V.  PHILIP CAVERLY, SR.   1745 - 1820s
(John Sr., Peter I, Peter Gerardus, Jean)

Philip, Sr. was born March 17, 1745 at Oyster Bay, Long Island to John and Mercy (Carpenter) Caverly.  In 1753 the family moved to Ulster County, NY.  In Minutes of The Committee and First Commission For Detecting Conspiracies 1776-1778, Vol. 1 of The NY Historical Society, page 116, there is a Jan. 1777 entry as follows:  “Lieut. Nathaniel Potter by order of the Com: of New Marlborough brought to this Com:  Philip Caverly and Daniel Knolton.  Nathaniel Hull and Samuel Edmonds two members of the Committee aforesaid appear’d and delivered to this Com:  certain affidavits taken before their Com:  against the said Daniel Knolton and Philip Caverly from which it appears that the said prisoners are Notoriously disaffected to the American Cause.  Order’d that the said prisoners be committed to the Guard-house.”  Below are pictures of the church in Fishkill, NY that was used as a guardhouse during the American Revolution.  Probably due to local pressure, Philip later signed the Articles of Association and was enlisted in the 4th. Ulster Militia under Capt. Uriah Drake with land bounty rights.  The Fourth, being a militia regiment, did not perform continuous army service, but went on tours of duty to points threatened by the enemy.


Philip married Esther Harcourt, a daughter of Richard Harcourt who had also moved from Oyster Bay, L.I. one year after Philip’s family.   In a deed dated Apr. 1, 1828 in Liber 32, page 469, of Ulster Co., NY the children  of Philip and Esther, and their spouses are listed as follows:  Richard and Prudence (Merritt), Latting and Hannah (Woolsey), Philip and Maria (Clark), Peter H. and Elizabeth (Law), Jane (who later married a Patterson), Esther II (who later married Lucas Krom), and John I. and Sophia (Ludington).  At the time all were living in the Town of Marlborough except John I. and his wife Sophia who were living in the Town of New Paltz.  Clues from the 1820 census and the 1828 deed indicate Philip, Sr. died between 1820 and 1828.  Esther died between 1828 and 1842.


From Ulster Co., NY Highway Commission Records of Roads Laid Out 1722-1795, page 729A is an entry of “...in most direct way to a saw mill dam belonging to Peter and Philip Caverly”.   According to C.M. Woolsey’s History of Marlborough, Philip learned the trade of a shipwright.  In 1780 he and Joseph Wood owned a dock on the Hudson River and built sloops and vessels.  Charles H. Cochrane’s The History of the Town of Marlborough, Ulster Co., NY adds the fact that the dock was at the foot of Dog Street.  Dog St. is underlined in blue on the above abbreviated map from his book.  The town of Milton is the busier area north of Dog Street.  Most of the Caverlys had land west of Milton where Richard Caverly’s (son of Latting and Hannah) land is underlined in green near Lattingtown.   This map is dated around 1858.  By then many of the Caverlys had already moved from Ulster County, NY.

Philip’ son Richard was born about 1774 and died between 1830 and 1840.  He married Prudence Merritt, daughter of James and Martha (Bloomer) Merritt June 29, 1802 in NYC.  The 1810 and 1820 census show that they had one son.  Prudence was born June 28, 1778 and died April 22, 1842.  She is buried on the grounds behind the Lattingtown Baptist Church.

Son Latting was born  about 1777 and married Hannah Woolsey.  According to Beers Commemorative Biographical Record for Ulster Co., NY for Luther P. Caverly, his grandfather Latting "owned a farm of 125 acres, and a lot of four or five acres at Lattingtown, also a hotel and store.”  Latting and Hannah had six children:  Philip who married Nancy Parks and settled near Frankford, MO;  Johnathan who married Elmira Rhoades and remained in Ulster Co., NY;  Richard Caverly who was born about 1813 and married a Hannah;  Mercy who married John DuBois;  Esther who married William Cosman;  and Adeline who married Isaac Young.

John I. was born Aug. 26, 1779 in Marlborough, NY.  Sophia Ludington, born  May 16, 1784 in Patterson, NY, became his wife around 1810.  They had daughter Julia Ann who married James D. VerPlank, Esther Jane who married Abram Young, Sarah who married James Traphagen Ostrander, Rebecca who married John L. Krom, John L, Henry B. who married Hellena M. Krom, and Philip D. who married Mary A. Britton.  Sophia died in New York City on July 17, 1860 and she is buried at the churchyard near her parents in Patterson, Putnam Co., NY.  John I. also died in NYC on Friday, June 15, 1866.

A generation VI. Page for Philip Junior follows.

Son Peter Harcourt was born Nov. 29, 1790 and remained in the area until the 1840s when he and his wife, Elizabeth Law, moved to New York City.  They show up on page  270 of the NYC 11th. Ward census for 1850 and page 535 for the 19th Ward, 1st. District of Brooklyn for 1860.  They had ten children:  James L.,  Mary who married John Gray, Hiram L. who married Susanna C. Mead, Jane who married George Knapp, Samual Law who married M. Adeline J. Clark, Warren who married Sarah A. Fletcher, Peter H. who married Susan Bradley, Elizabeth, Catharine, and Orman.

Philip and Esther’s daughter Esther II became the wife of widower Lucas Krom.  The 1850 Ulster Co., NY census shows that he still had five daughters between the ages of 14 and 31 still living at home.

The youngest daughter was Jane.  R.D. Owen, the family researcher mentioned on the first generation page of this work, thought that Jane went to Canada with her older brother Philip Caverly, Jr..  A Jane Caverly married John Patterson  in what was then known as the Victoria District of Ontario on September 22, 1842.  She died in Sidney, Ontario on Jan. 28, 1864.  Her obituary in the Ontario Guardian 1861-1870 by McKenzie, pages 50-51,  noted that she had been living with  her uncle John Ketcheson (who was married to Letitia Caverly) prior to her marriage.  Either the term uncle was used loosely or this Jane is not Philip Senior’s daughter since Letitia was not a sister to Philip Senior.

michigan@thecaverlys.com

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