Person:Elizabeth Skidmore (2)

From the Diary of Joshua Hempstead

7-7-1734 Joseph (widow) Skidmore died yesterday in childbed with her third child by Ralph Fargo. She was the wife of one Skidmore of Naharagansett and had eloped from him and Ralph Fargo, having no wife, took her in.

Notes from the Conn Historical Library indicate she may have been a Lester.

From Clay Darnell

Elizabeth Tooker Skidmore, wife of Joseph Skidmore, was said to have left her husband to live with Ralph. It is possible that the child William, born in 1733, was from this affair. Elizabeth left her husband Joseph behind in Long Island, NY. There is no record that we know of indicating the Skidmores were divorced.

From Wm Frank Skidmore

Ralph Skidmore of Hampshire County, A Case History by Warren Skidmore, published in the Allegheny Regional Ancestors, vol. 6, no. 1 (Spring 1997) pages 10-12. (WS)

I first came across the name of Ralph Skidmore of Hampshire County way back in 1943 in a (then) recently published list of Virginia soldiers in the Revolution. He had enrolled in Dunmore's War in 1774 and served under Captain David McClure and Lieutenant Francis McClure presumably from Hampshire County. Ralph's name appears on a list of men who were paid at Pittsburgh in 1775 after Point Pleasant, and on still another roll of the survivors paid finally at Romney in Hampshire County. The men on this later list mostly transferred over to service in the Revolutionary Army, and Ralph Skidmore served soon after in the 12th Regiment of the Virginia Continental Line.

It was clear, early on, that he was not kissing kin of my Skidmores who had come into Virginia through the gap at Harper's Ferry in 1749. However I was still curious to know where he fitted into the family even so. In 1943 I was into Sherlock Holmes in a big way, so to unravel his story I put on my deerstalker cap, assumed a proper British accent, polished up my four inch magnifying glass, and starting looking through the records of several of the earlier American colonies. Eventually I found that almost everything remembered, said, or on record about Ralph proved to be a misapprehension, an error, or a deliberate falsehood.

His family believed that he was born in London, England, lost both of his parents in childhood, roamed the streets with a lot of other Cockney orphans, was sold as an indentured servant to Virginia for $1.00, and survived to finally (and more importantly?) marry some relative of the plantation owner. A highly romantic tale you think? In fact, like a good many stories that come down to us as hearsay, there are some large kernels of truth in this account of Ralph's early years! It does seem likely, however, that this story does combine bits of the lives of both Ralph (born 1734) and his eldest son William (born c.1768). The earliest known official record that Ralph generated was his enlistment on 30 March 1758 by Captain Thomas Arrowsmith on Staten Island to serve in the French and Indian War. He reenlisted in 1759 and 1760 and 1761. His age on the muster rolls varies between 19 and 21, but this has to be understated unless he married as a youth of 15. In point of fact it now seems certain that he was a few months shy of 24 years of age at the time of his first enlistment. Ralph Skidmore told his captain that he had been born on Staten Island (which was duly recorded), and this untruth consumed a good deal of time to prove that there was simply no father to be found for him there at the proper period. He was also listed as a laborer, varying in height from 5' 7 1/2" to 5' 9" and with a brown complexion, brown eyes, brown hair, and much of this is likely to have been true.

An unofficial record shows that he had married Hannah Owin as his first wife at the other end of Long Island on 31 September 1755. We have this from a private list of marriages kept as a kind of hobby by William Salmon (1684-1759) of persons who lived in and around Southold in Suffolk County, Long Island. What happened to Hannah Skidmore for the four years that her husband was off with the army is unknown, but it seems likely that she had either died before his enlistment or they had parted company. We hear nothing more of her.

When Ralph Skidmore removed to Hampshire County is unknown. He turns up with a wife Mary and at least three known children who were probably born between 1768 to 1775 at a place or places unknown. Ralph Skidmore made absolutely no impression on the Hampshire records, not even an appearance as a witness. He never acquired any land, so he may have had some useful trade other than agriculture. Checking his neighbors in the tax lists suggests that he and his sons after him lived about the mouth of the South Branch where it empties into the Potomac River. Nothing more is known of Ralph after the war and he may very well have died while in the Revolutionary army.

As for his children, William (the eldest), was born about 1768. He was bound out briefly as a young boy to Peter Peters until 14 June 1778, and then afterwards was to serve Isaac Dayton - who may have been his uncle temporarily absent from the county. He appears on the first list of tithables of Hampshire County in 1787. On 28 April 1790 both he and his brother Ralph appear on a muster roll of the Hampshire County Militia in Captain John Blue's company. William went soon after to Mason County, Kentucky, where he married Mary Criswell on 23 July 1792. They were living in 1799 in Shelby County, Kentucky, and are enumerated in the 1810 census of Henry County, Kentucky. He had died there by March 1814 when his estate was appraised. His widow Mary was the head of a family as late as 1830 in the Lower Division of Henry County. They had a family of eleven children, including seven surviving sons (all of whom save one in turn produced large families). We need not deal here with the posterity of Ralph Skidmore, Senior, since a full history of the family is promised by Timothy M. Blomquist, a descendant.

