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THE FAY FAMILY PAGE GENEALOGIES |
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| ELIZA FAY |
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Three Fay Lines: Overview Brigham Fay James W. Fay Edwin Reed Fay Fred Hollister Fay Harold Van Vechten Fay Fay Burials in Fort Hill Cemetery Auburn Cousins: Ward, Reed, Van Vechten |
| The Skadan family first came to my notice when I was working on the Fays of Aurelius and Auburn. In the census of 1850 for Aurelius, Edwin Reed Fay is listed with his mother Joanna Fay and his grandmother Joanna Reed. In the same household are two other people who were unknown to me at that time. One was Mary L. Parry, who is still a mystery. The second was Harriet Scadden. She was 17 at the time of the census. |
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| I did some searching, but found nothing which I could use to explain Harriet's presence in the Reed household. I did notice three things: |
| 1) There was a Robert Scadden in Auburn, a peddlar, with no obvious family ties. |
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| 2) There were two other Scaddens in Aurelius, Frances Scadden, 6, and John E. Scadden, 10. These two were together in the household of Jonathan Pond from Connecticut. |
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| 3) Robert Scadden of Auburn was married to Eliza Fay of Brooklyn Co., Conn., in 1827, at the First Presbyterian Church of Syracuse, N. Y. |
| An inquiry from Gaye Skadan Rottger about Dewitt Skadan and his relationship to Robert and Eliza Fay Skadan, brought me back to this area of research. The census records for Robert in 1830 and 1840 established the possibility that Robert and Eliza might indeed be the parents not only of Dewitt, but of Harriet and of Frances and John. They also seemed to establish Eliza's date of birth as approximately 1800. |
| Dewitt Skadan was in the Civil War, an enlisted man from New York. Since he applied for a pension based on that service and a consequent disability, his pension file was obtained. The pension file was full of information, including Dewitt's birth date and place, the names of his parents, his marriage date, his death date and place, his widow's pension application, and her death. Some pages from this file have been scanned in and transcribed; they are listed below. Harriet was clearly identified as someone who knew Dewitt from birth and was present at his wedding. That she was his sister is confirmed by family records and by a short newspaper notice of her death in 1907. |
| And Eliza Fay, born about 1800, married in 1827 in New York, but from Connecticut, living in Half Acre, Auburn, NY in 1828? wife of Robert, mother of Harriet, Dewitt, Frances, John. She died before 1850, for Robert is alone in 1850, and his young children--Harriet, Frances, John--are with other people. Harriet, the daughter of Eliza, has been taken into the Reed household with Joanna Fay, the widow of Brigham Fay from Connecticut. It is my belief that Eliza was the sister of Brigham, the daughter of Ephraim Brigham Fay. Everything fits that identification. The will of Ephraim Brigham mentions seven children; the last four are, in order, Brigham, Lucy, Eliza and Harriet. We know from other sources that Brigham was born in 1796, Lucy in 1798, and Harriet in 1804. Eliza, born about 1800, fits. Ephraim's will was settled in 1816. Brigham turned 21 in 1817. He still had two unmarried sisters, Harriet and Eliza. Brigham himself must have gone to New York soon, for he was married in New York in February, 1822. In 1823, Harriet died at the age of 19. Eliza was about 23. I think she joined her brother in New York, and met and married Robert Skadan. Eliza named her first daughter Harriet. Robert seems to have named his son Dewitt Clinton; Robert's father is said to have esteemed the governor of New York greatly; and Robert may well have shared that opinion. Their second son, John, was probably named for his grandfather Skadan. And Frances? Robert had a younger sister Frances. |
| Civil War Pension file pages included here: |
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