Ohio and by steamboats from Ohio to Kansas. In Kansas, Caty built a new life among many hardships. Trauma from being stolen had erased her childhood memory, but after a life as an Indian with much persecution by whites, one day in 1848 fate put her face-to-face with a brother she had never met. At last Yourowquains learned her own identity..."

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Letters from the Past - finding Caty Sage (part 1)

(For my HOLT Family )

Many have heard the story of Caty Sage, the daughter of my 5th Great Grandparents, James Sage and Lovice Ott Sage.    Caty disappeared from her home at the age of 5  and was found some 50 years later by her brother Charles.      

 Read the  letter to the United Order of the Golden Cross,   10 letters written by Charles to his family and newspaper articles and learn Caty's story.  A special thanks to the Grayson County Virginia Historical Society for providing me with copies of these letters.

As a reminder, the original letters were hand written.  The below letters were transcribed by W.R. Cooper.

Letter #1 dated April 2, 1848

(Samuel Sage is my 4th Great Grandfather)

Letter #2 dated June 20, 1848

Letter #3 dated August 15, 1848

Letter #4 dated November 14, 1848

(Wix Hale is the son of my 5th Great Grandparents Lewis Hale and Mary Burwell)

Letter #5 dated June 1, 1849

(Martin, who is mentioned at the end of the letter is my 3rd Great Grandfather.  He married Susannah Wright)

I will close this blog at the 5th letter.  Next blog, you read the rest of the story and see the article that is mentioned by W.R. Cooper.  

My Quest to join the DAR.

Please excuse any punctuation and grammatical errors.  I have a degree in Business Management with a minor in Computer Programming.  

 In other words, I can't spell and if spell check doesn't work, I'm toast!  

I started asking questions about my ancestors when I was about 18 years old.  My Uncle Jack Holt died and all the family was gathered around.  I believe it was the first time I “remember” meeting my Great Uncle Clarence.  Clarence was my Grandmother Holt’s  brother.  I was like a sponge asking and asking questions.   Uncle Clarence told me he could introduce me to a lady, Bonnie Ball Sage, and she could help me get into the DAR.   Now, you all know how old I am, so I’m not going to talk about how long ago that was.  Needless to say it was a long, long time ago.  Here was the problem, I lived in Maryland, Clarence lived in Danville, VA and Bonnie Ball Sage lived in Grayson Co, VA.  Who the heck ever heard of Grayson County.   I didn’t even know where it was.   

I took all of the info that I gleamed and put it in a binder.  I ordered info on how to search for your family and creating your family tree.  I was so excited to finally get started on my ancestry….Remember I’m 18.  I wanted to join the DAR and be a debutant.   So I happily filled in the charts with all the info that I had gathered….and……nothing, I did nothing with it.  Now to my credit, I did try, but it was hard to research your family back then…wow that sounds like I should be talking about the 1800’s or something.   There was no internet!  My family didn’t have all of the wonderful bibles, documents, letters, pictures, etc.  All we had were memories and stores.     You had to research in the libraries and courthouses to get information, but those were in Danville, Pittsylvania, Grayson,, Wythe, Smyth, Halifax, Henry, Charlotte, Campbell, Montgomery  and Washington County in Virginia  and Caswell , Rockingham, Ashe Counties in North Carolina…just to name a few.   I LIVE IN MARYLAND!!    

While Mrs. Sage would have been willing to help me, she didn’t live near me so everything had to be conducted by letter.   Whew…when was the last time you wrote a “Letter” not email or text, but an actual “letter” and sent it by mail.  Heck today, we send out an email and expect an instant response.    I didn’t have my Great Uncle Clarence to help encourage me and no one on either side of my family seemed remotely interested, I eventually lost interest.   I asked one of my aunts about the family and she told me to “leave the skeletons in the closet”.  NO way, I want to know about the skeletons, that’s the best part, and believe me I’ve uncovered a few on both sides of my family and I plan on telling you about them.  Don’t worry, if I find a skeleton about YOU, I won’t publish it, but just to let you know, I’ve found a few of those too.  If there is a court record or newspaper article, I can find it  but I won’t publish it.  It’s only fair; I might have a few of those skeletons too that my descendants might eventually find.  It’s only fair!     Descendants, that’s heavy.  I usually think in terms of ancestors, but I have descendants too.  Wow! 

So years so by, I’ve grown up, gotten married, had children, divorced, and watched my daughters grow to be beautiful teenagers.  When Miranda was in 11^th great she came home and told me she needed to create a family history chart with 4 generations for her 20^th Century History Class.    Four generations, she only needed four generations!  That’s easy right; I had already done all of that work and more back when I was younger.  So all I needed to do was pull out the trusty binder and she was all set.  Except there was no trusty binder; I even remember throwing it away. But I apparently have a really good memory for this stuff, so I recreated it.  Yea to me, Right?    But here is the good part.   The teacher told the class ( and later told the parents) that she fully expected the parents to do this part of the project.  She was ok with that and let them go with it.  She had a secret….. ANCESTRY.COM ……  Need I say more.  It’s free for 14 days!.   HALLALEUAH!     Fourteen days later, and having had almost no sleep, I was deep into my family tree and having a blast.    I researched and researched…well I copied and copied and copied other people’s information.  It was all about getting the next name and so forth.   That’s what I did and I’m proud to say that when Miranda turned in her project, she had about 16 generations of family.  On my gosh!

