ROE FAMILY

Reference: The Diary of Captain Daniel Roe, an Officer of the French and Indian War and of the Revolution with Introduction and Notes by Alfred Seelye Roe, a Great-Grandson (1904)

Daniel Roe, of Brookhaven, Long Island, was the third in descent from John Roe or Rowe who settled in Drowned Meadow, now Port Jefferson, in 1667. Of this first settler, it is claimed that he was born in Ireland in 1628, that he came to America in 1655, and to Southampton, L.I. five years later. He was a shoemaker by trade and agreed to be of service in this capacity to his fellow settlers. In his will, drawn in 1711, he mentions himself as "Cordwainer." to him were assigned the acres ly8ing along the head of Brookhaven harbor, and to this day, the streets of Port Jefferson are largely parallel to the winding shores of that beautiful body of water. For more than a hundred years, the settlement had few accessions; as late as 1797 there were but five dwelling houses, one, that of the first John Roe; a second was that of Phillips Roe, and a third was erected by John Roe, father of the Captain. In 1812 there were only nineteen houses, a veritable Sleepy Hollow, till the introduction and growth of shipbuilding made the bustling village, and brought, in 1836, the name, "Port Jefferson."

In this quiet place, and in its vicinity, the Roes lived for at least three generations, and their graves were made and preserved in a family burial ground till, in the march of events, a new street was laid through and what was left of their bones found final burial in the new cemetery, finely placed, but not where the fathers chose to sleep.

To John Roe and his wife, Hannah, were born sons, John and Nathaniel.

Nathaniel Roe married Hannah Reeve, of Southold, of the family which later gave to Connecticut her famous jurist, Judge Tappan Reeve, of the Litchfield Law School.

To this Nathaniel and his wife, Hannah, came also sons, Nathaniel and John; reversed order. From this third Nathaniel descended the Hudson River Roes, including E.P. Roe, the novelist, also the Roes of Cortland and Tompkins counties. John Roe, of the third generation, married widow Joanna (Miller) Helme, of Miller's Place, of the town of Brookhaven. John Miller is found at Easthampton in 1649 and married a sister of Abraham Pierson, afterwards the first President of Yale College. John's son, Andrew, later became the first settler in Miller's place, a hamlet of Brookhaven. The Miller descent was John, Andrew, Andrew, Joanna. She married, first Thomas Helme, who was killed while felling a tree, leaving an infant son, Thomas, Jr. The family name was one of the best on eastern Long Island. Like his half-brother, Captain Roe, he bore his part in the Revolutionary struggle. The Rev. A.M.Roe, of Fulton, says, "I often heard my father (Austin Roe) speak of Uncle Helme." In 1775, Thomas Helme was one of the heaviest taxpayers in the town.

John Roe and hiss wife, Joanna, had sons John, Justus, Azel, Daniel and Austin; daughters, Joanna, Amy and Hannah. John Roe of the fourth generation retained the homestead erected by his father, and in it a direct descendant, Charles F., is living now. Justus lived chiefly in Setauket; Azel, a graduate of Princeton College, 1756, for more than fifty years was pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Woodbridge, N.J. He, too, did valiant service in the Revolution, suffering imprisonment in the Sugar House, of New York. Several interesting letters from him to his brothers are still extant; a grandson was A.S. Roe, the novelist; Austin lived on the south shore near Patchogue; Joanna married James Davis; Amy, _____ Woodhull; Hannah, Isaac Davis. Of Austin, above, it should be stated that he bore the title "Captain" from service in the militia, and that, during the earlier part of his life, he kept a tavern in Setauket, where his unmarried brother, Justus, made his home with him. Later he moved to the south shore. When in April, 1790, Gen4eral Washington made his tour of Long Island, he has for the 22d, in part, the following entry: "From Hart's we struck across the Island for the No. side, to Setaket 7 miles to the House of Capt. Roe, which is tolerably dect. [decent] with obliging people in it." He left Roe's at 8 the next morning. Had the President cared to record all the happenings of that 22d, he might have added that Capt. Roe had the misfortune to break his leg while hurrying home to receive His Excellency and, as a consequence, was lame for the rest of his life.

