Cummings and Grant Ancestors in a Book

Thank you to the person who sent me this research tip that my Cummings and Grant ancestry is detailed in a book, Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution, by Bernard Bailyn with the assistance of Barbara DeWolfe.

Book jacket
Voyagers to the West

William Henry Cummins (1858-1882) was one of my third great grandfathers. He lived his life in Catskill, Greene County, New York. About 1877 he married Anna Belle Heiser (1860-1934). I descend from their only known child, Nellie Cummings (1879-1965). (These surnames are also spelled Cummings and Hyser.)

Family tree
Parents and grandparents of William Henry Cummins (1858-1882)
Catskill, Greene County, New York

After William's death, Anna Belle joined her parents in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey. This is 120 miles south of Catskill.

Map showing distance between Catskill, New York and Jersey City, New Jersey

William Cummins and Anna Belle Heiser/Hyser were both buried in their respective family plots in the Catskill Village Cemetery in Catskill. The stones next to William reveal are his maternal grandparents, Annie Cumming (1793-1876) and John A Grant (1792-1882), revealing the intermarriage in his family. 

Gravestones of William Cummins' maternal grandparents,
Annie Cumming (1793-1876) and John Grant (1792-1882).
Catskill Village Cemetery, New York.

Around 1880 the State of New York phased in laws requiring births, marriages, and deaths to be recorded with the State. Today the indexes are published in a few places. You can view for free at FamilySearch. The individual certificates are not available online or in any repository; instead, they must be ordered for a fee from the State.

Recording was spotty at first. I do not see a match in the index for William's death in 1882.

There are entries in the index for:

James Cummings 1912 Catskill Fourth great grandfather

Jane Cummings 1899 Fourth great grandmother

John Grant 1882 Fifth great grandfather

I ordered these three death certificates from New York State in February 2024. I do not expect to receive these records for a few years. I have been waiting two and a half years for a death certificate requested in March of 2022.

Death Index New York State
John A Grant died December 27, 1882 in Catskill.
I sent a copy of this index with highlighting to increase the chances
that the State finds this record and fulfills my order.

The grandparents of William Cummins were born in the 1790s, after the American Revolution ended. The excerpt in the book explains the arrival of the prior generation as they arrived in New York as the War was starting.

Gleaned from the book is some genealogy as well as a history lesson about what was happening in Scotland and New York in the 1770s.

In 1774 John Cumming arrived in New York from Scotland with several other people, mostly Grants and Cummings. "He was a native of Strathspey, the broad valley of the Spey River, southeast of Inverness in the eastern Highlands." John was a half brother of James Grant, governor of East Florida. John's brother was Alexander Cumming, a watch maker in London.

In 1776 John Cumming purchased land called Tapugieht, 1000 acres of land in the Catskill Patent, thirty miles south of Albany. He renamed this area Oswald Field. The families farmed the land. (This was in Albany County but became Greene County in 1800.)

This was a tumultuous time. The American Revolutionary War began in 1775. Great Britain versus the Colonies, which became the United States of America. John Cummings was deemed a Loyalist, meaning he supported the British crown and not the newly emerging country in which he found himself. (What a person had to do, or not do, to prove loyalty to one side or the other can vary and is subject to debate and confusion and is not the topic of this writing, though it is fascinating to explore.)

John Cumming was eventually arrested, lost his land and possessions, and allowed to return to Britain.

Many of the people who originally traveled with John Cumming in 1774 remained on the land, which lost the name Oswald Field.

I would normally place an old map here to help visualize these places, but "Oswald Field" and "Tapugieht" are not used in the literature and do not show up in a Google search. Use this link to view a map of Catskill from 1798- after the War. No Oswald Field or Tapugieht on this map.

I suppose that my third great grandfather, William Cummins, descended from these Scottish immigrants to Catskill who were thrown into a war shortly after their arrival. His grandparents were born to people who grew up during the Revolutionary War.

Citation of book:
Bailyn, Bernard, and Barbara DeWolfe. "The Rise and Fall of Oswald Field." Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution. Alfred A Knopf, Inc, 1986, pp. 597-604.

You Missed

I found this article about my grandfather, Clifford Lutter (1915-1980), in the collection of online newspapers hosted by the Newark (New Jersey) Public Library. In October of 1948 Clifford was 33 years and lived on Chester Avenue in Newark with his wife, Beulah Cook (1921-2003), and two small sons. Their third son (my father) arrived the following month.

Without digitization, this gem would have never been found. I was looking for an obituary for a different person and stumbled upon this mention.

Research tip: When searching digital collections, be mindful that the collections themselves are usually not complete and some damage has afflicted individual pages. Also, letters can be read as other letters, such as r and n, b and h, e and o.

Clifford Lutter presented with a certificate, purpose unknown.
The other two men are not identified on this physical photograph.

Clifford worked many jobs during his lifetime. His professional photos are displayed at this link. Most are not labeled, so maybe a family member can discover a picture of a loved one from long ago.

Clifford Lutter is seated on the far right of this photo.

Note the 48 stars on the flag in the background.
This picture was taken prior to 1960.

Joseph Alexander McGrail registered for the draft for World War II in 1940 in Newark. The notations on this document illustrate the trouble he often found himself. "Caldwell Pen 40 days 2/15/45" and "15 days County Jail. He had addresses in Newark: 289 Sherman Avenue, 12 Court Street, 70 Green (or Queen?) Street, and a rural delivery address in Underhill, Pennsylvania.

Note: the county jail no longer has facilities in Caldwell- only in Newark. See this link for some photographs of the penitentiary in Caldwell.

What became of Joseph has not been discovered as of this writing.

Text of above article:

‘FBI Man’ Misses
Uppercut Smashes Window as Policeman Ducks

A man who insisted he was an FBI agent smashed a plate glass window of Cowburn’s Store at 255 Market street last night with a right-hand uppercut which he had aimed at a special policeman.
Special Officer Lutter said he saw the blow coming and stepped aside. The man’s fist then went through the store window.
Lutter identified his assailant as Joseph McGrail, 38, homeless. McGrail had been refused drinks in a nearby bar, according to Lutter. The special officer escorted him from the bar, with McGrail warning that “J. Edgar Hoover won't like this.”
After the wild swing McGrail was led off to City Hospital to have stitches taken in his right hand. He still insisted he was an FBI agent. Patrolman Mandall aided Lutter.

The Newark Evening News
October 10, 1948
Page 18