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(or, A Lesson in the Uncertainties of Very Early Genealogy) Introduction Allegedly, this linkage goes as follows: Robert Deeble>Thomas>Thomas>Thomas>Joseph>Henry>Henry>John In Lamb's notation (Van Buren Lamb, a much-revered Dibble Family genealogist), this would be: 0-1-6-2-1-2-1-? (no consistent birth order for John in Lamb's notes). There are numerous problems if we try to prove this, however. 1. Did Robert Deeble of Dorchester, Massachusetts really have a son named Thomas in North America? YES As I've reported on my website (www.dibblehistory.org), in December 1635, the Dorchester town authorities "ordered" that Robert's "sonne T[homas] Deeble shall have six goad next him to goe with a right lyne up from the pale before his house, on condition, for Thommas Deeble to build a house there, within one yeere, or elce to loose that goad graunted him." (It wasn't really an "order", it was a land grant conditioned on the recipient making "improvements" within a fixed period of time, much like the US Homestead Act of 1862.) 2. Is Thomas Deble/Dibble of Windsor, Connecticut the same Thomas Dibble whose father was Robert of Dorchester? NOT PROVEN This is informed speculation. We only know for sure that a lot of people from Dorchester went to Windsor, and a guy by the name of "Tho Dyblie" was granted "freeman" status there in 1640. The name Thomas Dibble appears on a list of "founders of Windsor" that was compiled much, much later, long after the otherwise unsupported genealogical tradition that Thomas of Windsor was the son of Robert of Dorchester was in circulation. 3. Did Thomas Deble/Dibble of Windsor have a son named Thomas (Jr)? My website states that Israel Dibble's sons Thomas and George went to Long Island (I think the only source for that is Lamb, who cites "Perry" on one of his binder pages, a source I cannot find; it does not seem to be Dibblee-Perry and Allied Families) and George Dibble of East Hampton had a son, Jonathan, baptized in East Hampton in October 1711. According to the records of the First Presbyterian Church of East Hampton, Long Island, a Thomas Dibble married Rachel Mulford in April 1699. However, it is usually stated that Thomas of Windsor's son, Thomas Jr, was born in 1677 and married Mary Tucker, and that the Thomas who married Rachel Mulford was Thomas III. (Van Buren Lamb reported this in his "Line of Henry Dibble of Columbia and Delaware Counties, NY".) Van Buren Lamb also wrote, in that document (page 3), that "This Thomas [Jr] moved from Windsor, Conn. to East Hampton, Long Island before 1700. On 18 of May 1703 is recorded the ear mark of Thomas Debell weaver - end of each ear cropped off and a half penny on your underside of left ear." It's not clear whether Lamb thought the weaver was the Jr who came from Windsor, though. (See also a similar, but not same, earmark credited to Joseph Dibble on September 7, 1736 in the Records of the Town of East Hampton vol IV.) TBD 4. Did Thomas Dibble Jr have a son named Thomas Dibble III? As Van Buren Lamb wrote in "Dibble Genealogy (the Your Ancestors version of the later "Dibble Family"), "There is much confusion here with five Thomas Dibbles residing in East Hampton at one time." As I reported on my website, "The earliest reference to a Dibble in East Hampton, Suffolk County, NY, is March 27, 1697, when George [Dibble] witnessed a land sale. The next reference is the marriage of Thomas Dibble, the older brother [of George], to Rachel Mulford on April 2, 1699." The names "Th. Dibble", "Tho. Dibble", "Thomas Dibble", "Thomas Dibble, weaver", "Thomas Dibble, cooper", "Thomas Dibble, Junr.", "Tho. Dibble, Junr.", and "Ths. Dibble, Junr.", all appear in the records of the First Presbyterian Church of East Hampton, Long Island (Suffolk County), NY. The cooper and the weaver were probably different people, but it's not clear if the others are. According to Lamb, "In 1702 Thomas Dible, weaver, buys 5 acres in East Hampton and the deed is witnessed by George Dibell and Thomas Dibell Jr."; I have not seen the original of this. It's no surprise that one Dibble would witness another Dibble's transaction, and no guarantee that this Thomas Dibell Jr. was the son of Thomas Dible, weaver--and we don't know whether the weaver or the cooper is the Thomas we're looking for. From the East Hampton First Presbyterian Church records: Thomas Dibble, weaver, had a son named Thomas baptized February 24, 1704/5. Assuming only one Thomas Dibble, weaver, in East