One of the activities that genealogist Amy Johnson Crow describes in her book 31 Days to Better Genealogy is creating a timeline for each of your ancestors. Timelines make it easier to identify patterns, gaps, and inconsistencies, as well as to determine where to look for additional information, such as death certificates, children’s marriage records, or a parent’s will and probate records. With so many ancestors in my tree, extending back eight or more generations, constructing timelines for everyone would be a Herculean task. I find it best to be strategic and prioritize those ancestors whose lives need further examination or whose lives and times are of particular interest.
One ancestor who has long intrigued me is Maria Durie (or Duryea), my 4th-great-grandmother on my paternal side. She belonged to the New York/New Jersey Huguenot and Dutch branch of my family, whose members experienced several migrations as their communities and families moved westward. Maria was born in Bergen County, New Jersey, in 1749. We have her baptism date as September 24, 1749, and because baptisms were generally performed shortly after birth, we assume she was born that month. Her parents were Samuel Durie and Wyntie Banta. Through her additional Des Marets (Demarest) and Terhune ancestors, she was connected to some of the most prominent families in the New Jersey Dutch settlements.
Maria and her family migrated to the Conewago Valley, east of Gettysburg, sometime between 1765 and 1768. It was there that she married Pieter Cossart, son of Francis Cossart and Margarette Van Nest. We know of seven sons born between 1769 and 1779: Francis, Samuel, Jacob, Peter Jr., twins Hendrick and David, and Albert. An eighth son, Reuben, appears in FamilySearch, but he has been difficult to trace.
Maria and her immediate and extended family would not remain Pennsylvania’s “Low Dutch” residents for long. The American Revolution began in 1775, and within a few years, her husband Pieter and several of her brothers had joined various militia units for short enlistments. Meanwhile, Daniel Boone had helped open a route through the Cumberland Gap and along the Wilderness Road to Kentucky’s rich bluegrass region.
Samuel Durie scouted the area near Fort Boonesborough and declared it suitable for the Low Dutch migration to Kentucky. It is unclear whether the migration itself took place in the spring of 1780 or 1781, but the Cossarts, along with many members of Maria’s extended family, made the journey and settled at White Oak Station near Hart’s Spring. Whenever the migration occurred, they were there by early 1781—a tragic year for 31-year-old Maria.
First, her brother Hendrick died in an Indian attack in February 1781. Then, in March or April, members of the Durie family who had established themselves in a cabin were attacked while gathering food. Two of Maria’s brothers-in-law, her sister Angenitie, and her brother Petrus were killed. Annie, Petrus’s wife, escaped with their three children.
But that was not the end of Maria’s sorrows. In July, her husband Pieter was killed while picking blackberries, leaving Maria with five children, ages two to seven. Two of their sons, Francis and Samuel, had remained in Pennsylvania.
What happened to Maria after that? This is where her timeline goes cold. Three different possibilities have been suggested:
- Marriage to Cornelius Vannice (Van Nuys): A marriage record documents the marriage of “Mary Cozart” to Cornelius Vannice on November 11, 1796. However, the gravestone of Mary Vannice at the Mud Meeting House in Harrodsburg indicates that this Mary was born in 1763. The date discrepancy makes this identification problematic.
- Migration with the Banta family in 1796: We know that some members of the Banta family, related through Maria’s mother, migrated north to Warren County, Ohio. Some histories place Maria and several of her children among those who accompanied them.
- Living out her life with her son Hendrick and dying in 1800: This account comes from family lore recorded by family historian Joseph Arthur Cossairt. It may not conflict with the second possibility, but the documentation is sketchy. Hendrick was 22 years old in 1800 and did not marry until 1814, when he was 34. He eventually acquired a farm in Warren County and did quite well for himself.
This is where the gaps and uncertainties in a timeline become glaringly obvious, especially for ancestors who lived on the frontier, where records are often sketchy at best. We can only imagine what life was like for Maria after the losses she suffered in 1781. Those who remained in her immediate family, including her parents, Samuel and Wyntie, probably provided mutual support. She also had Banta aunts, uncles, and cousins nearby. The Low Dutch Colony had remained connected since its members’ days in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and those ties had strengthened over the decades.
Maria’s timeline reveals much about her journeys and the circumstances of her life. She began life as a colonial in the New Jersey region of the former New Netherland, living as part of the Low Dutch Colony. She ended her days as a Kentuckian—or perhaps as someone who had relocated from Kentucky—but always as an American. She headed west twice: first to Pennsylvania and then across the Appalachian Mountains to Kentucky, where she found herself in the midst of the brutal Western Theater of the War of Independence.
Her children carried on her wandering ways, and this branch of the Cossart/Cossairt/Cassatt family eventually scattered throughout the Midwest. Two sons, Francis and Samuel, apparently remained in Pennsylvania; Jacob stayed in Kentucky; Peter settled in western Ohio; Hendrick went to Warren County, Ohio; David settled in Indiana; and Albert went to Illinois. Three sons—Peter, David, and Albert—married their Banta second cousins. Hendrick appears to have been the only son to marry outside the colony. He married Mary Nailor and adopted the Anglicized name Henry.
But Maria’s timeline also leaves many questions unanswered. We can turn to the history of late-18th-century Kentucky and the Low Dutch Colony to fill in some of the gaps, but few stories were passed down, and the information we do have is sometimes contradictory. We may never recover all the details, but we can develop a sense of what life was like for pioneer families in the bluegrass region—and use our imaginations to fill in what the records cannot tell us.
Photo:
Old Mud Meeting House, https://harrodsburghistorical.org/historical-homes-in-mercer-county/dutch-reformed-church-old-mud-meeting-house-nhr/
