NORTHERN NEW YORK
Genealogical and family history of northern New York: a record of the achievements of her people and the making of a commonwealth and the founding of a nation.
New York: Lewis Historical Pub. Co. 1910.



PLATT



Transcribed by Coralynn Brown


The surname Platt is of ancient English origin, but the family is numerous neither in this county or Great Britain.

(I) Deacon Richard Platt, immigrant ancestor of all of the surname in this country, came from Hertfordshire, England, and settled as early as 1638 in New Haven, Conn., from there he went to Milford, Conn., where he lived until his death in 1684 or 1685. He was admitted a freeman before 1669, when his name appears on the list. His wife Mary died and was buried Jan. 24, 1676. His will bequeathed to all his sons, to the children of his daughter Mary by her second husband, Thomas Wetherell, and Hannah, wife of Christopher Comstock, and Sarah, who married Thomas Beach and Miles Merwin.
Children:
1. Mary, married (first) May 1, 1651, Luke Atkinson; (second), Jan. 3, 1667, Thomas Wetherell.
2. John, settled in Norwalk; married Hannah Clark.
3. Isaac, settled in Huntington, Long Island, with his brother, and has many descendants in that section.
4. Sarah.
5. Epenetus, baptized July 12, 1640; mentioned below.
6. Hannah, born Oct. 1, 1643.
7. Josiah, 1645.
8. Joseph, 1649; married 1680, Mary Kellogg.

(II) Epenetus, son of Deacon Richard Platt, was born in 1640 and baptized at New Haven, July 12, 1640. He died at Huntington, Long Island in 1693. He and his brother Isaac were among the pioneer settlers in the town of Huntington, Long Island, and both were patentees there in 1672. He became a citizen of influence and substance and was among those imprisioned by Andros in 1681 for resisting his tyranny.
He married Phebe, probably daughter of Jonas Wood.
Children:
1. Phebe, born March19, 1669.
2. Mary, Jan. 11, 1672.
3. Epenetus, April 4, 1674; represented Suffolk county from 1717 to 1720 in the state colonial assembly.
4. Hannah, Aug. 23, 1679.
5. Elizabeth, March 1, 1682.
6. Jonas, April 24, 1684.
7. Jeremiah, Nov. 25, 1686.
8. Ruth, June 15, 1687.
9. Sarah, Feb. 4, 1692.

(III) Jonas, son of Epenetus Platt, was born at Huntington, Long Island, New York, April 24, 1684. He purchased the farm at Sunk Meadows owned by Jeremiah Platt, a descendant, and lived there from 1717 until the time of his death. His only son Zephaniah, mentioned below.

(IV) Zephaniah, son of Jonas Platt, was born in Huntington, N.Y., in 1704, died Jan. 2, 1778. He favored the colonies during the revolution and was imprisioned by the British in New York. He was restored to liberty afater a personal appeal made to Sir Henry Clinton by his daughter Dorothea, but he caught the smallpox while in prison and his death followed.
He married (first) Hannah Saxton; (second) Anna Smith, widow of Richard Smith and daughter of Job Smith. His sons, Zephaniah, Daniel, Charles and Nathaniel, bought military land warrants on Lake Champlain in 1784, surveyed the land and established the town of Plattsburgh, named for the family.
Children, born at Huntington:
1. Jonas, 1731, died 1775; married Temperance Smith.
2. Zephaniah, mentioned below.
3. Nathaniel, settled at Plattsburgh.
4. Charles, settled at Plattsburgh.
5. Hannah.
6. Elizabeth.
Children of second wife:
7. Jeremiah, had the homestead at Smithtown, Long Island.
8. Daniel, settled at Plattsburgh.
9. Sarah.
10. Dorothea.

