Benjamin HENSHAW

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• _UID: 1AE8C17467E84E699E982C3161DB8A14AA85

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• _UID: 21751DFDDF1B469E9CDAF56BB606526BDDE5

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John B. Was admitted to the West Aurora Congregational Chur
ch, GriffinsMills, Erie County New York., Mar. 16, 1817 by profession. Removed forbeing insane. No date.

John married Cynthia HENSHAW. Cynthia (daughter of Samuel HENSHAW and Abigail TAYLOR) was born on 7 Jan 1807 in Erie County, New York; and died. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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• _UID: 013514A66548483DB94206606F0D665ABF1D

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• _UID: 022C23CF4EEA44D78380D8C8A091A3E6D0FD

William married Jerusha BRACE on 11 Jan 1787 in New Hartford, Litchfield, Connecticut. Jerusha died on 9 Aug 1822 in Townsend, Upper Canada. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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• _UID: 2464350939564442A863F90573CC7FEA8CCB

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Samuel married Abigail TAYLOR about 1805 in Genoa (Then Milton), Cuyuga County, New York.. Abigail died on 22 Dec 1820 in Aurora Twp., Erie County, New York.. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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• _UID: CE2331B5EDAA4FBDA25998722DE65BF0DD46

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• FamilySearch ID: LHWQ-2DG
• _UID: 216C50F551DB49488646B85170E490B5FD0C
• MilitaryService: 1 Sep 1778, United States; Military Service

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William grew up at the same time that changes were sweeping
Massachusetts and rebellion was in the air. He moved fro
m Boston to
Hartford, where he married.
When open hostilities broke out, he was commissioned an ensign Jan. 1.
1777, and served under Capt. Jos. A. Wright's County Connecticut Regimentof
Foot commanded by Philip B. Bradley. On Jan. 4, 1778, he was promoted to
2nd Lt.. He is listed, on June 1, 1779, as an officer in the 5th
Connecticut Battalion, under Capt. Thaddeus Weed; promoted lieutenant,
1780. He was at Germantown, Valley Forge, Monmouth and Stony Point.
General George Washington granted him leave in July, 1779. At this time
William was serving as paymaster for his unit. In July, 1780, he received
a promotion to 1st Lt. After war's end, he and his family settled in
New York state.
He is buried in Milton Cemetery, Onandaga County, New York

Note:
The following information was extracted from his Military Record.

Commission Ensign January 1, 1777, Served in Capt. Joseph A. WrightCounty, in a Connecticut Reg't of Foot Commanded by Col. Phillip B.Bradley.

Promoted to 2nd Lt. January 4, 1778, Served in Capt Solomon Strong'sCounty, in a Connecticut Reg't of Foot Commanded by Col. Phillip B.Bradley


Listed as Lt. June 1, 1779 Served in Capt. Thaddeus Weed's County, 5thConnecticut Batt'n, Commanded by Phillip B. Bradley.

In the roll dated July 1779 was absent by leave of his Excellancy GeneralGeaorge Washington.

Listed as Paymaster July 1779

Promoted to 1st Lt. July 1780

The family chart states that the Fifth Regiment was raised in 1777 andwas in Battles of Germantown, Monmouth, Stoney Point and wintered atValley Forge 1777-78.

copies of William Henshaw military records are from the original held byTrescott Henshaw who got them from his son in law who got them from thenational archive during World War 2.

His two oldest sons served in the Revolutionary War as boys. Nathainelwas a prisoner in Bermuda for 14 month

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The following was excerpted from the book "Millard Fillmore Biography ofa President by By Robert J. Rayback"

Only a few years before his birth, his father and mother, Nathaniel andPhoebe Fillmore, had been in the vanguard of a great westward migration.They had been only two among the hopeful-thousands who had crossed theAppalachian Mountains, east of which the nation had huddled for nearlytwo centuries. They had added their day-to-day activities to those ofothers to make the great central plateau and valley of the continentburgeon with homemaking, lumbering, farming, road and canal building,cotton growing, and moral and political reform.

Later generations were to look with awe and wonder at their ancestors'tremendous re-creation of civilization. Yet the Fiflmores, like otherpioneers, had not sought heroism. Rather a combination of slicksalesmanship and personal frustration had tricked them into abandoningtheir native New England for a fresh start in a region only recentlyfreed of bloody Indian wars. The Fillmores were more prone to curse thancelebrate the events that had pushed them into this wilderness.

During the Revolution, New York had set aside nearly one and one-halfmillion acres of land in central New York to pay bonuses promised its warveterans. Few qualified veterans ever settled in the reserved area. Likethe remainder of New York's vast twelve-million-acre public domain, thisMilitary Tract, too, had passed quickly into the hands of real estatepromoters. The process was common throughout the nation, and the salesmenof these land promoters traveled the globe for customers. FarmerNathaniel Fillmore, whose stone-strewn lands near Bennington, Vermont,gave little hope for the future, fell easy prey to a land agent's glowingpicture of the fertility of central New York's Military Tract. In 1799 heand his brother Calvin purchased sight unseen, a farm in Locke township,Cayuga County.

Expectations of a better life had warmed them to the back-breaking tasksof clearing fields and raising a cabin while their wives filled thechinks between the logs. Yet their anticipations were ill-founded.Instead of fertile loam, the Fillmore brothers found unyielding clay.Instead of prosperity, they found poverty.

For Nathaniel the birth of Millard was a brief distraction from mountingmisfortunes. To his woes of poor crops, poor weather, and a crowded cabinwas added a defective land title a common frontier ailment that waspeculiarly vicious in the Military Tract. Faulty surveys, claim-jumping,ignorance, and downright chicanery had so confused the region's legaltitles that the state sent a team of commissioners to review and settleall land titles in the area. The Fillmore brothers, unable to defendtheir ownership against the commissioners' findings, packed theirfamilies and few belongings on the farm wagon and moved a few miliesnorth to Sempronius.

William Henshaw and his family took up land in Milton Township, Cayuga Cojust a few miles from the Fillmore's prior to 1796. James and Joshuamarried in that area in 1801 and moved to Aurora Township, Erie County afew years later. The Fillmore Family also moved to Aurora Township, ErieCounty about 1822.

William married Elizabeth GILBERT on 14 May 1767 in Hartford County, Connecticut. Elizabeth was born on 13 Dec 1746 in Middletown, Middlesex County, Connecticut; died on 7 Mar 1826 in Aurora, Erie County, New York; was buried in Griffins Mills Cemetery. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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• FamilySearch ID: 299M-M5B
• _UID: ADECE35607934A08B0420090391E02750E12

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Gravemarker no longer on grave as of Summer 1997.