329. (i). HEZEKIAH DRAKE⁴, was born 2 December 1827 in Warren County, New Jersey, died 9 September 1831 in Warren County, New Jersey, age 3 years, 9 months and 7 days. He is buried in Swayze family burial ground, Hope Township, Warren County, New Jersey.

330. (ii.) MARIA R. DRAKE⁴, was born 28 June 1829 in Warren County, New Jersey, died 10 January 1846, aged 16 years, 5 months, 13 days. She is buried in Swayze family burial ground, Hope Township, Warren County, New Jersey.

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CHILDREN OF JANE READ AND JONATHAN S. THOMPSON:

(v.) SARAH M. THOMPSON⁴, was born circa 1821 and died 21 April 1842. There is a stone for her in the Johnsonburg Christian Church Burial Ground, Frelinghuysen, Warren County, New Jersey. The first burial did not take place in the cemetery until 1850 (Armstrong 1979:505). It is possible that Sarah was buried in Dark Moon Cemetery in Hardwick (now Frelinghuysen) Township and that the stone was later moved to Johnsonburg. Sarah's stone states that she was the wife of Peter Mellick and the daughter of the Rev. Jonathan S. Thompson (Reuther n.d.). Peter Mellick was a blacksmith in the Johnsonburg area (1850 United States Census, Frelinghuysen Township, page 479). He was born 2 August 1816, died 29 May 1855 and was buried in Johnsonburg Christian Church Cemetery (Reuther n.d.). After Sarah's death, Peter married Mary (Last Name Unknown), she was born in circa 1825. Peter and Catherine had at least two chidren: Catherine A. Mellick (born circa 1847) and Henrietta L. Mellick (born circa 1848) (1850 United States Census, Frelinghuysen Township, page 479). Children of Sarah Thompson and Peter Mellick:

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NOTES

Jane Read was married twice. Her first husband was George W. Drake. They had at least two children: Hezekiah, born 2 December 1827 and Maria R., born 28 July 1829. I suspect that Maria's middle initial "R" may have stood for Read and that she was named after her grandmother, Maria Read. There may have been 2 other daughters. After Jane's death in 1837, her parents took in her young daughter Abigail Thompson. The 1840 United States Census indicates that Samuel and Maria Read had four young girls in the house, one under the age of 5 (probably Abigail who was born in 1836 or 1837) and three girls between the ages of 10 and 15 (page 13). Maria Drake was 11 in 1840. She was probably one of the 3 girls between the ages of 10 and 15 years. Had Hezikah Drake lived, he would have been 13. There may have been two other girls born to George and Jane who were between the ages of 10 and 15 in 1840. George and Jane were not married for many years. He died on the 8th of January 1830, at the rather young age of 30 years, 10 months and 7 days. Jane buried him in Swayze family burial ground, just south of the village of Hope in Hope Township, Warren County, New Jersey. A year and a half later, on 9 September 1831, Jane and George's son, Hezekiah Drake, died at the age of 3 years, 9 months, and 7 days. He was also buried in Swayze family burial ground, near his father (Ruether n.d.). It is possible that his funeral was read by Elder Jonathan S. Thompson, pastor of the Christian Church in Johnsonburg. Jane's father is known to have been a member of the church, as well as several of her Read and Drake relations (Snell 1881:690). Four days after Hezekiah Drake died, Elder Thompson's wife Sarah died (Union Brick Cemetery). Perhaps it was the joint tradgedy that brought them together, for a year and half later on 21 March 1833 Jane Read Drake and Jonathan S. Thompson were married (Warren County Marriages). Their first child, William A. Thompson, was born on 10 November 1834 (Jocelyn Hubbard, Personal Communication, 2000).

Jonathan S. Thompson was born July 1793. He was the son of Samuel Thompson and Phoebe Slatterly of Brookhaven, Long Island, New York. Phoebe died on 7 July 1793, either while giving birth to Jonathan or shortly thereafter. Jonathan had at least two siblings, Hannah and Benjamin F. Thomposn. Benjamin was an historian. Jonathan's father remarried by 1800. However, Jocelyn Hubbard, who has been researching the Thompsons, did not find Jonathan in his father's houshold on the 1800 Census for Brookhaven. She suggests that Jonathan was raised by other relatives after his mother's death (Jocelyn Hubbard, Personal Communicaton, 2001).

