THOMAS AND LYDIA ROGERS DRAPER
It now appears reasonably certain that Thomas Draper, ancestor of the first Mormon Drapers, was born December 19, 1739, at Newton, Massachusetts. He was not far from there in 1769 when a child was born to him and Lydia Rogers, his wife, in the Hudson'River Valley in New York state.
A complete and accurate list of names and birthrates of all the children of Thomas and Lydia was made by their son, David Clark Draper, sometime before he died in Kirtland in 1841, but for some reason he failed to record the birthplace of any of them. Nevertheless, it has been very helpful in clearing up disputed facts in the family concerning the order in which the children were born as well as the dates when they were born. (A photostat of the list made by David appears in The Mormon Drapers, p. 19.)
The conclusion that Thomas and Lydia were in the Hudson Valley during the first years of their married life is deduced from the historical facts stated earlier in the section entitled "The Puritan Drapers in America," and a record of the birthplace of their third child, William, which is given as "Little Nine Partners," Dutchess County, New York. (Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, p. 848, published in 1914.) The odd name, "Little Nine Partners" was given to one of many tracts of land granted by the English Crown or Colonial governors to influential colonial groups or individuals who held land for speculation, and not to be given for a nominal price to poor immigrants seeking cheap lands for permanent settlement.
Sometime later it seems that they drifted into Pennsylvania. Indeed, it may be that they thought they were in Pennsylvania before they got out of New York. Boundary lines were uncertain in the western wilderness until after the Revolutionary War. Massachusetts claimed that her western border extended to the Pacific Ocean, including all the northern portion of Pennsylvania, though the latter resisted such claims.
A glance at a map of the United States will show that the northernmost boundary line of Pennsylvania is the 42nd parallel until it reaches the Delaware River (it is interesting to note that the 42nd parallel forms a part of the northern border of Utah). If it had continued along that line to Connecticut, most of that part of New York forming a triangle between Pennsylvania and Connecticut would have been in Pennsylvania, including Dutchess County where William Draper Sr. was born. None of the original colonies were sure of their western boundaries until long after the Revolutionary War. It is quite likely, therefore, that early emigrants moving into that raw and unmarked wilderness thought themselves to be in Pennsylvania, but they were in New York state.
Thomas and Lydia were undoubtedly in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania, for Zemira Draper, their grandson, made a record in which he speaks of Luzerne, Wyoming, and Susquehanna County in Pennsylvania. But they could hardly have been there until after 1779, especially in Luzerne County which is in the Wyoming Valley, because most of the inhabitants were slaughtered or driven out of there in 1778 by Indians with the help of the English. (See Western Expansion, 3rd printing, 1952, p. 95; also Encyclopedia Americana, vol. 22, pp. 531-532.) If the Drapers had been there and escaped, certainly the memories of it would have become a legend among their descendants.
Assuming that Thomas and Lydia moved into the Wyoming Valley about 1780, the record begins to take on certainty after that date. They remained in the valley until about 1790, when news of the opening to settlement of the Mohawk Valley in northern New York reached them. It contained much better agricultural land than the Wyoming Valley, which is devoted more to coal production that to agriculture. They reached and settled at Rome, New York, either in the fall of 1790 or in the Spring of 1791. Up to 1790, three sons and five daughters were born to them. The sons were all alive at that time, but the status of the daughters at that time is unknown. Thomas, Jr. was married and probably living apart from the family.
The above are mentioned to show that the family was listed in the first census ever taken in the United States. The only Thomas with a family listed in New York was a Thomas Draper and his family at Watervliet, a town less than one hundred miles from Rome, New York. They were enumerated as follows:
Males, including heads of family 16 years of age or older 3
Males under 16 1
Females (no age stated) including heads of family 5
Comparing this data with known facts concerning the family of Thomas and Lydia Rogers, we find the following males whose ages were as follows:
Thomas, the father, age 51
Thomas Jr., age 21
William, age 16
which is exactly three males, including the head of the family, sixteen years of age or older. The male in the family, who was under the age of 16, was Carr, age 14. This also fits the census description. Females in the family including the head of the family were five in number according to the census. But there were six females in the family of Thomas and Lydia, including Lydia. They were:
Lydia, mother, about age 46
Lydia, daughter, age 18
Mercy, daughter, age 12
Patience, daughter, age 9
Olive, daughter, age 7
Mary, daughter, age 6
Lydia, the daughter, might have been married and not at home when the census was taken; of if not, one of the daughters had died before 1790. There can be no doubt that the family enumerated was the family of Thomas and Lydia and it was one of the big thrills that came to the author in making this discovery, for it is another proof that the Thomas Draper born December 19, 1739 at Newton, Massachusetts is the same Thomas who married Lydia Rogers, for there is no evidence that he was dead in 1790 and no other Thomas Draper appeared in the census elsewhere. Careful study of the 1790 U.S. census disclosed only one Thomas in eight northern states, comprising all of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, and that was the Thomas and family described above.
