- So how did the homestead pass from Hannah (1856) to Peter Deyoe’s heirs and to Lyman and Lurena A. Richardson (by 1881)? It would seem that Grandma Hannah must have been party to some sort of transaction, during that quarter-century, but its record has yet to come to my attention.
The Richardsons and the Deyoes were neighbors of long standing to the Wheelers.
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Did Hannah sell the property to Peter and Betsey Deyoe? If so, where’s the deed?
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Is there some relationship between Hannah and the Deyoes (unknown to us) that would have made them her heirs? That would explain the absence of a deed, but then wouldn’t there have been a probate?
- Did Hannah die intestate and insolvent, leaving the neighbors to pick
up the property at a sheriff’s auction (shades of her native Salem!)? Are the Cattaraugus Court’s miscellaneous court documents searchable?
- How did the Richardsons end up with an interest to sell to Betsey in
1881? They clearly lived on the property then, or at least tended the garden. It was apparently the Deyoes who had “deeded the premises” to the Richardsons, then bought them back in 1881.
- The name Deyoe also shows up in documents as Deyo. I’ve seen
others that seem to refer to the same family that also spell it Devoe, De Voe, De Foe, and Defoe.
Kristie Holmes
’ mother is Norma Defoe. Kristie’s sure there’s no connection. Guess she’s probably right, but I just don’t trust coincidences. This cluster of names (of Huguenot extraction) seems to appear mostly in Michigan and in New York state.
- What, if anything, are we to make of the Michigan connection? Please
consider:
1. Hannah’s Jaquish heirs emigrated to Essex, Clinton County, Michigan, by 1860.
2. By the end of that decade,1 Deyoe heirs Howard and Sarah brought their families to neighboring Ronald, Ionia County, Michigan.
3. As we’ve seen, Hannah’s Sawyer heirs had moved to the Green Oak/Hamburg area as early as 1836.
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Maybe it’s all just coincidence, but I still don’t trust coincidences.…
1
The 1880 Census shows Howard and Adeline Deyoe in Ronald with a ten-year-old son born in Michigan. It also shows Sarah Deyoe Dennis there with a 15-year-old native Michigander.
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