Ralph Skidmore, Junior, the second son, was born about 1774. He was added to the list of tithables in Hampshire County in 1792 at the age of at least 16. On 28 April 1790 both he and his older brother William appear on a muster roll of the Hampshire County Militia. He married (undoubtedly in Hampshire County) Mary Ross, a near neighbor, who survived him. He was living as late as 1800 in Hampshire County, but went to Monongalia County for a time, and then to Ohio. He served there from Greene County in the War of 1812, but by 1820 he and his wife were living in Wayne County, Indiana, with their five daughters all aged 16 to 26. He had gone by 1834 to St. Joseph County, Indiana, with his son-in-law Theophilius Case and may very well have died there. In the census of 1850 Polly Skidmore was living aged 73 with her daughter Nancy Tweedy and her husband in Edgar County, Illinois. Mary Skidmore, aged 82, died in November 1859 in Simms Township, Edgar County, Illinois.

William and Ralph Skidmore appear to have at least one sister, Cresey, who went across the Potomac to marry William Fisher on 8 September 1803 at the Emmanuel Protestant Episcopal Church at Cumberland in Allegany County, Maryland. The Fishers disappear soon after.

It is time now for the grand denouement, the last few paragraphs of the mystery where you haven't peeked since you know that all will be made perfectly clear to Doctor Watson by your sham Sherlock! Eventually (while looking for someone else) I found the origin of Ralph Skidmore at New London, Connecticut, where I had not thought to look for him. He was not, genetically speaking, a Skidmore at all! His mother, Elizabeth Scidmore, was a daughter of Joseph Tooker (by his wife Mary Ogden?) and the first wife of Joseph Scidmore of Huntington, Long Island. She was a member of the First Church at Huntington in 1726, but sometime after this date she deserted her husband and went across the Long Island Sound to New London, Connecticut. Joshua Hempstead (1678-1758) of New London most fortuitously recorded the gossip about her in an entry in his diary on Sunday, 7 July 1734: "Joseph [widow] Skidmore died yesterday in childbed with her 3rd child by Ralph Fergo. She was the wife of one Skidmore of Naharagansett and had Eloped from him and Ralph Fergo having no wife took her in." Part of Hempstead's facts are basically correct, but Elizabeth was not a widow and her Skidmore husband did not live in Rhode Island. She had issue by Ralph Fargo (born 1693),

1. A child, perhaps born about 1730 of whom nothing else is known. 2. Benjamin, "son of Elizabeth Skidmore" (no father is mentioned), was baptized on 25 June 1732 at Groton, New London County. Nothing more is known of him, but he may possibly have been brought up by another family whose name remains to be found. 3. Ralph, presumably the child born at New London, New London County, on 16 July 1734, the subject of these notes.

It is both curious and confusing that Ralph was never known by the name of his real father or that of his mother's family. Instead he had the name of mother's estranged husband.

No probate has been found for Ralph Fargo, and his son Ralph seems to have been sent to Long Island perhaps to live with the Tooker family. His grandfather Joseph Tooker, Senior, settled late in life at Elizabeth, Essex County, New Jersey, where he left a will dated 31 December 1753. It provided for the unnamed children of his deceased daughter Elizabeth.

Ralph Skidmore married secondly Mary [Dayton?] who was living his widow in Hampshire County, (West) Virginia 1784 when she appears on a tax list taken by Michael Cresap (who lived on the north side of the Potomac where it is joined by the South Branch). There are several clues that suggest that she might have been a Dayton from Long Island. Ralph Skidmore had seven half brothers and sisters at Huntington. Peter Skidmore, the youngest of these, was still about eight years older than Ralph. He married Mary, a daughter of Hezekiah Dayton, as his second wife. It is probably too much to expect that Joseph Skidmore (whose will was proved in 1773) would take any interest in his wife's son born on the wrong side of the blanket. It is possible, however, that some part of his children (who were certainly more prosperous than Ralph Skidmore) may have been kind enough to do so. Possibly they found him a new wife and perhaps even a new home with a kinsman in Virginia.

Mary (Dayton?) Skidmore disappears after this date and may have remarried. It is certainly tempting to identify her as the relative of the plantation owner remembered by descendants, possibly Isaac Dayton? And of course we now know that our orphaned Ralph did not come from London, England, but New London, Connecticut. Possibly his completely enigmatic history will offer a clue or two for others trying to make some sense out of another unprovable hearsay story.