Details

Abstract / Summary

The Johnson family’s roots stem back to the early settlement of New York. Early residents include Lancaster Symes ( -1729), Samuel Bard (1742-1821), and Peter Roosevelt (1763-1833), nephew of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s great-great grandfather, Isaac.

Lancaster Symes ( -1729) came to New York in 1690 as a British officer and later became a businessman. He received a land grant for parts of Staten Island from Queen Anne. Symes married, in 1694, widow Catherine de Hart Larkin ( -1750); they had four children, one being Lancaster Symes ( -1756) who married, in 1729, Maria Lydius. They had three children: Lancaster (1729- ); Sussanna Catherine; and Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Symes (1736-1801), daughter of Lancaster and Maria Lydius Symes, married three times: first to Rev. Dominie Frelinghouse (1723-1758?); second, in 1762, to Peter Roosevelt (1732?-1762), by whom she had one son, Peter Roosevelt (1763-1833); and third, in 1770, to William Lupton (1728-1796), by who she had three children, William (1771- ), Lancaster (1775?-1803), and Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Lupton (1777-1803), daughter of William and Elizabeth Symes Lupton, married, in 1797, John Barent Johnson (1769-1803), a minister in the Dutch Reform Church who served as pastor in Albany and Brooklyn, New York. They both died of tuberculosis in 1803, she three months after the birth of her last child and he six months after that. The Johnsons had three children: Maria Laidie (1798- ); William Lupton (1800-1870); and Samuel Roosevelt.

Samuel Roosevelt Johnson (1802-1873), along with his siblings, was raised by his half-uncle, Peter Roosevelt (1763-1833) in New York. Johnson became an Episcopal minister in 1823 and served in Hyde Park, New York; Lafayette, Indiana; Brooklyn, New York, at the General Theological Seminary; and, until his death, Amenia, New York. He married, in 1826, Elizabeth Johnston (1809-1879), the daughter of John Johnston (1762-1850) and Susan Bard Johnston (1772-1845). Samuel Roosevelt and Elizabeth Johnston Johnson had four children: Peter Roosevelt; Susan Bard; William Allen; and George Barent.

Peter Roosevelt Johnson (1827-1905), the oldest child of Samuel and Elizabeth Johnston Johnson, was a physician from 1851 to 1866, after which he stopped practicing medicine to study literature and oriental religions. He married, in 1865, Mary Chamberlain Hunt (1839-1916), who was one of ten children of Henry Wentworth Hunt and Frances Elizabeth Howard Hunt (1794-1871).

Peter Roosevelt and Mary Chamberlain Hunt Johnson had nine children, including: Mary Roosevelt (1866-1954?); Frances Hunt (1870-1925), who married in 1922 William Lincoln Palmer (1868-1943); Susan Bard (1868-1957?); Roosevelt Johnson (1873-1931), who moved to California, married Teresa Abeel ( -1923); Elizabeth Howard (1867-1931); Margaret (“Madge”) Howell (1879-1940); and William Colet.

Henry Wentworth Hunt (1774-1857), the father of Mary Chamberlain Hunt Johnson, trained in Worcester, Massachusetts, in the book binding and printing business from 1790 to 1794. After the death of his first wife, he was a soldier in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, from 1804 to 1809; he eventually joined the Mexican forces. From 1817 to 1819, he was commissioned to oversee the building of fortifications in Florida, and in 1822 founded the newspaper The Corrector, which he managed for the remainder of his life.

Susan Bard Johnson (1829-1860), the daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth Johnston Johnson, married James S. Purdy. They had two children: Elizabeth (1856?-1946), who became an Episcopal nun and was renamed Elisa Monica; and Lawson.

William Allen Johnson (1833-1909), the second son of Samuel and Elizabeth Johnston Johnson, became an Episcopal minister and served in churches in Bainbridge, New York; Burlington, New Jersey; and Salisbury, Con

Field of Interest

Letters and Diaries

Content Type

Letter

Duration

0 sec

Format

Text

Page Count

4106

Publication Year

2009

Publisher

Alexander Street

Place Published / Released

Alexandria, VA

Subject

Letters and Diaries, History, Daily Life, Domestic life