Hampton in the early 18th century, he also had these children: unknown child who died young; twins Joseph and Mary; perhaps another daughter Mary; Elizabeth; unknown daughter who died about age 6. One or more Thomas Dibbles, not designated "weaver", also had children: Rachel, Phebe, Eunice, Israel. "Tho. Dibble Cooper", only appears once, when he married the widow Hannah Jessup in 1723. A junior Thomas married a woman named Hannah. His wife died at the age of 45 in December 1723/4. Could this have been the Thomas baptized in 1704/5? Unlikely; he was 20 or 21 at the time and his wife was 15 years older. But not impossible. A junior Thomas married a woman named Mary Conkling in November 1734. This seems a more likely candidate for the Thomas baptized in 1704/5; he would have been 29. A junior Thomas had a son, Christopher, in 1736. A junior Thomas had a wife die in January 1740/1. A junior Thomas had a daughter, Keturah, baptized in October 1740; it was likely she who died at the age of about two months on October 31 of that year. A Thomas Sr had a wife die in November 1743 at the age of 59. A Thomas died in 1754 at about the age of 85. A Thomas had a son baptized in 1761. A Thomas died in November 1780. It's highly unlikely that this was Thomas born in 1677; he would have been 103. Allegedly that Thomas died in 1754 in East Hampton. A widow of a Thomas died in January 1789. Other records: In 1747, Thomas Dibble and son had 1 1/2 acres of "commonage" in East Hampton. In 1752, Thomas Dibble Jr recorded an earmark for his son Christopher. So at least one of the Thomases in East Hampton was not the son of a Thomas. That might be sorted out--I have more work to do. TBD 5. Did Thomas Dibble III have a son named Joseph? A child of Thomas Dibble, weaver, named Joseph, was baptized on June 18, 1704 in the First Presbyterian Church in East Hampton. As of June 2024, I don't know if that Thomas was "III". The records of that church also indicate that, probably, there was at least one other Joseph Dibble in that church, and at least two Joseph Dibbles somewhere in the area, whose fathers aren't known (see question 6, below). TBD 6. Was Henry Dibble Sr the son of Joseph Dibble? YES Unfortunately, that doesn't tell us very much at all. A Henry Dibble, son of a Joseph Dibble, was baptized September 11, 1725/6 in East Hampton's First Presbyterian Church. However, there were at least three Joseph Dibbles who belonged to that church and could have fathered a son in that year. (If we assume our Henry and Joseph were members of that church, that is; there were other churches in the area, and people who were not members of any church--or at least, not in such a way as would get them recorded in the church records, which required "owning covenant" and paying for it. If we don't insist on that assumption there may have been other candidates as well.) One of them certainly was the Joseph whose father was Thomas, and who was baptized in 1704 (see question 5, above). As for the others: A Joseph Dibble, Junr. had a son Cineus baptized in July or August of 1738. Although Joseph bp 1704 had a son named Joseph, he was bp in 1731/2 and therefore cannot be this Joseph. (Probably; some of the church records indicate whether the person baptized was a child or an adult; this one does not.) The Joseph Dibble, Junr. with son Cineus must have had a father named Joseph Dibble. Both of them could have fathered our Henry. To understand this, let's do a bit of presumptive math: Assume a man needed to be at least 18 years old to father a child. Remember that children were often baptized several months after birth in those days (let's leave out the possibility of an adult baptism for now). Remember that men in those times often "burned through" more than one wife and fathered children well into old age. Within those parameters, therefore: Joseph Dibble bp in 1731/2 was about 8 or 9 in 1738 and could not have fathered a son in that year. Joseph Dibble Jr with son Cineus bp 1738 would have to have been born in 1720 at the latest, but could have been born much earlier, even in the previous century. This Joseph Jr's father, also named Joseph, would then have to have been born no later than 1702, but could have been born much earlier. We only know (as a matter of genealogical tradition) that one of our Josephs was the son of a Thomas Dibble. That Thomas could have been any of the Thomases discussed in question 4, above. Or he could have been some other Thomas Dibble who belonged to a different church, or