By the time he reached his early twenties, Thompson had become a minister of the Christian Church. The Christian Church is currently divided into three main branches: The Disciples of Christ, the Independent Christian Churches and the Churches of Christ (which includes the United Church of Christ). The Christian Church was formed in the United States in the late eighteen and early nineteenth century by persons "seeking to restore the gospel and church of the New Testement. For this reason the term 'Restoration Movement' has been employed as a self designation..." (Obricht n.d.). There were four separate groups that formed the early Christian Church. Eventually they would join together as the Christian Church. The first group was centered in Virginia and consisted of Methodist ministers led by the Rev. James O'Kelly (1757-1826). O'Kelly championed the right of the circuit-riding preachers to determine their own preaching assignments, rather than having these assigned by the Bishop. Unable to suceed in changing the structure of the Methodist Church they formed the Republican Methodist Church in the 1780s. In 1794, they changed their name to the Christian Church. The second and third groups were located west of the Applachian Mountains in Virginia, Kentucky, the Carolinas, Pennsylvania and Ohio. They were Campbellites (organized by the Rev. Thomas Campbell (1763-1854) and his son the Rev. Alexander Campbell (1788-1866))and followers of the Rev. Barton W. Stone (1772-1844). Stone and the Campbells were Presbyterian ministers who broke with the strict doctrines of Calvin and Knox. They also had objections to the organizational structure of the church (local congregation presided over by the Presbytery, which was in turn presided over by the Synod). Stone and Campbell were particularlly interested in moving away from sectarianism (as evidenced in the various denominations) toward a unity of all Christians. The fourth group was located in New England. This group was principally Baptist. They were followers of Abner Jones (1772-1841) and Elias Smith (1769-1846). They rejected the Calvinistic tenants of predestination and accepted the Bible, especially the New Testement, as their only authority. By about 1810, members of this group had spread into New York state. From there they spread into New Jersey and the old Northwest Territory (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan). By the mid-1830s these four groups had joined together and were known as the Christian Church (Ibid.; Sharrad 1904).

It is likely that Jonathan S. Thompson was part of the group centered around Abner Jones and Elias Smith. In September 1812, he attended a general meeting of Christian ministers in Woodstock, Vermont. There he meet Nancy Gove Cram, who was looking for a minister to help her organize a congregation in New York. Nancy Gove was born in 1776 in New Hampshire. She married a Mr. Cramm and, when her husband left her, became a missionary of the Free Will Baptist Church. In 1812, she traveled to New York to minister to the Oneida Indians. Her ministry there was not successful. She left the Oneida and traveled to her brother's home in Charleston, New York. While there, she began to preach to his neighbors and attracted a large following. However, as she was not an ordained minister, she could not baptize her converts, nor organize them into a church. Cramm traveled back to New Hampshire in search of a minister, but none of the Free Will Baptist ministers would join her. She then traveled to Woodstock, Vermont and there met Jonathan S. Thompson. Thompson agreed to join her in Charleston, New York. It appears that Cramm and Thompson formed at least two Christian Churches in upstate New York. The first church was located in the eastern portion of the town of Broadalbin in Montgomery (now Fulton) County. On 5 June 1814, Elder Jonathan S. Thomspon formed a society of Christains and baptized a number of converts. The church was formally organized in 1818 under the Rev. Jabez King and Deacon Jacob Capron. Early meetings were held in private houses until some time around 1818 when a church building was erected. There were at least 49 members in the church in 1818 (Fulton County New York GenWeb), including:

One of Nancy Gove Cramm's early converts in the Charleston area was the Rev. Abigail Roberts. She was born into a Quaker family on 17 February 1791 in Greenbush, Rensselar County, New York. Her active ministry covered the years 1816 through 1828. She retired from active evangelism in 1828 due to poor health (Ibid.). In 1824, Roberts and J.S. Thompson traveled to Johnsonburg, Hardwick (now Frelinghuysen) Township, Warren County, New Jersey. After two years of preaching and evangelizing, Roberts and Thompson organized the Johnsonburg Christian Church. Thompson was the first pastor of the church, which he served between 1826 and 1836 (Snell 1881:690). On the day the church was organized, 15 July 1826, the original members signed a covenant, which stated in part:

