Judah Kirby
Roloson (1808-1904)
by
George Rogers
Judah Kirby Roloson, my third great
grandmother, was the matriarch of probably the largest family ever to settle
in Hornby; having had fifteen children, all of which reached adulthood and
married. Judah or Judith as she was sometimes called was born 22 March 1808
in Massachusetts. She was Judah in her father’s will and her aunt was named
Judah in a family where naming children after relatives was very common.
So even though her tombstone in the Oldfield-Ferenbaugh Cemetery and death
certificate says Judith, Judah was probably her name. She died two weeks
short of her ninety-sixth birthday, outliving her husband by sixteen years.
Photos from collection of George Rogers
Her father
Ichabod and mother Abigail Allen were married in Westport, Massachusetts
on 16 August 1804. By 1820 they had moved to Enfield, Tompkins County, New
York. The family estate had been divided many times and little was left for
a second son, so moving west was probably an economic necessity. Thousands
of others were also moving west to occupy new land opened up after the Revolutionary
War. Living nearby in Enfield was the family of John Roloson, who had come
from New Jersey. Judah married John’s son Peter on 17 February 1825. Five
days after her eighteenth birthday in 1826 she bore her first child. Between
her fourth child in 1830 and fifth in 1832 the young Rolosons moved to Hornby
and settled in the eastern part of the town, they began clearing the land,
and eventually owned about 500 acres. This photo of their homestead house
was taken in the early 1900s. Located at Taft and Wilson Hollow Roads it is
still occupied (2001).
Photo from collection of Hornby Historical Society
Judah’s ancestors in America can be
traced back to Richard Kirby of Massachusetts, whose name first appeared
on the records of New England in 1636 as an inhabitant of Lynn which is about
ten miles northeast of Boston. “The Kirbys of New England”, a book written
in 1898 by Melatiah Everett Dwight details the history of the family. In
1637, together with others of Lynn, Richard moved to Cape Cod, and began
the settlement of the town of Sandwich. Records show that in 1638 he was
fined for having swine unringed, but more serious trouble was to follow.
Richard was a member of the Puritan Church, but in the autumn of 1656, Nicholas
Upsiall, a Puritan of Boston who had been exiled for protesting against the
imprisonment of Mary Fisher, the first Quaker to appear in Boston, found
temporary refuge in Sandwich. The Plymouth records of this date contain a
complaint that, "Nicholas Upsiall, Richard Kirby, the wife of John Newland,
and others, did frequently meet together at the house of William Allen in
Sandwich on the Lord's day and other times. They inveighed against ministers
and magistrates, to dishonor God and show contempt of the government." So
it appears that Richard was one of the first persons in this country to embrace
the principles of the Friends or Quakers. Yet it is not certain that he ever
actually became a member of the Society of Friends. The Puritan church of
Sandwich was reported to be the most bigoted and intolerant in the Plymouth
Colony and he may have just associated with the Quakers out of sympathy for
the cause of religious liberty. Perhaps to elude persecution, in about 1660
he moved to Dartmouth where he remained until his death in about 1687. Richard
Kirby, Jr. also embraced the Quaker cause in Sandwich and records indicate
numerous fines imposed on him for attending meetings and the confiscation
of fifteen cows to pay some of those fines. The next three generations (Robert,
Silas and Nathaniel) lived in the Dartmouth/Westport area until Nathaniel’s
son Ichabod (Judah's father) and his family left for Enfield.
This picture is
reportedly of the entire Roloson family, Judah, Peter and fifteen children;
however, only six have been identified.
Photo from collection of Carolyn Winters
I am
descended from Judah’s third child Lysander who married Lydia Covenhoven,
daughter of Daniel Covenhoven and Clarissa Owen. This picture of Lysander
and Lydia was taken with their son Herman (my great grandfather) in about
1915.
Photo from collection of George Rogers
Herman
married Catherine (Rena) Elizabeth Bassage, daughter of English immigrant
Jesse Bassage, and had only one child, Josephine Betty (pictured below) who
married Charles Godfrey Rogers. Charles was the son of George Lee Rogers
who helped build the Panama Canal and the great grandson of Peter Rogers
who settled in Hornby in about 1831. Josephine and her third baby died during
childbirth and Herman and Rena, although in their fifties, cared for Josephine’s
two young children until Charles remarried twelve years later.
Photo from collection of George Rogers