(V) Judge Zephaniah (2), son of Zephaniah (1) Platt, ws born at Huntington, May 27, 1735. He settled at Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where he lived for many years, then removed with his brothers to Plattsburgh. He was an ardent patriot during the revolution. He was a member of the New York convention of 1776 to form a constitution; of the committee of safety with John Jay from Dutchess county; member of the provincial congress; was senator in 1778, and was one of the convention to vote for federal constitution. He was the first judge of probate of Dutchess county, almost from its origin in 1795; regent of the state university. The patentees of Plattsburgh offered ten lots of one hundred acres each to the first ten settlers who came there with their families and a similar grant to the first male child born there. Few families in New York state have produced so many distinguished citizens in the civil service. He died at Plattsburgh, Sept. 12, 1807, aged seventy-two years.
He married (first) Hannah David; (second) Mary Van Wyck, born June 20, 1743, died October 1809, aged sixty-six.
Children of first wife:
1. Zephaniah, born Jan. 3, 1756.
2. Hannah, March 26, 1758.
Children of second wife:
3. Theodorus, March 23, 1763; first surrogate of Clinton county, 1788.
4. Elizabeth, April 12, 1765, died Feb. 7, 1787; married General John Smith.
5. Mary, July 12, 1767; died young.
6. Jonas, June 30, 1769; member of the New York assembly; member of congress; of the state senate; judge of the supreme court; married Helen Livingston.
7. William Pitt, April 30, 1771; mentioned below.
8. Charles, July 22, 1773; member of the New York assembly; lived in Oneida county; state treasurer in 1813.
9. Nathaniel, Dec. 16, 1775.
10. Robert, Oct. 21, 1778, member of the assembly from Clinton county in 1814, from Franklin county in 1815; married Mary Daggett.
11. Mary, August 21, 1780; married Abraham Brinkerhoff.
12. Levi, April 17, 1782.
13. David, June 6, 1784.
14. James, Jan. 2, 1788; mayor of Oswego in 1848, state senator 1850-53; married Eliza, daughter of Floyd and Susan K. (Woolsey) Aucamuty.

(VI) Deacon William Pitt, son of Judge Zephanish (2) Platt, ws born at Plattsburgh, April 30, 1771. He was a farmer and large land owner. His home was on Cumberland Head, the scene of the battle of Plattsburgh in 1814. He was an honest, earnest and energetic man of strong convictions and outspoken opinions. He died Aug. 13, 1835, aged sixty-four.
He married, Oct. 11, 1790, Hannah, daughter of Moss and Hannah (Rogers) Kent. (See Rogers V.) She was of superior culture and intellect, and though totally blind during the last twenty years of her life, her features were still full of the beauty of her youth to the end of her life, and she was ever bright, attractive and always gentle, affectionate and cheeful in her spirit and her manners to all around her. She had at her command a large fund of anecdotes and pleasing reminiscences and delighted in sharing them with a charming enthusiasm of her own.
Children, born at Plattsburgh:
1. James Kent, Feb. 11, 1792, died April 4, 1824; fitted for college by his uncle, Moss Kent; graduated at the Medical College at Middlebury, Vermont; continued the study of medicine in London and Continental hospitals and schools; began to practice medicine in parthership with Dr. B. J. Mooers, of Plattsburgh; appointed professor in the medical department of Burlington College, Vermont, and gave one course of lectures before he was obliged by ill health to resign; two children, died young.
2. Zephaniah, Aug. 12, 1794; married, Feb. 3, 1828, Lucretia, daughter of Thomas Miller; children: i. Elizabeth, died young. ii. Mary, died March 29, 1880; married James Westcott and Edmund Hathaway.
3. Mary, July 15, 1796; mentioned below.
4. William, Feb. 25, 1799, died Feb. 10, 1829.
5. Elizabeth, May 16, 1806; mentioned below.
6. Hon. Moss Kent, May 3, 1809; mentioned below.