was not a church member at all, who lived in or around East Hampton. One of the Joseph Dibbles in East Hampton married Elizabeth Parsons in the First Presbyterian Church on January 31, 1721/2. One of those Josephs had a son named Henry who was baptized September 11, 1725/6 in that church. On September 7, 1749, a Henry Dibble married Abigail Whetmore in that church. The only other Henry Dibble who appears in those church records was baptized in 1770, much too late to be our Henry. Our Henry Dibble Sr was a Revolutionary War veteran (see question 7, below) who served with the Albany County militia while living in or near Hillsdale, Columbia County, NY. He is said to have married a woman named Abigail, whose surname is variously given as Whetmore, Butmore, and Bulmore. The Dibbles all disappeared from the East Hampton First Presbyterian Church records after January 1789 (at least, those that were still extant in 1904, when they were published; the editors noted that some pages were missing). (One story has it that most of them were pro-Revolution and they fled from the British occupation of Long Island, which began in August 1776 and continued for several years, but there were still a few Dibbles in East Hampton after that date.) One of the Josephs' wives died on July 20, 1776, and one of the Josephs died on March 19, 1777. We don't know which Joseph and wife they were, though the Joseph could have been the one born in 1704 and/or the one who married Elizabeth Parsons in 1721/2 (and she might have been the wife who died). This couple is most often given as the parents of our Henry. Unfortunately, no ages were given, unlike in many of the other church death records, so it could have been any of the Josephs so far mentioned (and one or two others who were too young for our purposes), and the wife who died may have had an entirely different Joseph for a husband. Henry Sr and his family are said to have migrated from East Hampton, Suffolk County, NY to Guilford, New Haven County, CT, where the first two children, Henry Jr and Mary, were baptized, and thence to Fairfield County, CT, where the other children were baptized in either Weston or Westport (neighboring towns). After that, he is next seen in Hillsdale, NY. The only Joseph whom we can find in Columbia County most likely never set foot in East Hampton at all; he was born in 1749/50 in Danbury, CT, and his father was Nehemiah Dibble, a notorious Tory. In any case, he was born about 25 years after our Henry. So while we can be pretty sure that our Henry Sr's father's name was Joseph, we really don't know which Joseph that was. 7. Was Henry Dibble Sr a Revolutionary War Veteran? YES A lot of data has been collected for the purpose of proving that descendants of John Dibble of Sanford, Broome County, NY are qualified to be members of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), and the DAR has accepted them and linked them to Henry Dibble Sr and Jr. That's not sufficient for proof, because the DAR's standards at the time (1970s) were pretty loose. But it does make the research process easier. We can safely say that the preponderance of evidence supports those lines of descent, so we can speak as though our two Henrys were, in fact, those veterans. And they were veterans, if we accept that anyone who was enrolled in a New York State militia unit during that war, whether or not they were ever called up for duty, or were near the front lines, was such a veteran. Both were enrolled in the New York State Ninth Militia Regiment. The closest we get on the latter two points is that one of the Henrys was paid a bounty for his service, and one of the Henrys was billeted somewhere in New York for five days around April 19, 1777. The last fact indicates he had been called up and was on active duty. There is no indication which of the two Henrys those records apply to. There is also a record that one of the Henrys was a member of the militia on May 13, 1767, at which time the younger Henry was about 17, so that might refer to Henry Sr. (There was also a Joseph Dibble in the militia, but he seems to have been the one whose father was a Tory, mentioned in question 6, above. Talk about your generation gap!) 8. Was Henry Dibble Jr the son of Rev War Vet Henry Dibble Sr? PROBABLY Nathaniel Huntting's records of the First Presbyterian Church of East Hampton, Suffolk County, NY, reported: "Sept. y first [1749] Married Henry Dibble & Abigail Whetmore" (as transcribed in The Records of the Town of East Hampton Volume V) According to the Barbour Collection's vital records for Guilford, CT:
"DIBBLE, DEBELL ... That only proves that some Henry Dibble had a son named Henry born Nov 18 1750 in Guilford, CT; we don't know for sure that these are our Henrys. (Van Buren Lamb, in his Binders Vol. 12, page 34, has him born November 18, 1749, and baptized July 29, 1750 in the North Guilford (CT) Congregational Church.) Guilford CT is about 30 miles east-northeast of Westport, where we next encounter them two years later, and about 85 miles southeast of Hillsdale, NY, where they allegedly appear in 1790. (Or most of them; Henry Jr allegedly had a son Henry III born in 1775 who may have stayed in Guilford until after 1800--though that possibility is contradicted by one of his obituaries; see question 10, below.) Van Buren Lamb wrote that this also could have been Guilford, VT or Guilford, Chenango County, NY. However, he also wrote that Henry Jr and his sister Mary were baptized in the North Guilford (CT) Congregational Church. There are such baptismal records indexed in the Barbour Collection but, again, that doesn't prove they are our Henrys. 9. Was Henry Dibble Jr a Revolutionary War veteran? YES (See question 7, above.) 10. Was Rev War Vet Henry Dibble Jr ever in Kortright, Delaware County, NY? PROBABLY I have found only three sources so far that prove that anybody named Henry Dibble Jr was in Kortright: 1. The 1800 US Census for that location. That Census list contains a record for a "Henry Dibble Junr", but unfortunately the numbers in that record don't completely match what we think we know about this Henry's family (see question 11, below). 2. Munsell's History of Delaware County "Henry Dibble, sen., was the first permanent settler in this part of the town [of Kortright]. He died in 1804, aged seventy-eight years. He took up lands now owned by William Shaw. Henry, jr. who came with his father, died February 10th, 1810, aged sixty years. His widow lived many years after the death of her husband. She was familiarly known by the name of "granny", and was supposed to have a magical power over disease and suffering. She rode on horseback over a long circuit, and gave her services gratis. She died at an advanced age, loved and respected by all who knew her. Her maiden name was Lucy Cleveland. ..." That record has two Henrys, father and son, in Kortright, but there's no indication that they were the Henrys who served in Albany County militia units during the Revolutionary War. (Further down in that passage, a "Henry Dibble 3d" is reported in the same area, and I have found records in which that Henry is likely referred to as "junior" as well, but those are in a later time period, after both "our" Henrys Sr and Jr were allegedly dead.) 3. New York Tax Assessment records. Henry Dibble, Henry Dibble Sr, and/or Henry Dibble Jr all show up on these rolls for Kortright, Delaware County NY for various years between 1799 and 1803. Both are listed in 1799. This, again, establishes that they were related to each other, but not that they are our Henrys. There are graves for two Henrys in the McArthur Hill Road Cemetery in Kortright Center (what Van Buren Lamb called the "Rebel Hill" or "Betty Brook" cemetery at various times), along with graves for several other Dibbles. I visited that cemetery in August 2024 and took photographs. One stone is in very good shape and clearly reads "HENRY DIBBLE died May 21 1804 in the 78 year of his age." That gives an approximate birth year of 1726, which lines up with what we think we know about Henry Sr. Leaning up against this Henry stone are two badly damaged stones for "Abigail Dibble". One of these was brought from the Old Baptist Cemetery in Hillsdale, Columbia County, NY by Lamb in 1957 and placed where they are today. Lamb said the Hillsdale cemetery was "completely wrecked" and he moved the stone to "save it from destruction". Perhaps the second Abigail stone was originally in the McArthur Hill Road Cemetery--Lamb only said he moved one stone. The larger stone says "In Memory of Abigail Dibble", and it may also say "Wife of Henry Dibble who died in November", but it's very difficult to read. All that can be seen on the smaller stone is "Abigail Dibble", though some portion of it is buried in the ground and I didn't want to disturb it. Lamb's "Corrections and Additions" to his Your Ancestors "Dibble Family" publication gives Abigail's death date as November 22, 1776 "in 77th year", but his "Line of Henry Dibble of Columbia and Delaware Counties, NY" has