Jane Read's family, were among the original members of the Jonsonburg Christian Church. They constituted 22 percent of the original membership. According to Snell (1881:690) the original members were:

The first recorded marriage performed by Jonathan Thompson in Warren County occurred on 6 May 1827, about nine and half months after the church was organized. The first three marriages he performed were either those of original members of the church, or of children of original members. In the first three years of his pastorate at Johnsonburg, Thompson officiated at seven weddings that are recorded in the Warren County Marriage Books (Bergener 1999). One of these weddings was of a Read cousin. These weddings were:

Two other marriages which Thompson is known to have performed during his years in Johnsonsburg were those of Jane's sister, Sarah Maria Read³ to Jonathan Durling on 4 September 1832 and of Jane's first cousin once removed, Isaac Read, IV⁴ to Mary Allen on 11 March 1830 (Isaac was the son of Richard Read and the grandson of Isaac Read, Sr.).

Jonathan S. Thompson was about 33 years old when he became the pastor of the Johnsonburg Christian Church. During the ten years he was in Johnsonburg the church grew. However, Thompson suffered great personal losses while he was there. Over that ten year period, he was thrice married and widowed. It is not known when he married his first wife, Mary (Last Name Unknown). Her name does not appear in the list of original church members listed in Snell (1881:690). She died on 2 February 1829, at the age of 37 years, 5 months and 1 day. She and Thompson had at least one child, Sarah M. Thompson Mellick, who was born in circa 1821. Mary Thompson was buried in Union Brick Cemetery, Blairstown Township, Warren County, New Jersey. Thompson's second marriage lasted less than two years. He married Sarah A. Haug on 11 February 1830 in Warren County (Warren County Marriages). She died 13 September 1831, aged 40 years and 12 days. She was buried in Union Brick next to Mary Thompson. The inscriptions on their tombstones (which I transcribed on 3 July 1999) are as follows:

Mary's Stone is accompanied by a foot stone which is labeled: M.T.. The transcription for Union Brick Cemetery included in Snell's (1881:652) History of Warren County, mistakenly identifies this stone as Jonathan S. Thompson's grave (Snell identifies the grave yard as School District No. 72 burial-ground). The mistake is perpetuated in a transcription prepared by the New Jersey Geneological Society in 1962 (a copy of which is available on line, see Ruether n.d.). I suspect that the society used Snell's list as a base and added post 1881 burials, as well as children's stones (which Snell did not include), to the list. I have personally visited Union Brick Cemetery on numerous occassions. This tombstone is clearly marked as "Mary wife of Elder Jonathan S. Thompson," not as "Elder Jonathan S. Thompson."

Sarah is buried next to Mary, her stone is inscribed:

Jonathan Thompson probably met his third wife, Jane Read Drake, through the Christian Church in Johnsonburg. Jane's father, Samuel Read, was a member of the church (Snell 1881:690). Thompson was her senior by about 12 years. Jane came to the marriage with at least one living child by her first marriage, Maria Drake. It is possible there were two other daughters (see discussion above). Thompson had at least one daughter, Sarah M. Thompson, by his wife Mary. Sarah was about 8 years older than Maria. The family made their home in the parsonage in Johnsburg. Sarah and Maria were joined by a half brother on 10 November 1834, he was named William A. Thompson (Jocelyn Hubbard, Personal Communication, 2000).

When William Thompson was four and a half months old, his father's church hosted the annual conference of the Christain Church. The village of Johnsonburg was crowded with visitors. Jonathan and Jane Thompson invited Elder Joseph Thomas to stay in their home. Joseph Thomas was born in Orange County, North Carolina on 7 March 1791. In 1807, he became a traveling minister, preaching across the upper south. He met and married Christiana Rittenour in Frederick County, Virginia in 1812. There were three children born of this union: Sophronia (1813), Philomina (1815) and Lorenzo (1817). By 1817, Thomas and his famiy had settled in Ohio. Thomas continued traveling after his marriage, preaching throughout Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennesse, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and New Jersey. He was known as the "White Pilgram" as he always wore white: his clothes, his boots, even his saddle, trappings and horse were always white (Armstrong 1979:502-506; Snell 1881:686). When asked why he chose to wear white, Thomas replied:

