Old Place Names: Westville, New York

In a previous post, Final Journey from Queens to Westville, I wrote about locating a place of death for Coe D Jackson.  He died in 1888 in Westville, New York, according to the New York State Death Index.  The current Westville is in Franklin County, New York, and I saw no reason why Coe would leave Queens County to die there as an old man.

Thanks to T. P. for sending me Coe's obituary, stating that Coe died in Lawrence.  A little more searching provides a small article copied over and over on the internet that Westville was a name for Inwood, Queens County, in the 1860s through the 1890s.  Lawrence was a neighboring area whose name remains as a village in the hamlet of Inwood.  The area became Nassau County after Queens was divided in 1898.

A search of older publications at Google Books provided more details.  Locating exact places when names and borders have changed over the centuries is tricky but crucial for more accurate research.

Final Journey from Queens to Westville?

Microfiche copied at New York State Archives in Albany

According to the New York State Death Index, Coe D Jackson died 18 July 1888.  [Middle name is Downing.]  This date is consistent with online transcriptions of his gravestone at the Jackson Family Cemetery in Wantagh, Nassau County (was Queens County in 1888), New York.  (Thank you Dyane for posting pictures of these stones!)

The problem is the location:  Westville.  There is a town called Westville in Franklin County, New York, near the Canadian border.  All of Coe's life events took place in Queens or Kings Counties, New York.  Coe's wife, Sarah Duryea, died two years earlier in Far Rockaway, Queens County, and Coe's estate was settled in Queens County.  What was he doing 350 miles away in Franklin County?

Queens County was not part of New York City in 1888, so deaths in Queens were reported to Albany.  My other thought is that Westville was a neighborhood or area in Queens whose name fell out of use.  Yet I cannot find any mention of such a place in Queens in the 1880s or 1890s.

If Coe died in Franklin County, this information can lead us to locate additional records and family that we never suspected.  We shall see where this trail takes us.