her born in 1718 and dying on November 22, 1798 (which would be her 80th year), dates which the Find-a-Grave page for this burial also has. The other Henry stone is in very bad shape, and shows only "HEN| DIBLE" with no dates, and not even enough room on the stone to allow for "HENRY". (The vertical bar may be the stem of an "R" but the stone is broken off beyond that point; in any case the overall width of the stone, even when undamaged, probably would not have had space for "HENRY" in the same lettering and if it did, then the two lines "HENRY" and "DIBLE" would not have been centered in relation to each other. The engraving is very crude, though, in comparison to the other stones, so who knows?). The "HEN|" stone is a few feet to the north of the "HENRY" stone, in the same row, and there are several other Dibble stones in close proximity. "LUCY, Wife of Henry Dibble, Jr died April 22nd, 1834 aged [either 79 or 29] years" is in the row to the west of the two Henry stones. (Since The Genealogy of the Cleveland and Cleaveland Families has her marrying Henry in about 1771, I'll go with 79, which gives a birth year of about 1755, although that book has her born about 1751 in Hillsdale, Columbia County, NY.) None of this actually proves that Henry Dibble Jr. was ever in Kortright, but all things considered, we can assume that these are the actual Henry Dibble families we've been looking for. The following information is very suggestive, but does not prove anything that we are looking to prove: Guys named Henry Dibble and Henry Dibble Jr were in Hillsdale, Columbia County, NY in 1790, per the US Census. A History of Hillsdale, Columbia County, New York says that "Elijah Cleveland, borne in Centerbury, Conn., remaind in Hillsdale. ... The children of Elijah and Alice Cleveland were as follows: Joseph, who married Elizabeth Fenton; Lucinda, who married Henry Dibble; Asa who married Mary Dibble; John, who married Elizabeth Serign; Abigail, who married Thomas Bathrick, and after him she married Peter Smith; Daniel, who married Amy Dibble; Sarah, who married Andrew Reynolds; Waitstell, who married Martha Tabor; Anna, who married Henry Salisbury. All born in Hillsdale except Joseph, ..." There weren't many opportunities for them to show up elsewhere between then and when those two men died, but we just don't know that they are our Henrys. There were two other Heny Dibbles in Delaware County who--just barely--could have fathered our John in about 1792/3: A. Henry Dibble, b January 1775, spent most of his life in Kortright but died in Sidney in 1857. He would have been 17 or 18 at the time of John's birth. But he is almost certainly John's brother, Henry Jr's son Henry III. One of his obituaries says he "came when a boy with his father and family to Kortright in 1791, then a howling wilderness." A second obituary agrees on the date without mentioning who he came with. He would have been about 16 at the time and did not show up in the 1790 census. He also doesn't show up as a head of household in Kortright in the 1800 census, and his putative father's listing doesn't include two males of his age, one of whom would have had to have been Henry Jr. A Henry Dibble in the appropriate age range did head a household in Guilford, New Haven County, CT in 1800, so he may have come to Kortright much later. Obituaries can sometimes contain really egregious errors, and the author of this one may have confused Henry III with his father Henry Jr, who came with his father, Henry Sr, to Kortright. On the other hand, nearly all of the 1790 US census records, and most of those for 1800, have been lost, so we can't rely solely on this evidence to prove anything.
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It's not known where Henry Dibble of Colchester is buried. Colchester is a township, not a village; it covers a broad area. The largest village in Colchester is Downsville. In August 2024 I visited the "Covered Bridge" cemetery in Downsville, also known as the "Old Downsville Cemetery". It is small enough that I was able to examine every headstone that was still standing. Sadly, many of those stones were so degraded as to be completely unreadable, and others had been broken and their pieces stacked in piles so that they could not be read either. A few other Dibbles are known to have been buried there, which is why I visited, but I could not find any of their stones. Close by to the Covered Bridge Cemetery is the Paige Cemetery. That one is much larger (over 1800 burials), and