Two nights ago I discovered an online version of the 1795 report on the Maccan-Nappan leases made by Captain John MacDonald to J. F. W. Desbarres. The report on Maccan-Nappan begins at image 736 in reel C-1455. I was able to view a few pages as a preview but it seems the site requires a subscription. In trying to understand where the properties of my great grandfathers were located I will inevitably need to know the history of every property mentioned in the report and the family histories of their neighbours and this will be a valuable resource.
I think I've finally found my niche in genealogy. For some reason, I'm completely captivated by the idea of mapping out original settlements. I want to know exactly where old homesteads and leases were located and I want to visit those places and walk around on those lands. I'd love to create a virtual version of the old Maccan and Nappan areas on a website like Second Life to help me better visualize the community. When I paint, I'm only interested in painting landscapes. I wonder if it's connected.
Two nights ago I discovered an online version of the 1795 report on the Maccan-Nappan leases made by Captain John MacDonald to J. F. W. Desbarres. The report on Maccan-Nappan begins at image 736 in reel C-1455. I was able to view a few pages as a preview but it seems the site requires a subscription. In trying to understand where the properties of my great grandfathers were located I will inevitably need to know the history of every property mentioned in the report and the family histories of their neighbours and this will be a valuable resource.
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I recently became very confused reading the description of the original Amherst Township boundary lines. According to the description, the western boundary was the Nappan River and the edge of a property owned by Adam Gmelin. However, I knew that DesBarres had owned that property. It turns out that DesBarres sued Gmelin for 200 pounds and acquired the land in a court-ordered sale. Whew and thanks to Peter Landry who posted this information as a timeline item in his online biography of DesBarres! Because it was 8,000 acres I'd originally assumed it was a grant to DesBarres and couldn't figure out how it was also granted to Gmelin. In the search I realized that this edge of property owned by Gmelin and running straight southeast 6 miles and 70 chains must be the Gmelin line that Myrtle Chappell talks about in Fenwick 1778 to 1978. This line runs north-south through Fenwick right past the Community Centre. So DesBarres' land extended from the Maccan River to Fenwick. This explains how both my 3rd great grandfather William Ripley in Maccan and my 2nd great grandfather Andrew C. Ripley in Fenwick could have acquired their property from DesBarres. See the Fletcher Lease Page on this website for more details.
Last night when I was trying to sort out the Blinkhorn family I remembered that there was a section on the Blinkhorns in Bernard Bailyn's book Voyagers to the West. The reason I'd been working on the Blinkhorn family tree is because they owned the property just to the north of the William Ripley purchase from DesBarres. It turns out that in 1795 Captain John MacDonald, an agent for DesBarres, had made a tour of all of the DesBarres leased lands in Nappan and Maccan and given a full report. He was especially impressed with the farm of William Blinkhorn which he described in great detail, and with Thomas Coates and William Pipes Jr. (both my 4th great grandfathers). I learned that Thomas and William had organized and raised money for a community initiative to build a bridge across the Nappan River and that William had nearly failed as a farmer the first three years but now prospered and had built an especially fine barn. Bailyn quoted extensively from a biography of DesBarres by Geraint Evans entitled The Uncommon Obdurate: the several public carreers of J. F. W. DesBarres. I ordered it for about $10 from Amazon and can't wait to read it as I expect there will also be reports about the farms of William Ripley and possibly Henry Ripley who also leased from DesBarres. DesBarres lived to be 104 and danced on a table to celebrate his 100th birthday. Bailyn, who is 91, is still a history professor at Harvard. Along with my 3 octogenarians in Maccan , it seems I'm getting lots of help from the older generations this week. |
AuthorHi there! My name is Mallory Burton and I started researching the Ripley family in 2011. I'd describe myself as a careful amateur who's more interested in story than names and dates. I hope you enjoy my website and blog. I also have a public Mallory/Ripley tree on Ancestry with over 4,000 names. To contact me, please comment on any one of my blog posts. Archives
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