(VII) Mary, daughter of Deacon William Pitt Platt, was born at Plattsburgh, July 15, 1796, died April 8, 1868, aged seventy-two years. She married Dr. Benjamin John Mooers, son of John Mooers of Haverhill, Mass. and Plattsburgh, N.Y. Dr. Mooers was a useful citizen and a skillful physician.
Children, born at Plattsburgh:
1. Eliza Mooers, July 24, 1815; married Amherst Douglas Fouquet; children: i. Susan Abigail Fouquet, born March 9, 1837; married P. Tenney Gates. ii. Mary Platt Fouquet, Oct. 22, 1842, married Archibald Achison. iii. Elizabeth Platt Fouquet, Dec. 13, 1848. iv. Anna Douglas Fouquet, April 5, 1848 [transcriber's note: something is amiss here...1848 is entered twice, one in Dec., one in April. My guess is that one of these is a typo], died April 8, 1822.
3. Hannah Maria Mooers, Nov. 27, 1821; married Theodore Platt Cady, of Plattsburgh, and (second) De Witt Clinton Boynton; children: i. Pauline Cady, born Aug. 25, 1840, married Chauncey Stoddard. ii. Hiram Wentworth Cady, Nov. 19, 1842, married Augusta Wood and has Theodore and Catherine Wood Cady. iii. Benjamin Mooers Cady, April 6, 1845, married Ella Wood and had Frederick Mooers Cady and Walworth Cady. iv. Theodore Cady, April 14, 1847, married Robert Bailey. [transcriber's note: this couple no doubt includes a female named either Theodore or Robert, which is strange].
4. William Pitt Platt Mooers, Jan. 9, 1824; married Jan. 27, 1846, Marian Catherine Boynton;; he was a merchant in Plattsburgh; member of the assembly, 1878-80; treasurer of Clinton county, 1855-57; treasurer, 1864-66 of the Whitehall & Plattsburgh Railroad Company and for nearly thirty years director of the First National Bank; children: i. John Boynton Mooers, died young. ii. Moss Platt Mooers, born 1850, died Sept., 1877. iii. William Boynton Mooers, 1855; married Jeanette McCain and had Benjamin Knox Mooers, 1870.
5. Mary Mooers, July 11, 1825; married June 1, 1842, Arnold Stukeley Stoddard, born Aug. 26, 1816, in Peru, N.Y., son of Chauncey and Matilda (Arnold) Stoddard, of Woodbury, Conn.; settled in St. Louis, Missouri; children: i. Matilda Arnold Stoddard, born May 25, 1844; married P. C. Docley, lawyer, of Little Rock, Arkansas. ii. Eliza Fouquet Stoddard, March 31, 1846, married Charles H. Peck Jr., of St. Louis, Missouri. iii. Mary Mooers Stoddard, Nov. 3, 1851, married ____ Drummond, of Little Rock.
6. Dr. John Henry Mooers, Nov. 27, 1827; married Helen Boynton; he was assistant surgeon in the Union army in 1861, Sixteenth New York Regiment, later surgeon in the One Hundred and Eighteenth Regiment of New York to the end of the civil war; was killed 1868 in an expedition against the Indians under Colonel Forsythe; child, John Boynton Mooers.
7. Moss Kent Mooers, died young.
8. Renmain Mooers, died young.
9. Sophia Whitside Mooers, July 26, 1829; married William Demming Morgan; children: i. Lucy Morgan, born Oct. 29, 1850. ii. Elizabeth Morgan, Feb. 6, 1857, died 1882. iii. Platt Morgan, Sept. 8, 1860.
10. Robert Mooers, 1835, civil engineer and surveyor, removed to Decorah, Iowa about 1858; married Phebe Edwards; raised a company of which he was captain in the Fifth Minnesota Regiment, Colonel Sanborn; he was killed in the battle of Corinth, Mississippi, in 1862; only child, Ellen Edwards Mooers.

(VII) Elizabeth, daughter of Deacon William Pitt Platt, was born in Plattsburgh, May 15, 1806. She married Henry Ketchum Averill, who died March 31, 1841. Of Mrs. Averill, Chancellor Kent wrote: "She has been greatly affected during her life with bodily infirmities - a fact which attracted her friends all the more strongly to her by the power of sympathy. She was a woman of strong mind and of strong feelings and of great energy and decision of character. She had won deeply upon my respect and regard for her."
Children:
1. James Kent Averill, born March 10, 1825; lawyer of Champlain; married Jeanette Evans, of Grafton, Vermont; children: i. Susan A., married Sylvester Alonzo Kellogg, state senator of Nevada, 1864-66, district attorney Clinton county 1874-75, judge in 1882 and afterward; children: Ralph Averill, Henry Theodore, George Casper and Augusta Kellogg. ii. Jeanette Evans Averill, married Royal Corbin, lawyer of Plattsburgh. iii. Mary B. Averill, married Henry Hoyle of Champlain. iv. James Averill.
2. Henry Ketchum Averill Jr., born March 26, 1830; civil engineer and surveyor at Plattsburgh; married Almira Elizabeth Miller; children: Charles K. Averill, died young; Frank Lloyd Averill; Maria Elizabeth Averill; Grace Platt Averill.
3. Mary Elizabeth Averill, born July 19, 1831; married Perry E. Burch; children: Martha Laura Burch, Mary Burch, Jeanette or Jeannie Burch, William Pitt Burch.