In 1835, Thomas left his home and family in Ohio on what would prove to be his last preaching tour. "He worked his way eastward through the valley of the Mohawk and then southward along the Hudson River holding religious services nearly every day" (ibid.:504). He stopped in New York City in early March and then pressed on to Johnsonburg for the conference. He arrived there on Wednesday, 25 March. Thomas did not feel well when he arrived in Johnsburg. Yet, he insisted on preaching and participating in the conference's public services. He preached an evening service at St. Johns Episcopal Church in Johnsonburg, which is where the Christain Church met as they did not have a building of their own. He was very ill after the service and Jonathan Thompson insisted that he come to the parsonage where he could be looked after. The following morning a doctor was called, Thomas was diagnosed with smallpox, which the doctor supposed he had contracted in New York City.

Smallpox was a major killer in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Inoculation againist smallpox was introduced to the American coloines in 1721. Known as "variolation", the technique involved transmitting the infection from a person with a mild case of smallpox to the person being inoculated. The idea was to cause a mild case of smallpox in that person, thereby creating immuity for life. The person inoculated was quarantined until the disease had run its course. This practise was rarely fatal, although a few individuals did die from the inoculation. A case in point is the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, a leader of the Great Awakening, an intellectual and evangelical movement in the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches of the northeastern colonies. He was also the President of College of New Jersey (now Princeton Universtiy). Edwards died in March 1758 of a smallpox inoculation (Tracy 1997:13). (As an historical sidelight, Edwards was the father of Esther Edwards Burr (1732-1758), who was the mother of Aaron Burr, Jr., the second vice president of the United States of America). Despite the rarity of death from smallpox inoculations, the general populace was convinced that it would lead to epidemics in their communities. These eighteenth-century nimbys (not-in-my-back-yard) sometimes reacted to variolation in their communities by rioting. This occurred in Boston in 1721, despite promotion of innoculation by clergy and doctors. Variolation was illegal in the colony of Virginia. In 1766, young Thomas Jefferson had to leave his home in Virginia and travel to Philadelphia in order to be innoculated. Two years later there were riots in Norfolk, Virginia over the innoculation of slaves by Dr. Archibald Campbell. Campbell's house was burned to the ground during the unrest. It was not until 1796 that a smallpox vacine was developed (Randall 1993:84-86, 130-133). Even with the advent of a safe vacine, which did not require a person to actually contract the disease, the American public remained suspicious of its healthful properties. Many Americans refused to be vacinated, with the result that smallpox epidemics continued to appear well into the twentieth century. Smallpox was finally eradicated world-wide in the late twentieth century through an agressive vacination program.

Once Joseph Thomas was diagnosed with smallpox, the Thompsons, with good reason, vacated the house. Little William Thompson, was four and half months old, his half sister, Maria Drake was five and half years old and his other half sister, Sarah Thompson was about thirteen years old. If any of the children had contracted the disease it probably would have proved fatal. The same holds true for Jonathan and Jane Thompson. Joseph Thomas was not left alone in the house, he was provided with a nurse and a doctor. Given the nature of the disease and medical knowledge current at the time, there was little that could be done for Thomas. He died in the Thompson's home on 9 April 1835 and was buried that night in Dark Moon Cemetery in Hardwick (now Frelinghuysen) Township, Warren County. Jonathan Thompson was one of the few who attended the funeral. So great was the fear of this disease, that Thomas was buried apart from the other graves. After the funeral, the job of writing to Christiana Thomas telling her of her husband's death from smallpox fell to Jonathan Thompson (ibid.; Snell 1881:686).

In the village of Johnsonburg there was great fear that the disease would spread. The Thompson house was a frame dwelling across the street from the only stone mansion in town, which belonged to the Vail family. At least one of the rooms in the house was used as a schoolroom. Evidently, Thomas was placed in the school room during his illness. He is supposed to have died in this room. Some of the local inhabitants were outraged when the school resumed normal operations in the room. They feared that their children and grandchildren would be infected by the dreaded smallpox. However, according to accounts of this tragedy, no one in Johnsonburg took ill with smallpox (Armstrong 1979:504-505).

