| Notes |
- http://lewisfamilypubs.net/updatejohnlewis.pdf
The location of John Lewis II just north of the border of Cornwall, VT, in Weybridge on James Road also gives us an important clue into who might have been the second wife of John II. John Lewis II himself does not seem to have ever owned land in either town, but his location, pinpointed on the censuses of 1790 and 1800, indicates he may have lived either on, or very near, land owned by one Joseph Cook. Joseph Cook was a large landowner with land along both sides of the border in Cornwall and Weybridge, exactly where John Lewis II was located according to the Census of 1800. Joseph Cook had a son, Milo Cook, who was born in 1783. This is significant because John Lewis II's son (John III) named his first son, Milo Lewis, who was born in 1808. In 1799, an Eleanor Lewis witnessed a deed, along with Milo Cook, to land being purchased by Joseph Cook.59
On July 8, 1818, sixteen years after the death of John II, Eleanor Lewis now "of Middlebury", Vermont (in her own right, without a husband mentioned) granted a mortgage to David Lewis (son of John II) for land in the northwest corner of Cornwall, on Mountain Road.60
David may have defaulted on the conditions of the mortgage, because he transferred to Eleanor Lewis, of Middlebury on June 21, 1827, the same property as that which was mortgaged in 1818, with the addition of two acres, probably in lieu of interest owed.61
Finally on June 29, 1833, Eleanor Lewis, of Middlebury, granted Phineas Randall, the brother-in-law and adjoining neighbor of David Lewis, a mortgage on the same piece of land.62
A note in the margin of the book next to the deed says the conditions of the mortgage were met on April 2, 1835. Eleanor Lewis died just a few months later on Nov. 11, 1835. No husband is named in her death notice.63
The name Eleanor is not a common Lewis given name, and there is no tradition of the first name Eleanor in this Lewis family. No Eleanor Lewis birth record has been found in Connecticut, Massachusetts, or Rhode Island for this time period, so she is not likely an unmarried daughter of John Lewis II or any of the other Lewis' in this extended family. However, there are multiple women named Eleanor in Joseph Cook's family. Joseph Cook named a daughter, Eleanor (too young to be our Eleanor Lewis), and his grandmother's name was Eleanor. Joseph Cook was the third Joseph Cook in his line, born in 1749 at Goshen, CT. His grandfather, Joseph Cook I, was married to Eleanor Johnson at Wallingford, CT, in 1714. Eleanor Johnson was the first Eleanor in the line. Joseph Cook's father, Joseph Cook II, married Phebe Hall at Wallingford in 1748. Joseph II died at Goshen just two years later, in 1750, having had only one child of record: Joseph Cook III. After his death, Joseph Cook II's wife, Phebe, married next, Eli Pettibone, at Goshen in 1751. Joseph Cook III of Cornwall, VT, would have been raised in the household of Eli Pettibone.64
Joseph Cook II had a sister, Hannah, who married Roger Pettibone, the brother of Eli Pettibone. Hannah (Cook) and husband, Roger Pettibone, had a daughter, Eleanor Pettibone, who was born September 11, 1757, at Goshen, CT. Both Roger and Eli Pettibone, with their families, were living in Lanesborough in Berkshire County, MA, by 1769. Both Roger and Eli also owned land in nearby Washington, MA, where the extended Lewis families were also living at the same time.65
Eli Pettibone subsequently moved to Manchester, VT, next to Sunderland, and was the justice of the peace in Manchester when he signed the deed for the land back in Washington, MA, which was being sold by Matthew and Bathsheba Lewis to Abraham Williamson in 1782. This is the same deed that was witnessed by John Lewis II with his mark. It is logical to conclude that Eleanor Pettibone, the daughter of Roger and Hannah must be our Eleanor Lewis. However, the death record for Eleanor Pettibone, daughter of Roger Pettibone, has been found at Lanesborough, MA, where she died in October 1767. This death record eliminates her from consideration as the Eleanor Lewis, wife of John Lewis II.66
So, the identity of Eleanor Lewis now becomes even more theoretical. But the name, Eleanor, is so uniquely tied to the Cook and Pettibone families that there must have been another Eleanor. As has been said, Joseph Cook III of Cornwall and Weybridge, VT, was born July 13, 1749 in Goshen, CT. His father, Joseph Cook II, died just a few months later on March 2, 1750. His wife, Phebe (Hall) married second, Eli Pettibone, on Feb. 21, 1751. As an infant, Joseph Cook III must have been raised in the home of his step-father, Eli Pettibone. But there is a gap in time of a year and a half between the birth of Joseph Cook III and his mother's marriage to Eli Pettibone; more than enough time for a daughter to be born to Phebe by her first husband, Joseph II, now deceased. Phebe (Hall) Cook would likely have been taken in to live with her in-laws after the death of her husband. Her husband's parents were Joseph Cook I and Eleanor (Johnson), who were also living in Goshen at that time. If Phebe was pregnant and living in the household of her mother-in-law, whose name was Eleanor, it would have been natural for her to name the daughter, Eleanor, after the mother-in-law who had taken her and her son (Joseph III) in. If so, this daughter's birth record does not exist in Goshen Vital Records. However, Goshen vital records are very incomplete for this time period; another one of Phebe's children, Seth, by her second husband, Eli Pettibone, also went unrecorded at Goshen just a few years later.