Furthermore, as shown in the section entitled "The Puritan Drapers in America," only four Puritan males named Thomas were born in America from the time James and Miriam came to America until the first census was taken in 1790. They were: (1) Thomas who married Relief Hyde. He died in October, 1769. (2) A son of Thomas and Relief who died November 28, 1738, (3) another son of the same couple who was still alive in 1790, and (4) a son of John Draper who married Lydia Cheney and had but one child, who could not, therefore, have been the Thomas enumerated at Watervliet, in New York. (See The Drapers in America, pp. 146, 180, 181; and Vital Records of Newton, under Drapers.)
The following year Thomas and Lydia reached Rome and settled there. On April 24, 1795 Lydia presented Thomas with twins--Lucretia and Joel. This completed their family. Thomas was then fifty-six years old and Lydia could hardly have been more than fifty, for women seldom have children after that age. She was probably a little younger. Sometime after the twins were born (exact time not known), they moved to Canada and settled near Kingston. What persuaded them to move again can only be surmised. Their son William did not go With them. He married at Rome in 1794 and apparently was bound to stay there. All of the rest of the children went along.
It is just possible that their eldest son, Thomas Jr., led the way. He married a girl named Brown, but the marriage failed. He, therefore, may have been restless and unsettled. Kingston was not far away, and being an old city by this time, it could have drawn him to it. If he liked the country, he was not so far away that he could not return and fire the imagination of the family with stories of a richer life than could be found in the raw country of the Mohawk Valley. This supposition may be far from actuality, but the fact is that they did move there and settled on a lake that still bears the name "Draper Lake."
Before this study was begun, there were those who hinted that Thomas and Lydia were Tories and moved to Canada to escape the Revolutionary War, but it can now be seen that all their children were born in the United States, the last being born at Rome in 1795, at which time the war was long over. It was land that pulled them like a magnet. Thomas and Lydia remained in Canada until they died and possibly all their descendants would have done the same if it had not been for Brigham Young and other missionaries who fired their imaginations of a new heaven on earth and exaltation In the worlds to come. Lydia died in April, 1807, but Thomas seems to have lived on until about 1817. The stories of their descendants are more specific (and fill the remainder of the book written by the author). The record of family as made by David Clark Draper, is repeated here with some additional data:
Name Born Died Married
1. Thomas Jan 22, 1769
Probably in Dutchess Co, N.Y. Before reaching Utah 1....Brown
2. Mary Mosier
2. Lydia Mar. 19, 1772
Dutchess Co. N.Y.
3. William Sept. 9, 1774
Little Nine Partners Dec. 24, 1854 1. Lydia Lathrop
2. Mary Mosier (#2 above)
4. Carson (Carr) Dec. 6., 1776
Dtuchess Co. N.Y. After Kirtland in Canada Mary Seager
5. Mercy April 1, 1778
New York or Pennsylvania New York or Pennsylvania
6. Patience Jan. 6. 1781
Pennsylvania Probably Pennsylvania
7. Olive Sept. 7, 1783
Pennsylvania Probably Pennsylvania
8. Mary March 17, 1786
Pennsylvania Probably Pennsylvania
9. David Clark April 24, 1791
Pennsylvania 1841 at Kirtland, Ohio Mary German
10. Lucretia
(twin) Aug. 27 1795
Rome, N.Y. Probably in Canada
11. Joel
(twin) Aug. 27, 1795
Rome, N.Y. Probably in Canada
-Delbert M. Draper, The Mormon Drapers, pp. 19-23
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