In 1845, nine years after Jonathan S. Thompson had left the Johnsonburg Church, an attempt was made to move Thomas's grave. The people of Johnsonburg were still afraid that smallpox would be spread by contact with the body of the White Pilgram. Opposition to the plan was so vehement that it was dropped. Then in 1850 or 1851, Elder John S. Maxwell, the new pastor of the Johnsonburg Christian Church, secretly exhumed the body from Dark Moon Cemetery under cover of night and reburied it in the center of the Johnsonburg Christian Church's burial ground. Up until this time, the land in the church's burial yard had not been used for burial. There was great excitement when the villagers discovered what Maxwell had done, but people were still too frightened of smallpox to remove the body from the village (Ibid.:505-510). Thomas is still buried in the center of the Johnsonburg Christian Church yard. On his grave stone is inscribed part of a poem entitled The White Pilgram, which was written in 1845 by J. Ellis, of Irvington, New Jersey:

Jonathan and Jane Thompson continued to live in Johnsonburg for about two years after the death of Joseph Thomas. Their daughter, Abigail J. Thompson, was probably born in the parsonage in late 1836 or early 1837. She may have been named after Jonathan Thompson's friend, Abigail Roberts, who helped him to form the Christian Church in Johnsonburg. I suspect the middle initial "J" stood for Jane, after her mother. However, I have no proof of this. Jonathan Thompson tended to his flock, covering the countryside on horseback in all weather. He preached in Johnsonburg, performed weddings and funerals, did adult baptisms (the Christians, like their Baptist counterparts did not practise infant baptism), and probably made extended preaching tours away from home. Jane Thompson stayed home with the children. At the time of Abigail's birth there were children from at least two, possibly three, marriages living in the household. Sarah Thompson, Jonathan's daughter by Mary, probably left the home in 1836 or 1837 to marry Peter Mellick. Jane had one to three daughters by her first marriage to George Drake. One of these girls was Maria R. Drake. There were also at least two children by Jonathan and Jane's marriage, William and Abigail Thompson. Hubbard (2001) has identified another possible child named Jennie. Jennie was living in 1909. Hubbard has two postcards written to William and his wife Lydia from Jennie, dated December 29, 1908 and 1909. Jennie resided at 15 North 6th Street, Newark, New Jersey. The salutation is "Dear Brother and Sister." The 1908 postcard is signed "Sister JTD" and the other is signed "Sister Jennie J.T.D.". While members of the Christian Church called each other "Brother" and "Sister" it is likely that these postcards are from a family member. At this point I am speculating that the initials J.T.D. stand for Jennie Thompson D____. If she was a Thompson, her mother is currently unknown (Jonathan was married four times). It is also fesible that they stand for Jennie T. Drake (which would make her one of Jane's children).

Jane's life as a minister's wife was a busy one. Not only must she see to the care of the children, but there was the routine of housework in the form of cooking, sewing, cleaning, tending to the garden and stock. Then there was the added social duties of a minister's wife. Jane would be expected to call on all parishoners and neighbors who were sick, who had given birth, or who had had a death in the family. She was hostess to visiting ministers on peaching tours. She made and received frequent social calls to parishoners and neighbours. She might also have headed various church committees and taught sunday school. If Jonathan was training young men for the ministry, she might also have had them as boarders in the house. One minister's wife (and daughter), Esther Edwards Burr, wrote in her diary on 23 April 1756 "For about a Month past there has not been above 4 or 5 nights except on the Sabbath but I have had travellers to Lodge" (as quoted in Tracy 1997:12). There was a school room in the house (Armstrong 1979:504). Whether Jonathan or Jane taught in the school is not known, but it may have supplemented Thompson's meager ministerial salary. When the Christian Church held their conference in Johnsonburg in 1835, Jane probably assumed the lion's share of the work in terms of arranging lodgings and meals for visiting clergy. This was not unusual for minister's wives in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Turning again to Esther Edwards Burr, we see her in May 1757 preparing for a Snyod meeting and for entertaining the ministers who came to her home: "hurried a preparing for Company that is to come tomorrow to the snoyd," and then the following day, "Sunday Ministers to dine and a Whole Room full to Tea and three to Lodge" (as quoted in Tracy 1997:12). This was the type of life that worn a woman out. The life of a typical farmer's wife was also demanding and exhausting with heavy housework, numerous pregnancies and numerous children. But a minister's wife had extra demands placed on her because of her husband's calling.