Therefore, if Eleanor Lewis was the sister of Joseph Cook III, then she too would have grown up in the household of Eli Pettibone. Eli Pettibone and Phebe (Hall) (Cook) Pettibone lived in Goshen until about 1757, when they moved to Norfolk, CT.67
The family lived in Norfolk until about 1769, when they removed to Lanesborough, MA, where Eli's brother, Roger, had moved some years before. In 1774, Eli Pettibone, then of Lanesborough, bought land in Hartwood, which, two years later, was renamed Washington, MA.68
It is likely that this is the time when a connection between the Cooks, Pettibones, and Lewis families was forged. Both John Lewis I and John Lewis II were at Hartwood/Washington in 1774. It is probable that Eleanor Cook was still living with her mother and step-father's family at this time. She would have been 24 years of age. This writer believes that sometime between 1775, when the "wife of John Lewis" joined the church at Washington, and 1778, Sarah (Cross) Lewis, first wife of John Lewis II died, but there is no death record. John Lewis II then possibly married Eleanor Cook about 1778, and it was she that gave birth to a son, John Lewis III, in Rhode Island while accompanying her husband in service in March 1780. But, this must remain a theory, because there are no marriage or death records that could prove it, only strong circumstantial evidence.
Acknowledging that the Cook, Pettibone and Lewis connections may be confusing, there are two genealogy charts provided at the end of this chapter that will perhaps make the relationships easier to understand. The Cook family of Goshen, CT, came from Wallingford, CT. The first Joseph Cook bought land at a very early date in Goshen, but did not move there with his wife, Eleanor (Johnson) until about 1748. Their son, Joseph Cook II, along with other children of Joseph and Eleanor, also moved to Goshen at about the same time. As mentioned, Joseph Cook II died as the result of an unknown illness in 1750. Before he died, he wrote a will leaving all of his property to his wife, Phebe, except for a small inheritance to his son, Joseph (III), should he live to the age of 21.69
Joseph Cook III, later of Cornwall and Weybridge, VT, (likely the brother of Eleanor (Cook) Lewis, married Ruth Dewey, daughter of Daniel Dewey of Sheffield, MA. Joseph returned to Goshen, CT, in 1773, when he sold land formerly owned by his father, which must have been the remaining portion of his inheritance.70
Beyond the fact that Joseph Cook III was probably John Lewis II's brother-in-law, Joseph was a very interesting character in his own right. He was also a Revolutionary War soldier whose first enlistment was as a private from Sheffield, MA, during the siege of Boston in 1775.71
He may also have served from Sheffield at New York in 1776, and again at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777.72
He was next likely the Joseph Cook who was first an ensign, then 2nd lieutenant, and finally lieutenant/adjutant of Colonel Jacobus Van Schoonhoven's 12th Regiment, Albany County, NY, Militia. He served in that regiment from the latter part of 1777 to the end of the Revolutionary War.73
This regiment was from Half Moon and Ballstown, towns just north of Albany, NY. The regiment fought at the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777, and afterwards played a significant role in protecting settlers along the northern frontier from the depredations of Tories and Indians. Shortly after the close of the War, Joseph Cook III moved to the border area between Weybridge and Cornwall, VT, into the heart of the area settled by the extended Lewis family. He was responsible for much of the surveying of the original Towns of Cornwall and Weybridge. In 1804, he was appointed Brigadier General of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Division of Vermont Militia, a position he only held for one year. But even though he was a general for just one year, he was forever after known as General Cook. He was also the father of Milo Cook, Esq., who in 1804, was one of the first graduates of Middlebury College.74
As previously stated, Milo Lewis, the grandson of John Lewis II, later became the namesake of Milo Cook.
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59 Weybridge Land Records, Vol. 3, p. 135.
60 Cornwall, VT, Land Records, Book 5, p. 487.
61 Ibid, p. 629.
62 Cornwall, VT, Land Records, Book 6, p. 203.
63 Middlebury, VT, Church Records, VT NSDAR-Mostly Cemetery Records, Series 2, Vol. 6 (Unpublished Collection at Bennington, VT, Museum Library), p. 17.
64 Wallingford and Goshen, CT, Vital Records, Barbour Collection of Connecticut Vital Records.
65 Berkshire County Land Records, Vol. 4, p. 65; Vol. 6, p. 503; Vol. 8, p. 883; Vol. 10, p. 679; etc.
66 Charles J. Palmer, History of the Town of Lanesborough, Massachusetts, 1741-1905 (Pittsfield, MA: Berkshire Family History Association, Inc., 1994), Appendix VIII, p. 43.
67 I. Fayette Pettibone, Genealogy of the Pettibone Family (Chicago: Brown, Pettibone & Kelly,1885), p. 21.
68 Berkshire County Land Records, Vol. 10, p. 679.
69 Estate of Joseph Cook, Jr., of Goshen, Litchfield Probate District, 1750, No. 1620.
70 Goshen Land Records, Vol. 7, p. 199.
71 Secretary of the Commonwealth, Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the Revolutionary War, Vol. III (Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co., 1902), p. 933.
72 Secretaries of the Committee, Centennial Celebration of the Town of Sheffield, Berkshire Co., MA (Sheffield, MA: NP, 1876), p. 66-67.
73 Berthold Fernow, New York in the Revolution (Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons and Co., 1887), pp. 271 & 540.
74 Rev. Lyman Matthews, History of the Town of Cornwall, Vermont (Middlebury, VT: Mead and Fuller, 1862), pp. 95-97; E. P. Walton, Records of the Governor and Council of the State of Vermont (Montpelier, VT: J.&J. M. Poland, Printer, 1877), p. 75.
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1749 - 1828 (79 years)