Daniel Roe, the fourth son of John and Joanna, was born Jan. 20, 1740, in the house built by his father, and still standing in Port Jefferson; he died Jan. 11, 1820 at his long-time residence in Westfields, now Selden, near the middle of Long Island; the post-office was Coram. He was married April 22, 1762 to Deborah, daughter of Joseph Brewster, of Setauket, in the township of Brookhaven.

The Brewster line on Long Island is from Nathaniel, the first regular pastor of the church in said township. He was a graduate of the first class in Harvard College, 1642, and is claimed to be the first native American graduate. While the statement is disputed by Savage, Thompson in his History of Long Island, and Prime in his Ecclesiastical Story of the Island, say he was the grandson of Elder William Brewster of the "Mayflower," his father having been Jonathan, the Elder's oldest son. [ NOTE: we do not believe this Mayflower connection is true, see: record for Timothy Brewster and subsequent notes.] Nathaniel Brewster married Lucretia, daughter of Roger Ludlow, Deputy Governor of Massachusetts in 1634; later was Deputy Governor of Connecticut, dying in Virginia in 1665. Brewster preached for a number of years in England, coming to Setauket in 1655 and continuing till his death in 1690. His sons became prominent citizens of the new town, and of them Timothy married Mary Hawkins, probably daughter of Zachary, another of the founders. Their son, Joseph, married Ruth Biscoe/Briscoe, of a Milford, Conn. family. To Joseph and Ruth came a numerous family, of whom a second Joseph was an influential citizen; a dau., Mary, was married to John Roe, Daniel's elder brother; and Deborah, born Sept. 10, 1741 became the joint progenitor of the extended family which looks to Daniel and Deborah Roe for ancestral authority. She died Jan. 2, 1832 and with her Captain sleeps in the family burial ground across the road from the homestead.

The low-studded house is filled with bullet holes, marks of Tory hate, made when the patriot mother held the fort, while her husband was away and before the flight. During the early Revolutionary days, she had the help of Tom Ryant, who had been reared in the family, and Ruth Dayton, who had been hired for this purpose. During the family absence, the place was occupied by a Tory neighbor, who made the most of his opportunity, and from whom, we are told, damages were later obtained. It is said that a particular grievance to him was the fact that Captain Roe came back in time to harvest a crop of corn which the Tory had planted and expected to gather.

The Long Islanders in those days were a prolific people and our ancestors had twelve children, of whom all but two lived to maturity and nearly all to advanced ages. Sheldon R. Overton, a grandson born in 1800, said of the Captain: "he was rather under the average stature, dark of eyes and complexion, quick and active in his bearing, not unlike his youngest son, Austin." Of Deborah, the Rev. Austin M. Roe says: "She was a small woman with flashing, black eyes, an object of tenderest affection to all her children, and was seventy-two years old when I was born, hence quite past the period of activity." Another grandson, Joseph B. Roe, said of Deborah Brewster: "She possesses great fortitude, patience and equanimity of mind, although she was slender and delicate in person.

The children of this worthy couple, in order, were Daniel, Joseph, Brewster, Deborah, John, Joanna, Charlotte, Ruth, Mary, Hannah, Rebecca and Hulda (twins), and Austin, of which list the last four were born while the family was in exile and living in Connecticut during the Revolution. The regularity of the advent of children to this household from the first in 1762 to the last in 1782, with an interval of two years in every case, is worthy the study of sociologists; evidently Nature had her own way to the letter.

Hannah, the 10th child of Captain Daniel and Deborah (Brewster) Roe was born in Connecticut April 8, 1778 and died March 16, 1854. She was the wife of Zophar Hallock, a scion of another long-settled Island family; through Daniel, Jonathan, John, William, his lineage went back to Peter Hallock, one of the very first to settle in Southold. Their home was in what was once called New Village, now Lake Grove, a few miles wet of the Captain's home, and here they reared their family of nine children: Nancy, Laura, John Foaster, Almira, Mary Eliza who married Isaac Albert L'Hommedieu, Daniel, Charlotte, Samuel and Harriet.