Shortly after Abigail Thompson's birth, tragedy again struck the family. Jane Read Drake Thompson died on 29 January 1837. She was buried in the Swayze Family burial ground in Hope with her first husband, George Drake and her son Hezekiah Drake. Her tombstone is inscribed:

I made the above transciption of Jane's grave stone in August 1999. The stone was also recorded in 1963, by members of the Genealogical Society of New Jersey. It is printed in the Genealogical Magazine of New Jersey. However, Jane's age in the 1963 transcipt is given as 52. Although the stone is faded and difficult to read, her age on the stone is 32 years. Further, given that she was a daughter of Maria and Samuel Read (the M. & S. on the stone), it is impossible for her to have been 52 years of age at death. If she was 52, her date of birth would have been 19 January 1785. Samuel Read, her father, was born on 16 August 1783. The dates simply do not fit. Further, her date of death has to be 1837, as both the Genealogical Society of New Jersey and I have recorded. This is not a misread for 1857. Jonathan S. Thompson was remarried by 1843, to a woman named Susan. Hence Jane had to have died before 1843. The evidence points to her age at death as 32 not 52.

In an eight year period (1829-1837) Jonathan Thompson had buried three wives. Perhaps this is why he chose to leave New Jersey. Snell records that Thompson left the Johnsonburg Christian Church in 1836. He may have returned to New York at this time, as he married his fourth wife in New York, Susan M. (Last Name Unknown), in New York in the early 1840s. They had two children: I. Kimball Thompson (1843-1853) and Julia A. Thompson (1846-1870) (Jocelyn Hubbard, personal communication, 2000). Thompson was in Warren County on 24 July 1842, when he delivered the charge to the newly organized Hope Christian Church in the village of Hope, Hope Township. Thompson was not the pastor of this church. Many of the members of the congregation (32%) were relatives of his deceased wife Jane. Snell (1881:666) lists the original members of the congregation as:

When Jane died early in 1837, there were at least three children in the household. Maria Drake was 7 and a half years old, William Thompson was 2 and Abigail was an infant. The care of three small children may have been too much for Thompson to handle on his own in conjunction with his pastoral duties. I suspect that both Abigail, and her half-sister, Maria Drake, stayed behind in Warren County when Thompson went to New York. They probably lived with their grandparents, Samuel and Maria Read. In 1850, Abigail was living with her grandparents in Hope (United States Federal Census, Hope Township, Warren County, New Jersey, page 427). Maria R. Drake died on 10 January 1846, almost nine years to the day after her mother. She was 16 years, 5 months and 13 days old. She is buried in Swayze family burial ground in Hope Township, Warren County, New Jersey (Rueter n.d.). Her mother, father and brother, Hezekiah, are also buried there. If she was living in New York, she probably would have been buried there. It seems unlikely that Maria would go to New York, Thompson was, after all, her step-father. Her blood relatives, the Reads and the Drakes, were living locally in Hope. William Thompson either went to New York with his father, or joined him at a later date. He married Lydia Bailey in 1859 and died near Rochester, Monroe County, New York in 1919 (Personal Communication, Jocelyn Hubbard, 2000).

Elder Jonathan S. Thompson died in or near Rochester, New York on 10 December 1866. There is a will filed for Jonathan S. Thompson of Greece Township in the Monroe County, New York (Vol. 12 page 465). Thompson's fourth wife, Susan, died in Monroe County, New York in 1882, she was about 62 years of age (Jocelyn Hubbard, Personal Communication, 2000).

PRIMARY

Cemetery

Surrogate Court Records

Armstrong, William C.

Burnett, J.F.

Hubbard, Jocelyn

Olbricht, Tom

Randall, William Sterne

Sharrad, James Taylor

Snell, James P. (Compiler)

Bergener, Patricia M.

Fulton County New York GenWeb

Reuther, Jan

Saratoga County New York GenWeb

Additional information concerning the history of the Christian Church is available on line:

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