(VII) Hon. Moss Kent, son of Deacon William Pitt Pratt, was born at Plattsburgh, May 3, 1809. He began life as clerk in a country store without the advantages of a classical or college education. He attended the district school of his native town during the short terms in which it was kept during his boyhood. From 1823 to 1830 he was clerk in a store. Upon coming of age he engaged in business as a general merchant and manufacurer of iron. He was prominent in business and distinguished in politics and all public affairs and assisted every movement for the welfare of the community in which he lived. He was state senator from the sixteenth district of New York in 1866-67, serving on important committees and wielding a large and beneficial influence in the halls of legislation, by virtue of his superior judgment, his keen insight and eloquent speech. In 1868 he was a Republican elector from the state of New York. In 1872 he was appointed inspector of state prisons, and he found in this office a larger sphere of usefullness and activity. He enjoyed the active duties of the position, because he had the opportunity of accomplishing much in improving the methods and conditions of the prisons of the state and of inculcating modern views of punishment for crime. His work was of lasting benefit to the unfortunate prisoners and even more, it is believed, to the state itself.
He was for many years ruling elder of the Presbyterian church at Plattsburgh, and in his daily life and conduct an exemplary and consistent Christian gentleman. He was of kindly and almsot courtly manners, full of charity and sympathy for the weak, suffering and unfortunate. He gave of his substance freely in benevolence and in the church. He died March, 1876.
He married (first) Oct. 14, 1830, Elizabeth, born Sept. 5, 1810, daughter of John George and Betsey (Denning) Freligh, of Bennington, Vermont. She died March 26, 1866, and he married (second) her half-sister, May 20, 1858, [transcriber's note: how could his first wife die in 1866 and he remarry in 1858?] Margaret Anne, daughter of John George and Margaret Olive (Savage) Freligh. His widow died Jan. 1908, aged ninety-four years.
Children, all by first wife:
1. Hannah Kent, born Oct. 27, 1832; married, Sept. 26, 1853, Joseph Mathew Myers, son of Lawrence and Maria Delia (Kirtland) Myers of Plattsburgh; she died Aug. 9, 1856; children: i. Elizabeth Platt Myers, born Jan. 20, 1856, died July 25, 1856. ii. Joseph Myers, resides at Plainfield, New Jersey.
2. Lucy Maria, born May 15, 1835; married Nov. 27, 1856, John Lemuel Stetson, son of Hon. Lemuel and Helen (Haskell) Stetson; he was a lawyer in Plattsburgh, active in raising the Fifty-ninth Regiment, and was commissioned its lieutenant-colonel; was killed in battle Sept. 17, 1862, shouting as he fell: "Men, rally to your colors!"
3. John Freligh, born Oct. 19, 1837, died Feb. 25, 1858, in senior years in Williams College.
4. Sarah Elizabeth, born Oct. 6, 1839; married, Oct. 17, 1859, William Ainsworth Fuller, of Plattsburgh, son of William and Eliza (Orsen) Fuller; a merchant; of their nine children three grew to maturity: i. Margaret Platt Fuller, born May 27, 1866. ii. Moss Kent Fuller, May 9, 1868. iii. Elizabeth Freligh Fuller, Sept. 9, 1874.
5. Margaret Ferligh, mentioned below.

(VIII) Margaret Freligh, daughter of Moss Kent Platt, was born at Plattsburgh, Nov. 30, 1843. She was educated in the public schools of her native city and at Montreal Seminary. She has been active and prominent in social life in Plattsburgh and in various organizations of which she is a member. She was the second regent of the Saranac Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, of Plattsburgh.
She married, Aug. 29, 1866, Michael Peter Myers, a native of Plattsburgh, son of Lawrence and Maria Delia (Kirtland) Myers, and for many years a prominent merchant there. Mr. Myers was a director of the Plattsburgh National Bank. In politics he was a Republican, in religion a Presbyterian. He took an active interest in public affairs and in every effort to improve the city, and was accounted one of its most public-spirited citizens. Their only child was John Platt Myers, born at Plattsburgh, June 1, 1886, graduate of Princeton College in the class of 1908; now clerk with the American Note Company of New York City.

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