On my gosh is right; about 16 generations of information with no PROOFS to back them up.  Just someone put down that so and so was the parent of so and so and so forth.   This is 2007.  I still want to join the DAR.  I bravely gather the information and contact a local DAR chapter.  I go to a meeting, but…..   Now this was a nice DAR chapter, but I didn’t feel comfortable there.  It was a small chapter and everyone knew each other and apparently had been together for a while.  I was clueless.  The registrar gave me paper copies of the forms that the DAR uses and told me to fill in everything and gather all the proof (WHAT PROOF!) and turn it in and she would review it and let me know what else was needed.  That’s it.  With no idea of how to really find what I needed…I just let it slide.  

I continued to gather the information needed for the DAR.  I got lucky one day when I stumbled upon Roots Web and I posted and posted and posted questions.  One day, a wonderful man contacted me and told me he was my Dad’s cousin and he was going to send me enough information to help me with my DAR application.  A few weeks later I received this large package with an amazing amount of information.  There were census, wills, Revolutionary War Pension applications, Confederate Prisoner of War papers.    Ancestry numbers for multiple Historical Societies that I could join and the person I could join under.  I could join the DAR, UDC, Colonial Dames 17^th, Jamestown Society, Carter Society, etc.  The list went on and on.  I was really impressed. One, that my family had been here long enough so that I would be eligible to join these societies, and two that someone had actually researched and found documents that would allow them to join these societies.

At this point, I’m still trying to find a birth and death certificate for my grandparents so that I can join the DAR and people have found documentation that says that are of lineal descent to someone that was here when Jamestown was JAMESTOWN.  Amazing.

Now I figured that before I could go to the DAR meetings I had to turn in my DAR application; that is NOT TRUE.  So if you are interested in joining go to a meeting.    In 2011, I contacted the DAR and asked them to help find me a DAR chapter.  I wanted one that met on Saturdays.  The next day I got an email from the Regent ( Nancy)  of the Providence Chapter located in Fairfax  and she started asking me questions.   I sent her a complete list of my ancestry all the way to my chosen Revolutionary Patriot, James Sage and guess what, she sent me back a completed DAR application.  I just had to fill in some of the dates.   I worked and worked and worked.  I checked the DAR website to see how the document was supposed to be filled in and on January 1, 2012, I took it along with all my proofs and went to a Genealogy session at the Fairfax library Virginia room.  Whew!  It was looked over and deemed ready to be submitted.   I gave them all the paperwork and waited for them to bring me an official application to be signed.  All applications have to be printed on 25% rag count legal paper.  It holds up better through the years.  I didn’t attend a DAR meeting until January 2012.   I could have been enjoying the meetings and getting to know the ladies.   I signed my official application in March and then waited and waited and waited.   No I didn’t wait that long.  It usually takes about 8 weeks for an application to be approved.  Mine was verified by the genealogists (Geni’s) and approved by the DAR Executive Board on June 25, 2012.     I was finally a member. 

(Miranda and Amber, I still need a frame for this)

(Cathy - Chapter New Member Ceremony)

So it’s been 4 years since I’ve joined.  At the end of my first year, I was asked to run for office of Recording Secretary.   I've marched with the DAR in the National 4th of July Parade with several other ladies of my chapter and met the new President General.

(2013 4th of July Parade in DC )

  Two years later, I was asked to consider running for office of First Vice Regent.  So here I am, finishing up my term as the Vice Regent.  It’s been fun and I’ve enjoyed it.  My job is to find speakers for our meetings.  There have been highs and lows in the planning and implementation process, but the chapter ladies have been wonderful throughout it all.   

(2015 Swearing in of the new Officers for the Providence Chapter, NSDAR)

I've attended  Continental Congress for two years as a Delegate

.  

(2015 - Patti, Janet and myself - opening night)

I worked on the Book Sync project and synced over 2300 pages to earn the Book Worm Pin.

Last year, 2016, I had the pleasure of being asked to work on the Registration Line Committee at the DAR Continental Congress (CC).  That is the national conference which is held in DC in June of each year.    There is a lot of standing on this committee, my feet, ankles, knees, hips and back ached for days, but there was always a smile on my face to greet the ladies at the conference.   I made some new friends and learned more about the DAR in one week than I had the entire 4 years.   

 (2016 - Registration Line Committee - after standing up all day making sure everyone gets thru the voting process - we are standing on top of the portico where the 13 columns are that represent the 13 Colonies)

 I've been part of a Guinness World Book title in patriotism for “most letters to military personnel collected in one month.”    

We collected over 109,700 letters.  

(Photo courtesy of DAR.org)

I've had the pleasure to work alongside a wonderful group of ladies both in the Providence Chapter and at Continental Congress.  They are truly a blessing to know.  I have enjoyed every moment of being a member and hope that others have had the same wonderful experiences.  

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 This June I will celebrate my 5^th year anniversary as a member of the DAR; so what’s next?  I don't know.  I’m hoping to be re-elected as Vice Regent for another two years and I hope to be asked back again this year to the Registration Line at CC?   I'll keep working on the Genealogy Preservation Committee to eventually index over 12,000 pieces of DAR application Supporting Documentation for the DAR Genealogists.   Other than that, I’ll keep researching.

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While we are members of the DAR, we don’t consider our work done until we have “claimed” every ancestor that we can as our patriots.    So far, I have one ancestor James Sage, but I’ve submitted three more “supplemental applications” for 3 more patriots “Thomas Dupree…his daughter Elizabeth Dupree Whitlock and her son-in-law Thomas Lipscomb”.  A woman, you say.  Yep and I look forward in a later blog to tell you all about how the DAR identifies someone as a Patriot. 

(Lots of room on my ribbon to place more insignia)