no Dibbles are listed there by either Find-A-Grave or the Delaware County Historical Society (DCHS). I didn't visit that one, and if I had it would have taken me at least two days to search it. There are at least two other cemeteries in Colchester Township that were in existence at the time of Henry's death, and there are five others whose opening dates are unknown, at least by the DCHS. No Dibbles are listed in any of them by Find-A-Grave or DCHS. It would be useful to find this Henry's grave, to see who else may have been buried with him, so I may make another journey to Downsville at some point. As always, as well, it was possible for the same person to be counted in two different locations in the same census year, if they were inclined to live in one and visit in the other, so we can't really say anything that is 100% definitive about the census records. 11. Was John Dibble of Sanford, Broome County, NY the son of Rev War Vet Henry Dibble Jr? The following sources show that a Henry Dibble had a son named John who lived in the locations of concern: - Find-a-Grave Pages for the graves of John Dibble and wife Nancy (McClure Cemetery, Sanford, Broome County NY) and Henry Dibble (McArthur Hill Road Cemetery, Kortright, Delaware County, NY) are linked to each other with Henry being the father of John. No proof offered (see question 10, above), but I have visited McClure cemetery and verified that the headstones for John and Nancy are quite close to each other (though John's has been moved and is half-buried and leaning against another stone). - Cleveland Genealogy This document says that Lucinda Cleveland married Henry Dibble, son of Henry and Abigail, in about 1771, and they lived in Kortright, with several children, including a John. No specific documentation for these claims is given. The authors say their data came from official records, family histories, and correspondence with family members. They do not express any skepticism about any of it, including the claim that the family has been traced back to a Dane named Thorvik who came to Norfolk County, England, prior to 1066. - 2 Henry Dibble Jr Descendants.pdf This is an 8-page pamphlet full of hand-written information that gives a John Dibble, who married "Nancy Covetts", as the son of Henry Dibble (son of Henry) who married Lucy Cleveland. Above the list of the children of the younger Henry are four names--Henry, Joseph, Patrick(*), Ann--with a notation that they came from England. This pamphet was among the possessions of Horace Dibble, a resident of Cortland, Cortland County, NY, who died in 1890, and his son Frank Dibble, who died in 1931. The last dates in the document (and a longer companion pamphlet listing Dibbles descended from Henry Jr's putative brother Joseph) are all before Horace died, which, along with the apparent age of the paper and binding, makes it a mid-19th century compilation. Unfortunately, the "Nancy Covetts" item can only be somewhat laboriously linked to our John, whose wife's name was Nancy Colwell, through a fragment of a document called "The Covert Record" (Lamb Binders Vol. 12, pp 63 & 64), and while that document (as well as multiple census records) indicates that Nancy came from England, everything else we have discovered about the Henrys indicates that they did not. - Clarence Dibble He wrote to Van Buren Lamb on Dec 12 1983 and cited a lineage as follows: "My Father was Clarence Dibble his Father was Owen Dibble and his Father was Oren Dibble and his father was John Dibble. They and their wives are all buried in the McClure cemetery. Johns Father was Henry Dibble the 2nd and his Father was Henry Dibble Sr. which took them back to the revolution." Clarence said his source for this information was his aunt, Mary Holodnak. I found the graves of John and Nancy Dibble in the McClure Cemetery in June 2023, but unfortunately I missed the others, who must be in a newer part of the cemetery. - DAR The DAR accepted an application for membership from Violet Seward Spaulding in 1976 on the claim that she was descended from both Henry Dibble Sr and Jr through Jr's son John. Supporting her application was a notarized affadavit from Clarence Dibble's aunt, Mary Dibble Holodnak, who said she was born at McClure, NY, and stating that her grandfather was Orin Dibble, whose father was John Dibble, and that John had a brother named Amos Dibble. (Note: Which Amos Dibble that is, is another whole ball of wax. After much discussion with Frank Dibbell, I have tentatively concluded that there