Outwater Family - Ourfolk

Many have the notion that people in Upper Canada did not travel much. Even today, we do not expect seniors to drive to Ottawa to personally apply for their pensions.

On the eighth of June, 1847, Nelly Outwater stood before the Court of Common Pleas in Oswego County, New York. She had traveled from her home in Fredericksburgh in the County of Lennox and Addington. Her late husband was Lieut. Daniel Outwater, of the Dutchess County Militia, New York. Nelly was ninety-one years old.

. In 1836 the United States Congress had passed 'an act granting half pay and pensions to certain widows' of Revolutionary soldiers.

Nelly, was born Neeltje Harris, June 15th, 1756 at Beekman's Patent, Dutchess County, New York. Her brothers, Myndert and Baltus were Loyalists who eventually settled near Port Hope, Ontario.
On December 8th, 1774, at the Hopewell Dutch Reformed Church in Dutchess County, Daniel and Nelly were married. She recounted for the Court the witnesses who were at the wedding, performed by Rev. Rysduke. Present were Rebecca Losee, Bernard Haines, Israel Shear, Chancey Losee, Baltus and Barent Van Kleek, Eve Shear, Rebecca and Fanny Ferguson and others.
She also recalled for the court that her husband was at Fort Montgomery in 1776. She knew this because her son, Peter, was with her when she visited her husband at the Fort. Peter was one year old at the time and he had been born in September 1775. Daniel was serving under Captain William Fowler. Nelly knew her husband was a Lieutenant because he 'usually left home in his regimental clothes which were those of a Lieutenant.' Daniel Outwater also served at various posts along the Hudson River and was at the Battle of White Plains, New York in 1777. Besides young Peter, three more children were born to Nelly and Daniel by the end of the war.

It is not known exactly when the Outwaters arrived in Adolphustown but their seventh child, Barent Van Kleek Outwater, was born in Dutchess County, NY on November 14th, 1787. Nelly and her family first appear on the Lists of Adolphustown Inhabitants in 1803. A grand daughter, Debboriah Williams was born in Upper Canada about the same time.

Sometime between 1817 and 1820, Debboriah Williams married Peter Conger. Conger, was born in Morristown, New Jersey and had been a Sergeant in the 7th U.S. Infantry during the War of 1812. His father, David, had been a Captain with the rebel Morris County militia in the American Revolution. Two years before Nelly made the trip, Peter Conger, stood before an attorney in Oswego, New York and made a declaration 'in order to obtain Bounty land for Services in the last war with Great Britain.'
Conger declared that he had enlisted in the U.S. infantry at New Jersey in 1808. In 1809 he sailed with his company to New Orleans. Conger was discharged in 1815, four months after the Battle of New Orleans. Conger told the court that of the 89 men that left New Jersey with him in 1809, ' only 5 lived to return.'

It would be interesting to know what Peter's and Nelly's UEL neighbours thought of their trips to Oswego.

(Brandt Z tterberg
- Heritage Matters)