Posted by Clay A. Darnell on January 27, 1999 at 19:38:37:
I was wondering if anyone could help clear up somewhat of a mystery in my TOOKER family tree? Please
look at the following information and let me know what you think.
Research Extract:
It has been said and is generally accepted that Ralph SKIDMORE Sr. was
the son of Ralph FARGO and Elizabeth TOOKER; she was the daughter of
John TOOKER m Ann WOOD (presumed) and the grand daughter of Joseph TOOKER. I
believe Ralph FARGO MAY be the second son of Moses & Sara FARGO who
where living in New London CT in 1726. Moses was granted a house lot in
1680 [Source History of New London CT, Pg. 264]. Children of Moses and
Sarah are;
1. Sarah FARGO b c 1680
2. Mary FARGO b c 1681
3. Ann FARGO b c 1684
4. Patience FARGO
[Source for the four girls
http://www.jps.net/glad/genealogy/html/dat707.html]
5. Moses FARGO Jr. m (1) Elizabeth Camp 11/9/1714 (2) Johanna Beebe
5/21/1741
6. Ralph FARGO
7. Robert FARGO m Sarah Camp
8. Thomas FARGO b 11/09/1699
9. Aaron FARGO
[ Source History of New London CT, Pg. 373] This book states were are
nine children yet only lists the five brothers.
[Source Early Connecticut Records]
The following information was obtained from two gentleman who have done extensive
research on the Skidmore Family Please look at the following exert. I have added some info in
[] to help me keep the story straight. Comments?
Here is more re this family from Warren Skidmore's book "Thirty Generations
of Scudamore/Skidmore family..."
NEW LONDON COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
The family who descend from Elizabeth [Tooker] Scidmore of New London are not,
genetically speaking, Skidmores at all. Elizabeth Scidmore was a daughter
of Joseph Tooker (by his wife Mary Ogden?) and [she was also] the first wife of Joseph
Scidmore of Huntington, Long Island. [See Thomas Skidmore (Scudamore)
1605-1684, of Westerleigh, Gloucestershire, and Fairfield, Connecticut,
(2nd edition, 1985), pages 33, 57-8.] A complete history of this family is
promised by Timothy M. Bloomquist of Farmington, New Mexico.
ELIZABETH TOOKER, the wife of Joseph Scidmore, was a member of the First
Church at Huntington in 1726. Sometime after this date she deserted her
husband and went across the Long Island Sound to New London, Connecticut.
Joshua Hempstead (1678-1758) of New London most fortuitously recorded the
gossip about her in an entry in his diary on Sunday, 7 July 1734: " Joseph
[widow] Skidmore died yesterday in childbed with her 3rd child by Ralph
Fergo. She was the wife of one Skidmore of Naharagansett and had Eloped
from him and Ralph Fergo having no wife took her in." Hempstead's facts are
basically correct, but Elizabeth was not a widow and her Skidmore husband
did not live in Rhode Island. She had issue by Ralph Fargo (born 1693),
1. A child, perhaps born about 1730. No further record.
2. Benjamin, " son of Elizabeth Skidmore" (no father is mentioned), was
baptized on 25 June 1732 at Groton, New London County. Nothing more is
known of him.
3. RALPH, presumably the child born at New London, New London County, on 6
July 1734, of whom further.
The 3rd son,
RALPH SKIDMORE was presumably the child born 6 July 1734. No probate has
been found for Ralph Fargo and his son Ralph seems to have been sent to
Long Island perhaps to live with the Tooker family. His grandfather Joseph
Tooker, Sr., settled late in life at Elizabeth, Essex County, New Jersey,
where he left a will dated 31 December 1753. It provided for the unnamed
children of his deceased daughter Elizabeth. Ralph Skidmore is first
mentioned in a private list of marriages kept by William Salmon of persons
who married in and around Southold, Suffolk County, Long Island. From this
we learn that he married 1stly Hannah Owin on 31 September 1755 on Long
Island. He married 2ndly Mary (perhaps Dayton) who was living his widow in
Hampshire County, (West) Virginia, in 1784 when she appears on a tax list
taken by Michael Cresap. Mary Skidmore disappears after this date and may
have remarried. (The early marriage bonds of Hampshire County are lost.)
Any assistance you could give me would be greatly appreciated.