were at least two Amoses in Delaware County, perhaps ten years apart in age, or less, one of whom ended up in Broome County and the other in Greene County, NY. Both had fathers named Henry, and they could not likely have been the same Henry. Henry III seems to be ruled out as one of the fathers, so my focus has been on Henry Dibble of Colchester. He's the guy I'm hottest after right now. As noted above, under Question 10, there was an Amos between the ages of 26 and 44 in Colchester in 1810, separate from Henry's household, but there was also a male in Henry's household that year who was in that same age group.) Those facts line up with what we think we know about John's family, but I was not able to obtain any other documents that supported Violet's application (likely because the DAR returned them to her). The DAR was more lax about "proof" of such relationships in the 1970s than it is now, and I've been advised by DAR members that mere approval for membership should not be regarded as such proof. - Van Buren Lamb Multiple pages in Lamb Binders Vol. 12 show Henry Dibble or Henry Dibble Jr having a son John, but I think that virtually all of them derive that information either directly from the Cleveland Genealogy or from correspondents who cited it. Cleveland places John third in the birth order, after Henry III and Patrick and before Amos, but gives no birth dates for any of them; other sources for Henry III and Patrick give birthdates in the 1770s, and for Amos, 1781. Cleveland has birthdates for John's sisters Sarah and Rachel in 1792 and 1793, respectively. (Rachel is said to have married an Alexander Dales, and there is a grave for Lucy Dales, daughter of Alexander and Rachel Dales, near those of Henry Dibble Sr and Jr in the McArthur Hill Cemetery in Kortright, Delaware County, NY. The stone appears to say that Lucy died in February of 1813 at the age of 21; that would give a birth year of 1792, in which case she could not have been Rachel Dibble's daughter if Rachel actually was born in that year. That's a conundrum for another day.) Most of Lamb's correspondents said John was born in 1792 or 1793. Lamb's binder contains several family group pages for John; some have no birthdate, some have a date in the 1770s, and some have 1792 or 1793. Find-a-Grave gives a birthdate of November 24, 1792, which echoes some of those correspondents. It claims the headstone says "Aged 70y 5m 13d", but that's not visible in the photo of the headstone on the Find-a-Grave page. When I visited the cemetery John's headstone had "Aged", but the age was buried and I didn't feel comfortable with the amount of digging it would have taken to reveal it. I might try it the next time I visit the cemetery, though. TBD 12. Did John Dibble of Sanford inherit the Gulf Summit farm from his father, Henry Dibble Jr? Clarence Dibble believed that John's father was Henry Dibble Jr, as that was what his aunt Mary Holodnak told him (see question 11, above). Clarence wrote Van Buren Lamb in 1986 to say: "John inherited the farm in Gulf Summit from Henry. Johns son Orin (my direct descendant) did not inherit the farm. The farm went to another of John and Nancys children Phlander. Phlander in his time passed the farm to Alfred (one of his sons). ... In the History of Delewar Co there is mention of the two Henrys settling in Kortright. There is mention of the third Henry moving to Sidney but no mention of the second Henry moving to Gulf Summit. There is mention of Henrys wife Lucy living in Kortright for years after his death. I am wondering if the second Henry didnt just use his bounty right to secure the farm in Gulf Summit and then just turn it over to John." Maps show land in the appropriate area in possession of "Henry Dibble" in 1855 and "T H Dibble" in 1876. Catty-corner to T H's land is a much larger farm owned by "P S Dibble" on the 1876 map (there are no boundaries on the 1855 map). This was very probably John's son Philander S Dibble. Both Henry Sr and Jr were long dead by 1855. Henry Jr allegedly had a son Henry III but he is usually said to have stayed in Delaware County (and I have probably documented him there very effectively). John did also have a son named Thomas Henry Dibble, who would likely be the T H Dibble in the 1876 map, and perhaps the Henry of 1855. However, I have not found any maps, deeds or wills indicating the land was owned by a Henry Dibble before his alleged death in 1810, or that John ever owned it. |
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